In a poor district of the city of Diyarbakir, two vampires brought their prey into an inn.

The year was 1825, and one of the vampires was Naomi. Eight years had passed since Alexander’s death — twenty-one since she’d been turned — and she had felt a desperate need to see the world beyond the small bit of the newly-formed United States that she had known for all her life and undeath, to escape her own past. She was traveling across Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, and in the process she’d found herself on the eastern side of the Ottoman Empire, in this city — one of the oldest cities in the world and the historic center of Kurdish culture — in quite an awkward situation.

The other vampire? Naomi didn’t know her name, not yet. But she was beautiful, possessed of slightly messy dark brown hair cut in a bob style, skin of a darker pallor than Naomi’s own with darker tattoos in the shape of lines and stars on her hands, a medium-height and slightly plump frame, and crimson eyes shared with all their kind. She wore an elaborately-embroidered blue dress with long, flowing sleeves that fell past her knees, but showed off a bit of her curves. Judging by her looks, Naomi thought that she must’ve been turned in her mid thirties.

The two vampires, one local and one visiting from much more than an ocean away, had both converged on this girl, some slender brunette thing whose name had never been asked. Her looks and her smell were enough to convince them both of their need for her blood. But they had seen her at the same moment, and that was a dangerous prospect for such territorial creatures. Naomi knew that this city was far from her own rightful hunting ground, but she needed to drink too as long as she was here, and conflicting needs could easily turn deadly among the undead.

Thankfully, the other vampire had been willing to negotiate. In fact, she’d seemed fairly fascinated by Naomi. So they agreed to take her to a local inn, different from the one that Naomi was staying in — that was, neutral ground — and share her together.

They’d already pacified the innkeeper and brought the girl to a private room, comfortably out of the public eye. She was laid comfortably on the bed now, while the two vampires figured out exactly how they were going to do this.

“Shall we each take one side of the neck?” Naomi asked, peering around awkwardly, not quite meeting the other’s gaze. It was a lucky break to meet another of her kind who seemed quite proficient with the English language, but not particularly unlikely; vampires could pick up all sorts of skills in their long undeaths. Naomi had learned how to ask for directions and things, but she was far from an expert with any of the local languages.

“Hm. I suppose,” the other vampire said, laughing a bit awkwardly. “I’m sorry. It’s no offense to you, but I’ve never shared blood with a man before.”

Naomi tensed up hearing that. Although she’d done her best to feminize her own body, undead bodies were terribly slow to change; even hair grew ten times slower than that of a human. That was convenient for her since she only very rarely had to shave her facial hair, but on the other hand, it was taking her a long time to grow her hair out. Even eight years in, it still hadn’t reached her shoulders, but she’d get there eventually, she supposed.

Her figure hadn’t changed a lot either, her tits small, her thighs possessing barely any definition, and her voice still was too deep, too gravelly. But worst of all was her lack of experience making herself look pretty, projecting confidence, femininity. She didn’t know what clothes to wear. So many feminine outfits didn’t match her figure well, and she disliked how she looked in them. Right now she was wearing a brown tunic she had bought in the area — fairly unisex clothing. And so how could she be surprised that this gorgeous woman before her, who clearly had worked out every inch of her appearance and outfit to become as seductive as Lilith herself, only saw her as a man?

She couldn’t be surprised at all, but it still made her unbeating heart sink. Yet she reminded herself of her Violet’s advice —

“I don’t think You should capitulate, Mistress. Make everyone understand the woman You are deep down.”

So Naomi looked at the other of her kind, did her best to smile, show no fear.

“I’m actually a woman,” the fledgling said, clenching her fists so tight that her fingernails cut her palms.

The other vampire had been looking at their shared prey, left laying on the bed in an entranced haze. But hearing Naomi’s words, she turned her crimson gaze back to her, looking her up and down.

“Oh, I see,” the dark-haired vampire said with a bit of embarrassment. “Seems I misunderstood? I thought I had seen, erm, how does one say this…” She motioned at Naomi’s crotch, and the fledgling was sure that the elder vampire would have been blushing if she’d had blood to rush to her face. The smell of the girl’s blood had gotten Naomi very excited.

“Oh… you’re not actually mistaken,” Naomi said, giggling nervously. Was she really prepared to share the story of her life and undeath with this rival predator? It seemed the only way. And the rival predator had been rather accommodating so far, sharing the girl with her even in her own territory. Perhaps Naomi owed her an explanation in turn.

“It’s complicated for me, I suppose,” she continued. “Maybe it’s wrong to say I’m a woman… it’s more so that I want to be a woman very, very badly! Ah, Lilith, every night and day since I was just a child I’ve had the feeling, always at the back of my mind… envying my sister and my childhood crush. But I knew that anything of the sort would be forbidden… just a form of sodomy, against natural law…

“Then I was killed and reborn, and I realized I was no longer bound by God’s law, that I could be anything, do anything. And the smell of women’s blood was so divine… I had always loved women, but as a vampire I knew that there must be something setting it apart. I thought I could extract that feminine essence, take it into myself as I drank from a woman. And it’s worked… it’s made me… like this. Like a woman, in many ways.”

