widowmeat woke beneath the shadowed cover of a velvet bed-canopy listening to the sound of her settled breathing. Above her, filtered through the canopy silk, colors swirled around red crawling words that she could not read clearly. They moved inward at a slow drowning pace, crafting a spiral that sucked lightly at her consciousness. It was too much and not enough all at once, a tricky thing that plucked and teased her perception with a message she only understood on some untouched level.

she took a stuttered breath and closed her eyes, writhing against cooled sheets to the slow liquid burn that spooled in her head paced at the speed of the words she’d absorbed above. she was heavy, sated, and buzzing with the warmth of the freshly cleaned, anointed with the scent of something distinctively lavender.

she rolled onto her belly and pressed the softness of the bed against the dull throb of her inked pelvis. Its presence still sought her attention with swollen inked skin but its demand was no longer uncomfortably oppressive.

she brushed off its lingering call and it faded, sinking to the background of other numbed thoughts.

With her face half-buried against a spice scented pillow she moved her gaze beyond the bed, out to the darkness that fought to consume oil-lighting.

A figure stood beside her bed.

she turned her head fully and studied newCathy.

The newly made vampire was nude and unmoving with lips slightly parted. Her chest no longer move with the intake of breath and her eyes seemed strange—shiny and wet. She was lost in something as she mumbled, the muscles along her calves flexing with her rhythmic sway. When oldCathy had been bound to the tree in Bowser widowmeat hadn’t been able to examine the small scars that lined and accentuated muscle. Now those scars had been taken and claimed by ink, the same thick swooping lines that covered widowmeat’s pelvis.

newCathy, the only true Cathy, shivered and shuffled a bit in place. widowmeat casually enjoyed the ripple that went through the ink that consumed Cathy’s arms, chest, and belly like sticky webbing.

“Cathy?” widowmeat whispered.

With a slow dreamy blink Cathy looked her way.

“meat,” Cathy croaked with extended fangs, sharp and long in the oil-light.

widowmeat trembled at being properly addressed as Cathy’s husked word beat a heady rhythm in her mind. Instinct set an invisible tongue against her pulse and she rolled over to display her flushed chest and belly. The compelling push of hazy docility swept expectation and nerves through her liquified mind and for a moment she swam in only that warmth, stimulated by just one powerful word.

Cathy watched her submit with a barely audible whine. Hunger stalked across the glassy surface of her gaze, leveled and steady upon widowmeat’s fluttering belly. But she didn’t move closer, nor raise her eyes—at least not with the intent to enthrall widowmeat’s mind. Instead when she pulled her gaze to widowmeat’s face, she furrowed her brows.

Then she took a deep breath, the first she’d taken since widowmeat woke, with flared nostrils and smelt the yearning that clung to the budding sweat on her skin.

widowmeat’s hands stroked along her body, moving without thought to the renewed pulse of her mark. Cathy’s eyes watched their passage, drawn to the loops and curls on her pelvis.

Words tickled at her consciousness, gentle but indulgent, coaxing widowmeat to speak, “Do you remember me?”

she wasn’t sure why she’d asked that. Did she even remember herself?

Cathy whispered, soft and hungry. “Yesss...”

oldCathy’s will flickered and faltered behind her eyes, smothered by her transformed body’s desires as she loomed closer with quickened breath. widowmeat indulged in the fantasy of nursing her directly from her neck.

“Widow Graham,” Cathy rasped with bottom lip between her fangs. “Y-you were right.”

widowmeat’s mind hitched on Cathy’s spoken title, but discomfort and wrongness brushed a strange tightness in chest aside. her skin itched and she squirmed a bit to scratch it as her fingers worked over her pelvis inked design.

Widow Graham, you were right.

Something softened in the liquid of her mind strained with an odd giddiness.

she gently moaned, absorbed by Cathy’s awareness of their plight.

Cathy’s lid’s lowered so far that widowmeat thought her eyes were shut, “T-the creature... it’s taken me.”

Cathy’s low moan was both terrified and heated. Her body jerked against invisible bindings, and the monstrous colored sliver of predatory eyes reflected eerily off the bedroom’s light. All that muscle flexed and trembled, and yet she didn’t dare do more than hover beside the bed’s edge.

widowmeat shivered from that bestial look as an electric sensation played along her spine. she hardly noticed her moving hand, which slowly trailed past her throbbing marking as it sought out the place liquid heat had gathered now that there was no more space for it to spool behind her unfocused eyes.

Cathy and widowmeat both gasped, surprised as her questing hand found her center. The new sensation of pressure pulled at widowmeat’s scattered focus and together they watched the lazy dance of her fingers as they rubbed and stroked her lower lips.

A sound of ferality slipped from Cathy’s parted lips and widowmeat’s breath hitched from the power behind it. her pulse thumped hotly against her neck, but neither she nor Cathy moved to calm it. Their bodies had long stopped working for themselves.

