Anyways, aside from a pretty bad case of the shits last month, Amara was doing just fine. She’d had some bizarre mix of a migrane and a stomach bug that had her writhing in bed for almost a week, and somewhere around then her old client had gotten killed, or maybe kidnapped – no one had found the body, and the lovely lords and ladies of the high court had assumed he’d run off to fuck some more even as he missed the midsummer ball. But Lord Whoever did not miss parties (they never did), so Amara had been leaning towards “dead,” and so she’d been pleasantly surprised when a different corpse showed up a week later! Some pissant baron this time, gutted and pinned ten feet off the ground against a grand painting of his own home, blood draining down into the oil-brushed moors at his feet. You could really taste the spite there; the lords had a killer on the loose, and money for guarding was suddenly very, very good.

Which left her standing at a door and acting attentive, as always, but the pay was enough to keep Amara from being too annoyed about it. Her client this time liked women a bit less than usual, but he made up for it by being absolutely insufferable with guests. Amara had spent her last two weeks watching the lord posture for a small army of petty merchants, taking their weapons and coats and ushering them in and out of the big room so her client could pretend to be a bit more important than he was. She’d been hired as a very dangerous porter, apparently, and so it went until a random widow walked down the aisle and saw her and choked, stumbling back with wide eyes.

Amara jolted awake all at once, snapped to follow the widow’s eyes for danger, but there was nothing else in the hallway. The widow was looking at her, for some reason, and Amara’s worry curdled into annoyance. “Is there a problem?” That was the issue with working with nobles; they were all fucking hysterical, and not in a good way. This one looked sheltered to death, coiffed black hair and sharp features cut up and made soft under layered widow’s clothes, high bearing but completely unremarkable except for her breasts. They strained against her mourning gown in a way Amara felt was probably a bit blasphemous, but they did give Amara two very good reasons to be kind. “Don’t worry,” Amara said easily, letting the calm hum of her voice suck out a bit of the widow’s panic. “I don’t bite. Do you need me to take your coat, my lady?”

The widow flinched again, backed up like a cornered animal. “What are you–” She cut herself off, looked around frantically, then up at Amara sharp-eyed. Still afraid, for some reason, but she was watching Amara’s sword arm with something else too, catching on the well-built tendons of her wrist.

Oh, Amara smiled, was that what this was? “Of course you’re also free to stare,” she said, amused, and she rolled her shoulders back to show off the easy curve of her shoulders and arms against her leathers, preening when the widow let out a strangled noise, eyes following her movements before frantically darting back up to her face. Flirting with noblewomen was obviously an terrible idea, but it was also pretty far past an idea at this point, a bit closer to Amara’s drinking problem. And this time it was even helping! Whatever hysteria had taken the widow before, it was quickly drowned by her flustered-annoyed attempts to control her own staring, fighting her own unbalanced instincts. She was a pot on the edge of boiling, and Amara… well, Amara had always been a bit of a shit-stirrer. She leaned easily against the wall, opened her mouth, and–

“Stop,” the widow snarled, a hoarse, animal sound, and then she clapped a hand over her mouth and looked around the hallway, which was still empty as far as Amara could tell. A bit dramatic, but hearing a voice like that out of a wilting thirty-something did shut Amara up pretty well. And she always had loved women with bite; when Amara eyed her with a bit more interest, stepped close to look up at her, the widow hissed softly and tapped Amara lightly back, keeping her distant. “You’re wasting my time. I have business with your lord,” she said roughly, took in a deep breath as she smoothed back into that placid expression again.

What a strange woman. “Of course. Can’t have you getting distracted, after all,” Amara said languidly, smiling wider when the widow twitched despite her stillness.

“Of course,” the widow parroted back, haughty and a bit fake – still collecting herself, probably. Amara did tend to have that effect on women. “He should have an appointment for a… Letitia Carson?”

Amara pulled out the ledger and… “No,” she said, “nothing for Letitia Carson. There’s one for a Widow Carson? Inheritance matters?” She was the lord’s cousin, apparently, here to squabble over her dead husband’s money, which was about half of what nobles did nowadays.

