Every night, the fledgling vampire hated how he looked. It must’ve been a blessing from Lilith herself, mythical ancestor of his kind, that he had no reflection to dwell upon.

His sister Naomi—also a vampire—was looking at him with a hint of concern. Every night, he envied his sister’s beauty, her lovely long red-auburn hair, her enchanting crimson eyes, her slender but slightly curvy frame, her unblemished and deathly pale skin. It felt like a distant dream, but once he had sought to emulate it, to make himself feminine, to become a woman and to be perceived by others as a woman. But according to Him, that was not to be. And He could not be disobeyed — the fledgling couldn’t even bring himself to want to disobey Him, so it was not to be.

“▓▓▓▓▓▓, are you quite alright?” his sister asked. The two of them sat side-by-side upon a stone ledge that outlined His mansion on a misty night in spring. It had been eight years since they had been turned, together, within minutes of one another. A man with an odd foreign accent had knocked on the front door of their cottage asking for a pail of water. The fledgling couldn’t understand why the man would not be capable of utilizing the local well, no more than a minute’s walk away, but he had invited Him in anyway, and so the siblings were taken.

And no, he was not alright. Perhaps even more than his appearance, the fledgling loathed his own name, given by his parents and enforced by Him. The fledgling found himself so confused by that. He was a god among men, meant to be loved and worshipped by all who beheld him. How could the fledgling find himself disgusted? Yes, there was a time when he had considered other names for himself, lovely and beautiful ones like Maryanne, like Delilah, but He had shot them all down, and the fledgling had to respect that, coming from Him.

The fledgling’s name was ▓▓▓▓▓▓, by His decree.

But he swore to Lilith that he could barely stand the sound of it, regardless of whether it was Him saying it. It somehow made his stomach turn, though his kind never succumbed to illness.

“I’m… fine, Naomi,” the fledgling said, wrapping his arms around himself, clearly not fine. He’d always been close with his sister, long before they had been turned, and he couldn’t hide his true feelings from her no matter how hard he tried.

But that didn’t mean that she understood everything he was feeling, either. She didn’t come close.

Naomi had been born lucky, the fledgling felt, possessing a pretty body and a personality that was so much more real than his own. He sometimes called ▓▓▓▓▓▓ His favorite fledgling while He berated Naomi for her supposed incompetence, her overstepping of the bounds of a fledgling, and ▓▓▓▓▓▓ supposed that he had to take His word for it. No matter how much he tried to twist his own worldview to match His, though, he couldn’t ever view Naomi as anything less than a competent predator, an obedient fledgling, like he himself could hardly hope to be.

What did the fledgling even have to be proud of? Good looks? Surely not. A charming personality? Maybe from a human’s perspective, backed up by the hypnotic charisma that all vampires shared. Self-confidence? Around his own thralls, perhaps, but they’d love him either way. Any sense of style? No, that was Naomi’s field, not his own. What clothes could ever fit him? What hairstyle? He just relied on Him for advice, so the fledgling supposed he looked good enough in that regard, but it still never felt right.

He might as well not have been a person at all, not a true vampire, not like Naomi, not like Him. Oh, sure, he sated his bloodlust, hunted at night, kept his own thralls, but even that never felt right. He loved his Violet, his childhood crush, first thrall he took after being turned, with all his unbeating heart, but there was something wrong with the way he loved too. Sometimes he thought that maybe vampires just weren’t capable of real love other than to their begetters, but Naomi was obviously capable of true love herself, a full range of emotion. There was just something wrong with the fledgling himself, his own flaw, not something he could pin on the rest of his kind.

He had just been made wrong.

Naomi put her cold hand on his shoulder then, providing a modicum of comfort. She hadn’t said anything for the last several seconds, perhaps lost for words over how pathetic and awful her brother was.

“▓▓▓▓▓▓, come on, out with it,” she demanded gently. The fledgling only wished he could be that gentle himself, but he was saddled with mannish hands, hardened by his years of carpentry apprenticeship before he had been turned.

“I—I just… I still can’t get over how vile a name our parents granted me,” he finally muttered. “Everything… everything about me. I don’t understand how everything about you can be so right while everything about me is so wrong.”

Naomi became concerned hearing that, even taken aback, and she removed her hand from her brother’s shoulder.

“Come now,” she said. “You know that Master reminds you—”

Master. Master Master Master, all night and all day long. It was true, of course. The siblings were His fledglings, and He was their Master. But even though it was factually, absolutely true, that the fledgling’s soul had been stolen by Alexander of Epirus along with his blood and that he would be bound as fledgling to his begetter and Master for as long as He saw fit…

The fledgling still bristled whenever he was forced to think about it. Of course, he never once let it get in the way of his duties as a loyal and obedient fledgling, manservant to his begetter, and His lover besides. It felt strange sometimes, but the fledgling was filled with genuine love for the man who had turned him. He had never felt attracted to any other man before Him, but that was simply what a fledgling felt toward their begetter, love imposed upon them, love that felt more genuine than any he had felt.