As her thumb brushed against her humming clit, widowmeat whispered. “You didn’t listen to me, no one did.”

widowmeat waited for the familiar sensation of bitter anger to churn in her guts. Before, she would have felt like bragging, screaming, maybe both, knowing she’d been right and having this woman state it.

The one who’d sung the first ode to her supposed madness.

But now? Now the notion meant nothing, fluttering beneath the weight of other thoughts. Now those words, those statements... they were just facts, boring compared to her core’s hungry spasm.

widowmeat spoke again, as if her accusing words from before had never been said. “Did it hurt?”

Your transformation?

Cathy’s head bobbed in a nod and she exhaled sharply. widowmeat admired the pretty flush of her skin, fueled from the life she’d stolen earlier. The freshborn vampire groaned again, struck by the power of her own memory. widowmeat thought she might have crumbled, lost in the haze of remembered agonies, if her legs hadn’t kept her locked and steady.

When Cathy returned from memory, aroused by her own suffering, the beast in her gaze was mixed with something else—contempt and the dark shadows of envy.

Perhaps, Cathy craved and abhorred widowmeat’s oblivion and that only made her pulse hammer faster.

Curiosity mixed with lazy arousal and widowmeat pushed for more answers, emboldened by Cathy’s new demeanor now that she wasn’t Kentworks bitter Constable.

widowmeat palmed her breast, squeezing the overheated flesh with a sharp rasp. “W-what is it like?”

Cathy shook her head, not willing to answer but widowmeat pressed, driven by the maddening motions of her own hands.

“Nnngh... Tell me, Cathy.”

Cathy swallowed once then spoke, “I-it hurts. I’m dizzy and hungry. Always so hungry. And the ink in my skin is itchy and throbbing but all that together feels so fucking good.“

widowmeat hissed as two fingers slipped within, controlled by something beyond her softened will. Slow and curious, as if they weren’t her own, her fingers explored her inner walls. With each careful push into her wetness the liquid of her mind churned with greater force. she was full of heat against her thoughts, of a... Will that felt more solid than her own. Fire, burning, behind her eyes.

Will guided, demanded, and her mouth moved, uttering sultry words, “Do you want to feed from me? Feel my pulse between your teeth?”

Cathy’s eyes fluttered closed, “Y-yes. Yes. Yes.”

Between Cathy’s legs dampness glistened and widowmeat savored the fantasy of touching it. Cathy seemed bound and uncomfortably frozen, but widowmeat would move if the Will within wanted. Will could move her closer to her skittish company and use her hands to gently soothe and awaken Cathy until she opened her legs involuntarily, straining against a force much stronger than herself. It would be nice to slip between her toned thighs and tongue at the slavelust dwelling there, waiting to be strengthened. widowmeat felt it, that Will burned in Cathy too, teasing her with a bridle she resisted taking between her fangs. But widowmeat could help, widowmeat could soothe...

The idea was pleasant, heady, and tempting. she could do this for Will, turn Cathy into a beast tamed for a greater fanged-mistress.

But Will pulsed again with other plans for submission and widowmeat went back to talking, fantasy forgotten.

“A newborn is ravenous. Always. You’d tear me apart.”

The words weren’t her own, just purred with her voice, but Cathy still reacted with a tiny jerk of her hips, “O-oh! Y-yeah... I want to... n-no. I...“

She held tightly to her stomach, which must have rolled with demonic thirst.

widowmeat licked her lips and felt warmth pulse out from her mark. So close, yes, i’m so close-

Mistress’ Will pressed harder, and her hands turned to a sensual pump, teasing out her scent and wetness as Cathy tilted back her head and sighed with longing.

widowmeat asked her, with glittering eyes, “Can you hear it? my heartbeat?”

Cathy swallowed audibly, as if she were already tasting it.

“But something is holding you back.”

Cathy moaned, low and haunted, “Yessss, Her Will. Her Truth. She controls this body, She made it Her own. Took it from me. I...“

Here Cathy choked, on fear and devotion as her eyes fluttered open, dreamy and lost, “i am nothing without Her, my Lordtrix. i do not feed unless i’m told to, cannot feed, no matter how hungry, unless She—“

Here cathy jerked and the wetness between her thighs grew, weeping along her twitching leg muscles. she wheezed once, twice, then appeared to calm as she straightened fully and resumed staring forward.

widowmeat’s breath quickened at the sight of cathy’s devolution There was something slick in seeing, understanding, and knowing Mistress held the other vampire so completely that not even meat was tempting. It was a lesson in the power of absolute authority, to be constantly tormented by a thoroughly owned body.

widowmeat jumped with a gasp as something wicked twisted through her belly, a sadistic eagerness to tempt the fangslave further. To push and push until the waged battle of hunger verse Mistress’ Will eroded everything the freshborn had left in her head to hide.

Then a hand touched her, firm and controlling.

Mistress was in the bedroom parlor.

* * *

Mistress’ Will brought widowmeat’s thoughts in order and she knelt, mind silenced, on the bedroom floor.

her mind did not struggle when it was told to forget her teasing of cathy.

