“It’s not very noticeable,” Olivia insisted, but there was little she could do to convince Naomi that she had not made quite an enormous mistake.

It was just a small thing. Barely noticeable, really, but it laid bare Naomi’s status as a fledgling. Just a single little drop of blood, less than half an inch wide, on the hem of Olivia’s beautiful blue dress. Just because Naomi had been too lazy to lick the wound fully clean, and a little more had dribbled down the girl’s neck to Olivia’s dress as she helped lift the girl off of the bed…

“I don’t know how you could ever not notice it,” Naomi said, staring at her own mistake.

The two vampires were in a small plaza in a wealthier part of the city of Diyarbakir, outside a mansion that Olivia had called her own for the last several decades. The girl they’d shared had been sent on her way with no memory of the incident, and neither vampire had ever bothered to learn her name, because they’d both been distracted with each other, enough for the local vampire to ask the foreigner to spend the day in her home.

Naomi had been more than sufficiently enamored to say yes. But she’d had to stop by the inn she was staying in first to collect her things, her beloved thrall Violet included, and it had to have been only a couple of hours till sunrise by now.

“Her dress has that red stripe on it, Mistress,” Violet added, standing by her Mistress’ side. “It should make the stain quite a lot less noticeable.”

Violet had grown her wavy brown hair out longer since her Mistress’ fledglinghood and her age had long begun to show on her face, now that she was forty-four years old. She never minded aging while her Mistress remained a young woman of twenty-six — it was simply their respective natures. Tonight, she was dressed in a loose-fitting black blouse and a long skirt of matching color.

“Your Violet speaks truth, nazdar,” Olivia said, smiling at the thrall, then at Naomi herself. “And you know that I was a fledgling once, don’t you? I was even known to spill blood on my Mistress Fali’s clothes by mistake. And besides, I’ve yet to try to clean it out. It might not show nearly as much after an application of lemon juice.”

“I… suppose,” Naomi said, terribly embarrassed. “It’s a very generous interpretation.”

“That’s the only kind I’d care to come up with for a girl like you,” Olivia said, reaching for Naomi’s hand. The two vampires took hand in hand and squeezed, and Naomi was forced to reckon with the fact that everything would be OK.

“Thank you. No one’s called me a girl that way before you… so casually,” Naomi said, following Olivia hand in hand to the front door of her mansion as Violet remained close behind. The mansion was a grand old building in the heart of this old residential portion of the city built of wood and stonemasonry. It was more modest than Alexander’s had been, but that also granted it a sense of comfort and familiarity, a true home rather than merely a fortified lair.

“Well, it’s what you are, nazdar,” Olivia said with a chuckle, knocking on the heavy wooden door of her residence.

The two vampires spent a moment staring into each other’s eyes before the door opened wide, held by a short brown-skinned human woman with long brown hair and a simple lacy black dress who immediately dropped into a deep bow.

“Welcome home, my Lady,” the thrall said in her native Kurdish, Naomi picking up the gist from context and all. “You’ve brought another vampire home?”

“I have, nazdar,” Olivia replied, arms around Naomi with a fanged grin. “This is Mistress Naomi and her thrall Violet. She’s come all the way from the New World and, well, we shared a girl together.”

“Welcome to Diyarbakir, Mistress Naomi,” the thrall said, still bowed low as she turned toward the redheaded vampire.

“Uh… h-hello,” Naomi managed, having at least a few words in her local vocabulary. She wanted to move closer to the pretty thrall, but she was standing beyond the threshold of the door, and Olivia had not yet truly invited her into her home. No physical or supernatural barrier blocked her way, but she could never bring herself to enter a residence uninvited; it was simply an insurmountable psychological burden placed upon her kind.

“This is my Meral,” Olivia said, motioning to the thrall. “My housekeeper. She was supposed to be in a loveless arranged marriage to a stonecutter named Hamo. I couldn’t abide that, so I slit his throat and took her for myself.”

“Thank You, my Lady,” Meral said, picking up the meaning of her Lady’s words from context and the throat slitting motion She performed.

“Hello, Meral,” Naomi tried, and from Meral’s smiling reaction the vampire was fairly sure she’d said the correct word, though it could have merely been a reaction to her powers of seduction.

“Well, Naomi, please come in. There’s a great deal I’d like to show you before sunrise,” Olivia said, motioning toward the door, and Naomi felt the psychological burden lifted.

She took her Violet by the hand and led her inside the building.

The first thing Naomi noticed was the multitude of oil paintings upon the wall. They were landscapes mostly, all at night, though many also at least contained portraits, virtually all depicting women. They were quite stylized, often emphasizing facial features and landscape elements that couldn’t quite match reality, but that only enhanced them in their own way. And even though Naomi had come from a working class background, never granted any serious knowledge of high art, barely having seen it at all really, she was at once sure that they had all been painted by the same person.

“These are all your paintings?” Naomi asked, looking around the room in awe. It was almost pitch-dark within the house, Meral carrying a candle on a saucer to light the way for herself, but that was no trouble for the undead, and Naomi could pick up the smallest details of the paintings at her best in this darkness.

Olivia laughed. “They are! I’ve been painting for the last, oh, three centuries or so. I learned the skill from Sabrina… oh, she was the wife of an Italian fur trader who traveled through here in the… what was it, your 16th century? Before I took her for myself, of course. She taught me so much. I just had to turn her… she’s back in Italy now, last I checked. Returned home after her decades as my fledgling.”

“Oh… you turn your thralls regularly?” Naomi asked.

“Not regularly,” Olivia said. “Only a rare few. Sabrina was the first. Behnaz my second. One taught me to paint, the other taught me to speak Farsi, French, and English. They both changed my undeath in very substantial ways, and so I decided to change their lives to undeath in turn. I think my English skills are still quite good a hundred years later, I must say.”

“Your language skills are the best I’ve heard from anyone in this country. And that’s quite a lot of languages for a human to know… for a woman to be so lucky…” Naomi said, staring at a portrait of a nude black-haired woman upon the wall, possessing a small body and perky tits. Judging by her fangs, pallid skin and crimson eyes, Naomi was sure that it must have been either Sabrina or Behnaz.

“Indeed. She spoke Arabic as well, but I was already reasonably well-versed. She was married to a linguistics professor before I took her,” Olivia explained. Then, following Naomi’s line of vision, “That’s her you’re looking at, in fact, Behnaz. She also parted ways with me after I released her, so I painted two copies of this painting. One for me to remember her by, one for her to remember herself by. It can be difficult without a reflection…”

Naomi was struck by Olivia’s sentiment, and slightly jealous. Why had she been saddled with such an awful begetter when hers could have been this lovely Lady before her, probably truly the most perfect woman she’d ever laid her eyes upon? She didn’t think that Alexander had even planned to let her go… he certainly hadn’t let Amelia go after more than half a century under his thumb. And that led her back to her initial thoughts…

“I must be frank,” she began. “I can’t imagine turning my own thrall. Knowing there’s a chance I may simply cut their life short without even granting undeath.”