“I—I know!” he shouted, standing and pacing around the neatly trimmed garden. “But even given that, it still doesn’t feel right! Why can’t I just be—”

“What’s wrong?” said another voice, a familiar but less familiar one, coming around the corner of the mansion. The siblings were lucky that the voice only belonged to their fellow fledgling Amelia rather than their begetter, who had left for the city early at night to hunt for prospective victims. Alexander of Epirus was a cruel and unforgiving man, and he did not tolerate disturbances. An outburst like this would likely incur at least a hard strike for the fledgling, if not worse.

Amelia was a plump brunette woman of medium height with skin of a slightly grayish pallor, darker than the siblings’. It was early in the night, and it seemed very possible that the fledgling’s shouting had accidentally awakened her. Accompanying her was her human thrall Jacques, a tall, dark, and handsome Frenchman visiting the New World whom Amelia had decided to seduce and make her own.

“Nothing much,” Naomi said, getting to her feet, her simple black nightgown inspiring the fledgling’s envy with every step she took. “Seems ▓▓▓▓▓▓ is in one of his moods.”

Siblings bickered and became annoyed with each other, it was known, even as adults, even in undeath; it was just one of the things they did. But despite knowing that Naomi likely held no true resentment toward him for his emotional fragility, the fledgling couldn’t help but act out that fragility tonight. Apparently he had made a scene.

“One of my moods?” he shouted, throwing his arms in the air in disgust, getting up in his sister’s face.. “It’s not my fucking fault that our parents couldn’t even pick a half-decent name for me! That God put me in this horrendous body, and now by Lilith’s will I’m stuck in it forevermore!”

The siblings had been raised in the post-Puritan milieu of late-18th century New Hampshire, and though the fledgling now found himself on the wrong end of the great conflict between good and evil, his belief in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost still remained, simply not as allies to be relied upon.

Amelia stood with her face in her hands, not wanting to get involved but made a participant in the conflict anyway, and Jacques stood by her side comforting his Mistress, one hand around her back.

“It’s… not just Lilith’s will,” Amelia said. “Though that alone ought to be enough for you. But it’s also—”

“Yes, yes, Master’s will!” the fledgling said, marching over the grass to get up in his fellow fledgling’s face. He hated the sound of his own voice too, especially when he was shouting. It was so deep, gravelly, far too masculine… but He was somehow satisfied with that as well. But appreciating such an underwhelming part of himself was terribly difficult for the fledgling.

“And… and I know I need to accept it!” he continued, head in his hands in exasperation. “I want to… I want to… I love Him, I swear, more than anyone or anything in the world. I just… Oh, Lilith…”

The fledgling breathed out a long sigh instinctually before continuing, even though any kind of breath wasn’t necessary for him.

“Don’t you two think… don’t you two think He could be hurting Himself?” he asked finally. “Just by putting up with someone like me… someone so insufficient, a failure of a fucking vampire, no confidence, no sense of style, a vulgar name, barely able to catch my own prey any way but brute force?”

There was a pause as his fellow fledglings took all that in.

“But don’t you think that’s part of what He likes about you?” Naomi said, almost solemnly. The fledgling knew his begetter’s affection for him saddened his sister, who always received the short end of the stick for one reason or another, presumed to be disloyal. But hearing that he was meant to be as pathetic as he was was like being stabbed through the heart.

“Indeed,” Amelia added, twisting the silver knife. “I’ve always thought He must like you for your weakness, your pliability. You lack identity and presence compared to Naomi. It makes it easier for him to mold you. You would never be mistaken as rebellious for a single moment, even in a mood like this.”

“I have to admit, I envy that about you, brother,” Naomi continued. “I wish I could submit to Him as obviously and completely as you at times.”

The two of them looked at the fledgling with a kind of envy through piercing blood-red eyes, and though he knew it came from a place of genuine support, from being his fellows in submission, it somehow made the fledgling feel worse. He knew his nature had to be hurting Him… it must’ve been. Even if He thought He liked it, it must only have been a form of self-flagellation to put up with someone so devoid of appealing characteristics.

But all he could think to say, in the end, was, “if you think so.” And then without sparing his fellow fledglings a single additional look, he stormed inside the back door of the mansion.

Most of the thralls would be sleeping in the servant’s quarters at this time of night, and all was in fact quiet within the walls of the manor, save a bit of creaking from his own clumsy steps on the floorboards, utterly lacking in grace as he was.

But there was one thrall he needed, one he always came back to at a time like this. The person he felt understood him better than any other but his begetter, and she was only human…

Violet Driscoll was sleeping in the fledgling’s own bed, one he rarely slept in as He took him to bed with Him most nights. She was thirty-one years old, a light-skinned brunette with shoulder-length hair splayed out on the bed under only a thin sheet in all her naked goodness. She had kept aging since the fledgling took her on the night he was turned while the fledgling remained the same, trapped in his wretched body. Even granted immortality, he envied the appearance and demeanor of this mortal woman so, so deeply, more than she could know…

One drink of a human’s blood was all it took to make them a thrall, utterly obedient, servile, and loving even as they remained human, and Violet embodied all of those things very well indeed.

