𝖎𝖑 𝕯𝖎𝖛𝖎𝖓𝖆

Despite his best efforts to stay level-headed, he can feel his trousers grow tight. Soa is unyielding. He might have mistaken her for a succubus if he didn’t already know what she was, if he wasn’t in the hallowed halls of her magnificent vampire lineage. She has her manicured claws hooked in his flesh, and loves it; he wouldn’t have it any other way. Vampire or succubus, she has him willingly in her clutches. 

Something about this train of thought conjures up images of gothic dime novels, with a handsome Dracula-type on the cover, sensuously nibbling on the neck of a busty ingenue in a thin, curve-clinging frock. He is most certainly the dame in this scenario, collapsing onto the fainting couch and allowing the Big Bad Vampire to have her way with him. It’s an enticing fantasy, one that riles him up. Even more than he already is, which is quite a feat.

He nuzzles his face into Soa’s neck as she utters that decree of vulgarity. His cheeks burn, a heat she can surely feel against her throat. “Well,” he murmurs, trying to think with his head instead of his dick. “A bath would be nice.” 

She is undressing him with deft fingers and remarkable precision. He half expects to look down and find himself utterly nude without ever noticing a single article of clothing being removed. She’s stopped at the zipper of his trousers, no doubt noticing his desire for her pressing against the fabric. 

Her mentioning the closet containing outfits for him momentarily takes Junji out of the fog of his eroticism. He raises his head and looks at her with a mix of shock and tenderness. “Is that true?” He asks this already knowing it is. Soa never says things like that unless she means them. “That’s… well. That’s adorable, actually.” So adorable he feels compelled to kiss her, long and lovingly. And he does. When they part, he plants another kiss on her forehead and says, “I’m looking forward to seeing these suits.” He then recalls what she said earlier. “Was that the surprise you were talking about?”

If she could glow from how his expression made her feel, she would. That change from ready to indulge in her body to the warmth of knowing she cared for him. Thats what his eyes said, he saw her love in her actions. It was in his kiss and the beating of his heart. And this together with her already wet desire was almost just too much, almost enough to raise that hem. 

Lust met with true affection, sincere adoration and love shared was damn near eruptive. She could feed on it, live in it, stain herself in it so brightly. To be free in this state, this love, this lust, this yearning, she wanted to merge their beings together and exist just so. 

Her hand caressed his face, her eyes certainly the shape of his features. “It is not my surprise, no”, she giggled and kissed his mouth. “You have not stopped thinking of it have you my love? What’s the ratio of your thoughts currently? Fuck Soa, take bath, figure out surprise? What’s winning?” She kissed him again then licked his neck, sucking the spot gently while pressing her sex against his own, fabric between.  

She eased back and sighed. “I will have them bring it up so you can rid it from your mind then you think only on me. But”, she said passing her fingers over the straps of her nighty. “Before or after Junji? You must decide” she said then lowered the right strap past her shoulder. Her night sank low on her breasts, right above her nipples.  She took his left hand to her mouth, kissing the tips of his fingers, nipping at his thumb gently. Then she placed it within her nighty, held it over her hardening nipples for a moment.

Her compliment makes him blush, a stark pink against his pale cheeks. He lets her lead him to the settee, following behind like a lovesick puppy. I could look at the back of her head all day, he thinks stupidly. 

Despite her insistence that he not panic, he’s already begun to do just that. She has to know that he would; his nervousness over surprises, and thus all things out of his control, is ingrained in his DNA. The weight of her leg over his own is a distracting comfort, and he can ignore the rising anxiety that has begun to twist in his gut. He brushes his hand over her knee, resting it on her upper shin. The parting of her robe and the flash of milky flesh is highly arousing, deepening his blush. And when she goes on to describe the first time she saw him, he’s certain his entire body is flushed pink. He takes a meditative sip of tea to collect himself.

“I suppose I thought you saw something in me that I did not see in myself,” he admits this in a quiet tone, reflective. “You know, I actually thought you were making fun of me. When you started to flirt with me in the office. It wasn’t until we met each other at that bar, and you let me take you home…” He trails off, recalling the memory with a fondness that has only grown in the light of what he and Soa have become. 

At her comment about his staff, he nearly snorts tea out of his nose. He sets the cup back on the table, deciding to wait to finish it when the topic of conversation wasn’t so… salacious. Soa’s mouth was as much (if not more) a weapon of destruction as her fangs and claws. “I don’t know about that,” he says, reflecting on the many employees in his department. While most of their interactions were had within the structured confines of the office, they did all go out for a drink on occasion. Even in those situations, he was highly restrained and detached, not wanting to become friends with anyone under his command. As it stands, he’s slept with both of the Guan business associates with whom he’s allowed himself to become close. While he believes in his own discipline, it’s a pretty amusing statistic. Not only has he slept with both parties, he’s fallen head-over-heels in love with one of them. If one were reading this on paper, they’d have a poor perception of his professionalism.  