While her knees adjusted to the plush carpeting, heat rolled in plums within her chest, inhaled and trapped inside her lungs. Frozen in place by a mental order, she could do nothing as Mistress stalked beyond her vision.

Still, meatlust stirred between her legs, bringing forth a familiar yearning. What would it take to get Mistress’ attention? To be held between Her teeth and against Her tongue?

The rattle of a chain shook her ears, and widowmeat found her head no longer immobile. She spied upon Mistress with an unsettling thirst, enthralled by the sight of the chain-leash in her grip. On the other end, in thick leather collar stood a familiar body, accentuated by the shine of sweat and the rise of angry welts along their thighs and stomach.

Gail was more aware than she had been but a few hours prior. Still, on the other end of Mistress’ leash, her body buzzed with only compliance. Were it not for the flicker of self in her gaze—muddled with disorientated defiance—widowmeat might have thought them one in the same. Sister-slaves, completely conquered by the vampire.

They were, widowmeat recalled. Gail had long been addicted to the sweet touch of service, but maybe in this instance Gail had forgotten.

Mistress probably enjoyed reminding her.

Mistress flashed Her fangs to Her slave audience, then reeled in Gail’s chain with deliberate slowness. Gail closed their distance with unsure steps until she stood before Mistress with her chin held high despite its tremble.

“I enjoy leaving just enough of it left to know what it has done.”

A shiver rippled along the length of Gail’s back and her dreamy gaze narrowed at Mistress’ amused tone.

“Is that so?”

Another voice echoed around the space, sotto voce and honeyed.

widowmeat’s center ached with submissive desire. she knew, on a primal level, that there dwelled another vampire somewhere in the parlor shrouded in the crawling darkness.

“The knowledge sweetens the blood.” Mistress replied.

Mistress’ hidden guest gave a rolling laugh, musical and haunting in a way that made someone whine.

Had that been Gail or her? widowmeat couldn’t be sure...

“I’m not certain if that’s right.” The hidden vampire said as Mistress removed a crop from Her hip.

Immediately Gail’s lips parted in deep heavy pants as saliva gathered on the edge of her lips.

“Aren’t you concerned she’ll turn on you if you continue your current path? meat is for eating, the kill is security. Keeping them around like this...“

Mistress gave Her guest a thoughtful hum, “No. I don’t tend to train with loops for betrayal. The meat is docile if you give it what it needs.“

Mistress whacked Gail’s thigh with the end of the crop. The skin rippled as Gail’s face twisted with agonized delight. The sound of struck flesh echoed within widowmeat’s head, stirring dream-visions to the front of her mind. With a mental click dream-sound slipped into place with a reverberation she could feel against her bones. The mystery of it had always haunted her, ringing in her ears long after those parlor dreams had gone. But now...

Now she could watch as Gail received her discipline, not just float in the sound beneath the pressure of phantom limbs.

This is what it was, widowmeat thought, this is what it is.

The sound of meat being struck by leather.

Mistress struck Gail again and the defiance in her gaze shook and withered. Whatever she’d wanted, thought, or had begged before they’d entered the bedroom parlor had ceased to matter. The tongue of flame twisted around forced-affection—inspired by whatever Mistress had done—blossomed within her, easily summoned. Gail’s short-lived resistance was never going to win.

Had she even wanted to win, after Bowser, and wine, and the invasion of widowmeat’s home?

This was just another game. If Gail regretted her actions or lack of insubordination, it was far too late to attempt a last stand.

With another strike, Gail quivered and gasped. “Stop, stop, s-stop!”

Mistress ignored her and smacked her again with the crop, before She turned to Her hidden guest. “Do you see? There isn’t much it can do. I’ve spent several sessions training this body by hand.”

i do, widowmeat thought, and something other than Will brushed amusement against her mind.

“Sometimes it wakes when it hasn’t been settled after a particularly hard day of recruitment, but the pain is good and that clears its mind, binding it further.” Mistress tilted Her head, “When it wakes again, it’s more reluctant to do so but more important than that? My thought patterns for it don’t change. The meat still does what I’ve asked for, aware that it feels so good that it wants to do it.“

The crop struck Gail again and the leather lingered before its tip twisted around to slip between Gail’s legs. Her knees buckled but she remained on her feet, held up by the tautness of the chain in Her hand. For a moment all was silent, frozen on the picture of Gail’s thighs clenched tightly, trying to hold back the crop’s long rigid length from firmly, incessantly, digging into her sensitive flesh. But her brow was furrowed, her eyes clenched tightly, as she did battle less with the crop and more with herself.

Then Mistress began to move it.

Gail whimpered as the crop sawed back and forth between her legs with a maddening rhythm. It’s length nudged and bumped her cute pink clit and moisture stained the leather as it swept up and down Gail’s weeping slit.

widowmeat found the vision fascinating, focused on the way drool dotted Gail’s chin as Mistress’ crop moved despite her pitiful hindrance. Her strong thighs were opening, her face clenched tight while Mistress remained hauntingly methodical.