Turning a human into a vampire was a fickle process that entailed drinking every last drop of blood out of their veins. Vampires were of course very fond of human blood, but even they had their limits, and an entire body’s worth, left dry to the bone, was more than most preferred to stomach at any one time. If the body was drained thoroughly and all of its essential parts remained intact, the human would die and appear as a corpse to every test, but around three nights later they’d join the ranks of the undead, deathless and bloodthirsty as the rest of their kind.

But Naomi knew that it was most definitely not reliable. Alexander had boasted of turning dozens of fledglings in his long years, and certainly he’d been successful with Naomi, Naomi, and Amelia. But seven years or so after Naomi had been turned, she’d watched as Alexander, ever the expert in every aspect of undeath, had drunk a lovely blonde girl named Janet dry with the intent of making a fourth fledgling. And yet despite his careful efforts, that woman was left only as a corpse, rotting in a local cemetery, never to return. Though Naomi was deathly aware that Violet was aging and that she’d one night be infirm and worse, the redheaded vampire felt she couldn’t tolerate the possibility of ending her thrall’s life with her own fangs, and she didn’t want to do what Alexander would have done, either. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever be willing to take that step.

And besides, vampires had no blood to drink from one another. If Naomi tried to turn Violet, she’d never have the privilege of drinking from her again, even if she was granted undeath. It was a decision that could never be taken back.

“I can understand that, nazdar,” Olivia said. “It’s always a difficult proposition. I’ve mostly been fortunate myself, but my first attempt wasn’t successful. I lost my Sakine a good three decades before her time. I never was sure what I’d done wrong…”

“I don’t know if I’d ever be able to let my fledglings go in your position,” Naomi said. “Not after taking such risks to grant them immortality.”

“I do miss them, but we write to each other, Sabrina and Behnaz and I,” Olivia explained. “And my Mistress Fali always told me that Lilith intended for our kind to grant our fledglings freedom once they’re able to handle themselves. It’s why she did the same for me, and why her own begetter did the same for her. And I miss being hers, but independence has been a wonderful gift as well. I hope for my fledglings to have the same.”

“Funny. Alexander always told me the opposite,” Naomi sighed. “That Lilith’s directive to our kind was to expand our power and influence at any cost.”

“That seems to be the sort of thing that a man in his position would say,” Olivia said. “I appreciate power and influence well enough, but they’re means to an end… the end being good blood to drink and a good undeath to share with my girls.”

Olivia kissed her Meral’s cheek, and Naomi held her Violet close and kissed her on the lips as well, never to be upended. The two thralls looked at each other rather than their owners with smiles upon their faces, understanding each other’s feelings far too well.

“I think I’ve felt exactly the same way,” Naomi said. “Do you still keep in touch with your Mistress as well? Has she… survived to this night?”

Olivia’s expression darkened. “I haven’t spoken to her in eight decades, I’m afraid. She stopped responding to my letters, and when I visited her residence in Gondar, there was no trace of her or her thralls. I expected to hear back from her for years upon years, once she had found a new home for herself, but I never received word. I… don’t know if she’s survived. But I’d like to believe she has.”

“I hope you have another chance to speak with her,” Naomi said.

“I do too.”

Naomi held Violet close, thinking more deeply about the nature of her being than she had in years.

“What else did your Mistress tell you about Lilith?” she asked. She was desperate to reframe all that Alexander had told her, to find reasons why he had been truly wrong. According to Olivia, Fali was even older than Alexander had been. And besides, she was a woman too, like Olivia and perhaps even Naomi. More worth listening to than any man, Naomi was realizing.

Olivia’s crimson eyes shone. “A great deal. I know you may find this difficult to believe… frankly, I’ve even wondered if Mistress Fali was simply mistaken. But she claimed to me and all of her girls consistently for centuries that she had once met our ancestor in the flesh.”

All vampires agreed that Lilith was a truly ancient being who became the ancestor of their kind long before written history. But not everyone agreed on where she had come from, who she had been, or how she became the first vampire, and there were especially disagreements about whether or not she still walked the earth. Some said she’d been slain thousands of years ago, while others said she was still in hiding somewhere. Others still professed that she had descended to hell to usurp the devil and become the foremost power of darkness, or decided that her fate was simply unknowable. It was after all the case that no fledgling of hers remained to speak to about her fate. It seemed that no vampire had survived quite that long; at least, not yet.

And sometimes, like Naomi was hearing now, sightings would be reported, but not ones that could be backed up. Vampires were largely solitary creatures, after all, and thralls would believe whatever they were told to believe. As a result, Naomi truly wasn’t sure what to believe. But she’d hear Olivia out.

“How did she know it was truly her?” Naomi asked.

“Well, Mistress Fali said she recognized her right away, like there was something deep within herself that just knew. The way you might know you can’t enter a residence uninvited, or cross a river or stream,” Olivia explained. “She seemed to make the whole world darker just by her very presence, and she seemed as alluring to Mistress Fali as we are to humans. She had jet black hair, a grayish skin tone like my own. She was tall, muscular, and barely dressed.”

“Where was this?” Naomi asked.

“In the floodplains of northern Egypt,” Olivia said, keeping an air of calm. “I think all Mistress Fali’s fledglings have taken their own pilgrimages to that place to catch a glimpse of Lilith, myself included. I spilt my Yasmin’s blood in that place as an offering to her, but she never answered my call. Perhaps she dwells elsewhere now. It has been nearly two thousand years since my Mistress’ encounter.”

“Right…” Naomi said, caught up in the grandiosity of the thing even if she had trouble truly believing it. “And what was it that Lilith said?”

“She addressed Mistress Fali by name, though they’d never met. And she told her that she’d done well to carry on her love of women. That she, too, Lilith herself, had preferred the company of women over men, though she was far from exclusive.”

Naomi gasped, covering her mouth. She’d always envisioned Lilith as a seductress of men, the way that Alexander claimed that all female vampires ought to be. She figured that those Lilith spread her curse to must have all been men. But to hear it from this wonderful woman with this delightful mansion and these beautiful paintings, after the wonderful woman had heard it from a vampire greater in age than Naomi’s own begetter…

Every passing night forced her to doubt Alexander’s words more than the last.

“Every time I breathe our ancestor’s name, I’ve presumed that I’m somehow disappointing her,” the redheaded vampire said, hands clasped as she tried to make herself small.

Olivia placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, though, and offered another smile.

“I told you earlier, nazdar,” she said. “I don’t think you could ever disappoint her by taking control of your own undeath, and being your best self. And if Lilith didn’t want women like us to drink from other women, then I must ask… why did she make them taste so fucking good?”