Naomi looked down at herself, so much more secure in her own body than she had previously been, even if she was still a long, long way away from being her ideal self. She wanted to speak about how Alexander had taken her dreams from her, but what Naomi had done to escape his influence was fairly sacrosanct among vampires — not that she regretted it. Best if she remained tight-lipped about it for the time being.

The other vampire gave Naomi a long and hard look, remaining silent, and approached her slowly, reaching out a hand…

Naomi could no longer avoid showing fear. The other vampire surely meant to strike her, just like Alexander would, and the fledgling couldn’t help but flinch away, close her eyes and try to brace herself for what would come next.

Only a split second later she felt a cold, pallid hand on her cheek.

She opened her eyes to see the other vampire smiling.

“I never dreamt that such a thing was possible,” the elder vampire said. “It explains some of the feelings I’ve been having. A sort of… instinctive tolerance I’ve had toward you. I’ve only ever had an eye for women, you see. Clearly you’re no exception to that rule. I merely approached you with small-minded expectations.”

Naomi couldn’t help shedding tears at that, even knowing that she shouldn’t show such weakness in front of a rival predator. She couldn’t bring herself to look the other vampire directly in the eyes, despite knowing well that one vampire could not put another under their spell.

She was sure this was a trick, that the other vampire meant to hurt her badly in the end. Her identity would surely never be acceptable to anyone but her own thralls, not even from others of her own kind.

“Y-you t-think I’m a w-woman?” Naomi asked, terribly still, corpse-like, sure it must’ve all been a trick to hurt her worse when the rug was pulled away.

“Oh…” the other vampire said, taken aback. “You’re just a fledgling, aren’t you? I hadn’t realized…”

Naomi flinched away again, barely muttering, “W-what? I am, but how did you—”

“That is the fear of a woman wounded, nazdar,” the other vampire said, utilizing a term of endearment in her native tongue. “Not the look of a mature one of our kind, long-undead, belonging only to herself. You need not fear me, fledgling, need not fear any such person who might tell you no, who might make you seem lesser.

“My eyes deceived me at first, but I see now that you could only be a woman. By birthright or by choice, it means little to me. And even less to Lilith, I’m confident.

“In the blood-red eyes of our revered ancestor, freedom is the first virtue, freedom from the laws of men and the laws of nature alike. Don’t let them shackle you, fledgling. I don’t see why you shouldn’t be a woman in the same way as I, given that. Taking that name for yourself is everything she would want from her descendants. Especially if it’s a means of striking back against the old life the God you once worshiped would have had you live.”

The elder vampire smiled then, showing her fangs, and for the slightest moment, Naomi almost wished she was human again just so that she might allow them to pierce her flesh.

And besides the relief, the joy, the catharsis, the elder vampire’s words inspired fury as well, not against her but against those who had shackled Naomi to begin with. He who wielded the most silverclad shackles she had faced across life and undeath.

“I’ve thought the same since the night I first reawakened, realizing I was no longer bound by the laws of Christendom!” she growled, clenching her fists tight. “That I didn’t need to worry about what my parents might think, what the town pastor might think! I am a creature of darkness, expected to be evil—”

“Good and evil are not concepts I would recommend adhering too closely to, nazdar,” the other vampire interrupted, wearing a sympathetic frown. “They’re just ideas that humans invented to control each other, to decide whom is permitted to love whom, to make our kind look like monsters.”

Hm. Naomi had never thought about it that way before, but it made a certain kind of sense.

“I… think I can see what you mean,” the fledgling replied, feeling defeated, exhausted, but more seen than she had ever been by one of her own kind before. “It’s just… from the moment my begetter told me of Lilith, I thought that becoming a woman would allow me to represent everything she desired for our kind. But he rejected it, and I couldn’t even begin to change myself again until he was already… no longer part of my undeath.”

Naomi still didn’t have the heart to speak of her begetter’s ultimate fate out of a mix of guilt and fear. There were a number of reasons that it might not look good to another of her kind.

But the elder vampire raised an eyebrow and asked, “Killed, I presume?”

Naomi gave a small, frightened nod. “How did you know?”

“It’s as I said before. You’re still a fledgling,” the elder vampire explained, looking Naomi up and down. “No begetter in their right mind would release you. So I think you must have come all the way to the Old World trying to find out who you are, yes? Given there’s no one left to tell you.”

“Something like that,” Naomi said with a slight giggle. She shook her head then, only now just realizing how much she had told this random rival predator, the type of person she typically found herself better off avoiding. She wanted at least a little something in return — although she’d already been given a lot of reassurance, to be fair.

“What’s your name, by the way? I never asked.”

“Olivia Hendirin,” the elder vampire said, hand on her unbeating heart. “Proud former fledgling of Mistress Fali of Laasqoray. And yours?”

“Uh… N-Naomi. Naomi Rennt.”

It had been her sister’s name, but she’d already become accustomed to introducing herself that way. It still carried a certain surreal quality, though, knowing that it referred to her now, who she had become.

And, reluctantly, to match the elder vampire’s self-introduction, she added, “Fledgling of Alexander of Epirus.”