“Good evening, ▓▓▓▓▓▓,” the thrall said, roused from sleep as the fledgling sat on the bedside. Adopting a title like Master had never felt right; somehow, it was even worse than being called by his name, so he settled for his own name. It still felt wrong every time, of course, and it was another thing that He never understood one bit. He tolerated it though, and tolerance from Him felt like encouragement sometimes, given how eagerly He stomped out that which displeased Him. Maybe it was as Naomi and Amelia claimed, just another small pathetic quirk that made the fledgling easier to control.

“Violet,” he said quietly, placing a gentle hand on his thrall’s bare shoulder. Compared to his begetter, the fledgling had no interest in harming or disciplining his thralls. He envied them mostly, the women he took for himself, their beautiful looks and their possession of self-confidence that he utterly lacked. As such, he never wanted to hurt them just for the sake of it, or even really at all. That was another thing that He only seemed to tolerate, but tolerance had to be taken as a blessing.

“▓▓▓▓▓▓!” Violet replied, wrapping her arms around the fledgling with adoration in her eyes. He knew well that that adoration was imposed by the power of enthrallment, much as his own adoration for Him was imposed, and that on all ordinary levels the fledgling was unlovable, an ugly uncharismatic monster. But it still provided a modicum of comfort to receive adoration from someone, for some reason.

Oh, it wasn’t the same with Him, though. The fledgling’s love for Him may have been imposed, but He was truly a wonderful man, unmatched by any mortal or undead barring Lilith herself.

“You seem like You’re in a… foul mood,” Violet said, choosing her words carefully. “Did something happen? Is there anything I could do for You?”

“I was in an argument with Amelia and my sister,” the fledgling said with a long sigh. “Not even really about anything. I suppose… I was having questionable thoughts. Wrong thoughts.”

“What sort?” the thrall asked, snuggling up against the vampire she was made to love.

“My… er, identity. Again,” the fledgling moped. Again and again, it seemed to go, his thoughts swirling in his mind without end, never able to find a strong sense of self. “I take relief in not having done so in front of Master.”

The fledgling couldn’t stop himself from wincing at the thought of that, remembering the brutal strikes He had delivered the last time that the fledgling had thrown one of his pathetic childish tantrums in front of Him. He had reassured him afterward, though He always remained emotionally distant, and made it clear that the way the fledgling cowered when struck was appropriate. Ultimately, the undead were resilient, and even hard strikes didn’t hurt too badly, but they certainly left an impact, and the fledgling had no intention of displeasing Him ever again.

“But I can’t stop myself from looking at Naomi and wishing I had been born like her,” he said. “I don’t understand why I can’t get these awful thoughts out of my head!”

He couldn’t stop himself from stomping his feet again, no doubt alerting his fellow fledglings that he was still out of control.

“And…” the fledgling continued, lowering his voice considerably, “I have to wonder if Master is somehow hurting Himself… by putting up with me…”

“I don’t see how someone would ever be hurting himself associating with someone as perfect as You,” Violet said, kissing the fledgling’s cheek. She was the fledgling’s thrall only, not His, and it sometimes caused her to have strange insights on the two’s relationship, occasionally even what the fledgling could only see as disloyal, even blasphemous ones toward He who they all ultimately served.

“And Amelia and Naomi said that He likes me because I’m so pathetic,” the fledgling mumbled, a few tears dripping from his crimson eyes.

“Then he must see you incorrectly,” the thrall said, moving to kneel on the floor before the vampire. “You could never be pathetic. You’re just… troubled, I think would be a better term.”

“That’s just a euphemism for pathetic, surely,” the fledgling insisted, unable to look at even his own thrall.

“It’s not!” she replied defiantly. “Sometimes… Sometimes I feel that your Master doesn’t see every part of You. That he… misunderstands what You’re meant to be.”

“Violet… He ripped my soul away from me and owns every part of me that’s left,” the fledgling said, professing what he knew deeply to be true. “There is no part of me for Him to misunderstand. There never could be. He understands me far better than I could ever understand myself.”

“Then how can I see so much of You that he fails to? Your strength, perseverance… your… er…” Violet blushed as she looked down toward the floor. “Well, your femininity.”

The fledgling stood hearing that, wanting to shove himself into a closet and starve himself of blood and die. No one should have been able to see femininity, not even close. It was forbidden, forbidden, he was…

“I AM NOT FEMININE!” he shouted, louder than he perhaps ever had, and that statement, true as anything he could ever say, somehow made his unbeating heart sink further than it had all night.

“God made me a man. I am a man, can’t you see? Can’t my own thralls even see?”

Tears streamed from his face as he stripped naked in front of his thrall, showing his hairy chest, his unfeminine thighs, his penis… things he knew would stop him from ever convincing anyone he was a woman.

“See this? I am stuck with this forever! It can’t ever change, not ever again!”

“You could try taking that, um, essence from me again…” Violet said meekly. “I loved providing it for You. I still think it made You look beautiful… maybe he would think so too, on a second try?”