Tuna, perchance? His eyes flash up to her own. “Soa…” it’s a playful warning, masking his embarrassment. That incident feels like it happened eons ago, and yet the sting is still very fresh. His hand at her shin sweeps up to her thigh. “I’ll eat whatever you serve me.” He leans down and plants a kiss on her inner thigh; it is gentle and rather chaste, a contrast to the unspoken implications. “Whatever you serve me.” 

She smiles at him, teeth passing over her lip for a moment. Such a small act, so gentle and warm, welcoming, yet repentant. And she wants him, the desire raises to the surface without question. And while it ripples, pools, makes itself aware, breasts aching to be touched, mouth craving his own, It comforts her. The surety she has in the feeling, knowing exactly what she wants and knowing it would be met in the same is such a comfort. No unasked question in fear of an answe and rejection. The glass is set down. She caresses his cheek in her hand. Love. She was so in love with this man. It filled her, saturated her. In his presence it swelled, ringing in her.

“Junnie”, she says softly then brings his face to hers, kissing his cheeks, then his jaw, his nose then his mouth with a hum. She guides his face up, easing him next to lay aside her on the settee, leg hooking over him, robe opening. Her hands stay on his face, caressing, easing hair back, passing over his cheeks and jaw. “My darling Junji.”

Her eyes wonder down to his collar, his suit and she rolls him over, easing a top him. Her fingers reach for the tie first, easing it free and tossing it behind her. Slowly her fingers undo his buttons until her hands are at his bare chest. Her left passes his nipple with a giggle before continuing to unbutton the shirt. “Would you like to take a bath with me Junji?” she asked as she eased back and began undoing the belt on his trousers. Most of her hair is settled behind her, but few strands begin slipping over her shoulder. 

Donning the expensive house slippers, he adheres to the estate’s expectations without complaint, though he is a little ill at ease among the swirls and eddies of servicemen and women. He’s struck by the sheer number of them; all well-dressed, all serene, and all looking at him with much kinder eyes than the guard with whom he had traveled. He was certain they all had highly particular jobs: plant whisperer, house shoe giver, coat taker, and so on. There was nary a thing that needed to be done that did not have a designated person to do it. 

With Soa’s slender pale arms wrapped around him, he visibly softens. He feels the tension in his shoulders dissipate. "It wasn’t too terrible,” he utters in a far more intimate voice than he’d normally permit in the presence of others, but he assumes the Gaun employees have observed their fair share of scandal, and he imagines that his love-struck tone was seldom the most captivating or shocking thing they’d witnessed. 

He caresses Soa’s raven hair while holding her close. Soa’s cuddliness was not at all unusual, but he senses something is wrong. There was more to his summoning than a simple visit. The fact that she had sought refuge at her family estate was an indication of some inner or outer turmoil. It was not in Junji’s nature to outright ask what was wrong, and it was not in Soa’s to appreciate such an indecorous approach. Instead, he draws her closer, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

Tea and blood are laid out, and they are alone at last. They continue to hold each other in the middle of the room like a marble statue of a lover’s embrace. Finally, he moves, cupping her face in his hands so he can look at her.  "Would you believe me if I told you that I missed you terribly? I know we haven’t been apart that long, but…“ When you’re in love, time works differently. He laughs lowly. "I think if my department knew how much of a sappy clown I am, they’d all keel over and die. As things stand, I’m pretty sure they think of me as some cold-hearted harbinger of death and tax returns, which is true.” He puffs out his chest a little. “I am a multifaceted individual.”

She nods and smiles, “Of course I do. I can miss you for a tiny moment when you are away”, she says knowing how infatuated it would seem. It was still very true. She intends to begin her barrage of kisses but his laugh slows her. She only smiles, pulling at her bottom lip for a moment. “You have no idea how fucking hot you are, my darling”, she begins then pecks his lips. “You must inspire a million naughty dreams”, she grins then kisses him again, moaning across his lips before easing back. “Outside of my own”, she adds taking his hand and leading him the dark green settee to sit. 

Aside him, she inhales the aroma of the tea as she raises it. Ge Mian Qiao. She extends it to him, taking in the tea set they selected. Then, she remembers his own collection of grey within his cupboards. “Darling, I am reminded I have a surprise for you”, she says raising the glass filled with blood. “Do not panic love”, she giggles and takes a sip, then lifts her leg, placing it over his own, sheerness of her robe parting for her pale flesh.”I will have it brought up later.”

“But do you really not think members of your staff, have been sitting in growing lust for you?” she takes another sip and then smells the blood. “My very attractive man? How can it not be? Do you perhaps consider yourself a unique catch and me possessing unique taste?” She smiled at him, remembering the first day she met him with that seriousness etched into his face, far beyond expression, it was his in his very features. “I remember the first time I saw you Junnie. How you jaw set, cheeks cut just so, mouth resting so devilishly welcoming. Yes I know you weren’t welcoming any of my advances then and for some time. Supposed you wounded my ego love?”: She remembered Roga had made it quite clear he took his work very seriously, as if that would prepare for the fucking treat of a man she would meet. He never looked longer at her than necessary, even outside of Roga’s presence, even in her high slits and lace. “Long, slender with suited tone, and your suits”, she bit her lip. “like second skin fit you so superbly, a statement to your preferences and nature, for certain. Neat, orderly, emotionless, at a glance, but not quite true I know now. Even your voice, you spoke very matter-of-factly, knew all you said to be fact, starkly intelligent, yet unafraid in a den of vampires. Quite my fucking type actually”, she realizes and laughs.