“Ah. I’ve heard his name spoken before among our kind,” Olivia said. “Maybe a century or two ago. He was nearly as old as my Mistress Fali, I believe. Reputation for being prone to anger, and for turning practically every human he became enamored with. I even heard rumor of him slaying his own fledglings when they failed him. I’m always shocked at how far a man can make it in this world without facing consequences, even in undeath. You say he made it all the way to the New World?”

Naomi winced. She knew for one thing that he had eventually faced consequences for his actions. But she also knew that he had slain his own fledglings, one of them before her very eyes, one whom she was very close to, and she could never get that horrible moment out of her mind.

“Yes. He decided to sail to the English colonies of America in the 1740s. And every word you spoke about him was true,” she said.

Olivia lowered her gaze. “I gather he was not a kind begetter to you, nazdar?”

Naomi shook her head. “Even less to his other fledglings, perhaps.” At least I survived to tell the tale, she thought.

“It’s a shameful thing that a beautiful girl like you ought to be mistreated so,” Olivia mused, leaning in closer to the fledgling. “How long ago was it that you were turned, exactly?”

“Uh… twenty-one years,” Naomi said, her whole body aglow with Olivia’s acceptance. “Nearly as long as my life, now that I think of it. So much of my undeath spent under his thumb…”

“Naomi… ah, that’s a beautiful name, I should say,” the elder vampire replied, patting Naomi’s shoulder.

“Thank you. It… it was my sister’s name. One of the last things I have to remember her by. And your name is lovely as well.”

Naomi felt a burning passion streaking through her body, cold and still, in a way she had never expected to feel for another of her kind. But she had never met another of her kind like Olivia before.

“Well, thank you, Naomi,” Olivia replied, clasping Naomi’s hand. “I’m glad you can preserve her in some way. And what I was meaning to say is that those twenty-one years will be only a fraction of your undeath one night in the future. I was blessed to have a begetter as wonderful as Mistress Fali. I was ten years her thrall, ten years her fledgling. When I was released, I felt quite well-equipped to be my own woman and carry the lessons she taught me forward. But it still feels incredibly long ago now.”

“How… long?” Naomi asked, nearly under the spell of this incredible woman. She envied, too, that Olivia had been a thrall before she was ever turned. Naomi herself was uncomfortable with the idea of ever turning someone, even her own Violet — who was sleeping now in another inn halfway across the city, middle-aged and only growing older still — but especially not someone she had just met the way her begetter had done to her. She had been thrust into this state of being so suddenly, from a simple, ordinary life to that of a predator. She could never be comfortable doing that to one of her thralls, let alone a stranger. Olivia at least had been gifted with a much more gradual transition, by a kinder Mistress, and Naomi wished she had the same for herself.

“Well, allow me to think…” Olivia said, pallid finger on her chin. “It’s 2525 now… I was turned in Sermawez 2022 at 33 years old. 503 years ago, to be precise.”

Naomi was astounded to hear such a number. Her begetter had been much older, of course, born and turned well before the era of humanity’s supposed savior. But to see someone like herself, a womanly lover of women, endure that long against all the hardship the world had to offer for someone like her… it gave her strength that she had never had before.

“You really think I can last that long? Five times longer than any human has lived since the era of creation?” the fledgling asked, looking down at her feet, at the delicious source of blood on the bed that made her mouth water.

“We are immortal creatures, nazdar,” Olivia assured her. “Both of us shall last far longer than that.

“And I’m sure there’s much more we can speak about, Miss Naomi. But we should probably not keep the girl waiting.”

Naomi nearly forgot Olivia then, even knowing she had so much more to tell her. She’d have to remain in this city longer than she ever expected. But the girl was brought back to the forefront of her mind, and her bloodlust with it. Alexander had always been impressed with her self-control, much better than her sister’s and even better than Alexander’s at times, prone to acts of rage as he was. It was one of the few virtues she truly possessed before becoming the woman she was, but when the night had run long and her tongue had not been sated, she knew it was apparent that she was still very much a fledgling.

And in the end, the two vampires took one side of the neck each as agreed, and they drank to their unbeating hearts’ content. But they were much closer to each other than either had expected, not rival predators at all, but something much sweeter — nearly as sweet as the blood of the girl beneath them both.

Regrettably, Olivia was unable to stand alongside Naomi as Amelia entered the hotel and saw the sights of the redheaded vampire’s home, convinced that she was someone she was not.

Naomi walked through the revolving door behind her, watching as Amelia took in the sights of the empty lobby, brightly lit by orange overhead lights — perhaps not particularly bright by human standards, but certainly by the standards of her own kind. But among the lobby’s supporting columns there were shadows, and in one of them Amelia stood.

Sandra, Gail, and Brenda all watched carefully from the reception desk, watched in kind by the brunette vampire unfamiliar to two of the three.

And their Mistress was soon behind her, whispered to by Amelia in the dark.

“May I presume that all of those women are yours?” she asked with an eyebrow raised, expressing something resembling disapproval. “They have your scent upon them.”

“That’s correct,” Naomi replied, doing her very best to project confidence. That was a matter she struggled with only rarely. “Everyone who works in this hotel is mine, Amelia. And I walk its halls freely.”