Olivia proceeded to grab her Meral and pull her close, pressing her face against the thrall’s bare throat and sniffing deeply, followed by a long soft moan as the thrall shrieked in a mix of love and surprise. Naomi could smell Meral too and agreed that she smelled wonderful, carrying a scent that was sweet, bitter, and spicy, a combination that she would later know as a harbinger of AB positive blood, a flavor that she’d never had the pleasure of tasting before. She still retained some sense memory of the flavors of human food, though by a few more decades after this night, it would be all but lost.

“Thank you, Miss Olivia… You and your thrall both are beautiful beyond compare,” Naomi said. “And you’re more generous than I ever dreamed another of our kind could be.”

“Make no mistake, nazdar — this is my territory,” Olivia said, gentle hand back on the visitor’s shoulder as she bared her fangs slightly. “But… hm, other vampires are allowed in my territory sometimes, if they’re capable of exercising restraint. And especially if they’re as beautiful as you.”

Olivia leaned in to kiss Naomi then, standing on her tip toes to reach the tall girl’s lips, taken aback with a light hiss as Naomi pulled herself away. Vampires tended to be very used to getting what they wanted.

“It’s sweet and… generous of you, Miss Olivia,” Naomi said, backing away with her hands raised. “But I’m not truly beautiful, am I? You just mean to flatter me.”

“What would make you think such a thing?” Olivia demanded, a peeved frown upon her face.

“Just a couple of hours ago, at the inn, you thought I was a man…” Naomi said. “Clearly I’m not a beautiful woman or you wouldn’t have said the same.”

“I thought you looked androgynous,” Olivia clarified. “It was your, er, attachments that threw me off. But once you explained your history to me, I saw you much differently. As the woman you clearly are.”

“So you’re attracted to me for my… my femininity?” Naomi asked.

“Indeed,” Olivia said, pressing herself against the fledgling once again, one hand reaching toward Naomi’s developing breast and squeezing it. Her breasts had become so much more sensitive over the last several years and her nipples were large and perky compared to what they once had been, enough for Olivia to grip her left one tight, digging fingernails in through her clothes.

“Oh, Lilith!” Naomi moaned, her knees buckling.

“Our ancestor’s not here now, nazdar,” Olivia teased. “Just me. And I must say, this is a very feminine reaction you’re having. And a very beautiful one as well.”

“N-nn…” Naomi growled, unable to get any words out that would counter the brunette vampire’s absurd statements.

“Violet, dear, that was your name, yes?” Olivia asked, glancing at Naomi’s thrall, who was standing in the corner and watching with a big blush on her face while her Mistress was fondled.

“U-uh… yes!” Violet replied, playing with her long brown hair nervously.

“Why do you find your Mistress beautiful?”

Naomi looked back at her thrall, tears welling up in her eyes as she was sure even her own thrall would admit her obviously masculine appearance when asked directly.

“Well, um… oh Goddess, the first part of Her I fell in love with were Her lips,” Violet explained with a little giggle. “We’d known each other since we were children, playing in the village square, but I’d never really seen Her as a romantic partner then. She… She never had any confidence. Eventually She started working at Her apprenticeship.

“One day I’d heard She and Her sister died and I was shaken. The town pastor called it consumption, but there were murmurs that it might truly have been… one of your kind. And a few months later, She came back for me. Kissed me… bit me. I’m told She came earlier, too, the night She returned from the dead, but Her begetter stopped Her to hold back Her bloodlust and I was made to forget everything.”

“He likely saved your life, my dear,” Naomi said. “Perhaps the one thing he did that was worth a damn.”

A newly-turned vampire couldn’t control their bloodlust, and Naomi could easily have ended Violet’s life without meaning to if allowed, especially given that she’d had a crush on the human girl for the majority of her life.

Violet nodded slowly. “But I’m so glad You came back for me, Mistress. It was what needed to happen for me to save You, wasn’t it? To save Yourself from him—”

“I don’t think we should get into that now, darling,” Naomi said, frightened by Olivia’s inquisitive look brought on by this line of questioning. “Answer Miss Olivia’s question, won’t you? Lady Olivia, you should call her. What could ever be beautiful about me?”

“Y-yes, Mistress,” Violet said, realizing her foolishness in approaching that forbidden topic. Lady Olivia and her Mistress were getting intimate like she’d never seen her Mistress get with another vampire before, and it’d caused her to let her own guard down.

“Well, Mistress still believed Herself to be a man at first, when She was turned, when She took me, Lady Olivia. But soon after, it must’ve just been two or three months, She began whispering to me about Her dreams of becoming a woman. It was clear to me then that that was the root of Her insecurity. I said so much at the time, and it made Her cry.”

“I cry quite easily, is the truth,” Naomi said, sobbing her eyes out, and Olivia began brushing her fingers through the redhead’s wavy hair in turn, still looking at the thrall.

“You always have, Mistress,” Violet said with a smile. “I always found it beautiful, compared to other men, when I thought you were another man, who needed to frame themselves as strong first and foremost. In the end, You became stronger than any human man.

“And seeing that femininity in You sparked so much joy, Mistress. You were alluring, yes, You held dominance over my will, I loved You as Your thrall, but I believe I never truly fell for You until I learned who You were. I loved providing my feminine essence for You. I loved what it did to Your body. It was Your tits, Your thighs, that made you outwardly beautiful, Mistress, in a way that even Your allure couldn’t match. And above all that, it was the smile upon Your face at knowing who You were.

“It brought me so much love and joy to look at You and see a woman, even when the changes had barely begun. Years later, You told me that Your name was Naomi now — Your sister’s name. I heard it, I knew what it meant to You, and I fell more in love with You than I ever had before. It’s Your smile that makes You beautiful, Mistress, above anything else. Your self.”

“Violet… My Violet, I love you…” Naomi whispered, her voice hoarse through tears, as she dropped to the ground, tears spilling onto the fine embroidered rug beneath her.

“I’ll always love You, Mistress,” Violet said. “To the ends of the earth, my lady-lover.”

Olivia squatted down to eye level with the visiting vampire, pressing a comforting hand against her cheek once again.

“Nazdar, listen to her,” Olivia said. “Thralls will say a great many things just from imposed love and devotion, but I know that look upon Violet’s face, the sound of her voice. That’s true love, earned from experiences shared. The kind of love only shared between two women. Surely you won’t still tell me that you’re not lovable for your femininity?”

Naomi turned her head up to look at the other vampire, someone she deeply wished to be like but believed she never could be.

“You personally think this, Miss Olivia? You’re not just trying to appease me?”

Olivia snorted. “I have no need to appease you, Miss Naomi. You’re an intruder on my territory.

“Now stand up and kiss me already.”

