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White Vampire

Chapter Two

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

Commissioned by TheCuddlingFox

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Jacob sat with his legs hanging into the water back in the bathing chamber, his mind as numb as it was possible to be without losing sense of himself completely. Elsa had, respectfully, left him in peace to bathe but he was quite sure that the little mouse girl was not all that far away, waiting to serve him as she did her mistress vampire with complete and utter devotion. And that was solitude that he very much needed, even with the annoying trickle from a single faucet that would not turn all the way off. He didn't have towels but he could not find it in himself to care as his mind tried to work through what had happened, the feel of her kisses still lingering on his coat in such a way that he could almost imagine that the vampire was still right there with him.

The stallion tensed, fingers gripping the edge of the recessed bathing pool, although the sense of solidity there did nothing to settle his mind.

What had he done? She was a vampire... And they had...

But he couldn't finish that thought, exhaling sharply through both nostrils at once and sitting up straight, muscles lined with tension that simply could not be released. Was he caught up by her wiles? What other supernatural tendencies did she possess, for she surely must have bewitched his mind?

And yet the stallion knew just what the driving thrum in his heart meant, a shameful heat consuming his body from the tips of his ears all the way down to his hooves, although it had been a long while indeed since he had looked at another fur in such a way. He'd gotten things wrong about her, clearly, unless it was all just a ploy to get him to lower his guard even more around her and, well, it was hard for an equine to not have his guard down when his shaft had slipped from its sheath. He may as well have been naked around her the whole time for all the good he had done himself in change.

Yet the wounds from the battle seemed to have almost healed, recovering disturbingly quickly, and he had little with which to concern himself with other than easing the grime and sweat of the basement from his body. Still, there was no washing the touch of Marchesa from his coat, her fingers seeming to have left indents where they had stroked and touched, teasing over his body so confidently that it had been almost as if they were long-time lovers. But that was just, in part, his own mind lusting after the white canine who had murmured so sweetly as he'd thrust into her, driving any thought of fleeing or fear from the farthest, darkest reaches of his mind. Maybe she'd been the one, something in her, that had sped up his recovery, although it would not have made any kind of logical sense for anyone to try to rush an antagonist through recovery. For all she knew, he still intended to kill her.

"Damn it!"

Cursing, he pounded his fist into the water, sending up a splash that was quickly followed by a much larger one as he dropped into the water, submerging himself up to his chest and then swiftly ducking his head under too, not that it allowed himself any kind of escape from reality in the meantime. His mane floated around him as he opened his eyes underwater, hiding from the real world that seemed to have taken an even darker twist than he could ever have imagined. Yet was it a twist that would bring him joy in the end?

He didn't know what to think, could not make sense of everything, but pushed his head from the water, forelock slick down the chestnut line of his face. He gasped for breath and shook his head, water streaming from his ears as he ducked down once more just to make sure that every last bit of his coat was good and rinsed off. The itch from leaving oils and soaps in one's coat simply was not worth the lack of attention that it would have been drawn from originally.

Popping up out of the water, his hooves clopped noisily, moving to a wooden changing area where his old clothes lay. And yet he hesitated before picking them up, wounds still bare of bandages, although he still wasn't all that sure whether or not they actually needed further treatment at all, what with how well they were doing at healing on their own. A small, reed screen afforded him some semblance of privacy and he took a breath as he stepped behind it, a small smile that was entirely out of place pulling at his lips as he stepped behind it. All he had to do was count to three, slowly, and then...

"Sir?"

As always, she seemed to be right on cue, knowing what was needed even before someone called for her. Elsa knocked lightly on the wooden door, eyes downcast as she entered, a pile of towels towering in her arms that was comically large, too large really for a little mouse to be carrying about with her. If he'd been anywhere else and the situation had been at all different, he would have laughed out loud.

"You can come in."

It was strange for him to be in a position where he was granting someone else entry but he could not possibly find himself all that concerned about that when so much else in his life was set to change. The mouse uncovered her eyes and bobbed on her hind paws, which only seemed to be clad in some sort of leather sandal, even though he would have suspected such wear to be cold in the stone confines of the castle.

"Ah - you're out! I didn't want to disturb you, not when..."

But she blushed and gave a little wriggle, not giving away just how much she knew as Jacob too shuffled on his large hooves and willed the ground itself to swallow him up. For the few in the castle, it seemed that Elsa was most certainly the one who knew everyone's business. It wasn't anything major, of course, in the grand scheme of things, although it was just one more little nuance in her quivering, attentive whiskers that made him feel completely and utterly exposed.

"Just fresh towels," she murmured cheerily, somehow even managing to put a chirp into her quiet tone. "And I can fetch you dressings too, if needed. There's a local ointment that Marchesa puts together from herbs, grinding them up. I don't know what's in them but they worked so well even back in the day! I haven't been injured again, not like that, but they work, oh, they really do!"