“You know, the more I saw of you, the more I needed to observe, the more I liked you, wanted you. The way you walked, the muscles in your arms, the way your mouth shifted with proper concentration”, her finger passed up his arm, “and before long I was imagining you and I, thinking how to see you outside the office, outside of your clothes, and inside of me”, she smiled a dainty smile, though her eyes confirmed her words, looking up to him as she sighed. “And while none can be compared to me, I know I have superior taste in most things, certainly handsome beings, I guarantee there is a hoard of workers that would spontaneously erupt in orgasm if you smiled your tiniest smile at them.”

Come What May

When: November 22, 2022 Where: Car en route to the Guan Estate

The car arrives at 5 p.m. to fetch him.

Junji has been to the estate before, but this is the first time he’s returned since Roga and Aeu’s slumber. It’ll be strange, he thinks as he settles into the supple back seat, to be in that house knowing its proprietors are sleeping not far away. He imagines that this must be a comforting proximity for Soa, but the necromancer finds it a tad creepy.

Although the journey is long, Junji is well-prepared. There are many work reports to read, for one thing, and so much mental preparation he needs to conjure out of thin air before his arrival. The grandeur of the Guan domain is staggering. The first visit had been such an arresting and not a little sinister experience that he’d been inclined to think the property was magically enchanted.

And so with the sun mounted low in the sky and great bursts of red leaves melting off the trees, Junji is driven to the Gaun Estate.

He’s not alone in the backseat. One of the Guan’s guards sits in the seat across from him, watching him and not being the least bit subtle about it. Junji knows better than to engage him in conversation. He’d tried it before, and the man had shut him down with nary a word, glaring at him from behind dark sunglasses. The necromancer's insides had withered from the embarrassment.

He reviews the reports for as long as he can. When they reach a certain bend in the road, one Junji recalls with searing clarity, the guard tugs a silk bag over his head. Why this was necessary at this point he did not know. He’d spent the better part of a decade serving this family, but he still posed a threat to their privacy. He had no sight into Roga’s heart, but he knew that while he trusted Junji to an extent, he didn't trust him with the sacred knowledge of the Guan hearth. That was a privilege reserved for those with whom shared his blood.

They are driving uphill. He can feel the altitude change in his head and ears. With his vision restrained, his remaining senses are working overtime to keep him grounded. If he remembers correctly, he will be wearing this bag for an hour, so he tries to relax. He counts three checkpoints and tries to imagine the daily routine of the guards stationed at those locations. What did they have to sacrifice in order to attain the knowledge needed to do their jobs properly?

The time passes and the bag is torn from his head. The sudden rush of light into his corneas is startling, even though there’s barely any sunlight left. He blinks and fixes his hair.

The estate is even more ornate than he recalls, an imposing Gothic mansion standing tall against the hills, possessing darkness within. Three guard towers have been erected near the port, and large dogs with gleaming teeth patrol the grounds.

Another sentry stands at stiff attention in front of the house. Each of the men chosen for sentinel duty had hard mouths and arrogant postures, meaty muscles claiming dominance over their large physiques and projecting an air of perpetual violence. Not even the suave grace of their designer suits could conceal the enormous power of their bodies.

When Junji steps out of the car, it is this guard who leads him deeper into the property. Yet again, no pleasantries are exchanged. He guesses the Guan’s did not pay these men to speak. They enter the main building swiftly, ascending an L-shaped set of stairs into Soa’s wing.

Her plan was to make it back to Seoul that day, take pictures of the kitties in their new collars for instagram, ask Kage about that one bird that keeps visiting the balcony every afternoon, and smother Junji with kisses, redden his neck like it was in Hong Kong, mark him shamelessly until he called her name in that voice that was half pleading, half contentment. Her original plan was to stay in Seoul after making the trek back out for one not quite barbie. But, in some horrid play of fate that night had turned into something, something else altogether, even with the probability she weighed, yet still outside of what she wanted.

Life could be so fucking mean.

Drunken, the plan became to play quite hard and messy with her darlings, but even that didn't go as planned. That premier of her blood had duty take him away, much to one ex-marchioness' delight.

And while she was fine with the twisting of some of her other plans, the desire to smother one Okada Junji in her kisses was not one she wanted to change.

The night of bloody games behind her, she turns to her right eyes slowly opening to see the lead of her staff waiting in front of three more. They bowed and offered their greetings as she rose. The accompanying robe to the slip she wore was opened and waiting, the Guiseppe Zanotti house shoes held by another then set at her feet. She steps into the house shoes, then slips her arms into the robe, fastening the tie herself loosely.