Olivia offered Naomi her hand and both pulled themselves to their feet. Naomi mustered up all the confidence she had, needing to believe in herself as much as this wonderful woman seemed to believe in her, and the two locked lips, tongues dancing around each other’s fangs in a beautiful performance that only the undead could share with one another. And Violet and Meral looked on, envying what their respective Mistress and Lady were getting a chance to experience.

“Sometimes… sometimes I wish I could see myself in the mirror,” Naomi said, looking down at the floor as she pulled away, after a long and wonderful kiss that she saw to its conclusion. “So that I might believe what you say about me. What Violet and my other girls say about me. As far as I’m concerned, I still look like the same miserable man I always did. I look down at my tits and feel a bit of joy, but I can only ever imagine that same terrible face…”

“It’s changed, Mistress,” Violet insisted, as she had many times before. “The way your bangs frame it, at least. It’s a woman’s face.”

“You have a very insightful thrall, nazdar,” Olivia said. “But look around the room, won’t you?”

Naomi was reminded of the paintings upon the wall, that one of Behnaz, one Olivia remembered her by, the many landscapes, a vast desert and a lakeside, rolling plains and mountain peaks.

“I paint landscapes and portraits, Miss Naomi. Eternity is a very long time, and I often long for what I’ve lost. Sabrina gave me the means to grant immortality without undeath. To my lovers, the places I’ve been. And because we can’t see ourselves… well, just follow me. There’s something I must show you.”

She took Naomi by the hand and led her into a side room, what looked to be a lounge containing many comfortable couches and a room-wide rug. And upon the wall was a large portrait of Olivia herself, bigger than undeath-size, her hair a bit longer in the painting and her smile unmistakable.

“That one’s by Sabrina herself. The first one she gave me,” Olivia explained. “Shall I do the same for you, so that you might see how pretty you are?”

Violet had followed close behind her Mistress, and smiled as a look of dawning realization came upon the redheaded vampire’s face.

A realization that if she saw herself, she might turn out to be truly pretty.

Naomi had been tossing and turning all day, unable to find a comfortable, still sleeping position even sandwiched between two of her favorite girls in the world. It was all because of that horrible smell, and the obnoxious woman who enjoyed it, who was probably cuddling with its source.

By the time evening came, Naomi had barely gotten any rest at all. Hannah had gone back to her own suite midway through the day to talk to her other girlfriend, Naomi’s sometimes-thrall, Celia. Gail had gone to get ready for her own work shift as well, leaving her Mistress all alone. The two had their Mistress’ blessing to do so, of course, but it still made her feel isolated, and isolation was not her friend when Amelia was just a couple of doors away.

Naomi was still alone when she heard a knock on her front door, a sort of cutesy, dainty knock that could only belong to that eternal fledgling.

“O-one moment!” Naomi stammered, crawling out of bed and onto her feet.

Oh, Lilith. There was no way she could simply let Amelia in! Her suite was clean and tidy thanks to her maid’s diligent work, sure, but she had so many keepsakes scattered about, things that might hint at the truth about her own identity. There was that trans flag blanket that Gail had knitted for her, for example. Naomi doubted that Amelia would recognize it anyway, but she couldn’t risk it — it would raise too many questions if it was visible, so she dashed to the couch and took the blanket to the closet in her bedroom, hiding it on an inconspicuous spot on the top shelf.

When she emerged from her closet, she was reminded of the great number of paintings on her wall, and she nearly began to panic. What if one of them suggested her past or her true identity? Thankfully, the only portrait of herself that hung on her wall was the one painted by her old thrall Mona in 1991, at which time Naomi had looked virtually identical to how she looked tonight, in 2026. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that one of those paintings might reveal something dangerous in some small way she couldn’t predict, so she’d have to check every single one to be sure.

She paced around the room, looking at her painting of her former thralls Natasha and Jing cuddling together in bed, which Naomi had painted in 1966. Jing had been trans, and scars from her bottom surgery were just barely visible on her stomach as she was positioned behind Natasha. There was a part of Naomi that thought she should take the painting off of the wall since it might hint at trans identity, but…

No, she could never do that, hide her thralls’ beauty just to cover her own ass! She’d be throwing herself into sunlight with them if she ever did such a thing, denigrating the identities of all girls like her. She could hide her own self, but she wouldn’t lump her thralls into that no matter what.

“Naomi, darling, what’s wrong?” Amelia asked from the hallway, impatient and in something of a huff. “What can you be so worried about? We’ve seen each other’s bodies before. Don’t worry yourself over getting properly dressed.”

That was exactly what Naomi was worried about, though — her own body coming under scrutiny. As she’d discussed with Gail the previous night, her body was similar to her sister’s, enough that she might be mistaken for her after two centuries’ worth of absence. But if her whole body was seen, girlcock and all, there’d be no mistaking it for Amelia, and she’d have to explain who she was, what she was. Explaining would be the most miserable part, much more than what would come after.

“Nothing’s wrong!” she shouted toward the door. “I want to look pretty. Just hang on a moment.”

“Very well,” Amelia replied, clearly not understanding. But that was fine — Amelia already didn’t understand Naomi at all.

And that was at the center of this thing, wasn’t it? Amelia already didn’t understand the first thing about why Naomi was acting the way she did, and perhaps she never would. Loving women, forsaking their begetter, it was all alien to the brunette vampire. Certainly it wasn’t what Amelia must’ve expected of Naomi’s sister two centuries later. So why was it so hard to take that final step, to admit that she wasn’t really her sister, and that she’d made herself the woman she was? Amelia was no physical threat, especially not in Naomi’s own territory.

It was the fear of being rejected altogether, she believed, and losing the one remaining survivor of her old undeath, the same way she’d lost Violet to old age, and Olivia to an unfortunate accident. One way or another, she had to make the best of this.

Not wanting to keep Amelia waiting too long, Naomi dashed around her suite, looking at every painting she had — a landscape of Framingham, Massachusetts blanketed in snow in 1973, a portrait of her thrall Rachel on the foggy shoreline of the Narragansett Bay in 2018, a landscape of the city of Chicago from when she’d had occasion to visit in 1893, and so many more, none of which appeared to reveal anything about her history, thankfully — only her thralls’ histories, and she wouldn’t take that from them.

Finally, she slipped on her favorite dress, a black sundress adorned with red flower patterns, and, still needing to remind herself every few moments that things would be alright, she opened the door.

Amelia was standing there as expected, looking annoyingly dainty in the same clothes she’d worn yesterday, her orange-and-white striped blouse and long tan skirt.

“Lilith, it’s so bright out here,” she said, looking out at the hallway rather than at her host. “How do you tolerate it?”

“I mostly stick to darker places,” Naomi said, keeping her voice low. “The atmosphere is worth it for the volume of girls that comes through here every night.”