The other woman let out a short laugh, annoyed. “Yes,” she said flatly, “that’s me. Now are you going to open the damn door?”

She was getting mouthy again! Amara tilted her head and looked, a bit fascinated, as the widow caught herself again and crushed herself down. “Of course. You know,” Amara said conversationally, “my work ends in six hours or so. I’ll wait in the courtyard–”

“Not interested,” Letitia said quickly. “I’ll be meeting your lord and leaving.” It came out stilted, and her face was pulled taut a bit desperately, a poor shield for whatever was going on in there. It was a wonder she’d made it this long as a noble, but maybe she’d just never dealt with an actual woman before.

And at times like this, it was best to make yourself available. “Still, my lady,” Amara said softly. “I’ll be waiting. I’ll be there all night, if that’s what it takes.” She could see the widow’s hackles rise at that, but the other woman didn’t rise to the challenge, and Amara watched, vaguely disappointed, as she swept past her and vanished for an audience with the lord.

In the end, though, Amara didn’t have to wait nearly that long to see the widow again. Letitia made it a grand total of five minutes in the audience chamber before Amara was called back in to drag her out from where she stood in the center of the room, stone still and spitting a half-inch under her skin, shallow enough that the lord might have even seen it. She’d been loud enough that Amara had almost heard her against the lord’s booming voice through the wooden doors, talking back and forth about – blood, and the dead Lord Carson, and greedy little wives who took a bit too much to trust. Dangerous as hell; how had this woman lived this long? The answer came when they were away from the lord’s smug staring and halfway down the hallway, and Amara rather stupidly decided to keep going with their conversation from earlier. “Well,” she said, amused, “I said I’d wait, but–”

“Shut up,” Letitia spat. “I don’t–” she cut herself off, narrowed her eyes with her lips pulled back like a snarling beast. “This is your fault. You were harassing me,” she hissed, “unsettling me. All I needed to keep Carson’s – my husband’s money was stay calm. I have made a goddamn fool of myself because of you,” she breathed, off-balance like before, but her eyes were predator-sharp, trailing over Amara’s body like meat.

Run, Amara thought, and she took a step back without thinking, chastised herself for it. She wasn’t about to cower for this angry little thing. “All that with a look and a few words? You think very highly of me,” she said easily, but her nerves crept through as she glanced around the hallways. Empty. Where were the guards. What was she even afraid of? She had to – remind her of where they were, right. She smiled. “I suppose I’ve served my lord well, at least?”

“He’s not your anything,” Letitia spat. “You don’t give a damn about him.” She advanced on Amara with quick, easy steps, and Amara found herself shrinking back under the awful energy in the other woman’s eyes until her back hit a doorknob embedded in the wall. She gasped at the sudden pressure, felt the sharp pain of the handle digging into her spine, and in front of her Letitia’s nostrils widened as she took a slow, deep breath, quivering from her fingers up her spine and broadening, all at once, as the widow’s manners broke and her flesh came through wide and ready. Even now she was all sleek noble-fat, tall and well-built by a lifetime of good food, and the power Amara felt, the power she was shrinking from, was all utterly alien to that widowsflesh, flowing through it and kicking out like a marionette. Amara wanted to kneel, she realized with a bit of consternation, and at the thought she let out a weak little noise and Letitia snarled, low and throaty like a beast, and froze. “Oh,” the widow said breathlessly, wide eyes raking over Amara pinned against the wall, from her sword to her leathers to the curve of her neck, and then she looked up above Amara’s face to the sign on the door and laughed, high and sharp. “Well,” she smiled, “that does make things easier!” She turned Amara around and pulled her into a… broom closet, and this was really the time to call for help. Why wasn’t she doing that?