"Champ'an Okada has arrived, Daegunju," the head attendant spoke, clasping her hands and setting them at her chest. "Jaseon Dana and the other progeny have gone racing, taking the bikes and a squad of guards. They will return before sunrise she promises, Jaseon Dana's attendant reports", she begins then continues her household report, updating the count of where her blood was, who remained on the Estate grounds and mentioning the stack of files sent over and waiting in her private study.

Soa nodded then ran her hand through her hair, pushing the strands up and away from her face, over the robe and falling down her back. She looked out the window, the proper day was beginning. Slowly she moved from her inner chamber, out the opened ornate carved double doors, feet light over the wood beneath her. She continued out into the private sitting room, one maid whispering to black velvet alocasia as she cleaned its leaves. Another branch was emerging near his base. She told the creature she would see to an even bigger pot, one picked especially in celebration.

Soa wondered if she was rubbing off on them, chatting with the plants. Yes, they needed such things, but she felt the staff enjoyed it. "You will get to pick indeed', she said making the woman turn with a smile, bowing with a greeting.  Soa nodded and continued through the space, down the corridor that held a guest bathroom, a guest dayroom and a private store room.

The doors at the end of the corridor were opened  and she could hear his footsteps. The way pressure settled into the Hermes house shoes they had prepared with his stay in mind, the way it illustrated his stride, she could see it just from the sound. She realized then she could spot him in a crowd in so many ways. The look in his eyes, the way he walked, even the setting of his lips. His scent alone did not mark him. All of those Junji-isms made him who he was.

Through the drawing sitting room, she walks down the hall into the secondary sitting room as he walks through the threshold. "Junnie", she sang taking in his expression. "Isn't it just awful when plans just get right fucked up Junnie", she poses as the staff around bows and offers greeting to him. "Just twisted up and ruined. But I suppose it's a surprise and that's better than knowing the future", she continued as Tea is brought in with a platter of biscuits, another attendant setting down a decanter of blood.  The tea is poured into a light grey cup, with gilded florals and vines over the surface, blood fills the crimson stemmed hock, both set upon their own tray. Both attendants bow and then leave the room, lead attendant following suit, closing the double doors closed behind them.

Maja stands unmoored for a moment, her victory hollow. She thought regaining her memories would be anchoring, but she’s lost at sea. Given her inability to feel pain, she’s never gotten used to being uncomfortable, and it spreads through her like a disease. The thought of having to go through this sensation again, only worse and more intense, makes her want to slice open her stomach for a second time just to hang herself with her large intestine.

Isn’t this what she’s always wanted? Maja swallows down the new hurt.

I wonder how time would have arranged this, had I had my drink and danced myself out in the garden. “I don’t believe it could have happened any differently.” Maja had never thought of herself as a fatalist, but now… For better or worse, this is her story. Imagining what might have happened if they had taken different paths is pointless and made a mockery of everything she is. Her fury, however fierce, could not alter the past. She did not save Izabel, and her resentment for Soa was a mere calcification of her own anger at her inability to change her life’s circumstances. 

De Leon is dead. She knows this innately. She knows because Soa confirmed it, and she knows the vampiress isn’t responsible. Maja’s mind is rapidly firing, but she can’t recall the events surrounding his death or her own role in it. You know, a voice whispers, you’ve known all along. But the thought made her nauseous, and she doesn’t want emesis to join the list of her bodily fluids staining the carpet. 

She stares at Soa, wondering how it came to this. She believes Soa when she says she hopes to see her again, but her statement has a sense of finality to it. An end. She doesn’t know what’s ending, but she can feel it happening in real-time. She takes in a sighing breath. 

“See you next time,” she says and is about to say something else, but doesn’t. “Next time.” She walks past Soa. The Vortex’s front doors spit her out into the gushing rain, which she lets soak her to the not-real bone. She doesn’t call a cab; she can walk for miles and miles without growing weary (certainly not a deliberate component of her design, but a component nonetheless) and desperately needs to outpace her racing mind. She only comes to a halt when she catches sight of her reflection in a darkened store window. In the window’s black mirror, her face appears lost. Her dress is tattered and soaked, shellacked to her body like a latex suit.

“What am I here for?” she asks and nobody answers. Her eyes look black, haunted. Her mascara runs. “Fuck.” She turns away and disappears into the wet night. 

It seems, quietly, floating in the air unseesn, that this might be the last time she sees Maja. Like a whisper its there, a sad final meeting. Tragic from its inception. How doomed. 

Fate was a wonder indeed. 

If it was all plan, and predestined, then perhaps her role was complete. Perhaps her time knowing the woman had come to its end. They met, and moved on. Such was the string of encounters given to an immortal. 

The thought simmered within, sat in the heat of the moment. Would she spend days sullen, low and pained like the last time she parted with the doll? She remembered the journey south, hiding her sadness from her father, staying within her coffin below deck, coming up only to feed and discuss when called. Unable to act and understanding that fact, yet saddened in that inability. A pitiful state unsuited for her emperor father. At the battlefield she gave no mercy, collected heads to burn and shred, making use of the raw feeling, venting till she could feel no more. Perhaps she thought she could rush back and - no.  She sighed and let the memory subside. There would be none of that. There could be none of that.