As if she were casually soothing a skittish animal.

When Gail’s hips rolled forward in a short frantic hump there was very little left of Gail in her melted eyes. Not when she was like that, humping Mistress’ crop like a dog.

“There we go,” Mistress cooed, “back in our proper place, aren’t we blooddog?”

The blooddog let out a short choked ‘arf’ as Mistress’ removed Her crop and unclipped Her chain. widowmeat greedily absorbed the scene, free to examine the engraving on the collar-gaildog.

Then with a swift smack to her bottom She motioned gaildog to a large human-sized pillow stationed beside a kneeling widowmeat.

gaildog took to the pillow and lounged, mindless and still shivering.

widowmeat sighed with longing.

Patience...

Mistress’ Will softened, but never left her. Now widowmeat wore it more like a blanket, something comfortable and natural.

It was like a warm veil had been partially lifted.

From one blink to the next Mistress’ guest was suddenly there, a woman of long legs and curvaceous form. She crossed the room in a graceful glide, oozing confidence with just her walk. widowmeat swallowed as the vampire took her place in the expansive room’s center, staring at Mistress with a strange intensity beneath a wild tumble of black ringlets. She was one of the only women in the space fully dressed, a vision of regality in corset and traveling pants.

Not even Mistress wore much in the heart of Her manor, shameless in the display of Her breasts with Her legs tightly packed within leather pants. Only the gleam of Her trinketless chain adorned Her, much more powerful than any shift or shirt.

They both stood before the other, neither lacking in authority.

The other vampire offered her hand, umber against umber as Mistress took it within Her own. With a flash of teeth She leaned forward, pressing Her lips in a kiss against the back of her skin.

The other vampire sighed with a flash of fang, “Must you do that every time?”

“Seems impolite if I don’t and Kentworks is a township built on civility.” Mistress answered, though her tone dripped with a certain snark.

widowmeat’s heart leapt in her throat at the thought of Mistress’ sass, but the other vampire just gave Her a look. Mistress’ back straightened as She caught Her company’s gaze and though no words were exchanged widowmeat felt like something other was happening.

But gaildog moved, twisting on the pillow with fluttering eyes before she brushed her head against widowmeat’s skin.

Something about that felt... good.

widowmeat spared a glance at gaildog’s willbound eyes and shivered from the anticipation that tightened her back. she wanted to see it up close, gaildog’s hazy devotion, and fall rapidly back into the liquid heat that still sloshed in her head. Yet, gaildog’s eyes did not reflect what she’d expected. Within them dwelled a more gail centered awareness, powered by emotion that should not have existed. Self-condemnation lingered in the rolling storms of her heat, still a hindrance to gaildog’s complete surrender.

widowmeat knew that feeling shouldn’t exist, it would ruin the obedience of Mistress’ blooddog.

she pushed a bit closer and crawled onto widowmeat’s lap, still driven by bitch-thought as she flushed a pretty color.

she shivered, wiggled, and spoke, “i... i’m not a dog.”

Beyond them Mistress still conversed wordlessly with the other vampire.

widowmeat focused on the dog across her lap.

gaildog whispered pathetically, “i am still gail.”

widowmeat tilted her head and cast a quick glance to the firmness of gaildog’s welt marked bottom as she squirmed.

No, don’t get distracted.

“i’m so hot, too hot to think. i hate this...!” gail hissed, words widowmeat had heard her utter before, hot and wicked against her ear.

widowmeat hummed, lost for a moment in slick memory.

gail didn’t seem to notice. she licked her lips and husked out, “i... s-sor-Franklin.”

widowmeat blinked, then smiled—an expression different than what gail must have wanted, as her face grew an unflattering shade of pale, certainly not as alluring as her red flush. widowmeat much more preferred that.

Mistress’ Will did not push her to say her next words, but widowmeat took comfort in the blanket it provided, “Franklin is dead.”

Then widowmeat whispered, soft and warm with no small amount of envious affection, “didn’t you help with that?”

There was a harsh breath from the woman on her lap, who closed her eyes as gail and sighed very deeply.

When she opened them gaildog whined and rolled over to display her belly as she wiggled to enticed widowmeat to pet her, the unfinished apology forgotten.

widowmeat caressed gaildog’s collar and admired the bites on her pretty flushed neck while Mistress spoke with her guest.

“Is this all that you wanted to show me, Eddie? You forced me to trounce through Bowser for a meat-pet?“

Words caressed the back of her neck. widowmeat moaned and savored the name of her Mistress—even shortened.

Mistress snorted softly as their silent conversation ended and drawled, “No, Fina. Not at all.”

“The night does not last forever.”

“Yet,” Mistress hissed with leashed mania.

The vampire-Fina—quirked a brow, “Is this about your heretic experiments?“

“You’re purposely trying to offend me,” Mistress said before she curled a finger at cathy’s bedside corner.