Instead Amara let the widow wrangle her against the back of the closet, looming over her like a specter, shadowed by the light of the hallway. “You’ve caused me quite a bit of trouble, you know that?” The widow said it softly; all her anger had vanished like a freak storm, and Amara couldn’t read her well enough to know where it had went. She glanced past Letitia to the bits of the hallway behind them, and the other woman clicked her tongue and took Amara by the chin and turned her back, tight fingers digging into her gums through the skin. “Don’t ignore me,” she snapped, a bit petulant, and Amara obeyed, somehow. She was an easy woman to look at, easy to get lost in with those impossible eyes wide and pooling in the dim light. She stayed there for a long moment as Letitia went slowly calm again, twisting back and forth to look at Amara’s shrinking body from every direction she could find, fidgeting in place until she took in Amara’s limpness and calmed herself. “…good,” she said finally, and her nostrils flared when Amara blinked up at her, eyes watery. “Now. You’ve wronged me, pet.”

Well, yes, but Amara wasn’t quite sure what to do about that. Nobles liked apologies, right? And she was really so close to getting fucked. “…I’m sorry?”

“Liar. Well, I suppose it’s your nature to be a bit of a pain,” the widow murmured, eyes trailing over Amara. “You’ll make it up to me, I think. Do you know what that means?”

It meant that Amara would probably be giving her head in this broom closet in about five minutes, but after getting manhandled like this, Amara was aching to get fucked herself. And she was close to that, too – just had to prod her a bit. She smiled. “I don’t think I have enough money to pay you back,” she said, faux deferent. “I’m not much, my lady–”

Letitia scoffed and pulled impossibly closer, eyes blazing. “Don’t play dumb,” she snapped. “You know exactly what you’ve been doing to me. You have wanted me from the moment you met me. Take it,” she snarled, pressed further in, angry and… waiting, despite all that, still so hilariously virginal.

So obviously Amara laughed in her face. “No,” she smiled, “I don’t think I will.” She was so vague! The mood broke all at once, and Amara smiled again, amused at the shocked look on the other woman’s face, patted her once on the cheek, once, and slipped out from the tight cage of her limbs. In the end she was like every other noblewoman: they came on strong, grew vaguely ashamed, and then they waited, always, for Amara to do all the work. She wasn’t really sure why she wasn’t settling for that – it was usually good enough to get her fingers in a rich cunt – but she had been a bit keyed up earlier, maybe enough to hope a bit. “If you ever decide to fuck me properly, though, feel free to stop by.” Letitia blinked at her, teeth bare and eyes wild, confused, but when Amara slipped by her to the closet door – last chance – she did nothing, which was a shame. So Amara sighed, pushed the door open–

and she came face to face with the lord, standing imperiously just outside the closet. Amara froze, and behind her the widow’s scowl deepened as the frustration pulled her face tight and gaunt in the candlelight. He raised his eyebrows at Amara, bemused, then looked past her to the widow she’d spent a solid five minutes in the closet with, mildly bemused. “Really, cousin? You’re playing with the help?”

The widow didn’t so much as blink, still like a predator, and Amara started, “My lord–”

Her voice came out too light, and the lord flinched back, disgusted. “You’re a woman?” He looked past her to Letitia, voice high with betrayal. “Is that why you never touched him?”

Letitia went even more motionless, corpselike in the darkness. “Be quiet.”

“Don’t play dumb. I mean,” he laughed a bit uncomfortably, “Carson always said you were frigid, but I didn’t think…”

“Cousin,” Letitia said thinly, kinder this time, but Amara didn’t know who she was fooling at this point. The thing beneath the widow’s skin, blurry like the outline of a person underwater, was starting to breach; she looked sharper, harsher even in the sisterly way she looked the lord in the eyes, and the loose widow’s robes couldn’t contain the way she moved desperate and considering in the back of the broom closet. “We’re both in grief,” she tried, “so I’ll excuse you, but accusations like this–”

The lord dismissed her words with a hand and a sharp bark of laughter. “Letitia,” he sighed, almost smug with it, “it’s a bit obvious at this point.” He turned to Amara. “You, guard. What’s your name?”

“Esther, my lord,” Amara lied.

“Miss Esther. Escort her out,” he said evenly, “as I had ordered you. Then come to the barracks. I’ll deal with you there.” Time to skip town, then. Amara nodded and moved out of the door of the closet, holding herself calm, and didn’t so much as flinch when the lord grew impatient and dragged her along by the arm.

