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White Vampire

Chapter One

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

Commissioned by TheCuddlingFox

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Jacob set his jaw as he left the inn, pack slung over his shoulder and guns holstered at his hip within easy reach. The chestnut stallion travelled lightly, his black mane braided tightly along the line of his neck so as not to get in the way of his 'hunting', although that was a loose term at best for his line of work. More of a bounty hunter and hired, deadly hand for those who had the coin to spend on his services, Jacob Colton was an equine who skulked through the shadows of life, making few connections with anyone, although he had lived and worked out of the Ruby Tout inn for several months at that point. He would be sorry to leave it behind.

But he had something to take care of first: one last job from the king himself. King Leovold was far too important a figure to be seen in such parts but a letter bearing the king's seal handed over by Alfred the barkeep was not to be ignored. It was even less to be ignored when it came with a pouch of gold and a mission to top all missions secluded away in the letter. For the letter bid him to take care of a canine who was suspected of feasting on citizens and, considering her history, it was hardly a great stretch of the imagination with the evidence laid out before them.

After all, everyone knew of Marchesa, the vampire of the castle. Her family had once been held in high esteem but, tragically, she had fallen prey to the bite of a vampire in her youth. Although life itself had not been taken from her and, truly, she had fought back like a demon, but the bite had sunk deep and there had been nothing to stop her progression into becoming a vampire, the fangs growing in a matter of weeks. There had been no hiding it but anyone shunning the family had met a swift demise, chased from what she considered to be her land (beyond the scope of her family property) with bloodied fangs and claws flashing in the cold of the night. Now, she treated others as beneath her and herself as something of a queen, though there was only one king and queen in the land and she held no true power other than the fear she commanded.

Little did she know that there was fresh strife on the horizon: as if her poor family had not suffered enough. And perhaps Jacob should have turned back as he stood before the castle, the mansion looming with a tower framing each end. There were no lanterns lit at the front of it and the stallion had been admittedly surprised too to find that there was no manner of guard at the gate, which swung open with an obnoxious, eerie creak, allowing him entry into the grounds. The graves too had held no ill-will and no lost souls rose from the dirt to claim him for their own, although he kept a wary eye on them all the same. He wouldn't have wanted to fall prey to a ghoul before he even reached his true target. And he was rather surprised and suitably cautioned that his target seemed completely unaware or unconcerned on his approach.

The double mahogany doors groaned as he pushed them open but he was not striving for quiet, assuming (wrongly) that he would draw her out into the grounds or at least the entrance hall for their battle. For it was coming, undoubtedly so, and he knew it would not be the easiest of battles to win, regardless of the multitude of weapons he had secluded away on the arsenal that was his body.

He was ready. But how 'ready' was Marchesa?

Jacob set his jaw and paced through the halls with the easy, wary gait of a hunter, ears flicking one way and then the other as he remained completely on his guard, unwilling to give even an inch of releasing any iota of tension. He could relax but that would only render him more vulnerable and, well, he thought he had rather a few more years ahead of him, not wanting to fall before one of his opponents just yet. Jacob grimaced. Although, it was rather common in his line of work and he could not forget the danger he was in above all else.

Today was not his day to die.

It was easy to find the ballroom, the grand hall where he warranted he'd find her, the vampire 'queen' of the castle. Every corridor swept in towards it, although it took Jacob longer than most to make his way through the halls, checking behind each and every tapestry and eyeing the plinths, which may have once held statues or flowers, with due trepidation. Everything was a danger.

But the ballroom... He took a deep, steadying breath, although his nerve held as well as it always did. The door lay ajar and the lanterns within her lit, deliberately so.

It was time.

He needed no grand entrance to approach her and there was no note of respect in the tilt of his head or the speed of his stride as he took in the grand hall, the high ceiling begging the eye. He only let his eye rake it once and then a second time, just to be sure, to check for foes higher than he would have otherwise thought to attack, but there was no one at all in the oversized room, a depiction of wealth, besides the white canine on the throne she'd claimed for her very own.

Marchesa looked over her challenger, if he could even be called that. The white canine's fur slicked down smoothly over her body, finely groomed and seeming to glitter with an unearthly light beneath the lit chandelier. Her servants had scaled the walls using a system of pulleys to reach the high, high ceiling of her reception room, which could be repurposed into a ballroom in her castle if she so chose. It had been a long, long time since her family had held a ball or event on such a grand scale, however, and, due to a rather unpopular opinion on her feeding habits, it was unlikely that it would be possible any time soon.

That said, it was not that she did not look like a queen or royalty of olden times in a corset that accentuated rather than concealed her figure, the long, flowing skirt begging the question of just what lay beneath. But Jacob was not a horse that could allow himself the luxury of ogling anyone, much less what he sought to extinguish from the face of the earth, and ostentatiously avoided looking down at her body, although the cold gleam of her eyes was particularly disconcerting. But it allowed him to steady himself, ears pinned flat back against his skull.

One more hunt to be completed. It was the same as any other.

"I have been expecting you, Colton."

His hooves clip-clopped noisily over the wooden floor as he paced, heat seeping through from the fires lit below: a form of under floor heating that was becoming increasingly common in large estates - not that he usually was found to be the sort of horse welcomed into such grand homes. No, Jacob was far more used to his little tent in the woods or simply moving from inn to inn as the work came and went, travels always a heartbeat from his hooves.

"And just why have you been expecting me?" He said, voice rising calmly and levelly, though he was aware that he didn't need to be too loud in order for her to hear him. "I don't generally make a habit of announcing my arrival."

The canine smiled eerily, pulling her lips back from her teeth as if she was trying to show off her fangs. Her eyes shimmered in the dark, pools of yearning that that seemed to want to draw him in, but they were swirling eddies that one could not afford to lose themselves in.

"One like you approaches every few moons and each and every last one of you thinks you may best me."