Nodding quietly, he wrapped a towel around his waist, the woven fibres softer than the coarse fabric that he was used to. Everything Marchesa owned must have been collected meticulously over time and lovingly tended to, although its use must have been so infrequent that time simply did not wear away at her belongings as it did at her heart and her life.

He started back - just where had that come from? That thought? Yet he didn't have a moment in which to pursue the notion as the mouse squeaked and shot back, flapping her paws as she hastened to take care of his wounds more swiftly than ever.

"I'm so sorry! Did I hurt you?"

Of course, she was not fearful of him in the slightest but her passion for striving to do her job as castle servant well at absolutely all times. He placated her swiftly with a smile and a shake of his head, enjoying the small sense of relief that came to him that such a subtle motion rather than eloquent words and utterances could assuage her concern for him. Elsa truly was a master of body language and it was perhaps that sixth sense of hers that made her so good at what she did and, maybe even so, happy in herself.

And maybe the little mouse knew more than she was letting on too.

"Elsa..." What did he have to lose, forcing the words from his lips? "How... Why are you here?"

She blinked at him, tilting her head cutely to one side.

"To serve Marchesa, of course."

"Yes, I know..." He struggled to find the right words, waving his paw dismissively as Elsa, very carefully, tending to his wounds, although he still thought that they would do just fine on their own without any kind of intervention. "Just... How did you come to be here then? What is the story you have to tell?"

For every fur in the world had a story of their own and, if he could not yet know the entirety of Marchesa's, the one of her closest companion would have to do. Elsa smiled, warmth seeming to bubble up from her as she shifted her weight, tipping in closer to peer particularly closely at a wound that had reduced itself to a scrape on his right shoulder. It didn't bother him but she clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth as if she was disappointed in it, fishing out a small vial from the front pocket on her apron, skirts rustling all the way down to her sandals.

"Oh... Oh, that's a long tale. Are you sure you have time to sit here and listen to me?"

"I'm not sitting," Jacob shot back with a cheeky quip and flick of his ear. "Don't worry about me. I just want to know about you... A bit more about what this all is about?"

By 'all', he meant the castle and everything it contains, its secrets and Marchesa herself, and he knew that he did not need to explain every last detail of that to Elsa either. There was so much left to be told that just one story would give him more information to go on, something with which, maybe, to make a decision that he did not yet know needed to be made.

Sorting through what seemed to be a small medicinal kit (although whether or not she kept it on her person at all times was another question entirely), Elsa sourced out what she needed, laying them on a wooden bench before the changing screen.

"You'll have to rinse clean after some of these... I hope that's okay, please be patient. How I came to be here... That story started long ago though."

She collected herself, taking a breath, and launched into the tale that had not, as yet, been told to another being.

"Well, I was only young when Marchesa found me and it was not a day that I am proud to tell the tale of, for it was when I lost my father. He wasn't tall either, not for a mouse, but he had the softest black fur that I can still remember, kind eyes too. My mother was not well at the time, sickly, and taken care of by family. We were trying to hunt to feed her, although, even then, we thought and knew, really, that it would be one of her last meals, if not her very last."

Steadying herself, she gave him a shaky smile. There was not much his condolences could do for her so many years after the fact but Elsa still had a tale to tell and the loss of her mother was only in the background of it.

"Do not worry - that time is long gone and it doesn't pull at my heart like it once did. I know she is in a better place now. We were hunting, my father and I, as we could not shop for food on the market stalls or even beg on the streets. Pickings were lean, so very lean, and we had had string after string of bad luck that only looked set to continue. Even with me working as an assistant in a shop, although I don't think I was much use back then to the herbalist, we could not afford the medicine that my sweet mother needed so badly just to be comfortable and happy."

Jacob nodded, pressing the tips of his fingers together.

"I can understand that... There are too many in situations as such."

"I know. That is why I don't blame anyone for it. Although maybe things would have been different if we were not in such old, worn leather, which had been cut through with age and wear. We needed new equipment really to take down a quick, clean kill but all we had was his prized possession of an old crossbow that had seen better days and arrows that we passed down through every generation of the family. We were far from the nobles that would let arrows fly into the brush and let them disappear, having to retrieve each and every one that we had painstakingly engraved, the steel tips needing sharpening and sharpening to do their job. The shafts were wooden, not much of an heirloom, but they were such that we could scrimp and scrape and scrounge for repairs and replacements to parts when we needed. They were essential to our survival, after all."

"Our quarry that day was a deer - a doe that had run deep into the woods where the branches reached overhead like dark claws, grasping and pulling at your clothes. I didn't like that part of the forest, I never had, but I knew we needed to keep going, hunger gnawing at our bellies."

Her eyes grew sad as she touched Jacob's cheek gently, feeling out the line of an old scar there.

"You know what that feels like, don't you? The feeling of not knowing whether you're going to make it to your next meal? Even though you've made it there each and every time before, of course, as you are alive, you always have to wonder, don't you? There's a sense of things being unstable and fluctuating, changing around you as you solely try to scrape for something to warm and fill your stomach."

