Miranda slowly made her way through the second floor hallway. The castle had an unusually small layout. Too small, if you were to ask her. There were three floors, in a relatively tight space. The top floor housed a small barracks which they could use for sleeping quarters, two girls to a room it would seem. Might make it easy for some of the more magically inclined among them to take some prey…

The second floor housed the kitchen and dining hall. It was well stocked, though the cooking appliances were rather outdated. Just as medieval as the castle appeared to be. The bottom floor was a wide open gallery, complete with a throne room.

The doors to the courtyard were sealed, and there seemed only to be exits by stairway to the second floor. No… This wasn’t right. It was far too small to be any real castle. Everything was so… Compact. Yet, there was a secret to be found here? A secret ten women would presumably have difficulty finding?

No there was more to this place than first meets the eye. Miranda was sure of it. She would stake more than just her reputation that there were some hidden passages to find… Perhaps she should find Misty and see if she could explore more of the castle for her…

“Well well well… Look who’s all alone in the hall.” A voice spoke from behind her. It was Raven, still looking for revenge, it seems.

Miranda didn’t turn around. She was in no real danger; they were all part of the Harem at the end of the day, and their Leader would be displeased if Raven injured her. No… The most dangerous action she could take right now would be to turn around. If her eyes met Raven’s… It would all be over.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” She said calmly, pausing in her stride so the vampire wouldn’t feel the urge to chase her down.

“You know why I’m here!” The vampire huffed “You spoiled my plans, so I’m gonna get you!”

What was with this woman? She was supposedly a great Vampire Lord, yet her attitude and logic were that of a spoiled child… Is this what happens to the mind after a few hundred years? Perhaps it was a blessing that humans don’t last quite so long…

“If you are going to do something, make it quick and leave me be.” Miranda said aloud, “I have an investigation to get to and if you’re not going to help…”

In a moment, she felt a sharp pain in her neck. There really was no avoiding this… With the vampire’s speed, she wouldn’t have made it more than a few more steps if she had tried to run, and with her immature attitude, she couldn’t be reasoned with.

It would be best not to struggle either. If she did, Raven might cause unnecessary damage to her neck and she had no idea if the Leader could revive her from true death…

It was… The most peculiar feeling though. She felt herself growing light headed as the vampire drained her blood. Her neck hurt… Yet there was a strange euphoric feeling to the way she was being drained…

Her limbs began to feel cold and her body went limp, feeling Raven’s hands holding her upright as she drank. How much of her blood would be taken? How much… Was needed for this? On one level she wished she had brushed up a bit more on her vampire lore, but on another, she had no idea if vampires from her world worked the same as the one feeding on her now.

After what felt like an eternity, Raven’s teeth pulled out of her neck, and the vampire pushed her against the wall, her eyes filling Miranda’s vision as her mind froze.

“I will obey my Mistress Raven.” The vampire spoke in a commanding tone.

“I will obey my Mistress Raven.” Miranda repeated, her voice was hoarse. She felt as though she hadn’t had anything to drink in days…

“I worship my Mistress Raven.” The vampire continued.

“I worship my Mistress Raven.” Miranda repeated. It was true, at least to her.

“My life belongs to Mistress Raven.” The vampire concluded.

“My life belongs to Mistress Raven.” Miranda answered back. She had no retort, no observations about it. All that existed were those eyes…

“Good. Bye now!” She said, and in an instant she fled down the hall. Gone completely in no time at all.

Miranda felt weak. Almost… Sick… She slid down the wall and slumped on the floor. She didn’t have the strength to stand. No strength to lift her arms, or even her head. Her Mistress had robbed her of every ounce of strength she had…

All she could do was sit… And think. It was… A fascinating process, whatever it was she was going through. She could almost feel her mind rewiring it’s self. Rewriting her priorities and her desires. Even her opinions… She thought the Mistress was a spoiled child at some point. Objectively, she could recall making that observation.

But now… Mistress was an important person. The most important of people. She didn’t seem spoiled; she simply deserved to get what she wanted. Denying her would invoke an entirely justifiable fury within her. Or at least… That’s what Miranda was made to think.

That might have been the most fascinating part of this process. Somehow… Even as she was being rewritten, she was entirely aware of how she was being changed. If she had to guess… It must have been her naturally inquisitive and skeptical nature, in addition to her training and education.

Any other individual may have simply accepted their new opinions without question. But as her memories were intact… She could examine them and compare what she thought then against what she thought now.

The only trouble is… Were her old opinions any better than her new ones?

Where did that thought come from? Better? No. No opinion is better or worse than another other. What matters is the truth. Truth that she can confirm with evidence.

Just as she can confirm that her Mistress had enthralled her. The markings on her neck were proof enough of that.

No. That wasn’t right either… She couldn’t even lift her arm. She couldn’t touch the wound… She couldn’t confirm it’s presence even if she wanted to.

She just had to have faith that what she experienced was real…

No. No! These thoughts… They weren’t her own! They must be part of the mental rewrite she was experiencing. She had to… Do something…

She… There was something… She was doing before…

But… She felt… Weak… So very… Weak… M-Maybe… She should just… Drift…

A loud shriek jolted her awake! She tried to lift her head, to see what was going on, but she still couldn’t move. She was powerless still… What was going on? Was someone in danger? If only Mistress had left her at least a little strength…

Miranda felt an almost searing heat on her shoulder. No… Not heat… Warmth. She was… Freezing. The hand on her shoulder was normal…

“Miranda?!” The voice said “Miranda! A-Are you okay? What’s wrong! Speak to me!”