Amelia raised an eyebrow at that, and straightened her shoulders. “Many fine men as well, you know. Terry last night was an A negative delight, so strong and rugged… a real tall drink of blood.”

“Yes, yes, I’m aware. I smelled you drinking from him last night.”

“And I smelled you drinking from that O positive girl last night as well,” Amelia countered. “Was she one of your own, or just a guest?”

“My Hannah is most certainly one of my own,” Naomi said proudly. “And what became of that ‘Terry’?”

“I thought I might keep him,” Amelia said. “He’s waiting in the room now like a good boy. Should I go and fetch him? You and I could fuck him together—”

“No!” Naomi growled, grabbing the collar of Amelia’s blouse and dragging her into her suite. “No man will ever set foot in my suite, Amelia.” Lilith, the thought of enthusiastically fucking a man made her want to stab herself through the heart. There was no world where Amelia could convince her to do such a thing.

“Lilith, you’re strong!” Amelia said, with a hint of fear in her voice, while Naomi pushed her away from the doorframe and closed the door behind her, both vampires now inside Naomi’s suite.

“I don’t recall you ever throwing me around this way in the past,” Amelia continued, shaken as she stepped away from Naomi. The redhead knew that Amelia would’ve been primarily surprised by her aggressive behavior, but the way she said it made her feel like less of a woman too, reduced to the brutish and emotionally unstable man who she had once appeared to be. She liked her strength, of course, and wasn’t even particularly strong among her kind owing to her narrow frame and lack of muscles, but it still made her worry that she had some sort of masculine muscularity that made her unfeminine compared to this small cis woman.

But not being one to show weakness, Naomi simply replied, “I had little reason to throw you around back then.”

“And what reason is there now?” Amelia asked, her arms crossed. “You know all I wanted to do, coming by your room, was to say good-bye? Clearly we have little to talk about if you won’t even indulge my interest in that lovely strong man.”

No no no. Naomi wouldn’t let her go that easily. Not until she was made to see just how wonderful an undeath Naomi had built for herself at least — surely ten times better than whatever hovel Amelia must’ve dwelled in with her male thralls. Oh, she was sure it was lavish and quite comfortable, but it was the entire world that was Amelia’s prison as long as she remained loyal to Alexander.

“Surely you’re not leaving so soon,” Naomi said, her voice taking on a cutesy tone. “So long as you’re here, I think we have a great deal more to catch up on, don’t you?”

Amelia’s expression softened, though accompanied by surprise and distrust.

“You just pulled me into your room for merely suggesting that we drink together,” Amelia said. “And after everything last night, it seemed you surely wanted me gone as soon as I could go. It was disappointing, but, well… that’s undeath, I suppose.”

“I’ve changed, Amelia,” Naomi said. “But that doesn’t need to mean that you and I have no relationship at all. We just need to think about what that means for us, after so much time has passed.”

“What do you mean?” Amelia asked.

“Before you leave, I at least want you to give my way of undeath a taste,” Naomi said. “I want you to understand what makes my girls so special.”

Amelia rolled her eyes, exasperated. “What could ever be so special about them? They’re women, like you and me. Don’t you ever desire something more, er… complementary? You’ve had it before, Naomi. Don’t you miss it?”

“Not once in my undeath,” Naomi said truthfully — though she realized immediately afterward that more likely than not the same had not been the case for her sister, which might make her own statement suspicious.

“Not even back then?” Amelia asked. “The first time I shared my Robert with you, night after you and your brother were turned? On Master’s orders?”

Naomi didn’t want to lie about her sister’s inner world that she could never truly understand. She hadn’t even been fully aware that this sharing had occurred between her two fellow fledglings before now. But she felt it deeply important to stick by her own convictions, so she straightened herself out, and looked the brunette dead in the eyes, the way she’d put a human girl in trance.

“I never cared for him, not really,” she said, recalling the skinny blonde man who’d belonged to Amelia two centuries ago with vague disdain, never having drunk from any of her thralls personally in reality. “O negative, right? Well, I would’ve taken any blood I was offered as a fledgling, but I always thought he had sort of a foul aura.”

Amelia bared her fangs, filled with rage, and grabbed at Naomi’s dress, hands nearly on the taller girl’s tits.

“You would dare call my own thrall foul?” she said, tears welling up in her eyes as she gave Naomi a single heavy push. Naomi hadn’t quite expected the smaller girl to fight back with such ferocity, not after already having been tackled to the ground with little effort the previous night, and she stumbled backward, crashing against the front wall of her suite where her own portrait, painted by her old thrall Mona, was hanging, and with a crash, it was dislodged…

Naomi fell to the ground, and the painting fell after her. It was a lucky thing that her kind was cursed with inhumanly fast reflexes, or it would’ve fallen directly on her head and probably been destroyed. Instead, it was smudged, decades-dried paint smudging onto Naomi’s fingernails as the oil fell hard, and the canvas warped a bit as she caught it and set it down onto the ground next to her.

Naomi had such a lovely fanged smile on her face in that painting. It was one of Mona’s few effects left to her Mistress. And now it was irreparably damaged, the memory made a mockery of…

She wouldn’t forgive Amelia for this.

“Oh, Lilith, I’m sorry—” Amelia began, realizing her mistake as Naomi’s crimson eyes were burning with rage.

But her apology came too late; the redhead had already leapt to her feet and was running at her former fellow fledgling now, crashing into her and sending both vampires tumbling to the ground again.

“Do you know what that painting means to me, you fool?” Naomi demanded, gripping Amelia tight. “Lilith, I should stab you through the fucking heart where you stand!”

“You insulted my beloved thrall, you bitch!” Amelia snarled. “You’re lucky I haven’t done the same toward any of those women you’ve so unfaithfully taken for yourself. I’d be far more justified in it.”

Naomi’s grip loosened, her expression softened. “Oh, Lilith, you still just echo his words, don’t you? You’re too pathetic to kill, after all.”

“Master was a great man, Naomi,” Amelia said with true awe in her eyes.

Naomi sighed, remembering what she had to say. “He meant to kill me, Amelia. And I’m very certain that I never wanted to die.”

Naomi, at least, didn’t want her sister to die, it was true. Her sister hadn’t said a single thing as Alexander had held her in place and ended her undeath; she was too broken. But Naomi herself, the surviving sister, had already been pushed far by her begetter for decades beforehand, and though their relationship was complicated, her sister had been one of the few people who remained to tie her to her life before undeath.

Not wanting to lose that, she had begged for mercy — for Alexander to take mercy on her sister. But that had only earned her a shove across the room before Alexander went through with the deed, consumed by rage and jealousy.

And none of it mattered to Amelia.