The fangslave wheezed and wordlessly stepped forward until she was the third of their vampire triangle.

Fina drew curious fingers against cathy’s inkwork. “You made Another?”

Mistress shook her head and gripped cathy like meat, palming the dripping moisture of her sex. The fangslave trembled, held in her power. “This one is not Another.“

“She’d be recognized as such by the horde. I can feel her otherness—“

“This one is Another in name only. She’s a slave, slightly higher than meat but little more than that.“

Mistress’ guest drew in a sharp breath, “When blood touches the lips of Another they change. They want to be coddled at first, and obey in their inexperience, but never for long—”

“I fed her my blood first, more than I should have. In the resulting haze I chained her body and madness. When she feeds from meat she only grows more tamed, knowing that I’ve allowed her to do so.“

“How?”

Mistress gave off a graveled laugh, “My process for weaving Another is torment. Soften your meat first, mark it with a grade, saturate it in your blood... then feed it properly while you strangle its will.“

Mistress slowly twisted one of cathy’s inked nipples, and the vampire gave off a low keen.

“Will you remember my secrets or spread them?”

The other vampire was quiet for a moment as Mistress played with cathy’s nipple.

Mistress broke the silence first, “I have succeeded where the horde has failed. There are too many of us, ignorant, content, and weak. Then they move on, as blind as their sires, to create new generations of disobedient foolishness. This one will obey and would beg to do so. And just like that I’ve laid the groundwork for a smarter childe.

I think beyond the vapid and lazy, none of us are remotely equal in our search for dominion and glory.”

“Eddie,” Fina whispered.

Mistress ignored her, “Give me approval to make my nest.”

Fina wrinkled her nose. “A nest is improbable. Those within would only grow ravenous, never satisfied, always aching. The otherness that fuels us... our beasts would encourage destructive behaviors, edging us closer to bloodmadness. You’d make a feral den out of Kentworks, these streets would fill with violence.“

“I know how to satisfy it.” Mistress whispered.

“It can never be satisfied.” Fina flashed fang, “Even now I feel restless.“

“My studies were a success, my art has been perfected.”

“These experiments in control are...” Fina muttered, before she shook her head and changed her thoughts, “How would you keep an entire nest from madness?”

“With bloodmeat.”

“To be drained and killed? You’d run out of them.”

“Herded. Contained. Here in the township.”

“They run after a time like that. You’d risk discovery.”

Here Mistress smiled, something unkind, “Give the meat purpose.“

Fina gently took cathy’s chin and turned it this way and that, with the strength of her gaze on her strong cheekbones. “it already has a purpose between my fangs.”

Mistress stepped away from Fina while she was distracted to turn and approach widowmeat.

widowmeat’s body tightened in a fresh wave of need.

“Let the meat keep their jobs and do their tasks in a daze. Tell them it feels good to live for their Mistress. To be healthy and strong so they struggle on Mistress’ teeth.“

widowmeat’s breathing quickened as Mistress ran careful fingers through her hair. On her lap gaildog squirmed.

“The bloodsacks of Kentworks are oblivious, and the control I have over their wives is fulfilling. I don’t simply summon their daughters and sisters. I bind them tightly and twist their needs.”

Mistress was beautiful behind the gleam of her glasses, Her intensity softened through widowmeat’s haze.

“It’s the process of control, Fina. I know you’re aware of it. Oh, how it soothes the beast in me!”

“You have managed to mimic humanity better.”

“It’s difficult to remember what it feels like, even surrounded by meat. That makes it hard to shar. We snap and bite too much.“

Fina’s laugh bubbled up from over Mistress’ shoulder. “I don’t mind if it dies while it’s being eaten.”

“But it’s not about just that.” Mistress whispered. “Sometimes... it’s not about feeding.“

Fina’s laugh tapered off abruptly, as if it had never happened.

“The horde would prefer you skulk from shadow to shadow, appeased with what little you can gain, stirring no trouble. But I am more than just hunger and compliancy.”

“When you do not hide you welcome the hunters.” Fina said, “That’s why so many freshborn don’t survive and when they burn the nest does too.”

Mistress gave widowmeat’s hair a playful tug as She sung words over Her shoulder to Fina. “Don’t act like I don’t know you play your own games beyond Bowser.”

The other vampire clicked her tongue against the back of her teeth, “Yes... I do, but I play my games a tad smarter.”

“The beast within is centered through exercises of dominance. Dominion of life has fulfilled me in ways blood has not, cannot. When I crave and thirst but can no longer drink, I soothe myself by using meat in other ways.“

Fina hummed with disbelief.

Mistress continued, “The meat here dotes on the Lordtrix of Griswall, worshiping her wealth and status. It’s another thing to lord over humanity, our superiority was always promised.

If we bring others to that understanding, a nest is entirely possible. If we strengthen the hold as a unit, no other monster will touch us. Teach Another to follow these instincts, embrace other aspects of power, and use their heads instead of their fangs, and I’ll will deliver you a kingdom.”