"I pretend no superiority," Jacob offered, spreading his paws out, though his fingers automatically twitched towards his weapons. "But I am afraid that we simply cannot allow you to continue on with your despicable acts for a single day longer. It is not right, what you do. You could find alternative ways to feed and yet you choose the one that claims the greatest number of lives."

"Oh, the false king. Another message from him?" She wrinkled her nose prettily. "Well, I suppose one cannot be all that surprised that he is still attempting to overthrow me. Yet he is such a coward that he will not come himself and face me, nor send an army."

Throwing her head back, she laughed cruelly, the sound echoing eerily around the ballroom. He pressed his lips together and rocked back on his hooves, waiting for her to be done. He knew how to be patient: he could wait.

"Do you think he believes that even an army will not be able to cast me out? That he has to send colts and pups that skulk in the dark of the night, stealing into my home in futile, worthless attempts? Every last one of you is the same!"

With that, she leapt from her throne, jaws agape to show a flash of fangs, gleaming with saliva in the flickering light from the chandelier, shadows dancing madly across the far walls. He took a step back, setting his stance, and drew a pistol, something that was of better use at close range. It wasn't as if he would have expected to ever be far enough away from her, once the fight had begun, to use the musket or shotgun. And, if she got too close, he would be right down to his hooves and blades, cutting through her just the same as she'd torn down her prey.

It would be a merciful death all the same.

She did not lunge for him immediately, however, the leap perhaps merely a show of strength through which she could intimidate him, although he had seen far worse than a femme fatale vampire before. Her words rolled over him like water over a weathered, worn rock and he set himself up to fight, legs apart for balance even as she stalked him, the she-wolf seeking out her prey. But he was no lamb to be taken to slaughter and it was about time she knew that.

That lesson, however, was about to be sharply learned and not quite for the intended party. Rumbling a deathly sort of chuckle that echoed eerily through the too-still room, brimming over with the memory of life, Marchesa fixed him in her sights, pulling her lips back from her teeth for a cruel hiss that was more akin to a death rattle scraping through lungs that were not of true furry-kind.

"They thought they could conquer me, defeat me! And you shall be cast out like every last one that came before you!"

She made no ploy at feinting an attack and charged straight for him with a feral cry, her upper body tipping forward as if she was trying to slicken her sense of momentum through the air, although there were no obstacles to hold her back. And she was fast - too fast! Jacob cursed under his breath and leapt, hooves scuffing and scrabbling over the smooth stone, polished to such over many years of many beings passing over it. There was a history to the place but he fully intended to put a stop to it right there and then, ending the bloodbath that had become her wicked little reign.

It was only a shame that one so beautiful had fallen to the vampires. Her white fur ruffled in the breeze created by the passage of her body as she hurled herself past him, only to swoop around with elegant speed and come for a second hit: the true intent of her attack. Jacob only barely got out of the way in time but that was to be expected - at least, that was what he told himself, adrenaline rising and heart hammering furtively in his chest - when he was still learning the ways of his opponent. He licked his lips, willing the pace of his heart to slow, breathing to ease as he thought quickly and calmly. He had to judge her, Marchesa, yes - just like any other. It didn't matter what she'd done, only that it was his job to bring a little more peace to the realm by snuffing out her life.

He just had to get her to reveal her weakness. And, sometimes, that was all too easy with a certain kind of self-loving fur, much less one that had crowned herself queen and ruled as such.

"Too slow," he grunted, ears flicking. "You getting soft in your old age, Marchesa? I thought there were a deal more stories about your might and wisdom, how deadly your strikes are. Or perhaps that is all in the past."

"Foolish colt," she hissed, ears slipping back. "You know nothing."

But his words meant little to her after years upon years of similar taunts and she circled him, eyes stabbing him like a million swords. If looks could have killed, he would have been dead right there and then, but there was a bigger game at play and both of them still held their best hands well enough in reserve.

Patiently, Jacob refused to make the first move, taking in his surroundings - it was always well to do that as one never knew when the environment may change to an advantage or, lord forbid, a disadvantage - as he stepped aside, levelling the pistol. She could run, jump, charge - whatever she pleased. He would be ready for her regardless of what she chose. And, in the end, he didn't even have to twitch his finger towards the trigger in the lure of an attack before she shrieked, an ungodly wail that had never been intended for mortal ears, and flung her body through the air as if it weighed nothing at all.

Unlike their brethren, the demonic blood-sucking monsters, who had gone before (what Marchesa could become, if she completely forsook every sense of what and who she was) the canine did not have the ability to fly or shift into a bat and so she was limited to the ground as her skirts flowed behind her, trailing her progress. Closer and closer, she howled and he fired, the shot ringing through the room with startling clarity. It didn't hit, of course, and her eyes narrowed, anger roiled up to breaking point.

Jacob swallowed a smirk. He nearly had her. Or nearly had her revealing that concealed hand of hers, that was.

Backing off, he swapped to a blade in each paw, the steel glinting wickedly, polished to a deadly point. Marchesa's eyes followed them and he took a breath while her attention was diverted, chest shuddering. Nervous sweat dampened patches beneath his arms but he held his nerve, meeting her eyes the very moment they snapped back up to his.

"Well?" He asked, spreading his arms. "Have you nothing to say?"

Staunchly, she held her ground and said nothing, nostrils flaring ever so slightly. But he didn't need her to reply to do what he needed to do.

"Is that the best you've got?" He snorted, taunting her openly as he spun his blade in the flat of his paw. "I would have expected more than that from a vampire."

Marchesa scoffed and they circled one another, her tail stiff and his quiet and still, not flicking even the once to give away anything of his intentions. He was well-practised in the art of the hunt, it had to be said, and he was hardly about to give anything away when his life, quite literally, lay on the line.

"You are a fool," she said, slowly and quietly. "You think that I am easy prey. Is it because I am a female?"

Jacob raised his eyebrows, though otherwise made no comment. Let her make of that what she would.