“What is the point of any of this?” Amelia said. “I never should have even followed up with the Brenda girl. I wouldn’t have if I’d known you’d be like this. There’s nothing to reconnect over, is there? All we had together is tainted for you now, on false premises. I wish he really had killed—”

Naomi covered Amelia’s mouth with her palm in the blink of an eye, stopping that horrible sentence from forming in full. She didn’t have to just take it from her. She was far past just taking anything from anyone, let alone someone who still claimed loyalty to her begetter.

“I survived,” she said, a wild fanged grin upon her face. “And I’ll keep surviving the way I like to regardless of what he would think. And you, Amelia?

“You’ll have to watch and see how good I have it.”

Naomi stood, keeping her gaze halfway on Amelia as the brunette stared back, bewildered by what her former fellow fledgling might do. And all Naomi did, in fact, was walk into her bedroom, pick up the landline phone by her bedside, and press one of the speed dial buttons.

“Good evening, darling,” Naomi said, her tone relaxing as she readjusted to speaking to one of her favorite thralls rather than to a rival predator. “Come in here, in uniform.”

“Who’s that?” Amelia asked, sitting up on the floor.

“Hannah. One of my girls,” Naomi said. “You’ll like her, I assure you.”

And if you don’t, Naomi thought, if you see nothing in her, then I’ll know there’s truly no hope for you.

Naomi had set the painting against the wall and gotten back to her feet, while Amelia was left dusting her off, mostly staring into the middle distance and barely moving at all. Vampires were often very still when they were anxious, and the brunette seemed annoyed more than anything by Naomi’s reckoning. But Amelia was going to be shown something — someone — who she couldn’t deny was adorable, Naomi would be sure of it.

And sure enough, Hannah knocked on her Mistress’ door no more than five or ten minutes after being summoned. It was the benefit of living just a single door over. The tall redhead opened the door to see her maid presenting herself as commanded, dressed in an outfit befitting of her status, her long brown hair tied back into a neat ponytail.

“Good evening, Mistress,” she said pleasantly, but by no means in an altogether empty tone of voice — Naomi had not yet placed her into that state, despite how she was dressed.

“Please come in, darling,” Naomi said, spreading her arms wide, and the thrall obeyed immediately, stepping forward and wrapping both arms around her Mistress’ back and hugging Her tight, loving Her with every fiber of her being, more than she had once thought herself capable. She was nearly as tall as her Mistress, about six foot one, and so she was more than capable of leaning her chin over her Mistress’ shoulder if she stood on her tip-toes.

And as Hannah did so, she froze up in terror as she saw who was sitting on the couch behind her Mistress, there in perfect silence, watching.

She hadn’t seen Amelia before, but it didn’t take her any time to think of who she could be after Naomi had spent the previous early morning speaking about her. Her skin was too pallid to be human, her eyes too red, her fangs too sharp, her body too still, and Hannah’s Mistress didn’t often bring around others of her kind — in fact, the only other vampires she knew her Mistress to interact with on a regular basis were her fledglings, and Amelia was most definitely not her fledgling, not someone she’d ever seen before.

Feeling her thrall tense up, her hands clutching her shoulders tight, Naomi loosened her grip on Hannah but held her hand, whirling around to face the other vampire in the room side by side.

“Hannah, this is Amelia — that is, Mistress Amelia, if I may presume?” Naomi said, looking expectantly at the brunette vampire for approval. By custom, the way that Hannah should address another vampire wasn’t entirely up to her own Mistress.

Amelia only chuckled, though, looking at Naomi rather than Hannah. “Just Amelia is fine from a woman. Must I reiterate this again, Naomi?”

“You need not,” Naomi said, rolling her eyes. “And Amelia, this is my Hannah.”

“She’s dressed as a maid,” Amelia said matter-of-factly. “Am I meant to be impressed?”

“She’s capable of doing more than dressing that way,” Naomi said with a smirk. “Hannah, a good maid serves her Mistress.”

The thrall tensed up again, this time for a different reason, her Mistress’ spell establishing its grip on her. A small smile spread across her face and her back straightened, and she turned to her Mistress.

“I’m a good maid, Mistress,” Hannah said accompanied by a curtsy. “How may I serve you?”

“Isn’t she adorable?” Naomi said, feeling a burning passion for her beloved thrall. “She came to me of her own free will. She wanted to be my thrall more than anything in the world.”

“So you’ve given your thrall a simple hypnotic trigger,” Amelia said, crossing her arms. “We’ve all done it before.”

Naomi growled slightly, frustrated that the fledgling couldn’t see Hannah’s innate cuteness.

“It’s more than that. Her blood is the sweetest in all the world, I swear to you,” she said.

“Sickeningly sweet, perhaps,” Amelia replied. “I’ve always found women’s blood to be so.”

Realizing that this alone wasn’t anything Amelia hadn’t seen before, Naomi ducked back into her bedroom for a moment, leaving the other vampire with her thrall, perhaps unwisely. But Naomi really did believe the fledgling, after all, that she had no intention of going after her girls.

Naomi picked up her cell phone, a device she only barely tolerated as she despised its vibrations and loud noises, and she missed the era during which such things had not been necessary. It did have its uses, though, and she had a particular one in mind, texting another one of her favorite girls to arrive as soon as she could.

But when the redheaded vampire turned back, she saw something very appealing. Amelia was circling around Hannah slowly, sizing her up, even sniffing her neck.

“She is a pretty girl,” Amelia admitted. “It’s a shame your possession of her goes entirely against Master’s will. Her smell is quite nice, once you get past the sweetness.”

“Isn’t she?” Naomi said, returning to her living room. “And just wait till you see her at work. Hannah, hang that painting back up on the wall, won’t you?”

“Yes, Mistress,” Hannah said, turning to her Mistress and performing another curtsy. She proceeded to retrieve a stepstool from the closet by the front door of the apartment and set it down where the painting had once hung, all without expressing a modicum of conscious thought.

“Did you ever meet Helena Cherisi?” Naomi said.

Amelia turned to Naomi as both vampires watched Hannah work, the shape of her ass shown off slightly as she readjusted the skewed painting hooks on the wall, preparing to lift the painting back up off of the ground.

“Ah, that vampire in Calabria, Italy? I most certainly do,” she replied. “She came through Rio de Janeiro when I was inhabiting an apartment tower there in the nineties. I’m sure you’re aware she’s the type to travel and turn humans just for the sake of spreading our kind’s provenance across the land in Lilith’s name? Can’t say I understand it. Or the fact that she, mm, seems to enjoy women’s blood especially.”

“You speak about her in the present tense… I’m afraid she’s dead,” Naomi said, her head hung low. “I had a near miss with a couple of local hunters who’d gone all the way from here in New England to Calabria just to kill her. It was such a pointless endeavor… and I’ll never get the chance to meet her as a result. Not that many vampires of our age in the world…”

Through everything, there was a certain companionship that Naomi held with Amelia, even as they’d grown to be so different from one another, and she suspected that Amelia felt the same. So many of her peers had died over the centuries — her sister, Olivia, Helena… even ancients like Alexander and Fali (whom she’d never met, but had heard so much about) turned out to be more mortal than they liked to believe, in the end. Indeed, she’d more or less accepted that even Lilith herself no longer walked the earth.