Jacob swallowed hard.

"I've been in hard times but I would say that yours were worse."

It would have been crass to claim anything else, challenging the experiences that they had both shared, albeit in different forms, but a tiny sigh from fluttering, equine nostrils was answer enough for her.

"The moon was full and the light of it was a bad omen when it should have lit our way. We followed her deeper and deeper and I even asked my father once or twice to turn back. I thought something was different about that night as the woods plunged into darkness, shadows long and gnarled where the moonlight did not reach. I know I did all I could but we did not have any choice in what we did either."

"The woods opened out onto a clearing all of a sudden - I had no idea where we were, not at all. It was far too far into the forest for me to know that and I knew right there and then that we'd made a terrible mistake."

Elsa shuddered but forced herself on with her tale, staving off Jacob's paw as he reached for her, twisting slightly.

"No... I gasped. Maybe things would have been okay if I had not gasped like that, drawing his attention, but I couldn't help it. My father didn't know what I was looking at, not at first, but he surely knew as the wolf before us drooled and snarled in a patch of moonlight, his muzzle stained with blood from the very doe that we'd been hunting."

"But he was not a normal wolf at all, not of the kind that hunts in packs, except for the lone ones that are cast from their homes, trying to find their own mates and packs to run with. No... He was tall as he stood, towering on two legs with a back that seemed to hunch forward without rendering him incapable of walking in the slightest. His legs bent like that of a wolf of our kind, furs like you and me, but his tail stuck out straight and stiff behind him for balance, red fur stark against the darkness around him. The doe had been dead for a while but I could still see the gleam of life that had been in her eyes as the werewolf snapped his jaws into her belly and ripped loose what had once sustained her being."

Pausing, Elsa licked her lips, gathering herself the best she could. If he'd been closer to her in spirit and friendship, Jacob would have, at the very least, put his arm around her to comfort the mouse, but they were surely not at that stage in their relationship yet, if they ever would be. Yet it was strange to see the chipper and happy little mouse so forlorn and weary, trying to tell a story that clearly was hard for her.

Maybe he should never have asked to begin with.

"And then he saw us, the werewolf. He turned on us, blood pouring from his jaws - I didn't know blood could look like that before then. And he snarled at us, showing us his teeth, hunkering down to the ground as he stalked us as if on all fours but not really, you know? It was that rolling kind of gait that a half-wolf takes, something that you can't really describe. It was unnatural. Supernatural. Yes... That's it. Just like that."

"I know what you mean," Jacob said softly. "Go on."

For he was as mesmerised with her experience as she was stricken with the retelling of it, fiddling with her apron as if for something to do with her paws, even though she was by no means bound to continue.

"I was helpless, frozen in place. I couldn't do anything - not with that little makeshift blade of mine! That would hardly have gutted a fish. But my father stood tall and readied the crossbow, loading up an arrow even as the wolf stared, his amber eyes... Well, they looked like they had fire in them. Not red and not orange either. Definitely not amber. I'll always remember just how those eyes looked, locked on me."

"And when the wolf finally moved, it was in a blur of motion, closing the distance between us in several gigantic strides that ate up the ground. My father shouted and it was all a flurry of sound, firing off a couple of arrows - I don't know how he managed to load up the second one so quickly - but the wolf got his teeth into my father's arm and...well..."

The mouse shuddered.

"He threw him around as if he weighed nothing at all, tearing into muscle and sinew, spilling blood. He could so easily best my father and take his life in but a moment but he chose to play with him, toy with him on the very precipice of death. And just what does that say about a beast like that, truly?"

She was angry but there was no sating the anger of one who had had someone stolen from her, for Jacob already felt that he knew just how her tale was going to end, terribly so. Werewolves were terrible, brutal beasts... Yet he would have said the same thing about vampires only a short while ago.

"He screamed. Those screams still haunt my dreams."

Elsa trembled, closing her eyes, although that only served to lock herself further into the nightmare of memory.

"He screamed and screamed and screamed... And I could do nothing, wobbling and trying to heft that crossbow but I didn't have the strength in my arms to do it, to do anything. The last thing I remember coming from his lips was his plea for me to run, to save myself, as the wolf tore down his midsection...spilling..."

But she couldn't finish that sentence, closing her eyes and turning from the horror of her own mind. And, that time, Jacob could not bear to leave her sorrowful and closed his paw firmly around her shoulder, supporting her in the smallest and yet only way he felt able to.