"The others mocked me, said that I was not fit to rule a pig sty," she growled, muzzle wrinkling. "I know who sent each and every one of them and it was not always the king. Poor horse, I have many enemies and the very reason that I have survived so long is because I have kept my wits about me and bested every last one of them too."

"It seems foolish too to reveal all this to me," Jacob retorted, pleased with how she reeled, just a little bit. "Don't you worry that I'll just go to the king with this information, let him know that _you_know?"

"No... Because you will never leave my castle!"

And then she was in motion again, cutting across the circle they'd made with the passing of their own bodies, teeth and claws flashing. For she did not solely have fangs at her disposal to fight, although they would have been more than enough for many, and slashed before he could react, shoulder spilling a metallic ribbon of crimson blood.

Jacob gasped and spun away, lunging at her in turn for a return strike, although the canine was too swift for him and just about managed to dance away, a wicked giggle burbling up from her lips. He growled. She was enjoying it! Causing him pain! It was a nuance of the truly evil to enjoy such an act and a testament to his skill that he was not that badly injured, although the scent of blood did set his prey instincts seething, anxiously battling for precedence in the skirmish of fight or flee. But he could only fight and he had to dig deep to win this one if he wanted any hope of surviving.

"What is wrong, little pony?" She crooned. "Am I more than you expected?"

The gunshot fired and she shrieked, spinning away in a flourish of skirt and blisteringly white fur. He blinked, wondering that she had any blood to spill as it splattered the floor, but swiftly pressed his advantage, however tentative and temporary it may have been. But the scent of gun smoke had not even begun to dissipate before she was on him, claws biting as she snapped and snarled for his throat, a white demon in the flesh. With a neigh, Jacob heaved her from him, black mane flying, but she scrambled in midair and landed on her paws, clad in boots that stopped below the knee, still clearly allowing her a full range of motion.

"Try again!"

She darted around and he slashed at her fangs, blade glancing of them as if they were fighting dagger to dagger, up close and personal in the grunt of the death ring. Saliva dripping from the cruelly long fangs and he shuddered inwardly to think of the poison contained within, all of the lives that she had taken without a second thought stretching out and out before him. But it served to harden his resolve and he ignored a second slash to his chest, pain searing through him as he ground his teeth together.

Soon. Soon it would be over and his hunt would be complete. He only had to hang on in the very thick of it for a little while longer.

Marchesa, however, was not giving in so easily and laughed as she flounced away, tail whipping behind her beneath the layers of skirts, flipping up the fabric briefly. His eyes followed it - and then she was on him, a paw twisting into his mane as her fangs flashed for his throat.

But the stallion knew what he was doing too even as a feral whinny of true fear ripped itself from his lips and his blade sunk up into her stomach. It was too low though and, despite the pain it caused her in the sudden judder of her body and twist of her face, it was nowhere near enough to kill a vampire. The crystals set into his weapons were not for show or a lure to thieves but blessed by one with power to allow him to end the life of a vampire - or any supernatural being that had no right to live among furry-kind. At least, he had not yet found one that would not succumb to the blessed crystals, but a vampire was harder to kill and still required a clean shot from said weapon through the heart.

Wrenching herself off his blade, she twisted away and put space between them, although his spirits were bolstered at least to see how her chest rose and fell more swiftly than before, noticeably so: she was getting tired. But that didn't mean she would automatically become easy prey and he forced her back, bodies coming together in a deadly dance over and over again. They didn't get enough space between them for him to, once more, go for his firearms, although he ached to end it, the need for that final blood to be spilt ringing through him with a power that he had never once before felt the true call of.

He had to kill her. It had to end. Breath raking harshly through his lungs, the stallion howled. Too many lives had been lost!

Blood tainted the air as his muscles screamed, forcing his body to act when all it wanted to do was flee. But he could not flee - not when so much harm had already been caused and, oh, it had to end! The roars of so many lives lost curled through his soul and he clenched his jaw against them, ignoring the rip of pain as she tried to force his arm behind his back, her strength beyond anything he had ever found in a ghoul or demon or monster of the fairer sex ever before. He supposed it would do him well to not assume that the females were weaker, oddly detached from the situation at hand as he fought like a wild stallion, forelock flipped out of his eyes, blessedly, by the braids. One had come undone when she'd wrenched at his mane and that was the mane he felt pulling back from his neck but he couldn't afford to pause and tuck it away, making do with the nuisance the best he could.

But the cat had only just begun her game of mouse and there was only so long she was willing to go on with the charade. Baring her fangs in a toothy, feral grin, Marchesa spun on a hind paw and blew him a kiss.

"It was fun playing with you, colt."

It happened too quickly - so quickly that he cursed himself in hindsight for not knowing and understanding that, of course, she'd been holding back the whole time, toying with him as beasts like her were want to do with their prey. He was losing his touch and that loss of who he was proved his undoing as she battered him down and down and down, her strikes perfectly time as her teeth grazed his shoulder, eyes glittering wickedly. Still, he could not succumb to her so readily and grasped his gun, firing into her stomach, guts her side - anywhere - over and over again as she screeched and forced it down into less vital organs for those of the vampiric persuasion.

But it was over before he knew it, the gun clattering over the stone and his paws too slow, far too slow, to reach his blades in time. Her paw closed on his throat, fangs flashing -

And then everything went black.

*

Jacob woke with a start, heart in his mouth and paw reaching for a blade that was not there. The fight! Marchesa! Where was the vampire? But there was no demon waiting there for him, just a bed of clean, white linen in a circular stone room that was oddly devoid of any other furniture. He was still in the same clothes that he'd worn before but his wounds were cleaned and dressed in a rough cloth suited to the task. He scrambled from the bed and groaned as every ache and pain in his body made itself known, blood from wounds that wept while he slept staining the cloth. The one on his neck - that must have been her claws - had not been bandaged and remained sticky with a glob of congealed blood, not quite dried. He shuddered. He was lucky to be alive. Yet what was alive when he did not know or understand a single shard of what was happening?