Yet the thought would ruin the intoxication so rarely met. How to be right at the fullness of promise to then walk away, conclude fate had spun then together for their time and now it was over. The vampire leaned against the edge of the table and watched the doll ascend the steps up and out the door. She sighed, closing her eyes then looking at the ruined manicure again. How unfortunate. 

Her eyes open to see her progeny bowed before her, Dana in front. Soa sighed again, Dan’s eyes rising to meet hers. “I suppose you will call for him. Especially with what you’ve been drinking.”

Soa’s smile returned. Their little rivalry was cute. Knives sharpening knives. She came and stood at her side, arm looping around her in an embrace. Even without that link, she must have known. Her ever sweet Dana.

“Will I be taking you home or will he be dropped from the sky from some stupid pet?” She rolled her eyes. There was something else she wanted to offer but knew it wasn’t the proper time. They’re relationship was not like Soa’s and her first. She knew that. There’s had transcended just sire and progeny into a love only they knew its bounds. 

Soa giggled. “Let us return home. All of us. To the Estate. Call your brothers home”, Soa took her hand then caressed the face of her fourth before walking towards the door. Umbrellas open above her as she is led to the car. The door opens and she steps within, Dana walking around and getting in, her other progeny and guards filling the guards behind. The window taps, then the door opens on Dana’s side. Another goblet and another decanter of blood. A gift from the proprietor. She sends her thanks and the column of vehicles move through the rain. 

Fate and its reaches drift in and out of her mind as she drinks. A wonder of chance of choice. She scoffed, looking out into the dark road. Fate could only be fate so long as she let it. She was fucking Guan Soa and she hated being told what to do. 

It’s so quiet now that the club has cleared out. Someone has turned off the music, leaving only the distortion in her head and her healing factor stitch, stitch, stitching up the hole in her gut. Soa has sped up the process by returning her organs, and Maja can feel everything snapping back into its proper place. Is this what’s going on inside her head? A snapping into place? However, the noise in her head is not a snapping or stitching, but rather the roar of an approaching wave, washing her in the salty coldness of the past. She feels the urge to shiver for the first time in her life.

Has one night ruined my very character to you or has the reality of my nature finally revealed itself and I no longer worthy of being held in proper regards? “Yes,” responds Maja, “And no.” When she looks down at herself, she notices the gash has been sewn up. She is still covered in her own not-blood, though she now looks like the perpetrator of a crime instead of the victim of it. “And it’s not one night,” Maja goes on. “It’s two.” Glancing up at Soa, she smiles softly, and it’s a different sort than the one she’d been wearing moments before. “And proper regard is,” the roar in her head grows in volume, swimming little hands grabbing at her back, dragging her into the deep, “subjective.”

Closing her eyes as the wave crashes over her, she thinks that her and Soa are in the eye of a hurricane and there’s no end in sight. 

Maja is clutching Izabel, who is freezing despite Maja’s arms around her. He shipped her out the next morning, blaming Maja; this was not his plan, but Izabel had been ‘spoiled’ that night, and he’d been forced into a deal for an immense sum, but clearly not as much as he thought he could get for the blonde. His magnum opus of western beauty. He vented his frustrations on Maja: fuck doll, wife, product, punching bag. He broke almost every bone in her body, only to break them again when they healed. “Know your place,” he snarled, spitting in her face. Despite the fact that her eyes were too bloody and swollen to see, she could feel the spittle land. “Know your place." 

When she returns to the present, Soa is speaking to her. I want to share with you and have you share with me. I so want to see more of you winning. “Winning is subjective,” she says with eyes still closed. She can picture herself holding tight to Izabel but not tight enough. Not tight enough. When she opens her eyes, Soa has changed. Fangs gleaming, claws extended. “This is not monstrosity.” This is not a jab; she’s speaking plainly and honestly, free of the complicated emotions she feels for the vampiress. “I have seen monstrosity,” his face appears in her head. Her husband. Her maker. Her God. De Leon. “And it didn’t have fangs and claws.” 

A rent gown and splatter. A shame. Soa wonders if anything had really changed. Can she really call it a change? Or had she just woken up. This after all was inevitability, a future she had long known would come to be. 

Subjective, she says. The feeling of her words irritates, gnashes against her, a future unwanted to taking shape, flickering in and merging lanes into the present. “If agreement cannot be met”, she says, emotions far from her features. “It is how I knew your stunt was not meant to harm, a game for she who loves games. You had no malice in your heart, that I know. And it was why no punishment expected could have been given. You have never been some subject of mine to be forced back into line. You have only ever been Maja, she who I do not know, yet am curious of.” 

Soa’s hand’s clasp together, the claw of a warrior and manicured hand with perfect nails. They relaxed against her abdomen. She could feel the spin that was her emotions within her slow. They were settling, falling back into their perfectly organized places. All was returning to where it should be, no wondering of the many moving parts tossed aside by thought of being hated monster in her eyes. Guan Soa was still Guan Soa. She had control over herself. 

And even in that, there was Maja, the doll, the question, the could have been canvas.