Behind her, though, Letitia bristled even more horribly against the wall. “Don’t touch her,” she snapped, and oh, Amara really did not need defending right now.

The lord sighed again. “Really, Letitia? Don’t you have enough to worry about right now?”

“Still,” Letitia said stubbornly, “I don’t–” she froze, breath caught in a strangled hiss as the lord reached out and clamped one hand around her limp wrist, corpse-still as he tugged her along.

She was heavy enough that he had a bit of trouble with it. “Come along, cousin,” the lord said, easy and… taunting, somehow, and Letitia leaned further back into the closet a bit desperately.

“Let go,” she said, voice whisper-soft, and when the lord scoffed and pulled harder her eyes went scared and wild in the darkness. “Please,” she gasped, “I–”

“Don’t be hysterical,” the lord snapped, and he stepped further into the broom closet, put his other hand forward to grab her shoulder or neck or something, and Letitia reached forwards and tore out his throat as easy as cleaning a fish. Amara froze in shock, then twisted for her sword as the widow’s – the vampire’s shell-shocked eyes flicked to meet her, shoved the ripped-open lord to the back of the broom closet with one bloody hand, and fell on Amara before she could draw her weapon, took her sword arm and twisted it back and threw her in with the dying man. He was drowning at her feet, shouts turned feeble and thin with his piping ripped out, and above him the vampire turned to her blank and corpselike, widowsflesh yoked and purposed like a puppet. This close, and with this much strength, there would be no killing her, and Amara opened her mouth to shout but found herself choked by one thin, bloody hand, crushed hoarse as the lord’s stray red stained into her neck. And then the vampire pressed further into Amara’s space, knees knocking against the crumpled, dying lord, and forced Amara up to meet her eyes.

The second time falling was easier. Amara’s world narrowed like last time; she sank like last time too, except now there was some meat blocking up the floor, so she fell half into her lady as she dropped, crowding against her in the cramped space of the broom closet. She was so fucking wet, clasped like a trophy as that useless lord’s blood trickled down her neck, and she was of half a mind to rut against her lady and come however she could get it. But she was needed for something else; against her, the vampire was wringing her blood-slick hand into empty space, spattering a bit of blood against the wooden wall of the closet. “Shit,” her lady said, “shit, shit, shit–”

Amara caught her hand and pulled a cleaning cloth out with her other arm, made to oil swords, but as Amara worked the cloth over her lady’s wrist and fingers it worked well enough for something like this. She’d cleaned most of the blood off before the vampire laughed at her, half-sobbing and a bit hysterical, and snatched her arm away. “My lady,” Amara murmured absently, and the vampire looked down at her with watery eyes before calming, slowly, to match the placid expression on her face.

Then she scowled. “This is your fault,” she grit out, eyes locked and annoyed with it.

“Isn’t it yours?” Amara tilted her head, smiled. “Why didn’t you just claim me the first time?”

“Please shut up,” the vampire snapped, then sank against the side of the closet, shifting against the body of the lord. She suddenly looked very tired. “I’ll – God, what a fucking mess,” she said, then dropped to a hum, thinking. “No other nobles,” she said lowly, “and it’s late, so the help’s thin. The guards–”

“Eight of them, I think,” Amara said helpfully. “They’ll be sleeping in shifts on the first floor–”

“I told you to be quiet,” the vampire said weakly.

“And I think you’re panicking,” Amara said simply, “and I’m sworn to you, not your fears. Use me, my lady.”

“Well,” the vampire hissed, “I think I won’t use you if you’ll be this fucking mouthy.” It came out a bit petulant, and so irritated she seemed almost normal again, and Amara brightened, smiling at the vision before her. She got another scowl for her trouble. “Don’t look so pleased,” her lady sighed. “I’ve heard enough out of you today. Drop, pet.”

"Oh," Amara breathed. "What?" She felt herself falling, and she tried to hold herself up but stumbled, drooped and fell against the other woman’s heavy chest, and she… wow.

The vampire snorted. “Sleep, you awful little thing,” she said, still annoyed but a bit fond under that, maybe, and Amara listened and slowly drifted away.