“Quite impressive. I have a mansion quite like Master’s in São Paulo,” Amelia said. “But it’s really orthogonal to the main thing I wanted to ask you, Naomi. How is it that you survived? I wasn’t in the room to see Master do the deed Himself, but…” She grit her fangs, realizing it was perhaps a touchy subject for the redheaded vampire — and she was right, though not quite for the reasons she presumed.

In truth, of course, Naomi had not survived her begetter’s wrath, not the Naomi that Amelia believed she was speaking to. And though the surviving sister briefly stammered, trying to scramble together an answer to a question with a false premise, she collected herself in time to give an answer, one that felt like stabbing herself through the heart.

“...He missed,” Naomi said, recalling the grisly moment when she’d lost her. But feeling disconnected from her own body more than she ever had since her first few nights of undeath, she mimed a stab through her left shoulder, smacking her fist in so hard she nearly cracked her own bone. He had not missed. Alexander’s prized dueling sword had gone straight through her sister’s heart, and her immortality had not lasted. And though the bond the surviving sister shared with her begetter was strong, her loyalty already well-tested, she’d somehow managed to feel a tinge of hatred after all that.

But as Naomi stared at Amelia with a hollow look in her crimson eyes, now committed to the lie she told about the woman who’d been her namesake, the brunette opened her mouth, filled with honest shock.

“And He simply left you for dead?” she asked.

Naomi shrugged, her voice trembling, knowing that Amelia would simply take it as a result of her stressful experiences.

“I got far away from there, from Boston. Traveled to Europe, North Africa, the Middle East. Even to Epirus, where Alexander had once dwelled,” Naomi said. It was all true. “I met a vampire named Olivia. She was like a second begetter after the first had forsaken me. And in the course of knowing her, I finally ceased being a fledgling.”

Naomi initially couldn’t divine why she didn’t simply speak the truth when she was already coming so close. But the truth was, she simply couldn’t bear to risk being addressed by her birth name — her deadname, as her thralls often put it. She realized how terribly fragile the self she had built truly was, that it could be toppled like a house of cards by a woman who had seen her at her lowest. One who was still loyal to Alexander 200 years later, a prospect that filled her with utter disgust.

“So… you abandoned Him?” Amelia asked, clutching the column behind her as though for dear undeath. “You simply left, and your Master, your brother, they never learned you had survived?”

And Naomi felt inclined to go back on the attack, hearing such raw sewage spill forth from her fellow fledgling’s fangs.

“My Master?” Naomi snarled, rushing up to the brunette’s face, baring her fangs. “He forsook me, Amelia, killed m-my… tried to kill me!”

“You’re His fledgling, Naomi…” Amelia said, heartbroken. “I’d gladly have let Him run me through if it were what He desired.”

Naomi knew it was true. She had personally experienced so much torment from Alexander, yet her loyalty had never truly wavered. Only the loss of a loved one had been able to break the spell in truth, and she knew that even if her sister had survived, she would have thanked him for the stabbing attempt, laid right back down to let him try again if he so desired. But for her own sake, she had to believe, she had to, that both her and her sister could be simply so strong-willed as to overcome his dominion…

That both sisters were stronger than him, together or apart.

“I know you would,” Naomi said, because Amelia was regrettably not stronger than him. “But I’m no fledgling of his. I haven’t been for a terribly long time.”

The two vampires stared each other down for a moment, a low growl echoing through the room just barely audible to the trio of Naomi’s thralls.

“You know He died, don’t you?” Amelia asked, a tear dripping down her cheek. “While you were busy neglecting Him.

“It was an accident. A horrible accident. I found what little remained of Him, His ashes, His clothes, His personal effects, outside His newly-purchased villa in Albany, New York. I didn’t know how it was possible… after two thousand years.

“I was devastated among those ashes, Naomi… I spent a whole night among them trying to make sense of it all, how my Master might have been torn away from me so suddenly, so shockingly. I thought it must have been murder at first, a hunter, but later I crossed paths with ▓▓▓▓▓▓ once again. He was so silent about it. Devastated, I could tell, especially when I showed him what little remained. He told me he’d been away from the mansion when Master had returned, unable to help him inside. I cursed him at first, screamed at him, blamed him. But I realized soon that in the end it had simply been an accident on Master’s part, somehow. A single misstep that led to his incineration. I never spoke to your brother again.

“And all this time, did you even know, Naomi? Did your brother ever tell you? You never did tell me what happened to him. Perhaps you just neglected him too, like you neglected everything to pursue your own hedonistic desires? Lilith, I can’t fucking believe you.”

Naomi stayed silent for a moment while Amelia looked away, the brunette unable to bring herself to even look at her neglectful counterpart. But finally the redhead got her story straight, and began to speak.

“I knew he died, Amelia. Miriam, Alexander’s thrall, you remember her? She ran into me by chance in New Haven, sobbing about what had happened to him. I took her as my own.” That much was true. Miriam she’d truly saved, given a life of sapphic love and companionship that no man, Alexander or otherwise, could ever have provided her.

“And Miriam told me, later on, after I’d had a taste of her, that my brother… after he’d spoken to you and all… he’d removed himself from this world. Only existed at our begetter’s pleasure, you see.”