Apart of the vampire smiled, deep within, as she relaxed. She did love a good surprise and this look on her face was that, even if the small wish of the future she wanted for her was evaporating before her. She hummed out an exhale, letting it go, the foolish wish of a younger vampire. She would have no wish over the doll any longer, no hopes. She was not her child, nor progeny, nor lover, nor blood. Wherever they went now she left it for her to frame. Soa could only accept or reject, but she could have no say in it, not now. She didn’t quite think she did. 

“Whatever you say”, she sighed. “Your winning, your deciding, your living as you chose, is what I wanted but perhaps that is not my place.” She looked down at her hands, watching the claws retract, she would need to get another manicure. An ombre’d red she thinks. Claws dipped in blood. 

She hummed in thought again. Her own monsters were in her head, hers to face and conquer, or love and die by. 

Nothing is done about her wild fit of maniacal laughter and broken glass. She is allowed to sprawl on the table like a drunkard, nosedive into madness in relative peace, watch Soa’s gentle and almost erotic descent upon her without fear of immediate execution. For a few moments, she could have persuaded herself that nothing has changed between them, that this is another one of their dark little games. 

Soa’s hair drapes over them like a black curtain. Maja smiles up at her, feeling Soa’s lovely heavy tresses tickle her cheeks.

You only know what you know. Maja laughs. “I don’t know shit about fuck.” 

Then she sighs lightly at the vampiress’ stone faced expression. Maybe it’s me. “Oh, Soa. Don’t be such a downer. Someday things will be fine again and you’ll text me and I’ll respond and we’ll visit each other and talk about all of this like it’s some stupid funny story.” Maja bursts out laughing. "Maybe not. Actually, now that I’ve said it, I’m realizing you’ll probably have me killed long before all that.” She drags a finger slowly across her throat. “For the heinous and unforgivable crime of failing to adequately kiss Her Vampire Highness’ royal ass. Do you think your daddy would have let you keep me as a pet if I’d done that all those years ago? Or were we always destined to end up here?" 

She is still for a moment, wanting to tell Soa everything, but it was so perfectly impossible to explain that she can only go on laughing. 

The room is dimly illuminated by muted red bulbs, and Soa cuts a menacing black shadow through the crimson light. Maja reawakens the image of Soa’s disgust for her, and her mind supplies a conclusive response: Well, I can be disgusting. If that’s what she thinks I am, then I’ll show her she’s right. A soft little giggle floats through her, and she stands, breathless, reaching for the largest shard of glass she can find.

Maja has seldom raised the glass above her head before the intimidating figure of a woman takes shape behind her, arresting her wrist in a firm hold. It was one of Soa’s retainers, a woman she’d witnessed lingering beyond the VIP room like a warning of doomsday, waiting for the appropriate moment to bring forth the fire and brimstone. Maja has given it to her. You’re welcome, she thinks. You’re so very welcome. The gleaming blade of a knife presses against her left side. 

“Oh, perfect,” Maja says to Dana. “You’ll love this. We were just about to discuss the specifics of my punishment.” As she speaks, she leans more and more against the tip of Dana’s knife, piercing her dress and kissing the skin beneath. Her voice then takes on the booming tone of a Shakespearian thespian: “Today I’ll be enacting the roles of both executionee and executioner.” She glances back at Dana with an expression of sincere sympathy. “Sorry about that,” she whispers importantly. “I’m sure you were eager to do it yourself. But I can assure you, the props master is an equally important role.” 

She shifts her gaze back to Soa, her real audience. “You know, I get it. I really do. Some things are just out of our control.” 

She slams into the knife with great force, jerking her small body in a sideways arc to make an exquisite dissection of her abdomen. The pathetic finery of her dress and her mimic’s flesh splits open like an overripe fruit, gushing forth a rhapsodic stream of dark red blood. Dana had dropped her arm amidst the chaos. Wonderful, thinks Maja with a big smile on her face. She uses her hands to pry open the gash, permitting everyone observing a good look inside. Red and warm like a womb. Drowsily, luxuriously warm. Maja continues to pull back her skin until the slippery organs of her stomach wriggle out and splat heavy on the floor, like so many slick deep sea creatures, forced suddenly and unjustly into the unforgiving pressure of the surface world. 

Not for the first time, she is amazed by her own design. The bastard had a real gift, she thinks bitterly. Her viscera was appropriately wet, appropriately warm. As if the men who fucked her gave a shit. Her intestines are shiny with an egg yolk-like membrane, giving the impression of a sausage in greasy casing. What must they taste like? 

Here’s an interesting thing, Maja notes, these are the only vampires I’ve known who don’t pounce at the first hint of fresh blood. Then again, it was most certainly her error, not theirs. 

All that remains is the emptied hole of her belly, gaping up at Soa like a gory, toothless mouth. Maja stretches this mouth even further: a grin. The floor at her feet is an ocean of blood. 

“There’s a woman who is praying for me,” she utters distantly as another splintered memory returns to her, as the blood stains the carpet and her steaming viscera cools. Her eyes look through Soa and at something from a time long departed. “A women in a village. I met her a long time ago.”