But where was he? Darting to the only feature in the room other than the bed, he sucked in a breath, staring down at the castle grounds with blood roaring in his ears. The room seemed to tip sickeningly, although that was not possible for he was in one of the towers, so very high above the grounds and very clearly still in the lair of the best.

His mouth too dry, he licked his lips over and over again, backing up with his tail clamped down over his buttocks. She was going to kill him, make a spectacle of him, torture him. That had to be her plan - it could not possibly be anything else!

Out. He had to get out.

Forcing himself to be calm, or at least as calm as it was possible for anyone to be in such a situation, he raced for the door and, shockingly, found it open. He could not pause or waste time in wondering just why it was left so and hurled himself down the winding, twisting stone staircase, only drawing his pace to something more akin to stealthy when he drew himself up short, realising just what a racket he was making. Did he want to be killed right then and there simply by announcing his attempt at escape to the whole castle at large?

And so, he crept around the final corner, coming to the ground floor in the darkened hallway. Dimly, he recalled that windows set into the tower sides, where the staircase ran, had allowed him to see, but it was hard to think about the details, the specifics of his environment which may or may not have saved him, when such a monster surely lay in wait.

Pushing open a wooden door, he entered the ground floor of the castle, the space between his nostrils wrinkled in trepidation. A royal red carpet lined the centre of the hallway, although how that was practical he would never know. Even if it meant he had to walk dead in the centre, however, it would do nicely to cushion the loud fall of his hooves.

But he hadn't even made it a few paces down the spacious hallway before he was accosted by what could only be a servant of the castle - a mouse dressed simply but presentably for any manner of business that one may find or undertake within the castle walls. Without thinking, Jacob reached for his weapons but, of course, there were none. He cursed. Stupid, so stupid! They wouldn't have left him there, let alone with the door unlocked, without any weapons left on his being!

The mouse hesitated, eyes roaming his body up and down, the light swell in the front of her shirt denoting her as a female, although her short stature meant that she barely came up to his chest. Jacob tensed. Mice were fast. Very fast, in fact. If she wanted to, she could race off and alert Marchesa to his whereabouts and that would be it - his candle snuffed out when already, miraculously, he'd been given a second chance.

"I'm warning you," he growled, paws clenched into fists. "Take one more step, alert that blood-sucker, and I will end you where you stand."

Far from being intimidated, the mouse tilted her head to the side and chuckled faintly, shaking her head.

"But she already knows you're here, sir!" She chirped happily, whiskers vibrating as if her sheer joy could not be contained by a physical form. "Please! If you'll be so kind as to follow me."

She trotted off, a spring in her step, but Jacob remained quite firmly rooted where he was, ears flicking one way and then the other as if to catch sounds from further off, even if there were none at the moment detectable by his sensitive hearing. When she realised that he was not with her, she squeaked and darted back, waving her paws imploringly.

"Marchesa_said_ you'd be down shortly," the mouse squeaked again, nose quivering as if she was oh so very eager to please and he simply hadn't heard her, a common, easy mistake to make indeed. "Please! Follow me!"

He could have followed his nose, the aroma of food floating through the castle as his stomach rumbled, although it seemed prudent to keep a wary distance all the same, lips pressed into a hard, thin line. He could only imagine - well, he did know, in fact - what a vampire would have crafted for their meals and it wasn't anything that a normal fur would ever have the passing thought of considering devouring.

"Fine." He turned his head away, knowing that his options were very much limited. "Take me to her."

Of course, that was exactly what the mouse intended to do and more than happily led him down a couple of hallways - not that far at all, really - to where the source of the delicious aromas emanated from. Jacob could not help but allow his mouth to water, swallowing hard as he realised just how hungry and thirsty he was. But it all must have been a ploy to torture and humiliate him further and the only way he would get out alive was by uncovering her conniving plot and...

....she was making breakfast. Just breakfast. It seemed so unnerving to find cured meat and eggs on a plate before a canine who had killed so many in her bloodlust, even if it was to feed the vampiric side of her, that he stopped short, nostrils flaring in a loud snort.

Her eyes snapped up, the canine at the wooden counter of a kitchen elaborately decked out with anything a servant may have ever wanted to prepare the best meal possible for his or her liege in a castle that would, most likely, be their home for life. Servitude, after all, was pretty much still slavery under a different name but the mouse looked up at the vampire adoringly with her eyes as wide as the saucer on which Marchesa had delicately placed her teacup.

"Jacob..." She said smoothly, her tone lacking any of the terror and horror of their previous encounter. "It is morning. You have slept a day and a half."

He baulked.

"Who took me to that room?" He demanded. "And what are you planning to do with me? Turn me into a vampire yourself?"

Something darkened in her eyes but, far from rising to the bait, she politely turned away, her muzzle angled off as if something altogether more interesting had caught her eye.

"Eat."

She pushed the plate of cured meat and eggs towards him, although made no effort to close the physical distance between them, almost as if she was as afraid of him as he was her, although it would, undoubtedly be for very different reasons. He stared at the plate of food as if it contained poison. It probably did.

"Why am I here?" He said instead, forcing the question past his lips. "You had me. Why have you now spared me?"

A shadow passed over her face but was swiftly cleared despite her lack of smile. The canine nodded at the plate and the mouse servant, perhaps helpfully, raced over to take it and darted all the way back to offer it to Jacob with her ever-present smile, making up for their stern expressions in part.

"Here you are, sir!"

Jacob scowled.

"I'm not eating that. Tell me why you haven't killed me. You're planning to torture me, aren't you? Is it information you want? I'm not a stallion who gets that kind of information so you may as well kill me right now if that's what you're after."

He should have known that there would be no answers forthcoming but he asked them anyway, words spilling from his lips like the water he so desperately craved, throat aching.

"You are hungry."

"Why have you made me food?"

She shrugged, the white robe that she was wearing rippling as it followed the flow down her body.

"It felt like the right thing to do."