It was true, too, that the man Naomi had once thought herself only existed at Alexander’s pleasure. And Naomi had dealt the death blow, leaving her fledglinghood and manhood behind for what she hoped was the last time after that last conversation with Amelia. Maybe this was how she had to explain it all to her, she realized. Ease her into it. Or maybe Amelia could never know the truth. Naomi would have to discover that in time.

“You missed not only your begetter’s death, then, but your own brother’s too,” Amelia said, dumbfounded. “Neglectful piece of merda.”

“I’ve made my peace with it. He was weak and pathetic in the end. Like all men,” Naomi growled.

“You would dare to speak about Master that way?” Amelia asked, raising her voice quite substantially.

“I was speaking about my brother,” Naomi said with a smirk. “But you’re right. It applies just as well to Alexander.

“And I would ask that you keep your voice down at this time of night, for both of our sakes.”

Amelia’s eyes narrowed, and she turned away, looking toward the reception desk, fists clenched.

“I was overjoyed when I saw your Brenda, Naomi. When I realized you survived. But you’re anything but the woman I once knew. I miss her.”

Naomi sighed, knowing that she wasn’t truly the one who was missed.

“I miss her too.” That much was true.

“Well, it’s getting to be a bit late to head back to the city,” Amelia said. “Less than a couple of hours till the sun rises. Will you at least allow me to spend the day?”

“Very well,” Naomi said, nodding slowly as she looked at a clock on the wall. It was indeed half past 3 a.m. in mid-September, little time remaining before the first hints of deadly sunlight would creep over the horizon.

“Sandra, darling, we do have an empty room, don’t we?”

The thrall worked with the computer at the reception desk for a few seconds before looking back up at her Mistress with a smile.

“Many, Mistress,” she said. “I could book her on any floor she likes.”

Amelia opened her mouth to speak, but Naomi stepped ahead of her, asserting her sovereignty over her thrall’s will, and over her own residence.

“Put her on the top floor,” the redhead said. “509, the room across from mine. I won’t want to lose track of her.” She side-eyed the brunette as she spoke, intent on teaching her her place as long as she insisted on walking back into her undeath.

“Yes, Mistress,” Sandra said. “I have the key card ready for you, Miss…” Brenda leaned over the counter, whispering the unfamiliar vampire’s full name.

“Miss Marques,” Sandra smiled, card in hand, looking in the direction of what seemed to her to be two Goddesses in flesh.

“Very good. Bring it over here, then,” Amelia said, smooth and sultry. Naomi noticed a subtle quality in the other vampire’s voice that she recognized readily as a tone dripping with seductive power. It took many years to master it, but vampires were capable of modulating their hypnotic charisma, exerting greater or lesser influence over the wills of humans at any given moment. And Amelia was exercising a great deal of influence over someone who wasn’t hers to influence, Sandra’s eyes beginning to glaze over as she walked out from behind the desk. She was well-conditioned to accept orders.

“She is mine, Amelia,” Naomi growled, tugging on the other vampire’s sleeve. “Not yours to order around.”

“Naomi, darling,” Amelia said, whipping her head around to reveal a face that didn’t seem to take this at all seriously, “I just want my room key. You know I’m not going to drink from her, don’t you?”

“Why should I know that?” Naomi said, tugging again on Amelia’s sleeve, forcing her to face her. The redheaded vampire suspected that she already knew the answer, but she had to hear it from the Lilith-damned fledgling’s own mouth before she believed it.

“S-should I come over there or not, Mistress?” Sandra stammered, standing right on the front side of the desk, having shaken herself out of trance for her Mistress’ sake.

“Yes, darling, on my authority,” Naomi replied, before turning her gaze back to Amelia expectantly. “You dared to hypnotize my Brenda. You may not have drunk from her, but that is still a violation of my territory, Amelia. Tell me why I should give you the privilege of staying the day here at all. Maybe you ought to find some place to fend for yourself instead. The way I had to after what happened with our begetter.”

Amelia’s crimson eyes darted back and forth, her fangs gritted, and she suddenly seemed backed into a corner. Naomi was astonished by just how weak she seemed, at her mercy, even, and she felt a tinge of pity for her former fellow fledgling.

“I don’t understand why you view this as such a violation,” Amelia said. “You and I used to share our thralls every night. At times it was unclear if one belonged to you or I.”

“I never would have—” Naomi began, but she stopped herself realizing the implications. Her sister and Amelia had shared their thralls, surely, not unlike what Naomi and Olivia had come to do as they got to know each other. But Naomi hadn’t ever paid much mind to her fellow fledglings’ thralls or what their Mistresses cared to do with them, all the internal politics, because her fellow fledglings’ thralls all had one thing in common.

They were all men, their bodies and their blood utterly unappetizing to Naomi.

“You did, Naomi!” Amelia insisted, a desperate, pallid hand placed on Naomi’s shoulder. “We did! Lilith, you’ve changed so much, that you’d deny this—”

“We did. We did share them,” Naomi lied, bristling at the thought of regularly drinking from men. She had done it occasionally, but… She was eager to change the subject away from this matter.

“At least you’ll admit it,” Amelia said, breathing a sigh of relief. “After you were presumed dead, I took the lion’s share of your thralls, you know, and Master took His favorites. Your brother didn’t want any part of them. He was always such a strange stubborn sort.”