The emotions in the vampire ripple and churn, twist and heighten under the influence of the blood’s intoxication. It was probably why few things could adequately drunken their kind. Their already heightened beings needed no more stimulation. Yet there she was, submerging into her own self. Maja had become an echo to the outward world, coming into the hold like a splatter, a crash, staining then hushed to whisper, lingering, festering and fermenting. The warmth on her skin like a bribe, a breath of what should have been, and all at once an offer of something very different.

Mention of her father rips open the space, slicing through wicked. Anger prickles, bringing new colour to the mess of her mind. The everlasting emperor and lighthouse of her life, shining the brightest, surrounding the fullest, the darkest model of perfection. It was too soon. She had not rightly sealed the caisson of her remembrance and the regret she felt, and all those fucking questions. Too many things needed to be said. He was not dead, how could he be? Yes, of course she knew that, yet what century would he wake? Was she to spend a millennia before seeing him smile at her path? It was too soon.

She sinks down further, rolling over rubies and diamonds, silk petals and fans. 

The sourness at which her world is being addressed, the almost mocking of her responsibilities and titles hooted as she sank.

My only daughter.

It is only when Dana’s presence raises around her, her hold is shattered. Soa’s eyes looks from the glass to Dana’s hand at her side. The promise of death over sharpened steel brings sigh from her mouth. She was awaiting the order. Soa would not give it. Still, she could hear them. The little one had a death wish. A public execution, how vintage. Roga’s second was still as ruthless. 

It was still too soon. 

‘I win’, repeated over the sound of fresh laughter, the smell of blood pooling painting the scene. But that had been then. Focusing on their present, she hears the doll address her blood hungry progeny, Dana says nothing but her eyes still wait for the command. Maja’s words echo until blood that was certainly not blood sprayed out of her. Dana could not move, no command had been given and as she had stepped in where she was not called, any action would bring blame unto her. Standing with sharpened point, Malaysia flashed before her eyes but she was not willing to be sent away again. 

Soa watched her progeny’s hand used as tool, carving a window to her bowels, opening and freeing them their container. They tumbled down, bouncing and splatting and yet offering no smell. She stared at the slick organ and stood, easing from the booth. “Out”, she said softly, then glared at Dana, she lowered her head. Her back was turned to from the rest of the club, eyes moving to the cavity that was her stomach. “Out”, she roared walking around the doll, nails extending into dark claws. She heard the hoard rush from the space, door slamming shut behind them.

She rewinds the evening on mute, staring at the modeled organs. Her hands lift the coils, wrapping them together before pushing them back within the doll, ridding the dolls hand from fighting against her own design. Her claws retract with her fangs, eyes returning to paused brown. She leans against the table, watching the body heal. “Poor execution”, she says flatly, “no rolling heads, can’t even eat the intestines.”

Her eyes rise to Maja’s own, lingering in her gaze. Her memories were coming back and that blip of her time with the doll had impacted upon their present. She told herself she expected it but, the fucking timing. “The executed and executioner”, she stared into the dolls eyes. “Has one night ruined my very character to you or has the reality of my nature finally revealed itself and I no longer worthy of being held in proper regards? I don’t”, she stopped herself, he was tugging. No doubts reports already reaching his ear. She relaxed her heart and returned to the silence.

“I have known this moment would come since that day on the grass waiting for that fucking concert. It,” she spoke slowly, “then,” her mind was racing, linking her thoughts together, her wishes, her own memories. Hers, thoughts of a being stuck yet moving. “I want to share with you and have you share with me. I so want to see more of you winning. It is selfish, I know. I am that,” she acknowledged, lifting the non blood smeared hand to her mouth to lick it . “Still I want to see you win more. The sight of you losing sickens me”, she hissed. “The thought that any of it, even my own part staining your win, that disgusts me.” She licks her fingers again, marking the taste. “Never have you been the kind of bitch I hate and the thought that the newness the past brings you will rent me from you”, Soa looked to her hand, the taste settling. Not appetizing at all. 

“I don’t know at what point I suggested that you were a savior or that I owed a debt to you.” Maja says, slowly and emotionlessly. Soa had spun a yarn for her that wretched night in Manila, and she was spinning a yarn now. Was her life as Vampire Princess so cut off from the rest of the world that she couldn’t see beyond herself? 

Your life did not begin anew because of me. Maja didn’t need Soa to wax poetic about her evolution. She knew it. She’d lived it. Even when she couldn’t recall the details, she’d known she had clawed herself out of the mud of subjugation, igniting the night with her own obscene rage. Her autonomy was due to her; her survival was due to her; and she had waged war for each and every scrap.

She resents the damsel remark, as well as the theatrics by which Soa delivers it. "A damsel. Right." Maja never used that phrase. Soa was drawing it from her own mind, from her own past and present percipience of the doll. This is how she’s always seen her. Maja registers this all at once, and it takes tremendous effort to keep the deflation she feels from appearing on her body. Maja’s erotic passion is dampened by Soa’s disgust for her, making her feel like something rotten or spoiled. A cavity buried deep within a pearly tooth. A lovely shell for something putrid. 