There was nothing he could say to that in terms of a quick, witty response and Marchesa wasn't about to wait for him to think of something, moving along on her way. No doubt she had important business to be getting on with but Jacob still couldn't stop himself from calling out after her retreating back, those narrow shoulders held rigid as if against a heavy weight.

"When are you going to kill me?"

She didn't even break stride.

"Take a bath," she advised, slipping from the room as if a ghost. "You will feel better and the waters here will aid in your recovery."

Jacob blinked and gaped at her retreat, but the mouse was still there, holding up the plate of food for him.

"Eat!"

And so he did, sitting down in the kitchen of a vampire to eat a plate of eggs and meat by her paws.

And it was delicious.

*

The mouse servant, whose name was revealed to be Elsa, was overly chatty as she led him to the baths after a very satisfying breakfast. It was not usual for all prey animals to eat meat but their digestive systems had evolved to compensate for it, which was just as well for their long-term survival and the betterment of predator and prey relations. It had not stopped those of an illicit ilk, however, from beating them down at every opportunity: the ghouls and ghosts and demons and, of course, the vampires. They were a scourge - were they not? Did they not take lives needlessly, all to feed themselves when they could, surely, find some other way?

Jacob could not answer the questions for himself but he could slip into the hot water of a bath set at the level of the floor - more like a pool than anything else. He could not have swum in it but he could immerse himself completely, allowing the sweetness of scented oils and finery to wash away his troubles for hour upon hour. There seemed to be no sense in getting out anytime soon if he was only going to come face to face with Marchesa or even that devoted little servant of hers. If he was going to die, at least he was going to die clean and smelling of roses.

Of course, clean clothes weren't on the agenda when he rose from the water, having taken the braids out of his mane and letting it flow wetly down the arch of his neck. All he could do was wrap a drying robe around his lower half and dry off his upper body the best he could, body littered with scars, as sculpted as it otherwise was from his line of work. He was a sight to behold and no one could deny that - least of all the canine watching from the shadows.

"You're beautiful, do you know that?"

He leapt and snorted, nostrils flaring as he set himself to fight, every muscle in his body tensing once more even after the sweetness of his bath. His breath came in short, sharp pants and he tried to swallow, yet found that he could not.

Marchesa stepped into full view, a small smile playing across her lips that did not reach her eyes. Jacob lifted his head high, acutely aware of his state of undress and lack of weapons, though it was not as if he was completely helpless against her when he still had his body to fight for him, as battered and broken as it was.

Something in her seemed to break and she faltered as she stepped closer, although Jacob only took a step back, keeping the same amount of distance between them.

"Don't be afraid."

The horse snorted.

"Kind of hard not to, if you'll forgive me, ma'am."

Her brow furrowed.

"Am I truly that terrifying?"

"With those fangs, yes. Yes, you are."

She sighed, seeming to crumple in on herself as she perched on the changing bench in the large washroom, eyes downcast and legs bent with her bare hind paws flat on the floor. They were surprisingly delicate without the garb of her boots and she reached down slowly to rub and massage them, working her fingers between the toes.

"I never liked those boots all that much," she said quietly. "And the delicate ware. I only have them still because visiting a marketplace isn't within the scope of my ability anymore and my cobbler is no longer with us."

Jacob could not saying anything to that, eyes brimming over with distrust, and she sighed again, standing and brushing off her skirts, a plainer wear than what he'd met her in that was nonetheless high quality.

"Come with me."

What option did he have but to go with her? He may well have been walking to his doom, the hangman's fanged noose, but the equine kept a way back as she led him silently from the bathing chamber to the hallway, illuminated with lanterns set into the walls that must have been lit in advance. There was no carpet as they delved deeper into the castle, the path sloping gently downwards beneath their paws, until they arrived at a set of stairs behind a creaky oaken door that was completely free of dust. Although it was not the prettiest of locations, it was clearly a walkway well-used on a daily basis.

Down and down the steps they went, Jacob's trepidation growing in acute perverseness with the dropping temperature. Taking a lantern from the wall, Marchesa lit the way from them with a bobbing globe of light that was barely enough for either of them to see where they were stepping but they reached the bottom safely to the standard fare of a wine cellar. Great barrels of wine lined the basement and Jacob shivered, reeling back into the darkness. Could he strike her while her back was turned? But everyone knew that vampires had excellent vision in the dark, which only meant that the lantern was for him and him alone. He was the vulnerable one - not her.

"Come."

He had nowhere to go and yet he took a step forward, watching as she took a clean, crystal goblet and filled it from the nearest vat, the handle of which was black and free of dust. But, to his shock, it was not wine that flowed from the spigot but deep, ruby blood, which splashed joyously into the goblet as she lifted it high, showing him clearly what it contained. Sucking in a breath, Jacob stepped back shakily, blood roaring in his ears.

Was_his_ blood going to be the next lot to fill a barrel? He breathed shortly and shallowly, rolling his eyes as the whites of them showed too clearly, although Marchesa held up a paw, eyes narrowing with something that he could not determine.

"I..."

But his tongue stuck crudely to the roof of his mouth, betraying him in the moment that he needed it most. If she lunged for him, he knew he was gone, done, the end. There was no way he could be successful at fighting back in his condition, although he wearily and instinctively shifted his weight back on his hooves, preparing for the worst. There was nothing else, of course, that he could do but fight to the very bitter last breath.

Yet the vampire held up a paw to quiet him, his chest rising and falling so rapidly that it was a wonder that he hadn't passed out, for surely there was no possible way that he was able to get all of the air he needed into his lungs at such a shallow rate. Trying to growl in the back of his throat, the stallion seemed to grumble, ears flicking one way and then another as if expecting a monster to leap from the shadows or simple the one before him to make her move: there truly was no way to tell.

"I filled these on a hunt nigh on forty years ago," she said quietly, her eyes misted over in the dwell of memory. "I know I must have blood to survive and, trust me, no being wants to die - not even the rabbit before the fox. But...I could not stand to take a single life more. This supply will last me decades more and then..."