As her sister’s so-called brother, Naomi had been utterly unconcerned with the fate of her sister’s thralls following her death. She’d had much more important things to consider.

“You abandoned them then, it seems,” Amelia continued. “Well I’ll admit I didn’t know it at the time, but why should I think that this Brenda girl would be someone you’d truly care about any more than Michael or William from back then? You left them behind, and I doubt you cared much that I, yes, hypnotized them and drank from them to my satisfaction?”

Naomi stomped her foot, leaving the smallest of hairline cracks in the tile floor beneath her. She hoped that that wouldn’t wake anyone on the second story… But this was too much to bear.

“Can’t you see, Amelia?” Naomi said with a crazed fanged grin, squeezing Amelia’s arm tight, too tight. “I didn’t care for any of them the way I care for my girls now! Everyone, all of them, are women! And I…” Her crimson eyes began to well up with tears. “I always cared most for women.”

She desperately wished it were true for her sister too, but she had long accepted that she would never be privy to the answer to that question.

“Unhand me, you wretch!” Amelia said, wearing a putrid frown, and Naomi lost the will to hold on as the brunette batted her arm away. “Look at how you defile His legacy. You know He always meant for His female fledglings to be seductresses of men. Wouldn’t let you or I near any of His girls or ▓▓▓▓▓▓’s. And you’d go so far as to forsake men entirely? Why, you’re just like He always warned, coveting His girls. I should be ashamed to sleep a single day within your residence.”

Naomi couldn’t believe the gall of this woman to accuse her, her sister rather, of such a thing. Alexander was a very jealous man, more territorial than the average vampire too, and deeply paranoid. He’d always reprimanded Naomi’s sister for leering at his Lisette, his Miriam. Those reprimands had escalated to threats, and those threats had escalated to the end of her undeath.

On the wrong night, Amelia could inflict deep, lasting wounds with such statements. But tonight, Naomi was at the heart of her own territory, and she wasn’t going to simply stand there and take it.

“But you need somewhere to sleep today, don’t you?” she said. “At this time of night, it might be difficult to have a human let you into their home, and it’s a long way back to Boston.

“You’ll be stuck playing by my rules rather than his.”

Sandra was standing by with the key card in hand, intimidated by the feuding Goddesses before her, and quite concerned about her Mistress’ mental health. She knew well that She didn’t like to be spiteful. And so she didn’t want to interrupt, but…

“Would you like your room key, Miss Marques?” she asked, instinctively flinching despite knowing rationally that her Mistress would protect her if the brunette vampire tried anything. Her petite form no doubt hid terrifying strength and speed, but Sandra’s Mistress was simply a lot bigger.

Amelia seemed to ignore the thrall, crimson eyes still fixed on Naomi. 

“Pulling rank on me this way… your own fellow fledgling,” she said, seeming wounded by the redhead’s words. “But I suppose you’re right. I must stay the day.” She swiped the card from Sandra in a single swift motion, faster than the thrall’s limited human vision could track, and turned toward the elevators at the back left of the lobby.

“I’m not a fledgling, Amelia,” Naomi insisted. “Everything Alexander wanted me to be, I left behind. Lilith, sometimes I find myself stuck in the past, but you’re on a whole other level. You must think it’s still 1810. Even the humans are beginning to accept that women can love each other, I’ve found.”

She thought of her sometimes-thrall Celia, who had shown her solidarity even in the most dire of positions. Another story for another night.

“What does it matter what the humans think, Naomi?” Amelia asked, already halfway across the room. “It’s not their will I’m bound to serve.”

Naomi hissed, but the sight of her Sandra standing by her side was enough to calm her before she attempted something drastic. The best thing for her would be to have some private time with her thralls, away from this miserable woman.

“...Amelia,” Naomi said, a few final thoughts necessary to address. “I don’t want you drinking from anyone within this building.”

Amelia inhaled, frightened to speak her next words. “I didn’t bring any thralls with me, Naomi. My Francisco’s back in the city… and I’ve yet to have anything to drink tonight. I really don’t know if I can promise that, not even to the Mistress of the house… er… hotel, I suppose.”

Naomi growled, but couldn’t quite bring herself to starve another of her kind. She knew firsthand just how cruel such a thing could be.

“Very well,” she conceded. “Not as though you and I have overlapping preferences, anyway.”

For now, at least, she told herself.

Amelia turned to give the redhead a simple nod, then back toward the elevator with a roll of her eyes.

“And Amelia,” Naomi said, one more time. “It’s been a long time. Glad we can see each other again.”

She wasn’t sure how genuine she was being, at the heart of it. Amelia was her oldest acquaintance yet surviving, the last relic of her fledglinghood, and there was a certain value in that to her. But after these centuries the fledgling still couldn’t see Naomi for who she was, so stuck in her ways that it stung like a sunbeam, and she felt that this reunion reopened more wounds than it even began to close.

She hoped it could change, that Amelia could change, but if a girl couldn’t change herself in two centuries, what hope did she have to be changed by others?

Yet, as Amelia sighed, turned back toward Naomi, and spoke the simple words, “I’m glad as well,” Naomi could see that faint dark cloud creeping over the bright horizon at last.

She just needed to find whatever secret power Olivia had wielded over her.