It makes her hate the vampiress for how she made her feel, both then and now. She reframed, regurgitated, and revised Maja’s memory in such a way that absolved herself of any responsibility, despite the fact that she was the one who lied. She then withheld this crucial information for the sole purpose of mucking with the doll’s head. Maja was chastised for playing the victim while Soa victimized herself. Am I now a big monster instead of a fuckable mystery? 

It was all about control, and always had been. For Soa, for the man that made her and imprisoned her. And though Maja had mimicked their world, she was not apart of it, so far as the vampiress was concerned.

For a moment, Maja considers leaving. But her rage burns this idea out like flash paper over flame. She looks at Soa who is pointedly not looking at her. What a drama queen. “It’s actually kinda funny, don’t you think? That we’d randomly run into each other again after all these years.” She now understands the meaning behind Soa’s expression when they first encountered (re-encountered?) one another at that Pride event. The memory makes her laugh out loud. “I couldn’t appreciate it back then, but I can now.” 

Maja circles the table steadily, her gaze drawn out to the vampires lurking beyond the VIP room. Their eyes are not actively on her, but she senses them watching. She is well aware that even the slightest indication of danger would result in her immediate detention by one of Soa’s cronies. Maja smiles and waves at them. She had lived most of her life in the house of an enemy, what was an evening? 

With the flashing litheness of a snake, she returns to Soa, mounting the booth and plopping down on the table top. She picks up her half-drunk cocktail and dumps out the liquid on the floor. “Doesn’t do shit for me,” she laughs. “All pretend.” 

Was she more repulsive to Soa now than she had been in the past? Was Maja’s ignorance what drew the vampiress to her? Could Soa only like her when she was in command of her? She claimed she wanted nothing more than to see the doll take control, but Soa had become irritated when Maja revealed her knowledge of that traumatic incident in Manila. She’d stated that she wanted Maja to be herself, but this was yet another lie. Soa, like the cretin who made her, desired only one Maja: the most useful, most convenient, most desirable. She was not interested in the real her. 

The doll’s thighs are then rained on by a glittering hailstorm of glass as her small hand forms a tight fist. Some of the shards pierce her palm and draw blood. 

“Who’s sulking?” She laughs some more, loud and unrestrained. “Who’s sulking?” 

She flattens out on the table, gazing up at the club ceiling as if looking at constellations. When she squints her eyes, the lights dance and blur, resembling stars. Maja turns her head toward Soa. “I take offense that you’d think I wouldn’t and haven’t fucked a monster.” 

The goblet was refilled and Soa drank from it, feeling his reaction to her swaying mood. Concern with a bit of tease, a half threat of his trademarked ending, a promise to bury it under several turns, a wonder who dare. That sentiment she felt across the room to the other bound by her blood, no need of a deeper bond to tell her. She could see them, fangs bared, hissing. The little doll had two offenses too many. However would their sire handle such a thing, she who had built a reputation for hating such disrespect, hated those who did not know their place.

Yet on their proper first meeting, first moment sharing each other's presence, there was wonder and endless possibilities in her, an ember buried within. She loved a woman untamed, unafraid and bursting with potential. Even if she desired to claim that potential, mold it to her wishes, to see it burst brought great joy to the vampire, to see what emerged from within.

She could not deny her first wish for Maja and her sisters was a personal army. Since men wanted to use them for pleasure why not use that very allure to subdue and subjugate them. It was far better than being raped by 6 men with their limbs, and objects they found around for sport. And even that desire, when she was able to meet her, see her, Soa had just wondered, what kind of being she would chose to be.

A doll playing human had seemingly been her answer on second meet. And in that Soa felt disappointment, but it was fading, flaking away, sacrificial blood and transfiguration.Now Soa had to wonder if this version was the version of her she wanted to be. The question tempted to ruin the taste of the blood before her.

What a wonder fate was.

As the doll climbs the table, Soa's eyes return to her, catching the breaking of the glass. Blades were unsheathed, their humming resonating, a sound she would never miss. She, this being stirring in her chrysalis, she is provoking them with her antics. They care not of the change happening.

What a wonder fate is.

The doll's question floats over the vampire as her nails passes the top of her bosom. "Maybe it's me", she answered with a hum. Spoiled and pampered, ever given her way. Queen of probability who did not deduce how it would feel to not get her way. Where had the promise of becoming we vanished to?

"Is that so", she posed, not really a question, rising and setting the goblet down. A hostess was coming their way, Soa waved them away. The vampire was too deep in her mind, to give another being anything, minding her progeny and guards, reading the doll, stroked by intoxication and a wicked lover. And the other vampires around them, watching, listening, inhaling how her scent changed, watching the assorted expressions passing between the two. What game was this now?

"What really makes a monster", she began, brushing away the bits of glass, far too weak to break her skin with no real force. She leaned over Maja laying on the desk, knowing what it would look like to gazing eyes around them. Her hair threatened to come over her shoulder, closer down and it did, curtaining them off from the others for a moment. "Is it the threat of doom and nightmares or the known taste for acting it out? Is it not all perspective."