Miranda opened her mouth to speak, to say something, but all she could do was uselessly puff air. She was too weak to even make her vocal chords work…

She felt a pair of arms lifting her up, and… A pair of large soft mounds pressing against her body. She was too weak to focus her eyes as this person cradled her in her arms. Whoever it was…

She felt herself being carried, the warmth from the other woman’s body burning her in the most pleasant way… Like finally stepping in front of a fire after a long day in the snow… How cold was she that she could feel this warmth even through her trench coat?

Then the thought occurred to her… Why was she even conscious? Should she be? Was that normal for this process?

She could hear voices around her as she felt herself being set down.

“Sh-She looks… Dead…” One spoke, terror in her voice.

“Well she’s no-ot!” Another sang.

“How do you know that?”

“Cause her soul is still in her body!” the cheerful voice spoke “I can see it riiight there!”

She heard a slam from somewhere then a rough angry voice “Damn it! She did NOT need to take it this far! Her glamour would have worked fine on it’s own!”

“What do you mean?” a nervous voice spoke “What happened to her?”

“She’s been drained of her blood.” The angry voice spoke, “She’s in the process of being turned into a vampire thrall.”

“S-So… Raven did this?!”

“Damn it! Damn it all!” The angry voice screamed, sending echos throughout the area. “This is NOT what the Leader had in mind for enslaving each other. I should know… I’ve been corrected time and again on enslaving others too… Aggressively.”

Another voice joined in “I heard screaming wh- AH?! WH-WHAT HAPPENED TO HER?!”

“Don’t worry! She’s not dead, she’ll be back soon!” a cheerful voice sang.

“H-Hold on… I can help!”

A few moments later, Miranda felt something… It was… Pleasant… Like a tingle flowing through her body. Warming her… Soothing her…

She opened her eyes and… She could focus. She could see… The light blue haired woman… Silvia, wasn’t it? Looking down at her from above.

“Oooh…” Miranda moaned “I feel awful…”

“Sh-She’s back!” Silvia exclaimed, “I-It worked, I saved her!”

Miranda slowly sat up. She was on one of the dining hall tables and around her… There was Silvia… Olivia… Misty… Dominya… And… Anne.

“Wh… What… Happened?” Miranda managed to choke out, holding her head as she felt it throbbing gently.

“Olivia and I found you in the hall!” Anne said, sounding oddly excited, “We brought you back here and Silvia revived you!”

“I see…” Miranda replied, “Well… I suppose although I was in no real danger, I do thank you for the save.”

“No real danger?!” Dominya shouted indignantly, “You absolutely were in danger! Turning isn’t a sure thing! She could have killed you!”

“And we’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen again.” A voice spoke from behind them. The green haired woman was on a screen mounted at the back of the dining hall. “Raven. Get in here. Now.”

A moment passed before Raven slowly slipped into the room. She looked almost like a puppy that had been caught misbehaving…

“I can not believe I have to tell you this.” Helen began, anger in her tone for the first time any of them could recall hearing. “You will NEVER drain a harem member like that again. Do you understand me?”

“Yesm…” Raven said, looking down.

“I said, do you understand me?” The green haired woman repeated sternly.

“Yes, Mistress!” Raven replied, her tone switching from guilty to frightened in an instant.

“I-I don’t get it…” Anne said curiously, “If you feel this strongly about it… Why didn’t you stop her in the first place?”

The green haired woman paused. She seemed to be considering how to answer… “We didn’t know it was happening.”

“What?”

“You are all fellow harem members, and I hadn’t assigned a villain yet.” The green haired woman said, “We weren’t really watching too closely. We didn’t think there was much to see yet.”

“S-So how…” Anne began slowly, but the green haired woman interrupted her.

“You can thank Holi for that.”

Miranda looked around the room again. She had missed someone? Was she slipping up? No… Holi wasn’t present…

Then, she heard Holi’s voice. She looked to see Holi entering the room from one side.

“I had a bad feeling when I saw what Raven was doing to you.” Holi said as she walked further into the room. “I did not believe I could safely rescue you, so instead I hacked one of the televisions and sent a message to Mistress and Leader to alert them.”

“It’s a good thing, too.” The woman said, “Our Leader was able to boost Silvia’s healing powers. Without that, Miranda’s fate would have been left to chance.”

“Normally, we would discourage hacking our systems” The woman continued “But you did do it for a very good reason, so we’ll let it slide.”

Miranda took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It seemed she was wrong to assume she was in no danger… But even as the rules had been clarified further, she wouldn’t make that mistake again. From now on, she would treat any threat as seriously as if it was a real one.

They still had work to do though… “Misty?” She asked, “If you could, please, I would like your assistance in my…

She suddenly felt light headed. She almost fell back onto the table before Olivia caught her. Her head landed on one of her breasts and it was… Bliss…

It was strange… Olivia’s breasts were different from most. They seemed… Softer. More… Comforting. She had heard the Leader enchanted them to help with her back pain but… No. No she could speculate later.

She tried to lift her head, but had no luck…

“Shh…” Olivia whispered “Its okay. Just relax. You need time to rest.”

“I… I have… Work to do…” Miranda insisted, “I need to…”

“Rest.” Helen said firmly. “I won’t assign a villain tonight. Just get some rest and you’ll feel better in the morning. Okay?”

Miranda let out a slow sigh. It seems she was outranked here… “Very well… I will resume… Ah… M-My investigation in the morning...”