"I cried... Oh, that's so typical, isn't it? I left the crossbow behind and I _cried_but what was one little mouse going to do against a werewolf? I could have died myself and I know, even now, that my father would not have wanted that fate, that end, for me. His screams were incoherent and I'm glad I heard no more words as I hurled myself deeper still into the woods, forcing myself through brush and vegetation as I fled for my very life. I should not have screamed so but I could not stop myself, terror lending strength to my paws until I had to stop, pause for just a moment in the depths of woods that I did not dare even consider escaping under the cover of darkness. The trees closed in around me and I turned and turned and turned but they pressed together far too closely for me to even consider wiggling my body through them, the vegetation too dense where even the moonlight did not reach."

"I did not want to stop but a part of me knew that I had to, just to get some breath back into my lungs. I was only a little mouse back then and I could not run forever and I had to think about my next move, so as not to find myself in a trap. Yet the sobs ripped themselves from my lungs, stealing each and every breath from me. My father's screams had stopped."

She took a breath, leaning ever so slightly into the horse, even though she seemed careful back in the bathing chamber to not close too much of the distance between them, perhaps in memory of what had been, once.

"And then the werewolf came back, stalking from the darkness and the shadows with fresh blood streaking his fur - my father's blood. An arrow stuck out of his shoulder and I felt a rush of pride, viciously so, that my father had, at the very least, managed to injure him. It made the agony and injustice of his death seem just a little bit easier to bear, even then."

"But the wolf snapped the arrow and yanked it, head and all, from his shoulder, tossing it on the ground as if it had done no damage at all. He said my father had tried, mocked me and growled, his voice so deep that..."

But Elsa could not say more on that note, shuddering and turning away, shoulder falling from Jacob's grasp as she suddenly wrapped her arms around her torso. Falling apart even as she retold her tale, she nipped at her lower lip and brushed her fingers resolutely across her cheeks.

"He told me that I would suffer. And what would anyone else have done? I screamed, my throat so very raw, and I crawled up against the base of a tree with giant, gnarled roots, fighting to get away in any way I possibly could. Still, I wonder if I did not live that day and my life since has been but a dream of the afterlife."

"But the air whistled by just so in a white blur just as he lunged for me - and there stood Marchesa, snarling in a vision of terrifying beauty before me. You've seen her fight. She is deadly and I knew it even then as she placed her body between me and the werewolf, seeming still so much smaller and more delicate than him."

"'Get back!' Marchesa hissed at him, tail lashing. I didn't know what she was then but she snarled that, 'this one was hers', although I didn't know what that meant and I thought that she might have been trying to snatch me up for her dinner too. It was a ridiculously childish thought to have right then but my mind scrabbled in pieces, broken and shaken and grieving, already, for the arms of my father."

"And I don't know quite what did it, a little twitch of the werewolf betrayed some manner of motion and then Marchesa had him on his back, her teeth at his throat, threatening his very life. She snarled it out again, to leave me alone for I was hers, although she did, sweetly, spare his life. What more could that wolf have done for he may as well have been a mouse like me before her, helpless to fight one who was clearly shown to be so very much stronger than him?"

Jacob shivered. His bones still ached with the memory of his fight with the canine vampire, even if his wounds were healing quickly. That humiliation of blackness, falling and falling and falling and thinking that she had taken his life, that he'd never wake up again. He could only imagine just how much worse that would have been too if her teeth had closed around his throat in a sickening crunch of flesh and bone.

It would have been easy for her too. He could very, very easily imagine her taking down a full-grown werewolf, regardless of how an adult would tower over her.

"She stepped back from him, as wary as ever as she waited to see what his next move was, me wrapped up in the roots of the tree as if something like that would still be able to, somehow, protect me. And the wolf, clearly with a severely bruised ego and possibly sternum too, backed off and away with a growl that ripped through me... It was blood-curdling. But with a turn and a flash of red fur he was gone and he raced into the darkness as if he had never been, although I could never forget him, as much as I tried. There was too much missing from my life to ever consider forgetting the horror of what that werewolf did to my life and family."

"Marchesa turned to me and, even then, I thought she was going to take me, do something to me, although it would not have made sense as to why she would have sent the wolf away and then killed me. And that was maybe in the back of my mind and why I did not run as she knelt down before me, a glimmer of moonlight just barely catching the edge of her fur, outlining her head and the rounded points of her ears. They were one of the first discerning features I noticed about her as she came down to my level."

"Yet then she scooped me up into her arms, holding me close, and I cried and cried and cried, soaking her chest and shoulders, her fine blouse ruined. As much as I was afraid, I needed her too and she took me to the castle, soothing and murmuring sweetly to me the whole time, her voice a lullaby to a soul that so very terribly needed to sleep."

"'Don't worry little one, you are safe now...'"

"I had no reason to believe her, none at all, and yet I did. I think I had no choice, or at least felt as if I had no choice, but she'd rescued me and someone who had clearly saved my life could not be all that bad, even if I was still afraid of her. It took me longer than it should have done, maybe, for me to trust her completely, but I'll always be thankful to her for coming after me that day and taking me from the beast that would have so easily crushed my chest and left me bleeding out, left for dead in the woods with not a soul to see me to the other side of his cruelty."