“I simply can’t believe her!” Naomi snarled, back safe in her suite with Gail by her side. Naomi had seen to it that Brenda was given a room to stay the night in as well, after all that had been done to her, displaced from her hotel room in the city, and she was surely tucked into bed by now.

“Mistress, shouldn’t you be quiet?” Gail whispered. “These suites share a wall, don’t they? She could hear you.”

A thrall like her was obedient and loyal to a fault, and that occasionally meant protecting her Mistress from Her own mistakes, within reason, of course.

Naomi threw herself onto her bed, adorned with a very high threadcount but light and airy brown comforter. She didn’t like being too warm while sleeping, after all. And Gail was with her in her arms a moment later wrapped up just as her Mistress liked her to be.

“I ought to be,” the vampire confirmed, now whispering. “Frankly, I never should have put her on the same floor as myself. Oh, Lilith, I can’t sit still!”

She stood, letting go of her thrall, and began pacing around her bedroom. Like the living room it attached to, it was spacious and dimly lit, containing a walk-in closet, paintings upon the walls, a floor-to-ceiling mirror that she used only when dressing up her girls in various outfits, and large windows that overlooked the beach down below and the ocean beyond it. The windows’ heavy dark red blackout curtains were pulled aside at the moment, letting in a bit of faint moonlight, though they could not remain so safely for long.

“So she thinks You’re Your sister, right?” Gail asked, using her quietest possible whisper. She knew that her Mistress’ hearing was sharper than a human’s, and the same went for Amelia, so she felt it best to not take risks.

“Yes,” Naomi said, whirling around to face Gail, who was still sat upon the bed. “And there’s a flattering aspect to it, have no doubt. But she’s not seeing me for who I really am. You know how important that is to me, my darling.”

“I guess I’m mainly just surprised that you two look that alike, Mistress,” Gail said. “I mean, You still remember, um, Your begetter clearly, don’t You? And Lady Olivia? Like, Your kind doesn’t forget stuff with age like us weak little humans do. So the same must go for Miss Marques. And You’re beautiful, Mistress, so feminine… You pass as well as any trans girl I’ve ever known. But, I mean, You and Your sister weren’t twins, right?”

“No,” Naomi confirmed with a shake of her head. “My sister Naomi wasn’t born till I was five years old. And I suppose it’s hard for me to say precisely how similar we look… I never looked like this side-by-side with her… And I have paintings of myself, but only memories of her. But she was shorter than me, certainly. My entire family was tall, my mother and father. Naomi was six foot one, perhaps? And I don’t get the impression our faces were the same. She had a slightly wider frame than I, if memory serves.

“My heels help excuse the height difference, I suppose,” she continued, looking at the heeled ankle boots she’d been wearing while dealing with Amelia, now stored back in her closet. “And my hairstyle’s different from what she wore then. She never had bangs the way I like mine, and her hair tended longer, down nearly to her waist at times. So it might obfuscate some of the details.

“But more than anything else, it’s perception, darling. I wonder if Amelia even knows what a trans woman is. Certainly she knew what I wanted to do with my body, but would she ever make the connection? It was so long ago, and he shot it down so completely. It hasn’t even crossed her mind that I might be… myself, I think. She hears Naomi Rennt, and she thinks it could only ever be her, and that’s that. Even as it’d require an implausible survival.

“And I told her that I died, besides. She would believe that I’d end my undeath as soon as our begetter was out of the picture. She never understood me at all…”

“I love You, Mistress,” Gail said, standing to hug Naomi. The vampire could never lose hope entirely as long as she still had her beloved thralls by her side, and she took her Gail in her own arms, squeezing her as tight as was safe for the small, fragile human woman.

“I love you too, my darling,” Naomi replied.

At that time, Hannah walked into the bedroom, dressed still as the maid she was made to be, and she curtsied for her Mistress. Naomi envied her for a fleeting moment, given that she’d remained blissfully unaware of Amelia’s intrusion. And Lilith, she looked so pretty that way, so dedicated to service and obedience, and it all enhanced the smell of her O positive blood, too…

“I’ve finished cleaning Your suite, Mistress,” the maid said, eyes downturned from her Mistress as commanded.

“Good girl,” Naomi said. Hannah was such a calming, grounding presence in her undeath, able to bring her joy even in her brightest of hours.

“Now, Hannah, your service is complete,” she continued, invoking one of the hypnotic triggers she had given her thrall. Hannah was a wonderful maid, but at this time, Naomi simply wanted her thrall and girlfriend by her side, especially after all that had occurred.

Hannah blinked a few times, her body loosening up a bit after the tightly-managed posture she had held as a maid. And as she looked around and saw Gail, saw her Mistress, she broke down giggling and blushing, running forward to hug them both.

“Goddess, I love being Your maid, Mistress!” Hannah said, latching onto Naomi like an extra-strength magnet, no less loyal when relieved of her maid duties. “Ohh, I was just cleaning, and serving, and I was an obedient maid, and… and a maid’s purpose is to serve her Mistress. I am an obedien—”

Naomi snapped her fingers next to her thrall’s ear, commanding her attention away from the mantra she’d fallen back into.