The fledgling knew well what his thrall spoke of. Most ordinary methods never changed a vampire’s appearance. Ordinary food was unappealing to them, and exercise had a limited effect. But when the fledgling had first come to question his identity, he had become obsessed with the smell that human women carried with them, something that he could only describe as a feminine essence suffusing their bloodstreams. He had attempted to absorb that into himself when drinking from his thralls, and it had had a measurable effect, his body made more feminine, gradually, so gradually, but noticeably, month by month. After a year or so his nipples had become larger, his thighs slightly wider. It wasn’t something he had thought to mention to Him, but eventually the effects were noticeable to Him, and He demanded that he stop immediately, that what he was doing was a mockery of Lilith and a defacing of the body that He enjoyed. That had been the beginning of all this, the beginning of his confusion and misery…

“He told me He would never approve,” the fledgling said, looking through Violet at the plain wooden wall behind her. It was only half as empty as he was.

Violet sighed, but before she could say anything more, the fledgling collapsed onto the floor. And as the thrall bent down to hold and comfort the love of her life, the center of her existence, she recalled the wording of one of his commands.

“My name is ▓▓▓▓▓▓. Never call Me by any other name again, by My decree and His.”

She was eager to obey that and powerless to disobey, but it crossed her mind that one method of address had not been declared off-limits. Not a name, but a title.

“I’m here for you, Mistress…”

Two hundred and fourteen years later, the fledgling was a full-fledged vampire all her own, and her name was Naomi. Naomi had spent the centuries perfecting her technique to extract that feminine essence from the blood of her thralls — an essence which she now knew was properly called estrogen.

Her body had changed a large amount thanks to the perfection of that technique. She was a slender woman well over six feet tall with skin pale as the moon, captivating eyes of crimson, long wavy red-auburn hair falling past her shoulders, bangs that framed her face, and red-polished fingernails. Her fangs subtly protruded as was the case for all members of her kind, and though any who beheld her for more than a moment would recognize her as a member of the living dead, she never thought herself any less beautiful for it.

Naomi also possessed perky, medium-sized tits that well-complemented her small girlcock, a part of herself that she had come to appreciate as equally feminine long ago, though she had its two accompaniments removed as soon as the procedure had been available. Those aspects of her form were easily hidden from prying eyes by the flowy red skirt she was wearing tonight with a black sleeveless top as well as her favorite gold necklace and bracelets.

On a number of accounts, Naomi looked rather similar to her late sister, especially at a glance. Not identical, but similar as sisters often are. And her name, too, was the same as her late sister’s. That was no coincidence, of course. When Alexander finally met his demise, Naomi was finally free to discover who she really was, and she decided that the most appropriate name for herself was her sister’s, chosen in her memory, because even two centuries after her death, she still cared for the woman she’d grown up alongside, no matter their complicated relationship in undeath.

For the last six and a half years, Naomi had inhabited the deluxe suite of the Seagate Hotel, an independent establishment located on Plum Island, a barrier island just off the North Shore of Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. Her begetter’s mansion had been located in the city of Boston, and she had not spent long away from the New England region in all her life and undeath.

The world had become a terribly complicated place over the last two centuries, anonymity and obscurity frighteningly difficult to attain compared to those simpler times even as cameras failed to capture her image, so making a place like the Seagate her residence, a relatively remote facility that (almost) no one but her called home and where visitors rarely paid close attention to their fellow guests, was ideal for her own personal safety. Humans tended to fear her kind, after all, and some were brave or foolish enough to make attempts against her undeath, believing that they were doing good in the world. Naomi felt it best to prevent such attempts from happening in the first place.

Though it may have seemed an ordinary hotel to average visitors, the Seagate Hotel felt almost a fortress to Naomi. She enjoyed the blood of every single member of its staff, which of course made them hers, eager to defend her, serve her, obey her. She ensured that only women (and on rarer occasions, woman-adjacent individuals) were hired, because she loved women (and occasionally, woman-adjacent individuals), and she loved the taste of estrogen-rich blood especially.

In that distant past, Naomi had believed herself unlovable without relying on the power of enthrallment, but that belief was long-discarded. If it was ever true, it had only applied to the sad, confused man that she had once appeared to be. Enthrallment was just an extra treat to her now, knowing well that she was a beautiful, seductive, feminine woman worth loving, and she gave her thralls every ounce of love she could spare in return. They were more than just thralls to her (most of them, at least) — they were her treasured companions and lovers, her girlfriends.

Tonight, in fact, she was sharing her love with two of her favorite thralls in her own living space, a spacious two-room suite filled with custom furniture and paintings, many of which were her own. The blinds were pulled aside, letting in refreshing rays of moonlight that were just bright enough to let her favorite snacks see.

Of the two thralls, Hannah was a tan-skinned young woman of 24 years with brown eyes and long brown hair cut in a sideshave, her ears covered in piercings. She was a chubby girl, though not as chubby as she had been when she’d met her Mistress, as she’d been getting used to a long-desired exercise routine as of late, still learning her own limits. Her endurance was being tested now, in fact, as Naomi had fulfilled a long-shared desire between the two of them to dress Hannah up in an old-fashioned black-and-white maid outfit and have her clean her Mistress’ suite in empty-minded bliss, hypnotized to think of nothing but service and obedience. Naomi had been meaning to get around to doing this for well over a year now, since she’d heard talk of another sadly-deceased member of her kind doing so with all her thralls. But that was a story for another night.