And it wasn’t that Naomi feared for her future, exactly — she exercised caution in all aspects of her undeath, and she wouldn’t repeat her dead peers’ mistakes. But it did leave her feeling terribly alone. Her thralls filled that void in a certain way, but none of them could replicate Olivia’s touch, nor Violet’s, the first thrall she’d taken and the first she’d had to leave behind.

“That’s terribly disappointing…” Amelia said, similarly sobered. “You knew of her beforehand, though?”

Naomi nodded. “I happened to be in Rome back in 1973, taking my Gloria on a dream trip of her lifetime, you see. She’d always wanted to see Europe, so I took her everywhere I’d been and a few more places.”

“Rome,” Amelia said with gritted fangs. “That city’s the stuff of nightmares. I don’t like being that close to the Catholic Church.”

“Me neither,” Naomi said, including for reasons that didn’t apply to Amelia. “But I’d do anything for my girls. And I suppose not unlike you, I ran into a woman there with the scent of a thrall. And when I asked, she told me all about her Lady Helena. But ultimately, visiting her didn’t fit into Gloria and my itinerary.

“I’m not certain that we would’ve gotten along anyway. She was a noblewoman utterly dedicated to tradition. I felt largely similarly when one of those hunters described her confrontation with her.

“But what interested me most was the fact that Helena thought of her thralls as her servants. Her maids. They dressed and acted the part for her. I walked away realizing I should try the same thing sometime. I do run a hotel, after all. It only feels appropriate, even if it’s kept between Hannah and I. And Hannah was absolutely delighted by the prospect as well.”

“I believe I understand. And I must admit that it’s a pretty look,” Amelia said. “It makes her look very submissive. I often have my own boys dress in leotards, you know—”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure you do,” Naomi said. “Can’t we focus on women for the moment?”

“Well, I only care for—”

“We can both see that’s not true, the way you’re looking at my maid, and besides, this is my territory, darling, so I’d recommend that you back off.”

Amelia stamped her foot on the brown-carpeted floor lightly, gritted her fangs, but she said nothing more, while both women continued to admire the pretty maid, and the painting was put back up at last.

Lauren found herself in a fortunate position when she’d received a text from her Mistress asking her to visit. She lived near where Naomi had grown up, in south New Hampshire, with her girlfriend and part-time Goddess, Valerie — the first fledgling that Naomi had ever turned. But today she’d been at the housewarming party of two women named Emily and Caroline in the town of Salisbury, delivering some lavender-scented candles to the happy couple.

Those two had had a storied relationship with each of Valerie, Naomi, and Lauren herself, though in the end, Lauren was the only one of the three whom the couple was still willing to speak to in person for fear of losing their blood and their free will to one of the vampires. Lauren had only been an acquaintance of Emily’s, and hadn’t known Caroline personally at all, but she now found herself in the role of a liaison, and she could never complain about hanging out with a couple of trans lesbian girlfriends anyway. Plus, Salisbury was only 20 minutes away from her Mistress’ home on Plum Island, so popping over afterward was a piece of cake.

She couldn’t shake being intimidated by the prospect of meeting that Amelia woman, though. Lauren related to her Mistress heavily in wanting to grapple with her past and family relationships as little as possible, and she couldn’t imagine that She had it easy when Her former fellow fledgling made an unexpected visit. It didn’t normally bother Lauren that vampires were possessive, since she loved belonging to her Mistress. But the thought of being pulled away by some woman she’d never seen before scared the shit out of her, just like her Mistress had the night they’d met.

Now Lauren was in the lobby of her Mistress’ hotel, a place she visited very regularly, waving hello to Sandra at the front desk as she passed by toward the elevator. After a quick ride up and a walk down the hall, she knocked on her Mistress’ door.

Naomi opened the door to see one of her favorite thralls. Lauren was a young woman of medium height and a narrow but somewhat stocky build. She was wearing a black tank top and jean shorts with tights underneath, and a green cardigan. Her straight brown hair fell just short of her shoulders, and she wore glasses over her green eyes.

“Hi, Mistress,” the thrall said.

“Come on in, darling,” the vampire said, taking her by the hand. She and Amelia had been speaking about their pasts generally, and Naomi had been extolling the virtues of having Hannah as her thrall, but Amelia didn’t truly understand, and Naomi knew she wasn’t likely to start any time soon. She’d need a second girl by her side if she wanted to move the fledgling.

Hannah, still a maid in every respect, had finished hanging the painting up a while ago and was now dusting tabletops once again. It had been done last night, of course, but dust had its way of accumulating, and it hardly hurt Naomi to have her maid do it again to show off to Amelia. The brunette vampire did take a certain amount of interest, as well, but as Lauren stepped inside, Naomi knew that it was nothing more than a warmup.

“Uh… hi,” Lauren said, tensing up as she faced Amelia, who was following after Hannah, who herself was busy dusting the couch’s glass-topped end table with a dry cloth.

“A-Amelia? Is Amelia alright to call you?” The thrall raised a hand weakly, trying to reach out for the vampire’s attention, given that the brunette seemed thoroughly interested in Hannah’s thighs at the moment. Huh… Lauren had caught on to Amelia’s apparent homophobia in text conversation with Sandra, Gail, and Brenda, who had seen the whole thing, but it seemed that her Mistress had managed to turn that around more quickly than expected. She tended to prove Herself capable of amazing things.

“What?” the unfamiliar vampire asked, turning around. “Oh yes. Very well, whatever.” She waved her hand toward Lauren a bit dismissively, a gesture that Lauren found very alluring for a split second before she shook herself out of it. Encounters with vampires were always intense and overwhelming, even when they didn’t particularly intend for them to be. Amelia was a very pretty woman, her slightly chubby body looking soft and pleasant much like Lauren’s vampire girlfriend and part-time Goddess Valerie, her luscious brown hair almost bronze in the moonlight, her fangs glinting as she turned around… Oh, Goddess, she made her horny like only a vampire could.

“A-alright,” Lauren said, trying to keep her head together, and turning back toward the woman whom she was sure could always soothe her. “Mistress, what can I do for you?”

“Oh yes,” Naomi said. “Give Hannah a kiss for me, won’t you?”

“Yes, Mistress,” Lauren responded.

She looked at her Mistress’ maid, who was still wiping the tabletop and paying no mind to Lauren or Amelia’s interest in her. Lauren had heard from Gail how their Mistress had turned Hannah into this, if only temporarily, and she thought it was very cute to see her in action.