“Awake and alert, darling,” the vampire said, invoking another hypnotic trigger. She enjoyed implanting them in her thralls liberally; it made them easier to control on a night-to-night basis.

“Heh… sorry, Mistress,” Hannah said, shaking her head and becoming more coherent. “Just, uh, dressed like this, it’s really easy to fall back into it.”

“Well, that’s alright. You do look very adorable in it,” Naomi clarified.

“You do,” Gail said. “And, Goddess, it was so hot to see you fall back under Mistress’ spell like that. Hehehe…” She shuddered, pressing herself up against her Mistress despite the lack of body heat that She provided. The three of them were gathered at the foot of Naomi’s bed.

“Hm, well, I could always use another maid,” Naomi said, scratching Gail’s head as the blonde thrall’s lips curled into a smile.

“Oh Goddess, I’m just about making sense of all of my memories,” Hannah said. “With… uh, Brenda and all? I think there was like, a vampire from Your past, Mistress?”

“That’s right. I suppose I should speak to you all about her as well. But first, I’d really like to get a drink from you before the night is up,” Naomi said. She’d already had a drink tonight of course, but a second one would never hurt, and the taste of blood always helped calm her.

“Yes, Mistress!” Hannah said, eager for the feeling of her Mistress’ fangs in her neck. It was a sensation she never grew tired of, though her Mistress was always eager to remind her that She could only safely drink from her once a week on average if she wanted to stay out of the hospital. Hannah couldn’t bring herself to care personally either way, but her Mistress insisted that she prioritize her own well-being, and so she did.

“Then get undressed for me, dear,” Naomi said. “I don’t want your uniform getting stained with blood.”

“Yes, Mistress,” Hannah said. With Gail’s help, she unzipped her dress and untied her apron, exposing her naked body beneath. She was nearly as tall as her Mistress at six foot two and quite a lot wider and chubbier. Her tits had already been decently-sized when her Mistress had taken her around a year and a half ago, but they’d had a lot of room to grow then what with her only having taken hormones for five months at the time. Now they constituted a great deal of the fat on her torso, and they were big and soft with still-quite-perky nipples, perfect for grabbing in Naomi’s eyes.

Naomi wrapped her arms around Hannah’s back and leapt onto her bed with her thrall in her arms, wasting no time at all as she felt up Hannah’s ass and began kissing her face and lips. Biting was such an intense experience for both vampire and thrall that Naomi could never stand to eschew foreplay entirely outside the most desperate of scenarios.

But as she made out with one of her favorite girls, Gail content to wait by the bedside and enjoy the view, Naomi heard something, smelled something that bothered her quite a lot.

Lilith, she never should have put Amelia on the same floor as her, let alone a single room away.

Naomi’s hearing wasn’t truly that sharp. She could hear a heartbeat from across a room, but a wall separated the redheaded vampire from her brunette counterpart, and there was a great deal of background noise from the building’s central heating and air conditioning and various electronic devices in use. But she heard moaning through that wall, a sound that even her thralls could probably hear if they listened hard, since Naomi’s bedroom was adjacent to the bed in Amelia’s room, more or less.

And the smell was unmistakable, the smell of human blood. But it was a sickly-smelling blood, not due to any bloodborne illness but rather due to its pollution with that vile chemical that had once plagued Naomi’s own life and undeath, the poison called testosterone.

Though it nourished her as well as any, Naomi had always reviled the taste of men’s blood. Ever the chauvinist, Alexander had stood tall by his ancient Greek ideals and taken both women and men for himself while denying women the pleasure of each other, and he’d extended the same courtesy to Naomi thanks to her supposed manhood. But she’d always stuck strictly to women, not only for their feminine essence, but because their blood tasted and smelled so much sweeter, and because one simple truth had always stood above most others in her mind.

That was, that men could never compare to women in almost any sphere — attractiveness, the taste of their blood, personal appeal… At this point in her undeath, Naomi was certain that there was nothing in this world that a man could do that a woman could not do better.

Naomi’s fledgling Valerie, turned just over a year ago, enjoyed the taste of men’s blood just about as much as women’s, bizarrely enough. She wasn’t unique in that — Naomi had met many vampires over her long years who felt the same way, and so she never objected to her fledgling feeling it herself. Some women were simply made differently, and Naomi couldn’t object to that. She didn’t like to admit it, but to deny men to Valerie would ultimately be a similar act to what Alexander had done to her.

Still, she felt Amelia ought not drink from men where she could smell it, not in her own domain. She could do what she liked, sure, in the privacy of her own home — far away from here.

“I don’t know how I can tolerate Amelia being here…” Naomi muttered between kisses. If there was one thing that could take her mind off of that acrid smell, it’d be Hannah’s own.

“I don’t know much about what’s happening, Mistress,” Hannah replied, in between moans as Naomi dug her red-painted fingernails into Hannah’s large soft tits. “But you won’t have to face it alone.”

“I know, darling. And I’ll make it through thanks to you,” Naomi said. “In fact, I feel I can’t just let her leave either. Not till I make her understand.”

“Understand what, Mistress?”

“How much more lovely you smell, my dear.”

And with that, Naomi sank her fangs into the flesh of her thrall’s left tit and drank to her heart’s content, knowing that one night soon, Amelia would understand what her begetter never could.