Hannah was the only one of Naomi’s thralls to have ever requested to be enthralled entirely of her own will. Depressed and lacking in agency after years of living with her unsupportive parents, she had decided to pursue a lifelong fantasy by seeking out her now-Mistress after learning of Her from a certain online community. She was welcomed by the vampire with open arms and sharp fangs, Hannah’s submissive nature and her recent gender transition causing Naomi to fall deeply in love. Naomi had offered her a place to live in a suite next to her own, where she and her blood were never far away, and each found that they were a perfect match for the other.

Gail was a short, skinny woman 26 years of age with light freckled skin, curly strawberry blonde hair, green eyes, and a demeanor that Naomi also regarded as adorably submissive. Carefully conditioned to obey her Mistress’ commands without thinking in sexual situations, she also served her Mistress day-to-day working as a receptionist at the hotel’s front desk — or more accurately night-to-night, since she worked the night shift, making her more regularly available to her Mistress than most of her coworkers.

She had studied architecture in college, even graduating with a master’s degree late during the previous year, but her job application at the Seagate Hotel as a side gig three years ago had changed the course of her life entirely. While architecture was still a hobby for her, serving her Mistress had become her main object of interest, and She had helped her discover her love for women, something that made dating substantially less intimidating as the trans woman she also was.

And at the current moment, as Hannah dusted the lower level of her Mistress’ TV table, Gail was making out with her Mistress on the couch, completely naked as the vampire pulled her close with deathless strength, squeezing and feeling up every contour of the small woman’s body.

And Naomi did know how to manage her strength. She hadn’t hurt anyone by accident in well-over a century — she had never enjoyed harming her girls, after all.

“I love you, Mistress,” Gail said between kisses, halfway in trance. She loved the way her Mistress forcefully handled her, pushing and pulling and having Her way.

“I love you too, my dear,” Naomi said, leaning in close and taking in her thrall’s musk, the scent of her blood sweet and buttery, a vampire’s sense of smell and taste so refined that every person’s blood had a unique flavor. And she wanted that blood so, so badly right now…

“Gail, darling,” she continued, looking the small blonde woman directly in the eyes, overriding whatever small bits of will remained in her, “Lie down for me. I’m hungry.”

Gail’s face flushed blood-red as her body relaxed and she spoke, “I obey”. It was a carefully pre-programmed response that Naomi found especially attractive hearing from this girl, reminding both of them that Gail was her Mistress’ forever, to be molded into whatever She wished.

“Good girl,” Naomi said, leaning over her thrall, who had laid back on the couch, looking up at the ceiling with an utterly blank, pacified expression upon her face.

“Don’t forget to dust behind the television, Hannah, dear!” the vampire added with a snap of her fingers, briefly distracted from Gail as she saw her obedient maid about to walk away from the TV table. That wouldn’t do. Maids were meant to be thorough in their work, but Naomi knew that Hannah had trouble being diligent at times. She intended to change that.

“Yes, Mistress,” Hannah said, delivering a brief, but practiced, curtsy to her Mistress, which helped her feel extra submissive and feminine. She then returned to her work, murmuring a mantra she had been given: “I am an obedient maid. A maid’s purpose is to serve her Mistress.” It was well into the early hours of the morning, and Hannah had been at this all night, but it didn’t bother her at all, so long as she put service to her Mistress first.

“But Gail,” Naomi said, returning to the entranced girl directly below her, “I’m still here with you, dear. Hold still for me, won’t you?”

“I obey,” Gail replied, only distantly aware of her Mistress’ conversation with Her other thrall. She tensed up just slightly, knowing well the state that her Mistress liked to have her in at feeding time.

“Good girl,” Naomi said, brushing her thrall’s curly blonde hair aside, exposing the warm soft flesh of her neck.

Then Naomi went down on her and took what was hers, fangs piercing her neck and drawing out her lovely red type A negative blood, some of the most delicious in all the world by the vampire’s reckoning. Gail screamed and moaned, an involuntary response to a vampire’s bite, painful and pleasurable in equal measure, enough to bring her to orgasm. Naomi loved the joy that her fangs could bring her girls, and it fulfilled all of her material needs as well, a drink a day from one of her thralls being enough to sustain her. It was the most pleasurable thing that she herself could imagine besides, nourishment and love and intimacy all at once.
The vampire pulled herself away from her victim, who was left lying with her face flushed and her glasses askew, panting heavily as she recovered from the intense sensation. Naomi took a moment longer to lick her Gail’s neck, her kind’s saliva possessing healing properties that would close the wound and prevent it from bleeding any longer, leaving only a small bite mark, a bit like a hickey but with her fangs leaving a single prick each, a mark of her love that would remain for about a week. Thankfully, it could be hidden easily enough with a bit of concealer, or Naomi would risk exposing herself with Gail working at the reception desk.

“I love you, darling,” Naomi whispered, and her thrall moaned back. She’d need a bit of time to catch her breath, so the vampire pulled herself to her feet and went to check on her maid.

Hannah had finished wiping behind the TV, and Naomi confirmed that it was done to her satisfaction. She followed her maid into the suite’s bathroom, where she was wiping the floor tiles. The bathroom saw little use by Naomi, but she still liked to keep it in good condition for the sake of her thralls, so she’d told Hannah that it was as important to clean as every other inch of her suite.