“Blasphemy,” Fina said with a slight quirk of her lips.

“I’m serious,” Mistress flashed fang, but widowmeat couldn’t tell if She was actually insulted. “I intend to nest in Kentworks proper. I’m addicted to displaying my meat in my garden.“

Mistress pressed lips against the side of widowmeat’s heated skin. “When I get tired of some of them. I bury them under it to feed the flowers.”

widowmeat’s moan was pleased and joyous, Mistress’ garden really was gorgeous.

Behind Mistress, Fina was thoughtful, “How do you avoid the hunters when they see your captured meat?“

Slowly, Mistress tugged up on widowmeat’s hair, prompting her to come to a shaky stand. gaildog slipped off her lap in a lazy flop, watching them interact with glassy eyes.

“The meat mostly dreams and drips, but it still lives—ready and docile. They laugh and play and scheme beyond my walls, thinking their thoughts are mostly their own. They believe themselves to be free and indulgent, superior in my downstairs parlor. But they’ve already drowned. Normalcy never left Kentworks, I’ve just changed its meaning. Humans still visit one another, and if we build for revolution, more meat will come.

They’ll continue to protect what they perceive to be theirs.”

“And what of this one?” Fina said as she drew curious hands down cathy’s spine.

“My fangslave will be helpful, but she is also Constable. I’ll need her to hunt other things soon.”

“The Kentworks’ Constable?”

“It’s my Constable now. In place if Another is... disagreeable.”

Fina laughed with dark understanding, “I see.

And that one?”

widowmeat jerked as she became the center of attention, no longer simply a voyeur to vampiric plans she hardly understood. Using her hair as a handle, Mistress made sure widowmeat got a good look when the other vampire met her gaze—

her mind twisted, falling so hard and so fast she’d forgotten to breathe. she was nothing there, not a widow nor meat. it existed and breathed with blood in its throat. it should arch and cum and empty and die-

“Don’t be rude, Fina.”

Mistress’ Will filled it until it was more than just blood. As widowmeat panted, held only by the grip in her hair and the lazy arm around her waist, she felt her sense of... owned-self trickle back in warped.

“Didn’t you break it? it still has a sense of being. Or is it like your hound?”

“This was a meat predator, taking wealth instead of blood. I just happened to be better.“

Fina smiled warmly, though there was a newfound interest in her eyes. “Did you get your idea of playing at human from it?”

“No.” Mistress laughed and held widowmeat closer, “I killed some meat it wanted to kill.

I left its sense of self because we were playing a game. it lost, of course, but it was an interesting study into how many oddities free-range meat will ignore and which ones you can simply will them to forget.“

Mistress released the hold on her hair to instead hold her chin, “Introduce yourself to my guest.”

widowmeat shook before the power of the other vampire, knowing that Fina was... oldeIt. The taste of... her will was overwhelming and frightening. The grip of it had devoured all that she’d known, different than the touch Mistress held which coaxed and pulled on her inner surrender. Horror shimmered curious behind Fina’s eyes, sinister as it hovered on the edge of her perception. It had shredded her, ravaged her, twisted her up... She wanted to hide against the warmth of her Mistress, to bleed on her fangs to cover up her discomfort.

But she didn’t, held as she was by agonizing desire. Consumed and pressed to answer by Mistress’ Will, caught before the abyss of another monster. Her hips bucked once as her pussy spasmed, cumming just a little at the thought of answering despite the primal beat that bid her to hide...

she dripped between her legs, knowing she was nothing before them. “i... i’m widowmeat. i lost my... previous husband—”

she bit her bottom lip, her mind urging her to spill her secrets-you killed him, you killed him, you almost came when you did.

Mistress’ laughed within the confines of her mind and pushed but only for her to finish.

she rasped, “shortly after moving to Kentworks. i... enter a game with the Griswall lordtrix. She had my... fiancé cock-up in her quarters.”

“Is that so?” Fina asked with tilted head. “Have you bled for her?”

widowmeat quivered, “Y-yes.”

“Would you bleed for me too?”

widowmeat bit her bottom lip, heart hammering against her chest. The Olde One was frightening and yet her body still throbbed for another taste of that potency pulling at her mind.

“If Mistress willed it.” widowmeat gasped, her clit aching for the feel of Fina’s fangs.

Mistress smiled, pleased at their conversation. “This meat is different. its mind is different.“

“I felt that,” Fina said. “it’s wrapped around a concept.”

“it was already that way before I met it. it fractured itself in a hunt for prestige but failed to notice.”

widowmeat licked her bottom lip as conversation flowed around her. she was content, empty and waiting.

“What do you want, widowmeat?” Mistress tugged on her attention.

widowmeat’s eyes widened as she spilled her own truth. “i... want to be married t-to You.”

Fina quirked one lone brow.