She took a deep, shuddering breath as Jacob's jaw dropped. Wait, she couldn't possibly mean... But Marchesa had more to say and was merely steadying her nerve to continue, forcing herself on as the words came thick and slow from her lips.

"And then, I will have to find another way... I know that and I loathe the thought of it. But I will deal with that when the time comes. For now, this is how I feed and sustain myself and I pray every day for the lives lost and taken so long ago."

Licking her lips, the glass in her paw trembled, ripples spreading across the surface of the liquid contained within.

"I thought...maybe you should know. Maybe you're one who can understand."

Jacob gulped and shook his head. Sure, he was _capable_of understanding but no one was able to take in that much information in one hit! There was so much, too much, and he rubbed the back of his head, stance relaxing somewhat as he tried to grind his mind over what had been said, working through the words, one by one. It was the only way to start.

"Wait, so... The deaths..."

And she was already shaking her head as he spoke, cutting across as if she needed to make her side heard, perhaps for the very first time; there was no way to ultimately tell without hearing it from her very own lips.

"If there are any deaths in these parts, they are not caused by me," Marchesa murmured with bated breath, hardly moving her lips at all as she spoke as if she was afraid of what they may unleash. "But no one cares for a vampire now, do they? I'm an easy target for blame and the best manner of scapegoat they have at their disposal. That's why they send furs like you into my home, invading what has been in my family for generations and trying to send me into the abyss itself."

The words struck him like a slap across the face and Jacob licked his lips, although his mouth was too dry, sandpaper rasping against the roof of his mouth. He should have had the words to make things make sense again, yet nothing came to mind as he rubbed his throat and looked anywhere but at Marchesa. His lack of weapons, oddly, no longer seemed to matter, though he'd never felt quite so naked before another fur - and his dignity, of course, was still covered.

"N-no..." He coughed, cleared his throat and tried again. "No... Marchesa... This cellar..."

But she wasn't looking for an explanation of what she already knew. The canine's eyes hardened after many years of misunderstanding, control and abuse by the general population, cast aside by those she had loved, many years ago, and rendered an outcast to live under the canopy of hatred.

"Do you now understand?" She barked, ears pinned. "There's too much, so much that_no one_ has understood because it's easier not to! No one wants to know what a vampire really does and no one cares if one survives an attack accidentally. They would all have been much happier if I'd died back when they broke into our home! But no! I was left here and the rest of my family - dead! But I'm the one to be hunted!"

Her voice was laced with an edge of desperation as if she had to make him see, make him understand at any cost necessary what she had gone through and was going through in her life. The barrels of blood, gory in one sense and life-bringing in another, spoke the truth more clearly than any words, however, could have done.

Jacob wrung his paws together and hung his head, taking his eyes off her. Yet, strangely, he held no fear that she was about to attack, regardless of how her chest rose and fell so sharply. Any male's eyes should have been following the rise of her breasts, watching her ribcage for a telltale twitch that was harder to hold back than many anticipated, but there was a line were a hunter, such as Jacob, simply could not hunt one who had been hunted their whole life, for all that remained of Marchesa's life was that as a vampire. And what kind of life was that, locked up in her own castle with little else to do and nowhere to go where she could mingle or interact with anyone as a normal fur?

She had hunted... But the fact that she had sacrificed her right to be a hunter, a predator of the night, lay around him in the barrels, clear for anyone to see. He ran his fingers through his mane, a nervous twitch, and groaned softly, acutely aware of his aches and pains. Already, it felt as if it had been a very long day and he couldn't take the mental barrage on top of everything that his body had endured.

"Well?" She demanded, slicing through the silence. "What say you?"

"I think I do," he whispered, stomach plummeting, blood roaring in his ears as his veins turned to ice. "Understand that is."

Yet words were not so easy to force out by lips that may as well have been made of rubber, for all the good they did him in enunciating his words clearly, throat thick and tight.

"This... You did not decide to become a vampire... But the death then..." He shook his head, scanning them once again as if he was sure they were going to disappear from sight at a moment's notice. "Yet now there are no deaths and, for that and your storage of so much blood, you have already saved many."

Again, he shifted his weight, although he could not quite tell whether he was shifty because of the crashing revelation or simply because his sore muscles were getting the better of him. It could have been either or but one was more difficult a situation to confront than the other.

Yet there was something that needed to be said as the canine stared him down, her gaze turning flat as if she was waiting for what she could only see as the inevitable. After all, hadn't she gone through it many times before? But he still had to try, no matter quite how his nerves shook like the beating of a trapped bird against its cage.

"I am sorry," he said quietly. "I have done you a great wrong, Marchesa, and should be fit to be tried in any manner you see suitable for one who has wrongly invaded your home and sought to end your life."

Because maybe his life wasn't worth living anymore. The stallion closed his eyes, ignoring the prick of moisture behind the lowered lids. It wasn't as if he'd ever entertain the thought of crying before anyone else, of course, so it wasn't a fear that should really have risen to the forefront of his mind.

The canine blinked and pulled back as he sucked in a breath that was more of a death rattle, blinking more often than was strictly necessary.

"You think you deserve to die?"

Jacob flinched, though wished he did not.

"I... I don't know." He wasn't about to tell her everything that was going on in her mind. "But I have, indeed, broken the law here. I was under the impression...a very different impression..."

The words were not eloquent or scripted yet, nevertheless, they seemed to hit home, Marchesa fidgeting as if needing something to do with her paws.

"What..." He couldn't get out the words that he needed to and tried anyway. "Do you...drink every day?"

Swallowing, she nodded, the glass still quivering anxiously in her paw.

"If I do not, I become thirsty. And being thirsty is the very worst thing for a vampire's control. I believe it was what happened to the one that attacked my family. Maybe he was trying not to continue feeding as a vampire but one must always have blood, although we eat other foods..." She winced. "As you saw, in the kitchen, of course."

"Yes... Of course."