Hannah didn’t flinch as her Mistress squatted down beside her, instructed carefully to not let herself be interrupted unless directly addressed. A good maid didn’t speak unless spoken to, after all.

But Naomi tugged at the shoulder strap of her maid’s apron, commanding her attention.

“Mistress?” Hannah said, turning her head toward her Mistress as though waking from a dream. But Naomi knew well that she hadn’t been truly woken, not until she commanded it explicitly.

“Darling, look down at the floor tiles for me, won’t you?” Naomi said, hand firmly remaining on her maid’s shoulder.

“Yes, Mistress,” Hannah said, looking down at her singular reflection, not accompanied by her Mistress’. Naomi sometimes lamented that she had no reflection, having to rely on portraits painted by her thralls or, much more rarely, by other vampires, to see her own pretty face, and she sometimes wondered if she was really half as pretty as those flattering paintings made her out to be. But it was little matter in the end, because humans certainly saw her to be beautiful, one way or another.

“Just look at how adorable you are like this, my dear,” Naomi said. “Dressed perfectly to serve me, washrag in hand, and such an expression upon your face. Blank and empty, focused only on serving your Mistress, isn’t that right?”

“Yes, Mistress,” the maid said, looking at her own reflection as she said it, droning out in a perfectly even tone. “I am an obedient maid. A maid’s purpose is to serve her Mistress.”

“That’s right, dear—”

There was a knock upon the door to Naomi’s suite, out in the hallway.

That was a bit unusual. Typically her thralls would contact her via the internal phone line, particularly the one by her bedside. Either the phone lines were down, or the person knocking wasn’t her thrall. But if that were the case, how would they have gotten past the reception desk unnoticed, let alone know exactly where to look for her? There would be some sort of warning if the visitor was threatening, she was sure. She’d experienced it all before.

Confident that she and her girls were facing no threat, Naomi decided to leverage the moment.

“Hannah, go answer the door,” she commanded, climbing to her feet.

Her maid joined her, performed another perfect, practiced curtsy, and said, “yes, Mistress” before proceeding back to the door.

Naomi dashed after her, reaching Gail in the blink of an eye. The blonde girl was still naked and a bit dazed, and in plain view of the door, so her Mistress thought it best to clothe her in some way just in case. She pulled Gail up into a sitting position and the slight woman came mostly to attention, adjusting her glasses, while Naomi wrapped a trans flag-pattern blanket around her, previously draped over the back of the couch. Gail had knitted it herself as a birthday gift for her Mistress.

“Who’s at the door, Mistress?” she asked.

“I’m unsure,” the vampire replied, sniffing. “The scent, though… I’d recognize her anywhere. But she was meant to be in the city for that conference…”

Hannah opened the door, and as usual, Naomi’s keen sense of smell had not failed her. Standing in the hallway was her thrall Brenda, general manager of the Seagate Hotel, a dark-skinned woman 34 years of age and medium height with brown eyes and very curly black hair that fell to her chin, dressed in a cream-colored blouse and a blue pencil skirt.

Still deeply hypnotized to behave as her Mistress’ maid, Hannah performed another curtsy, and asked, “Do you have business with Mistress?”

But rather than engage with Hannah, Brenda simply walked past her into Naomi’s suite.

Naomi was quite disappointed by that, and said, “Brenda, darling, you really ought to respond to Han—”

Brenda stopped just short of her Mistress, and interrupted Her, practically unthinkable outside of an emergency.

“Naomi Rennt,” she spoke. “Amelia Marques is here to see you.”

The vampire’s crimson eyes went wide, but she remained silent, her body still as a statue or corpse.

A moment passed, with Gail looking on in worry, Hannah closing the door and barely aware of what Brenda had said, since it was not her place as a maid to listen in on her Mistress’ private conversations…

And Naomi began growling.

“Brenda! Brenda! Listen to me!” she demanded, tugging on her thrall’s arm and pulling her down to eye level, looking her directly in the eyes with panic in her voice. “So relaxed, now. Totally under my spell. Belonging only to your Mistress, now.”

It had taken both of them a moment, but Naomi and Gail had realized by now that Brenda was moving with an odd focus and intentionality, as though hypnotized. That look was very familiar to both of them. That was normal for Naomi’s thralls in her presence, but she was meant to be out of town…

“Ahh… relaxed, Mistress. I’m yours,” Brenda murmured, giving herself up completely.

“Good girl,” Naomi said. “But wake up.”

Brenda blinked a few times as she came back to reality, looking around the darkened room and leaping to her feet, practically all the way to the ceiling as she got her bearings, deeply uncomfortable.

“Wha— How am I here? In Your bedroom, Mistress?” she asked. “Last thing I knew, I…” She gripped her head as though in pain, struggling to think of anything.

“What? What was it, dear?” Naomi asked. “Sit down next to me, won’t you?”

“Yes, Mistress,” Brenda said, joining her on the couch.

Naomi snapped her fingers in the direction of her maid. “Hannah, dear, get Brenda here a glass of ice water, won’t you?”

“Yes, Mistress,” Hannah said with a curtsy, walking into the kitchen, attached seamlessly to the living room, and retrieving a glass from the cabinet. Naomi realized it would’ve been more appropriate for the moment to have her maid serve tea, but, well, there was only one drink Naomi herself needed, so her pantry wasn’t well-stocked.