Elsa sighed, patting Jacob's shoulder.

"There. You're done now. Go rinse off."

As Jacob slipped into the pool to rinse a burning concoction from some of the cuts that she had deemed the worst (although he most certainly had had worse). Apparently, it was meant to flush out infection but could not be left in - and he certainly understood why as he deftly slipped his towel aside and hid his lower half underwater even as Elsa looked away, allowing him a little privacy. His confidence and feeling of familiarity around her, however, could not help but have grown during the course of her tale but he would too have been amiss if he had not allowed her a moment to wipe the trails of moisture from her cheeks.

Quietly, she joined him, sitting on the edge with her paws dangling in while he rinsed out his mane from a slop of healing cream that had gotten mixed in with the longer hairs.

"I had never met anyone so caring of a stranger in my life... It was different, very different. And that is how we came to meet, in blood and violence, although this was not done by Marchesa's paws. My only regret is that we were not a little closer to the castle initially and that she may have heard our screams sooner but I still don't know how far through the woods I fled before stumbling into her territory, where she could hear me. For all that she did for me then and all that she's done for me since, I will very gladly serve her until my final days, without question."

The stallion shook his head slowly, although he was far from disagreeing with her. Such a harrowing tale that he had not, in the slightest, been expecting had to take a moment to digest, even though he thought that it may well have to be one that he'd need to sleep on.

Poor Elsa though... What a thing to go through. Losing her father so young?

"What of your mother?" He said quietly, grazing her gaze only briefly so as not to be too intrusive. "Did you ever hear from her?"

"Yes," Elsa murmured, chest rising as if in a particularly sharp inhalation that she hid well. "I went back to that town where we were housed some time after. She'd passed. It was painless in her sleep with the last of the herbs numbing her pain as she slipped from this life to the next. I can only be glad that she never heard of my father's death."

"I see... Elsa, I'm sorry - I never thought that this would have turned into such a painful tale for you and I'm sorry for probing."

Jacob swallowed and ran his fingers back through his wet mane, lamenting the fact that he, once again, had to dry off, although at least some of the aches and pains seemed to have eased from his bones and muscles. Maybe there was something in the mix she'd smoothed into his wounds after all, even though he would have been quite happy with good, old-fashioned time, if not rest, at the end of the day. There wasn't much he could do in the past about rest, to be fair, so he had never truly felt the effect of rest on any of his previous injuries.

"It's okay... It's nice to talk to someone. Marchesa knows everything already and sent money to ensure that the rest of my family would never go hungry again. I still visit them sometimes but I do miss my parents."

Elsa stood, drawing her legs from the water and letting her skirt fall back down them as she donned her sandals once more, a flurry of motion seeming to shake the claws of the tale told from her back. She bowed quietly, a small smile on her lips as her pink nose quivered.

"Try to dress lightly for the moment. Your wounds need to breathe before redressing them, if you feel the need to. I am sure that the treatment will do well with them until the morning, however, and I'd be happy to assist and treat them again for you."

She made no mention of her being obligated to do it as a servant, leaving him with the distinct impression that she was assisting him, strangely, as a friend as she made to leave, swinging open the door with dampness still dotting the floor in her wake. Yet there was just one little thing on his mind that could not wait to be answered until their next meeting and he flung out his paw in a sharp gesture that stalled her with a quiver, water dripping from each digit seemingly in timed turn.

"Elsa... Just one thing."

The mouse paused by the door, whiskers twitching, her typical smile back on her face now that the worst part of her story, at least he hoped, was good and done with.

"Yes?"

The stallion's brow furrowed.

"What did you mean when you said that you didn't know what she meant by Marchesa saying that 'you were hers'? Do you know what that means now?"

And Elsa smiled, her expression softening as she folded her paws neatly over the front of her apron.

"I know... I am hers. Marchesa meant that she was protecting me. And, in that way, I shall always be 'hers'."

And then the mouse was gone, whispering out into the hallway in a shimmer of cloth as if she had never been, her light steps disappearing as the heavy, wooden door closed smartly on her heels. Leaving Jacob to dress himself with his wounds feeling, yet again, a great deal better than they had when he had begun bathing, the mouse gave him more questions to a curious tongue than what she had already answered for him.

But he knew what he had to do next.

*

It took the stallion longer than he was proud to admit to choose clothes from his bedchamber, dressing himself smartly and then discarding the fancy cloth in lieu of something else. He fretted and rubbed at his mane, smoothing it down again as if that was going to, somehow, make his appearance just a little bit more bearable than it had been, the small mirror above the dressing table showing a coarse stallion who had absolutely no right to take himself into Marchesa's chambers as if he had any right to be there. And yet he couldn't keep himself away, ears flicking back and forth anxiously as he strode through the castle, hesitation in every other step he took. Although that in itself meant that half of him was confident in his decision, as much as his heart leapt and tightened dramatically somewhere in the vicinity of his windpipe.

