Chapter 190: Acceptance In All Forms
While Malachi was understanding the origins behind his nightmare state, the girls were upstairs in their bedroom, doing any number of different activities.
Currently, Sei was changing in the middle of the room openly for anyone to see, and the rest of the girls were scattered around the room as if it was completely ordinary.
She had just slipped out of her underwear and reached for a new set when a feminine body hopped onto her back from behind.
"Boo!"
"Nadine, I'm changing!" Sei laughed. "Besides, aren't you too old for these kinds of games?"
"No! Besides, this game has a purpose!" She said firmly.
Lowering her head beside Sei's ear, she asked her a very serious question in a sing song voice.
"Do you love me, Sei~?"
"Fufufu, Yes, I do Nadine. You're a very sweet girl."
"Kyaaa! Thank you!"
The vampire then leapt off of Sei's delicate back and floated towards the bed where Bianca was curled up under the covers.
Plopping right on top of her midsection, she delicately pulled her attention away from the game on her phone.
"Do you love me Bianca~?"
"I don't like that you call me a 'spicy girl' and slap my ass whenever you drink my blood, but yea. You're our favorite slutty nutcase."
"Noted!" Nadine rubbed her face against Bianca's like some kind of dog and went searching for her next victims.
She drifted towards the couch where Luna and Anna were seated side by side each other.
"Do you girls love me~?"
This time, the behaviors of the girls were anything but warm and fuzzy.
"Right now, I don't love anything but this wine mother in law gave to us." Luna said dryly.
"Gods I missed the feeling of being buzzed." Anna added.
"Here here."
The two girls clinked their glasses together as they continued to enjoy the first meaningful taste of alcohol that they had tried in forever.
Apparently, Nyx had a rather large supply of wine made by Dionysus himself, and had given some to the girls as a gift.
Neither of them were truly focused on the taste, more so the familiar fuzzy headed feeling that came with drinking alcohol.
"Why are you even asking all of this anyway?" Luna questioned.
Nadine timidly lowered her head as she avoided the gaze of her progeny.
"O-Oh, you know.. No reason."
Now that she was in an officially recognized relationship with Malachi, she was already looking for ways to cement her place and make him happy.
And she figured that step one was completely winning over the women who he was already in love with before her!
One night back on earth, she coincidentally (totally on purpose) overheard Malachi gushing to Aisha about how much he loved the relationship between his girls.
It made things so much easier and less worrisome now that he didn't have to worry about any of them growing resentful towards each other or harboring jealous feelings.
Naturally, Nadine knew that her introduction to this world and their family was more than a little… rocky.
But now she wanted to make sure that there were no lingering resentments between all of them, just so that she could continue to be loved by everyone without being pushed away.
Click!
The sound of the door opening drew everyone's attention and caused them to drop whatever they were doing.
Because they could all clearly feel Malachi's prescence coming from the other side, they all rushed to meet him.
Anna was the most excited and she rushed to pull open the door before it could even open on it's own.
"Babe, guess what! I can get drunk aga-"
When the girls saw the figure standing outside, they felt their breath get caught in their throats.
It was the man they loved but in the form of a large, black skinned horror with a face containing only razor sharp teeth.
The serpent tails behind its body hissed as they dragged their gaze over every woman in the room as they backed away hesitantly.
All except Anna and Luna who were more so inebriated than alarmed.
"Jeez… I wanted to jump on him and make him drink with me."
"I second that. I always thought that he would be so cute while drunk.."
"I thought it would make him nastier.."
"Two things can be true at once."
*Clink*
Nadine looked back and forth between Anna and Luna with a face full of misunderstanding.
"W-Why are you two so calm?!"
"Well he doesn't ever hurt us when he's like this and there's no one else in the house for him to eat right now so he's relatively harmless… I think." Muttered Anna.
"Y-You think?!"
"He came inside you when you guys had sex earlier, right?" Luna asked.
Unconsciously, Nadine felt her eyes begin to get hazy as she gradually lost strength in her legs again. "Yea~"
"Then you're fine." Luna shrugged. "Although he might try to jump on you."
"Oh… That's fine too."
The girls all waited endlessly for the nightmare to do something out of the ordinary or aggressive.
Finally, the creature started to move as it lumbered towards Anna while making small hissing noises.
It placed a large clawed hand on top of Anna's head and started to give it a light squeeze.
"I love you, but your survival instincts are for shit."
Almost immediately, the girls felt like their heads were going to implode.
"M-Mal?!"
"You talked!"
"… I didn't think my survival instincts were that bad… I just trust you."
"You have control now!"
"How did this happen?!"
Even in his alien form, Malachi showed a wide toothy smile as he was bombarded with hugs and questions from all of the girls.
His body changed back to normal seamlessly, and he gradually started to explain to the three of them everything that had happened in the last hour.
"It was Shear. Turns out that she wasn't as gone as I thought." Malachi said with a small smile.
Anna's eyes began to water from the memory of the beloved creature as well as mild intoxication.
Malachi wiped away her drunken tears before he suddenly grabbed Luna by the hand.
"Mei… if you still want to try and…"
Maybe Malachi was just to embarrassed to say the words that were on the verge of coming out of his mouth, but he somewhat froze up in her presence.
Luckily, Luna was still more than smart enough to understand exactly what he was getting at.
"Y-You mean… we can try..?"
"If you're fine with having a monster over you then-"
"Don't joke." Luna gave Mal a 'small' punch in the rib cage that nearly doubled him over. "You aren't a monster. No matter what you turn into you will still be the man that I love."
Luna quickly shook of her drunkenness as she grabbed Malachi by the hand as she pulled him to the bed.
"Besides, I'm a vampire now. Does that mean you think of me as a monster too?"
"Course not, but-"
"Good."
With unorthodox strength, she tossed the young man onto the bed before crawling on top of him.
"I have claws you know?"
"Bast's blessing gives them to you anyway."
"Okay, but I also have really weird tails."
"All I heard was extra tongues."
"Christ."
Luna suddenly grabbed Malachi by the face and brought their lips dangerously close together.
"There is nothing that you can do or turn into that will ever stop me from loving you. I want to have a child, no matter what it takes."
Malachi smiled wryly as he lost all resistance in his heart.
"Since you've gone this far… don't change your mind on me, okay?"
"When have you ever known me to tease you and not follow through? We're not leaving this room until you've done everything you can think of to me."
"Really now… I hope you won't come to regret that."
- 4 Days Later
Pacing outside of a bathroom door were seven women.
Nyx, Bianca, Anna, Sei, Aubrey, Nadine, and Serana had been waiting with baited breath for the results of Luna's test.
Anxiety was rather high as it was well known that vampires had terrible fertility rates according to Nadine, and everyone was unsure how Luna would react if she still failed to get pregnant in spite of all that had happened so far.
All of the girls were ready to comfort her at a moment's notice should the results not be as desired.
Click!
After fifteen minutes of waiting, Luna and Malachi finally stepped out of the bathroom holding hands.
The hearts of everyone in attendance clenched as they saw that Luna was already crying, and she was holding the test hard enough to break it.
Immediately, everyone feared the worst.
Sei: "Hey… it's okay, you know you can both keep trying."
Bianca : "T-That's right! I'm sure it'll happen real soon if you guys don't lose hope!"
Aubrey: "Maybe the test was just defective! Serana and I can bring you another one!"
Luna gradually wiped her face and held up the test for all to see.
"We… We're pregnant!"