Dorothy left Adele's office, but the Shadow Intelligence Officer didn't get to enjoy any peace. The main reason was that Dorothy's advice had coincided with Hogg's earlier suggestion, leaving Adele unable to think calmly about her own situation.
This made her uneasy.
Hogg noticing there was something wrong with her could be dismissed as an occasional slip. But Dorothy was her blood descendant. The Queen of the Sewers could not only discern her elder's doubts from her appearance, but also confirm them through their blood connection.
And Dorothy's past had made her a cautious person. She would never bring an unconfirmed suspicion out into the open.
In other words, the "taboo" Adele had once buried deep in her heart was now beginning to surface. The blood pact's "guidance" of her feelings might soon be complete, but that wasn't entirely a good thing for Adele.
She stared at the reports on recent affairs beneath Scarlet Castle, but she couldn't calmly pick them apart as she usually did.
At first, she could have blamed this strange relationship on the blood pact, pinning everything on the vampires' dark, despicable "tradition of submission." But as time went on, and she was reborn as a vampire, even E-Mei herself could no longer tell whether her feelings were rooted in duty and blood ties, or whether she had truly felt a lingering stirring in her heart.
Her background and her parents' tragic lives had made her resistant to—and disgusted by—the very idea of "love." She didn't want to follow in her mother's footsteps. But now Adele knew she was no longer as resolute as she had once been.
Even during those vexing days, half-asleep and half-awake, Adele could hear her slowly beating heart calling out for warmth to fill the loneliness that had plagued her for