He had to see her again.

He knew where Marchesa's bedchamber was after that time but he took the longer route there, deliberately taking the wrong ways as he wandered the hallways in just a pair of cloth leggings, bare of a shirt. If his wounds needed to air, he saw no reason to don one and it made sense to go bare for the moment. Elsa's story... Well, it certainly seemed to match with what Marchesa had said so far or, more accurately, what he knew of the vampire from her lips. Why would Elsa stay around otherwise? It was not possible for a vampire to bewitch another, he knew that much.

He didn't want to think that the mouse could, somehow, have a reason to lie but wanted to believe Marchesa's peace with the cellar of blood, the kills she'd made to ensure that she would never again have to take the life of another. But that, in truth, raised another question, for the mission that he'd been sent on was to kill the monster ravaging the city and the outer villages, stalking its prey callously and indiscriminately. There had been bodies then...left out in the streets with horrific wounds. He had known of the horror even before he had been paid to eradicate the killer.

But the question was that, if Marchesa was not killing them, who was?

As evening wore on, his stomach rumbling for another meal (not that he knew how to ask for one), Jacob found himself at the door of her quarters, knocking twice before entering. He did not know but a part of him was sure that she knew that he was there and wanted him to enter. Or else why would a vampire hang around to wait for him?

She sat before her make-up table, a more regal, elegant affair than the one in his little chamber. Brushing out her tail, she looked up at him, ears perked and a small smile pulling at the lips of her narrow muzzle. Elegance was simply a word that went with her, although his eyes fell on the mirror where his reflection stood, framed in the doorway, but no reflection of hers to be found.

Come on.

_ _

He just had to remember that the vampire was not against him. Not truly. Surely?

Gulping, he continued all the way into the room, unable to help himself from taking in her form, the black silk nightgown flowing down the lines of her body as if it had been specifically tailored for her, embroidered with tiny dragonflies that appeared so vibrantly silver that they could have fluttered off her nightgown and gone off on a little adventure all of their own, if only the right note of magic was present.

She was beautiful, he would have been a complete and utter fool to deny it, and him a coarse and bumbling fool of a stallion in comparison to her, standing there with his lower jaw slack and gawping. As she scooted around on the little stool before the mirror, her cleavage rounded out above the neckline of the nightgown, deliciously exposed and drawing his eye with her near enough luminescent-white fur. It took him another moment to gather himself, a little longer than he would have been strictly proud of at any other time. Marchesa, however, stripped all of that from him, leaving him a bare husk of a stallion who just hoped he was open to more that could be offered.

"I've..." He paused, clearing his throat. "I've been thinking... A lot has happened since yesterday and what happened today..."

Oh, why couldn't he find the words he wanted, scrambling and calling them to his lips to no avail? The canine folded her paws in her lap, surveying him quietly as she straightened her back, tail hanging off the edge of the stool as if she was trailing a lure.

"It's just that things happened and there's nothing I can say to apologise for pushing but -"

"No, no."

And then she cut across him, standing as she raised her paws to stall him even as he fumbled and ran his fingers through his mane over and over again.

"No... It was me, I apologise for my actions, Jacob - I came on far, far too strong. You couldn't have done anything about it, not truly, and I by no means intended to drive you on into something that you were not ready for. If I forced you in any way..."

The dog shuddered and took a breath through her lips, jaws gaping as if she needed to pant just to scrape more breathe into her lungs.

"If you want to leave..." She whispered, dropping her tone. "You are more than free to do so... I promise I will not keep you here, Jacob. Although I would be very much obliged if you would not return to attack me again."

Her eyes glinted with just a hint of mischief and he blinked at her, a bubble of out of place laughter curling up in the pit of his stomach. But he had to hold it down in such a serious situation, throwing caution to the wind as he closed the distance between them much as the werewolf had in going for Elsa's father's throat. Unlike the werewolf, however, he took Marchesa's paws in his, leaping into the unknown for something better even as words continued to stream from her lips like sweet, sweet wine.

"No, no," he quieted her gently, memorising the lines of her face and muzzle as he swept his fingers gently around the curve of her cheek and around her ears, the soft folds bouncing back up against his paw. "It's... It's not that, I don't want to leave."

It was a strange thing to hear himself say when he had, of course, arrived there in the first place to end her life - or at least attempt to. If he'd stayed there himself after the fact it would have only been to clear up the resulting mess, although that was hardly something that he wanted to dwell on, pushing the morbid thought from his mind. The last few days had been long ones, not just since he'd arrived at the castle, of course, and the wear it had taken on his mind made him feel as unsteady as a drunkard, swaying from one side to the other in the sanctity of his own mind. He was perfectly stable in reality though and, in fact, found himself holding up Marchesa as the canine trembled, eyes wide and lips just barely parted as the smooth, white expanse of her fur drew him in.

"It's... It's... No, I know now. You're not the monster I was sent here to find for there is no monster here."