“Mistress, I hope this isn’t an interruption, but who is Amelia Marques?” Gail asked, placing a comforting hand on her Mistress’ knee, pulling the blanket down to expose herself again now that she knew the visitor was only Brenda.

“I’ll get to that in a moment, darling,” Naomi said, giving her blonde thrall a weary smile. Then, turning back to her black-haired thrall, “What was the last thing you knew, sweetie?”

Hannah set the glass of ice water on the couch’s end table, curtsied, and received a “good girl” from her Mistress.

Brenda let out an exasperated sigh, said, “thanks, Hannah,” and took a drink of water.

“OK, so I was at the conference with Marcy all day,” she explained, referring to the hotel’s owner (at least on paper). “I was at dinner late, networking… There was a bit of a walk back from the restaurant to the hotel, the Boston hotel I mean. Marcy and I had broken off earlier because she’s supposed to have a meeting tomorrow morning, so I was all alone.

“It must’ve been midnight by the time I had to stop and tie my shoe, just a block away from the hotel, and I saw this woman. Mid-height, brunette, dressed in this half-buttoned striped shirt and a long skirt. It was dark, I couldn’t make her features out that well. But she came closer… I saw she was one of Your kind, Mistress. Pallid, those captivating red eyes, fangs… and even more youthful than You, Mistress. She couldn’t have been more than twenty years old or so.”

Brenda shuddered, and Naomi pulled her closer, wrapped up in her strong arms.

“Nineteen,” the vampire confirmed with a small nod.

“She told me I had a familiar scent,” the thrall continued. “I told her I’d never seen her before, that I’m already a thrall to my Mistress. She laughed, and oh Goddess it was so alluring, almost like You, Mistress, almost…”

It soon became apparent to Brenda, Gail, and Hannah all that their Mistress was letting loose a continual, low growl. They rarely observed it from her in practice, but vampires were solitary and territorial predators, and threatening or drinking from another vampire’s thrall, their possession, their prey, was the surest way to incur their wrath. Gail hoped for her Mistress’ sake first and foremost that Brenda hadn’t been harmed.

Hands on both of Brenda’s shoulders like she was hanging on for dear undeath, Naomi asked, “She didn’t drink from you, did she?”

“I… I don’t think so, Mistress,” Brenda said, visibly uncomfortable as she looked down and shuffled her feet. “I want to say no for certain. But she had me hypnotized for so long… I barely remember most of it.”

“The shock of her fangs would most likely have woken you,” Naomi said, breathing a sigh of relief. Her kind needed no air to survive, but a breath now and again helped her ground herself. “I thought not in any case… but I needed to be sure. You don’t have her scent on you.”

Enthrallment altered the scent of a human’s blood, so drinking from another vampire’s thrall was never a mistake — only an act of war. But Naomi was too anxious about the resurgence of this ghost of her past to let herself be certain.

“If I may continue, Mistress…” Brenda began, and her Mistress nodded. “She asked me who my Mistress was. I was threatened, backed into a corner, and she was so pretty, I couldn’t help but answer Her… I told her Your name.”

“How did she… respond?” Naomi asked, twiddling her thumbs around her thrall’s back.

“She seemed… happy. Maybe even delighted,” Brenda continued. “Said it was a reunion that should’ve happened a century and a half ago. She had me look into her eyes… I knew You wouldn’t like it, Mistress, but I couldn’t resist her… I was terrified she was going to try to take me from You.”

“Don’t worry, my darling.” Naomi said, kissing her thrall’s forehead. “I would never blame you for what was imposed by another.”

“Thank You, Mistress,” Brenda said, then, “I forgot most of what happened after that. I think… she took me back to her car, first. It must’ve been over an hour to get up here. I lost myself in trance… and the next thing I knew, I was here, knocking on Your door. Being woken up by You.

“I think she’s stuck out in the parking lot, Mistress. She needed to be invited in. Sent me here to let You know.”

“I’d better go deal with her,” Naomi growled, letting go of Brenda and climbing to her feet.

“A century and a half ago… Goddess, is Amelia connected to Your begetter? Or to Lady Olivia?” Gail asked, standing up beside her Mistress. She referred to Naomi’s longtime vampire lover whom she had met in the early 19th century, of course, but that was another story for another night.

Naomi nodded. “She was my fellow fledgling. Turned by him half a century or so before my sister and I. I haven’t seen her since his death… didn’t particularly intend to. Oh, Lilith…”

She sighed. “I hope that this will be easier than I imagine.”

“Should I get dressed, Mistress? Come with You?” Gail asked.

“Hmm, yes. You and Brenda both,” Naomi said, nodding to her other thrall. “Even at this time of night, Hannah might be a bit conspicuous dressed as she is, though…” She snapped her fingers in her maid’s direction once more. “Finish wiping the bathroom, Hannah. Ideally it won’t be too long till I return.”

“Yes, Mistress,” Hannah said with a curtsy as Gail got herself dressed in her favorite green tank top, brown skirt, and green tights, following Naomi and Brenda out the door soon afterward.