How many had lost their lives to him for similar reasons? He shuddered, ignoring the strange look she gave him. And there he was listening to her talk about eating in the kitchen as if it was the most normal thing possible.

"And... How much do you drink at a time?"

She eyed what was in her paw, although the glass was not full.

"A full glass," Marchesa said quietly after a pause, perhaps having needed to consider her own inaccurate measurements. "I do not play with the quantities but, if I am feeling gloomy in my mood, more of the blood lifts me up again."

She paused, eyes glittering.

"That's been happening more often than not lately."

Again, his heart twisted for her, a welcome pain to overrule the guilt curdling through him like sour milk.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"You're the first one to say that to me."

"And have you ever said that to anyone before?" Jacob probed, lips twisted. "It's not usually something that comes up in conversation naturally."

She gave him a shrewd look.

"I've never been in such a situation that the one hunting me has not been so badly injured that they did not survive out battle," she said flatly, ears splayed. "They were usually so intent on ending my life that...well... Can you not consider it an act of self-defence by that point?"

The stallion sighed.

"Certainly so... And I am sorry for my part in it, but words aren't going to do much here anymore, are they?"

"Better words than nothing at all. Or the blade of a knife."

They fell quiet, neither quite looking at the other, although the silence was painful at best, excruciating at worst. The stallion shuffled nearer without thinking, twisting his sore paws between each other, knuckles sore and one welt bleeding. He could not remember how he'd gotten that injury, although she must have scored a hefty blow on him at some point the previous day. He had to commend her for her skill in fighting too, even though it could have been said that she had the home advantage of knowing her environment.

Against himself, he chuckled and shook his head minutely. Again, she gave him a strange look, torso tipping in towards him.

"Is something amusing?"

"No... I was just trying to make myself feel a bit better that you bested me in battle," he admitted, though it seemed silly to say out loud. "But you won square, even if neither of us was truly fighting fair."

She smiled a little at that, something lighting up in the backs of her eyes. And he rather liked how that looked, the softening of her muzzle like coming up for breath after dunking one's head underwater. And perhaps his head had been underwater for far too long, swimming blindly and clawing for the surface all the while. But what more could a stallion have done when he had only been doing what he knew best how to do? There was only so much one could do with life, the hand they were given and it was about time he, perhaps Marchesa too, played that hand.

If they had been anywhere else and they had not beaten and given their best attempt at breaking one another prior, they would have known what to do, tension crackling in the air. There could not be such true relaxation when there was too much going on in the background, the two as close as they'd ever been to one another outside of the battle.

"This..." She started and then trailed off, shaking her head.

And yet she refused to say more down that line of thought as Jacob tilted his head inquisitively, although it was perhaps because he too was loathe to break the silence, finding something swallowed up in it that one would be hard-pressed to ignore. Marchesa, however, was a more tenacious being than he.

"Jacob..." She hesitated, and he warranted that she would have bitten her lip if she'd been any other noble in any other time, something deeper shining up from the backs of her eyes. "There's..."

But she trailed off, hatefully unable to force the words from her lips as she quivered, though it was still a predatory sort of quiver.

"I didn't want..."

Yet the equine thought he knew what she wanted and, despite what she was and what she drank, he could not deny her the warmth of a living body when hers ached so desperately for a simple touch. He wrapped her in his arms and pulled her close, letting her shudder and tuck her muzzle into the crook of his neck, the fur on her cheeks damp with tears. Something twisted in his stomach, a gnawing sort of ache of betrayal - why hadn't he questioned more? How many had he killed because of a mere opinion on how they fed themselves? - and he tightened his grip on her, Marchesa nuzzling up to his cheek as she raked in a juddering, needy gasp.

And then things happened very quickly. So quickly, in fact, that one would not have been out of bounds to allude to magical intervention of some kind, although the canine was a vampire and not a sorceress - just a canine in need, just like him.

They shouldn't have escalated - absolutely not - but it was difficult to turn back the clock in the view of hindsight. Breathing heavily, Marchesa clutched at him like a drowning fur, struggling for breath when the water was closing above her head, fangs flashing but not for his blood: she clearly had more than enough of that. No one could have said who moved first but, suddenly, their lips came together, Jacob's ears pricked and quivering as she pressed herself to him. He tried to pull back after a moment, though his only thought, stupidly, was of her fangs as she clawed at his arms, moaning her need into his mouth.

And then she appeared to come to her senses, the sound startling her more than him, and reeled away, breaking the lustful, deepening kiss with a gasp, eyes wild and fur ruffled.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't -"

Yet it was the stallion who rapidly closed that distance between them, although he could not have said quite what it was that made him through caution to the wind, disregarding everything he knew. It was not so much lust that had him bringing his lips back to hers in a softer, more passionate kiss, the shock sending his mind reeling that he really could not have felt himself accountable for his action as he gently laid the vampire back amongst the barrels of blood and kissed her neck with his velvety, equine lips.

Marchesa groaned softly, though hardly seemed in control of her own actions either, running her trembling paws down his arms as he kissed her and pushed up her skirts. There was no time to explore her body, although a deeper part of him ached to, only sate the need of his body in the reeling shock of her revelation. And, blissfully, she allowed his paws to roam higher and higher, stroking up the fur of her thighs even as he brushed it in the wrong direction, need trembling as they shook together, autumn leaves holding fast before the storm.

Everything he'd known was a lie. But the canine beneath him was real, oh so very real, and she moaned his name so sweetly that he could not have possibly imagined denying her anything as he hissed through his teeth, shaft filling swiftly with blood to full hardness. It was as if his body had reverted purely to survival in the crux of the moment but it was so hard to think clearly when everything was moving so quickly and the driving scent of blood in the air had his prey instinct clamouring for unneeded attention too.