He laughed and cupped her chin, tipping her muzzle up to his, tears glistening in her eyes.

"You're beautiful... So beautiful, inside and out. Look at what you've done to save many! And Elsa, of course, you've done so much for her, she told me everything."

Marchesa's eyes widened and she parted her lips to reply but he shushed her quietly, drawing her into his arms. For there was no time for words to be had when his heart pounded so vehemently. He needed her...just as she was. And maybe he didn't need to know or feel any more than that to know that, right there in that moment in time, that he wanted her in his arms for as long as he could possibly hold her.

Ah, why speak when actions could say so much in turn? Smiling faintly, he caressed her cheek, running his fingers very gently down and around to the back of her neck. She leaned into his touch as if she was not entirely with herself, the canine shivering lightly and turning her muzzle side-on into the palm of his calloused paw. He wore his many scars on those paws, along with his arms, back and every other part of him, and she swiped her tongue out as if suddenly struck shy, bathing his old wounds as canines of olden times would soften the injuries of their loved ones in times of need.

"I'm not sure if it's right for me to feel this way," he said, slowly and quietly as if he needed to draw out his words to make them heard, although she was right there before him, listening intently. "But I don't think that matters any more. Any life I had before is dead to me now and there's something, someone, out there working against you. There have been deaths and, since you have not claimed lives, then who can we say killed those people?"

She shook her head, not having an answer for him on either count, for Jacob's words did not come in any sort of seemingly order that would have made sense. Was he confessing his passion for her or did he want to talk about the greater problem and the bigger picture, what was going on outside the walls of her castle?

"But that's not the point, not now... Not for now, I mean."

Licking his lips, he strove to moisten his mouth but it was far, far too dry and he had not a drop of water (well, ale would not have gone amiss either by any means) with which to ease the soreness in his throat. Although he had spent most of his time earlier listening to Elsa, with Marchesa he had not quite allowed her to get a word in edgeways, the canine slipping her fingers between his as if she was trying to pull his paw in even closer to hers, palm to palm.

Looking at their joined fingers, he coughed and cleared his throat, nostrils rumbling lightly, striving and floundering for the next words to say, the right words. For it suddenly was of the utmost importance that he found the correct words to convey just how he felt to the vampire who didn't seem all that terrifying and frightful and even bloody anymore, regardless of the diet her body and digestive system required, ultimately, to survive.

And yet he had to say something, had to draw the words up from the very pit of his being, the back of his mind and desires that he had not dared to consider ever before. He did not know what he wanted from the future, only that it could only be a better future with Marchesa by his side. Having her with him could only be a positive thing, most certainly so when compared to the life of hunting and slaying and moving from place to place, hardly having anything to his name and never a home to go back to at the end of the day either. He only hoped that she may, very well, see things the same way.

One could hope.

"I... I want to hold this connection, what we have between us, strong, Marchesa. If we've moved too quickly - to hell with it! This, I want to be with you, to see if maybe, just maybe, we can find some joy in one another here... If you want that too..."

Lamely, he trailed off and shook his head, rubbing the back of his neck as he stepped back, awkward in the moment of putting just a little bit of distance between them. The room suddenly seemed too small around them, claustrophobic and tightening as if there was an invisible fist clenched around his throat, squeezing and pressing and cutting off any hope of sweet air slipping down his windpipe to his lungs. And Marchesa just stood there, the canine's eyes shining with intelligence and something more that he did not yet have the sense and presence of mind to recognise in the heat of the moment.

"I think we can."

She spoke so softly that any other fur would have had to strain to hear her and he closed the distance again, heart in his mouth, worn on his sleeve openly and pounding as if to pump blood around a body that it no longer had any sort of claim to. And then it was too easy, far too easy, to take her into his arms and draw her close, very gently kissing her lips almost as if he was hesitant to break the moment and try, if only a little, to progress things between them. For who knew where a relationship between a vampire and a mortal could possibly be destined to go when he struck out blindly, unknowing of what fates and lives and twists could lie ahead?

Sometimes, one just had to wing it, however.

"Everything you've been missing," he breathed, breath mingling with hers as he did not pull back far enough to break the connection between them, his paws very slowly slipping down and down and down the silk fabric of her nightgown to cup the small of her back tenderly. "I want to give it to you. Comfort, companionship... Your wealth wants for nothing but I want none of your wealth, only you and everything I may do for you. Name it and it shall be yours... That's if you'll have me for now, that is."

It could have gone either way, at that point, despite their kiss. Marchesa rested her paws on his forearms, easing up into the crook of his elbows as she stroked and caressed with a feather-light touch that traced muscle and tendon near enough reverently. Of course, she was a canine who must have seen many a fine male form in her time but there would never be another like the individual uniqueness of Jacob and the stallion who, maybe, would be able to open her heart up to so very much more.

"I'd...like to try."