The elevator ride to the lobby felt longer to the vampire than it probably really was. Standing with her thralls by her side, she could think of nothing to say. She so often found herself having to come down to the lobby to deal with visitors, a blessing since it let her thralls vet them first, but a curse that only increased the ceremony and anticipation of dealing with them.

Naomi’s thrall Sandra, a tan-skinned woman with long black hair and brown eyes, was standing behind the reception desk looking a bit bored as the three arrived in the otherwise-empty lobby, long abandoned at this latest of hours.

But Naomi couldn’t bring herself to spare any time for chitchat with her girls, and she couldn’t stand procrastinating. So she ran outside as fast as the wind, not speaking a single word as she did.

Sandra started, “Mistress, are you—”

“Another vampire came to see Her,” Brenda explained.

“I think She’s going to need some space,” Gail added.

Bursting out into the cool autumn night air, Naomi whipped her head around desperately, looking for the woman who dared to come back into her undeath. But she didn’t have to look far to find her.

Amelia was leaning against the hotel’s front wall facing the parking lot, dressed in just the clothes that Brenda had described, an orange-and-white striped blouse, partially unbuttoned to show her cleavage and belly button, and a long straight tan skirt. Her appearance had changed infuriatingly little since the 19th century, a sight that rarely caused fury for Naomi, but she had to make an exception in this case. Her figure was still plump, her skin a grayish pallor, her height still a foot shorter or so than Naomi’s, her brown hair still straight, tied in a bun the way she always liked to do.

Her head turned and her eyes widened as she saw the redhead vampire stare her down with a mad fury, and even Amelia’s superhuman reflexes were too little to overcome another of her kind rushing in for a full-body tackle, pinning her to the rough concrete below them both, scratching up her favorite top.

Oh, yes — this felt good for Naomi. Not only putting this miserable shadow of the past in her place, but pinning down a fellow vampire at all. She had strength beyond any human, but among vampires, Naomi was too skinny to stand a chance, typically. But she had at least been a carpenter’s apprentice in life, something that granted her a modicum of arm strength. Amelia was smaller, shorter, and had only been a socialite, a trophy wife. After Naomi’s own fledgling and that simpering professor had both managed to overpower her, not to mention being captured for nearly a week by that hunter (more stories for other nights), she needed this, and she was getting it.

“How dare you approach my Brenda as you did?” Naomi snarled, digging red-painted fingernails into Amelia’s soft flesh. Vampires didn’t have blood, but rather a thick, dark ichor that was unpalatable and unfilling to their own tongues, and a small amount was oozing out of Amelia’s shoulders now. But that would be no serious injury, not one that wouldn’t heal as soon as Naomi loosened her grip, since it hadn’t been caused by silver or sunlight.

Amelia didn’t look half as sinister as Naomi expected her to, rather just shocked and awed by the redheaded vampire’s attack.

“N-Naomi, it really is you,” she spoke in a fairly thick Brazilian accent. Amelia had originally hailed from the Kingdom of Portugal, but had traveled to the New World with her former husband for business reasons shortly before being turned by Alexander. Naomi realized she must’ve fled to another Portuguese-speaking territory subsequent to their begetter’s death.

“What is your excuse?” Naomi demanded in her own Mid-Atlantic accent. While hailing from a working-class background in life, she’d spent a large amount of time mingling with the upper classes in and around Boston in her early undeath, learning to speak in what was regarded as a particularly refined way. She always appreciated it for its feminine edge.

“I—I—Oh, Lilith, you’re serious, aren’t you?” Amelia said, crimson eyes turning to pinpricks. “I meant no harm to her, I swear it! Frankly, I was surprised to see you with a female thrall at all, given His teachings on the matter. I certainly don’t have any myself. Wouldn’t dream of it!”

Naomi stopped for a moment, loosened her grip, leaned back onto her knees rather than leaning over Amelia. How outrageous, to think she’d still hold him in high regard. Was she still a fucking fledgling, after two entire centuries? But something felt off about her statement, too…

“Ah, thank you, Naomi,” she said. “Sorry to startle you.”

Wait. She shouldn’t have been calling her by name. That wasn’t quite right, was it?

“I, uh… I appreciate that you kept your fangs out of her,” Naomi said sheepishly, feeling as though she’d moved on to the next world.

“It is excellent to see you again,” Amelia said, jumping to her feet no worse for wear beyond her clothes. “I’d been certain I’d never get the chance to do so.

“You’ve kept well over the centuries, I gather? I see you’ve made this entire establishment your residence. Quite impressive, really. May I come in already?”

No, no, none of this was right, and it was giving Naomi a headache, but at least there was no hostility intended. Maybe none in sight…

“Eh… very well,” the redheaded vampire said, staring off at the marshland in the distance.

“Wonderful!” Amelia said, dashing over to the revolving door, about to step inside.

“I don’t mean to flood you with questions, Naomi darling, but how has ▓▓▓▓▓▓ been? Still his same old sad self?” she chuckled, stepping into the revolving door and into Naomi’s own home, a place she had until just now regarded as remarkably safe.

She hadn’t heard that name in a very long time, and hearing it hurt worse than silver ever could.

But it was better than it being applied to herself, she supposed.