Lauren tapped Hannah on the shoulder, and she turned around, maintaining posture quite a lot better than Lauren’s own.

“I’m sorry, Lauren, I’m serving Mistress right now,” Hannah said. “I’m Her obedient maid.” She let out a small giggle and immediately returned to wiping the table.

“Mistress said I should kiss you,” Lauren explained.

“Oh!” Hannah said, turning back around. “Yes, Mistress,” she added with a curtsy, turning to the redheaded vampire.

Amelia looked on with dissatisfaction in her expression, peering back at Naomi on occasion as Lauren stood on tip-toes to reach the taller girl, and the two thralls locked lips, pulling each other close in an expression of love that their Mistress enjoyed immensely. She believed that love was meant to be shared, and encouraged her thralls to show affection to one another and even to date if they felt so inclined, a practice that her thralls called “polyamory”. Lauren and Hannah weren’t girlfriends, but they’d shown affection to one another since practically the night that their Mistress had taken them both, finding a large amount in common with each other.

So absolutely no one was pleased when Amelia said, “You enjoy when your thralls engage in acts like that, Naomi? Doesn’t it just take attention away from you?”

“Not at all,” Naomi replied. “They know well to whom they belong. Don’t you, my darlings?”

“I belong to you, Mistress,” the two thralls said, nearly in perfect harmony, before returning to hugging each other tight.

“I suppose I just find it rather grotesque,” Amelia said, covering her face. “It’s one thing drinking from women yourself against Master’s will, but… do you intend to maximize your disobedience for its own sake?”

“Amelia, he doesn’t come into it,” Naomi insisted, mostly telling the truth. “I love that my thralls are inclined to love each other because they’re, by and large, inclined to be attracted to women in general.”

“You seek out those with deviant interests?” Amelia asked, raising an eyebrow.

Naomi giggled. “The more deviant, the better. My darlings, take your clothes off, won’t you? Show me how much you enjoy each others’ bodies.”

“Yes, Mistress,” the thralls said, altogether accustomed to these sorts of commands. They proceeded to help each other get undressed — Hannah’s maid dress, Lauren’s top and shorts, then their bras, finally pulling down each others’ panties as they flopped down onto the couch together, revealing the fullness of their bodies to each other and to their Mistress and to Her guest.

And though Amelia had watched with great interest and a degree of attraction, Naomi believed, she stepped back, her crimson eyes wide with surprise as she saw them.

“Oh… oh dear,” she said. “Naomi, your thralls aren’t women at all, are they?”

She was looking straight at Lauren’s girlcock, just about visible between Hannah’s thick thighs as the smaller girl laid on top of the bigger one.

Oh, Lilith — Naomi was so interested in showing off her girls to Amelia that she hadn’t considered this possibility at all. She was concerned with hiding her own body from the elder vampire, sure, but she hadn’t considered what horrible reaction she could have if Amelia actually saw Naomi’s trans thralls in the flesh. It was just who they were to her — she hadn’t even intended to hide it, keeping her painting of Natasha and Jing up on the wall, after all. She’d never viewed Lauren and Hannah as anything other than women, women who shared a similar history to herself. But if this put them at risk…

Once again, Naomi wasn’t going to just take it from Amelia — and she wasn’t going to let her girls stand helpless either. Lauren was looking at her now, the energy drained out of the room in an instant by the brunette’s comment, an awful insult delivered toward her without thought.

“They most certainly are women,” Naomi said, the stillness in the room palpable.

“Are you delusional, darling?” Amelia said, baring her fangs. “That is not a woman’s body.”

And then she began laughing a cold, spiteful laugh.

“Why carry out this charade?” she asked. “You’re not attracted to women at all, are you? Just these hermaphrodites, men at their core. Are you feeding them something to make them grow breasts like that? I’ve heard tell of the detrimental effects of soybeans on male physiology—”

“They’re women,” Naomi insisted, grabbing Amelia and pulling away immediately as she internalized her disgust over being close to this woman. “They're as much women as I am.”

“Clearly not. Did no one ever tell you about chromosomes?” Amelia said, uncaring as tears welled up in the redhead’s eyes. “The sexes are actually quite well-defined from a scientific point of view. And much of what Master contended was confirmed by that science.

“Well, now I understand why I found myself attracted to your, mm, ‘girls’, Naomi,” she said. “I just hadn’t realized your disobedience was a semantic matter.”

“I am a fucking woman,” Lauren said, climbing off of Hannah’s body to her feet, the taller girl still under the power of her Mistress’ hypnotic trigger, making it hard for her to respond as Lauren was. “What the hell is your problem?”

Amelia waved her hand dismissively at the thrall, keeping her gaze firmly on Naomi.

“Oh my!” she laughed. “You’ve made them so unpleasant. Their voices so high-pitched and shrill! But there’s a real underlying masculinity I see in him, your Lauren. Now that I take another look at his jawline…”

Naomi shoved Amelia to the ground, stepping her bare foot onto the brunette’s chest, right above her heart. That was a sensitive area for her kind, an area that if stabbed through marked the end of a vampire’s undeath, and Amelia certainly wasn’t happy to be positioned like that.

“I—I’m sorry! It’s just a matter of fact! I didn’t know this would upset you so,” she begged, her arms flailing, looking around the room at Naomi, Lauren, Hannah, the former two united entirely in their disgust at her words.

“When I release you, Amelia,” Naomi started, “you’re going to offer not the slightest resistance as I escort you out of this building.”

Lauren reached into the purse that she had brought and left on a hook by the door, digging into one of its pockets.

“And if you show your face here ever again, I will rip your Lilith-forsaken head off.”

Naomi pulled her foot away and Amelia staggered to her feet, sandwiched between Naomi and Lauren now.

And it wasn’t the end of Amelia’s pain that night as the thrall searched through her overcrowded keyring for one specific key, jabbing it into the back of Amelia’s shoulder as it burned her skin like a hot knife through butter. A silver key once used to open a silver cage, one she had been given as a symbolic keepsake by Caroline just today, who along with Emily had never stopped believing in Lauren’s ability to free herself from enthrallment. Those two were mistaken, of course — Lauren would always remain loyal to her Mistress, but it did have another use—

Causing this goddamned transphobe as much pain as humanly possible.

“Geaaarrgh!” Amelia screamed, falling into Naomi’s arms, but the redheaded vampire offered her no comfort either, instead opening the door to the hallway and shoving her through it in one swift motion.

“My girls are just as much women as any other,” Naomi muttered, dragging the intruder down the hallway toward the stairwell. “If you can’t accept that the way Olivia did, then you’re better off out of my undeath. No matter how much history we share.”

And though Naomi was relieved to finally be ridding herself of the shadow of her past once more, she did shed tears as she reckoned with the fact that Amelia might not ever understand.