Mistress shrugged one muscular shoulder, “These are halcyon days we’re in, I said I would.”

Fina gasped, scandalized, “Is that what you called me out here for?”

Mistress almost pouted, “Yes, but I knew this exercise would prove what I needed to. You haven’t had a chance to show off, correct?“

Fina’s nostrils flared but she said nothing.

Mistress husked with a luring drawl, “You want to try it, my type of hunt. Just a taste is how it starts. When you have their submission between your fangs, when you can sip their minds, their souls, as easily as their blood it’s...

Enough. It’s almost enough.“

widowmeat watched Fina’s hands open and close while Mistress talked. Though her expression did not change from exasperation, there was something about her demeanor that made widowmeat’s blood hum.

“Accept this ritual. Try it.” Mistress drew Her fingers across the sides of widowmeat’s neck until She held her head firmly within Her hands. “Let’s break this one together. Show me what your games have wrought.“

Both vampires went eerily soundless, magnificent in their stilled mimicry of the true dead. widowmeat whimpered, overwhelmed by the thickness of that quiet—if she remained here, trapped between Mistress steel-fingered grip, would she too be absorbed by their breathless silence?

Mistress hissed, “Give me my nest.“

“You truly intend to push for a revolution. If you’re discovered you’ll be blamed accordingly for such.” Fina rebuked.

“If the horde weren’t so blindly hermetic, I’d bother with the worry.”

Fina took one breath, a unpracticed action, then motioned for Mistress and herself to step closer. Across the expanse of both their minds, the olde vampire croaked in a voice that didn’t belong to Fina-dark, low, and grinding-

Make your nest, kóri.

Aloud Fina whispered, “I’ll do what you’ve asked of me. Remember this favor.”

Mistress’ satisfaction rolled through widowmeat like thunder. “Thank you, mitéra.“

Fina nodded sharply, once.

Mistress turned to the still standing cathy, who Fina couldn’t seem to stop absently caressing. “Bring me my bag. The green one.”

cathy left the room without a single backwards glance and Fina took that time to stand before them properly. When the fangslave returned with green bag held open Mistress removed a simple palm-sized box and an oddly structured device shaped like the Constable’s gun.

widowmeat shivered as Mistress stroked the velvet box, the looping gold F on its top pressed under Her thumb.

She smiled again, all teeth and amusement, ”Franklin was his name, wasn’t it? This was in his pocket.“

Mistress popped it open casually, and displayed the glittering ring of gold within.

“You want to do this privately?” Fina said.

Mistress idly palmed widowmeat’s rear as She played with the ring box. “Propriety states we’ll need to do this again with the society meat that hold providence here.“

“Another trek through Bowser then.”

“Bring some of your meat, I’ve heard what you’ve been doing. Try my method, it’s better.“

Fina flashed Mistress far too many fangs. Far far too many.

“We’ll see.”

Mistress moved in a languid pace, unbothered, and held up the ring that Franklin once owned, a golden band with a hexagonal diamond. The society women would have seethed with green to see it, glittering on her finger.

But her hand was never taken. The ring band had been opened, making it worthless for her finger. Instead, it was clipped onto the needled device between strong clenchers. If Mistress were to pull the odd gun’s trigger, the band would clamp closed on either side of the needles.

How odd.

“Will you do it?” Mistress asked.

Fina sighed. “I suppose I’ll be your formal witness before the eyes of Kentworks conditional God.”

widowmeat pulled her eyes from Mistress’ tool, to instead stare at the Olde One. She held onto the steel chain of an ornamental crucifix and the holy instrument didn’t burn her. Still, it felt off somehow. Different—

—and widowmeat saw it within the eye of her mind, a young writhing girl dressed in the black robes of the pious. She knelt on hands and knees with Fina behind her, her face a mask of indifferent intensity, as the end of a cross pressed wet against her puckered anus-

Fina winked in her direction and swung the cross in a slow hypnotic motion as sympathy sensation dug fingers into her mind.

She spoke with a theatrical tone, “I’ve taken the symbols of God’s chosen children and now command their power.”

widowmeat clenched her inner walls in response.

The eyes of gaildog crawled along the length of her back and she knew that the other slave was touching herself, just as helpless and enraptured.

“I am the Mother Superior, Josaphina Correll of the Bowser Abbey, overseeing the conversion of Kentworks journey of worship. According to ritual I am vested to wed.”

Though the words were practiced and had once been faithful, the Mother of Kentworks spat them with a perverse sort of joy. The dark writhing and crawling that quivered on the ceiling above them rejoiced in the sacrilegious destruction of hope. If the Abbey had once been the place of the saintly, the Olde One had brought that power to ruin. Had consumed it. Converted it. Abused it even.

Who’d snuffed out the voices of those innocent Abbey women when they’d cried out for help?

widowmeat’s hips twitched in blissful understanding, she wasn’t the only one that cathy had failed.