He had to act. His cock throbbed and pulsed, questing for her entrance, as the towel around his waist fell away and he eased into her, only needing to thumb her undergarments aside as he found her warmth. It should not have been so easy but their bodies came together beautifully as she gasped and moaned, jaws hanging wantonly open to reveal those fangs of hers. And, even then, they seemed to glitter in the low light like crystal spires, alluring in their own right. He only regretted that he had not spent the time with his muzzle between her legs, although those fangs gave him second thoughts as to whether or not, blushingly, he could even imagine her mouth closing around his cock, tongue sweetly pressed up to the underside...

What was he doing? Jacob groaned and pushed the thought from his mind, the pleasures of the body overruling his mind. He could not think, not if he wanted to continue on in the moment and it was oh so very hard to stop once one had begun, his body driving him on and on as he kissed her neck and thrust. Marchesa's legs wrapped up and around his waist, pulling him in closer, and he grunted as he seated his cock fully inside her, bodies moving together so perfectly that it was as if they had become a single being.

"Oh!"

An exclamation of joy did not have to be eloquent as she closed her eyes, head falling back as she allowed him to take her as he willed. The canine had been ready for him too and her wet pussy clenched and rippled around his shaft as he thrust, grinding deep in a dim sense of trying to give her the most pleasure possible. But it was as if he was in a haze of dreaming as he kissed and thrust, working them up to a blistering climax that would undoubtedly be sweeter than any experienced before, even if he could not know that before it had actually happened.

There was nothing else for the vampire and the stallion than their bodies moving together, his shaft spreading her open with each and every powerful thrust. Although they were sensible enough to take care of her fangs, that did not stop the lucid passion between them from bursting forth, grinding and rocking into one another with increasing urgency. Jacob's breath raked painfully through his windpipe as he thrust and bucked, hips suddenly speeding up as she cried out and clutched him with sudden, raw need.

Oh, and it was so good, so very good to feel needed, to feel needed like he'd never felt needed ever before in his life. Jacob groaned. It had been so long since he'd felt the touch of female companionship that it was a wonder indeed that he knew what to do but his body remembered the roll and grind, just how to tease his fingers through the fur of his partner as she beautifully turned her cheek into his paw, tongue snaking out to bathe it softly with a kiss. The stallion trembled. Her fangs could not be ignored and yet...they no longer seemed to be all that great of a part of her as he thrust, closing the fingers of his other paw around her wrist as he drew it gently up over her head, wondering how she'd react.

Any other vampire may have then lunged for his throat, fangs flashing - and that would have been that, the end of an ill-timed liaison. He could have very well expected any predator species to react in kind to being restrained and yet Marchesa moaned and arched into his touch, seeming to welcome it as he laid his chest over hers, trusting the white vampire to bear his weight as he more boldly claimed her other wrist, both of her arms drawn up behind her head.

And neither of them cared for the cold stone beneath them pressing into buttocks and knees, a candlestick somehow uncomfortably wedged into the small of her back (perhaps from an earlier visit to the 'pantry' to drink). All that mattered was each other and Jacob growled passionately, claiming her lips with his as he kissed her deeply, every ounce of inhibition that he may have had flung to the wind as he lay ignorant even to her fangs. It was the vampire herself who had to tease him down, whisper sweetness and cover his muzzle instead in breathy kisses so that he did not kiss her quite so deeply and run the risk of letting her fangs sink into his sweetly vulnerable flesh.

The canine growled and arched, tensing as if she was about to reveal a secret that was between the two of them and the two of them alone. But that secret was yet to come and soon to be opened in their hearts, even if the truth of it was yet to blossom. His hot breath washed over her neck, ruffling her fur, as he tucked his nose down against her, desperate for more as he hammered into her, hips working and grinding as furiously as instinct would allow him.

So close...

"Jacob!"

Her crying his name was the tipping point and he whinnied as he spiralled over the edge, plummeting into something far deeper than either of them could have anticipated. His seed flooded her, forced out softly along the sides of his length as he simply could not keep himself from thrusting, Marchesa whipping her head back in a passionate howl as orgasm claimed her too, squeezing down on him as if she was trying to coax every last drop of seed out that he had to offer her. The canine was a wild creature beneath him, twisting sensually back and forth as she used her leverage on his hips to rock up into his thrusts, needing everything he had to offer and what was, of course, oh so very willingly given. Her passage clenched hotly around his length and Jacob grunted, teeth clenched and nostrils flared as the heat of her threatened to tip him into the point of blackness. Yet it would not do to pass out atop a lady, no matter how simply hot and wonderful and...

Just what was he thinking? The stallion's thoughts spun around and around and around, a dog chasing its tail in blind fantasy. He did not know what he was doing, what he was feeling, only that he wanted to cradle Marchesa into him and make right all the wrongs, regardless of the wrongs that lay so far in the past that perhaps they should be forgotten after all, lest they lurk in the wings for the remainder of sweet eternity. Had he not also done things that he was ashamed of for the sake of survival? Jacob trembled. No... He could not think of that. He had to walk on, step forward into whatever the future held for him. He could not think of what had happened long ago or mere moments ago.

But it was not what the stallion spilt into the canine that was the truth of what happened but how they clung to one another and kissed in the afterglow that tied the deal for them, paws gently cupping muzzles as their heart rates slowed, warmth spreading through them as they slowly became aware of the hard, unyielding stone beneath their bodies, giggling at their location with lurid giddiness.

"What..."

"I know..."

"It's..."

Half-sentences and whispered nothings that would mean nothing and everything once they returned to their sensibilities, everything changed beyond all comprehension. It would take a while to actually realise the reality of their situation but, right then and there, in one another's arms, they could relax and be what they were in the afterglow: lovers. And lovers why could remain or not, the future open for interpretation.

It should not have happened and yet...that had not prevented anything, not a single thing. Kissing her warmly, Jacob blinked in the spill of lantern-light, Marchesa's ears casting a shadow back behind her like the horns of a demon. Regardless of how what had happened had indeed come about, Jacob knew one thing for certain with half a heart that soared for joy and half that sunk and roiled in worry and darkness.

Things had just become a whole lot more complicated.