“Tell me now, Edelyn Mycroft, do you want this woman, Alderose Graham, wasn’t it, to be your lawful wife? To maintain your play at humanity as she attends to her purpose?“

widowmeat’s eyes fluttered, once at hearing Mistress glorious full name and again at the sudden acknowledgement of self.

Mistress’ pulled back Her Will and the lack of Her presence left an ache in... Alderose’s head. She gazed upon her like she was some grand prize, an interesting toy with a mind to pluck apart.

Mistress gave a sharp nod, “I do.”

Then Fina looked to Alderose.

“This is weird.” Alderose said.

Fina giggled.

“That’s weirder.”

She was there and not. Alderose but burning. The mark between her legs pulsed, eager to introduce fresh yearning. She shifted from one foot to the next, and licked her lips at cathy’s look of empty acceptance before she risked a glance at Gail—no, gaildog—at her back.

She turned her gaze back to Fina, ready.

“Tell me now, Alderose Graham, do you want Edelyn Mycroft? Do you take them as your husband?”

Alderose turned her gaze to the vampire in question, comfortable to address Her as Mistress. “You’ll give me what I... want?”

The respect of the meat?

Mistress quirked a single brow, and Alderose missed the ability to feel Her amusement against the liquid of her mind. “I will, but you won’t be able to kill me. I’m a far better predator than you, little monster. But...”

Mistress leaned forward and blew hot breath across the bites along her neck, and Alderose moaned with renewed meatlust for fangs.

“But there will be others to kill in my name, I’m sure.”

Alderose steadied the rapid beat of her heart and felt a flutter of something strange. Obsession. Adoration. Love.

She just wanted to burn for Mistress.

She blinked once, twice, and looked back to Fina—back into the abyss of change and absolute finality.

Gleaming eyes of red greeted her.

She spoke beyond the heated fear in her throat, “I do.”

She closed her eyes and when she opened them Mistress’ Will was within her, stroking her mind like fingers between her swollen lips but not yet taking her. She shivered, happy.

Mistress tilted her head back and stroked along her neck as the mark over her womb pulsed with sweet anguish. She wanted to writhe and scream with each inflamed throb, despite the cold-so cold—touch of Fina as she stroked along the ink there.

Her skin crawled and tugged and followed those fingers, alive in a way that should have been impossible. Fina only continued her firm massage, as if to inspire the wakefulness of the ink trying to join with her fingers.

When she finally lifted them, leaving her mark aching and tender, they were dripping black.

Alderose’s vision shook as that hooked wet hand approached the muscles of her neck—

And it was searing her, carving fire into her flesh, a line of ink that bit and snapped as it took on a jagged symbol that ran from her collarbone to the space beneath her chin.

Words slipped along her consciousness, spoken but warped as if hissed through a crumbling tunnel. “Then by the power I’ve taken I proclaim you wed.”

Laughter crackled against her skull, and mingled with the misery that beat beneath her skin. Three voices rose in a sharp cruel harmony, three separate vampires knocking at her mentality—and one was not cathy, could not have been—

Her nostrils flared and Mistress lifted her tool into place at their center. She pulled it’s trigger and needles sprung forth, piercing Franklin’s—no no, Mistress’, it belonged to Mistress, everything belonged to Mistress—ring through her septum.

A fitting place for it, one of the voices spoke.

she’s my chattel, and no one else’s, said another.

She whimpered softly as the torment of her neck lessened, replaced now by a new ache in the center of her nose. Two tongues of black-stained origin gently prodded and probed her nostrils and she flushed heavily knowing the blood that dripped there was so thoroughly owned.

Beyond their circle gaildog came, her cry of pleasure smothered by her own bitten hand.

“Now we’re together,” Mistress whispered against her throat, “soon before the eyes of Kentworks, but first before the eyes of your God.”

Mistress had become her Lordtrix, her Goddess. The understanding of that filled her own chest with love, hypnotic and feverish, but—

It was only proper that one loves their husband

The notion that wriggled along the folds of her mind only strengthened when Mistress opened the latch on her trinketless necklace to slide on the bridal ring’s gemless mate—the one that would have been worn by Franklin to symbolize their union.

Now it gleamed, bound on chain, between Mistress’ breasts.

What a good little wife you’ll make. Mistress’ voice rolled.

The heat of Mistress tongue lit up her nerves as it crawled and slithered across the ink of her third marking. It felt impossibly long and deliciously textured as it traced along the feverish edges. Her sense of self trembled as it traveled its length and by the time it was upon her chin, she knew only for certain that she was a wife.

Yes, her mind whispered, finally.

Something tight and struggling relaxed completely. A knot between her eyes had become undone. She opened her mouth to say something, anything—

Then Mistress playfully tugged on the ring within her nose.

I know.

Mistress’ lips brushed over the most important of Her marks, teasing her pulse with the edge of Her teeth. Sentimental.

Then Mistress sunk in Her fangs and took what was Hers.

Beyond Griswall’s windows the bell tower rung. Widow Graham slept but wifemeat stayed awake.

END.