There was no hesitation in her voice despite the pause, only desire that rose up as she touched her lips to his once more and the lust between them grew. There was nothing wrong with that lust either, regardless of what some could say about a rushed, hasty relationship, but the 'something deeper' bubbling up within the hearts of both of them would carry them forth for far, far longer than any quick fling could have in another life and another time.

Only then as her arms went around his neck and shoulders did Jacob relax, although his heart thudded viciously against his ribcage, a caged bird begging release that, conversely, had already been granted in the sweet brush of her lips against his. Oh, he wanted nothing more than the smooth curve of her body to remain pressed up against him forever, melding to the shape of him as if she had always been meant to fit there, a low groan rising up from the back of his throat as their lips parted in unison to allow their tongues to tease up and flick together.

Who could have known that a kiss could be so deeply intimate and powerful as they came together, moans raising their lusts as she kissed him as passionately as she was ever able, tail flicking around to curl against his thigh. She drew her chest back only enough to allow her paws down and across his muscled chest, feeling out the scars and, very gently, easing her fingers by the wounds that she had inflicted.

A shiver ran through the canine and she broke the kiss with a breathy moan and pant that seemed to fall short of desire, eyes shining as she ducked down, kissing and lapping tenderly over his injuries. Of course, no one could have blamed her for any harm that had come from simply defending herself and her home but Jacob found it all more erotic than anything else as he rolled his head back, lips parted in a long, drawn-out groan that teased up from the depths of his heart, old wounds that could not be seen by the naked eye opened up to be cleaned and reclaimed as a part of his own body and strength.

Maybe she could help him through that too, if only she knew what was going on in the deepest recesses of his mind that he had not even revealed to himself as yet - but all of that would come in time as she nuzzled his chest. Her tongue curled lightly around a nipple and he moaned, marvelling faintly and briefly as his head swam at just how dextrous and flexible a canine tongue could be, although he would never be as crass and crude as to compare her to past lovers. She was something different and someone special in her own right, after all, and deserved to be treated as such.

Not just treated as a noblefur of birth but a queen herself, honoured and respected and, above all, revered. Genially, Jacob scooped her up into his arms, slinging her legs over the crook of one, and kissed her nose gently, carrying her to the bed with every last drop of sweet boldness that he could draw from his tired heart. Yet Marchesa made him feel like a colt of his youth all over again, teetering on the cusp of adulthood with all the promises and dreams that had held, once upon a time. The world was harsh but her lips were sweet and he laid her back on the bed in that silk nightgown that surely was destined to not remain on her body at all for very much longer.

"Let me make you feel good..."

And that was all he wanted to do as he slipped her nightgown up her legs and unfastened the laces at the back of her neck that would more easily allow him to ease it up and over her head, rendering her bare but a pair of silken underwear that seemed cut close to her form in a foreign style that set his heart racing. They did not extend down her legs like the modern ones (well, it's not as if he had been a virgin in the towns and cities while he travelled between courses of his 'work' as a beast hunter) but framed the shape of her crotch, silver silk blending seamlessly into her fur. He licked his lips but, somehow, stifled a moan as he dipped his nose down to her neck, kissing and lipping softly as his velvety lips teased their way sensually and slowly down the length of her body.

First, her breasts. He would pay those the due attention that he had not before, nibbling and suckling sweetly as he pulled each nipple in turn into his mouth. Marchesa's breasts were not overly large, suited perfectly to her lithe, slim body, but filled his paws nicely, allowing him to knead and massage gently and kindly with his thumbs as she shuddered and groaned. Her paws clung to him with the strength and passion of a drowning fur, simply striving to pull her gasping body up and out of the water that threatened to claim her, and she arched up against him as he kissed her breasts, teasing and nipping lightly enough to make her head reel.

Those blunt teeth... Oh, how they made her head spin, legs pulling up to wrap around his waist even as his shaft pressed through the front of his cloth pants, tenting out obviously. But that was all okay and she would have been worried if he had not reacted in kind, his body lusting after her as much as his mind. It was the mind, of course, that had to come together first and she ran her paws down his back over and over again, through his mane and even combing through his forelock tenderly, memorising each and every little nuance in his body that she could reach and would surely come back to revisit time after time after time again.

Or, at least, that was what the canine hoped, fangs showing as her jaws hung open in a needy moan. And down the length of her body the stallion moved, inch by tantalising inch as if he was trying to make her wait for it, wriggle and squirm anxiously in need for the taste of him, heat rushing through her body like an otherworldly force simmering just beneath the surface of her skin. The silk sheets rumpled up beneath her body and Marchesa turned her delicate snout into the pillows as his nose, finally, dipped between her thighs, giving her the sweetness and just a hit of the release too that she so desired.

Jacob's tongue seemed to know just what to do, even though they had only had one time together before, her folds still softly and gently sore from the size of him the first time around. But neither of them were going to stop simply because they were still a little physically tired after their first, sweet time together, the horse hungrily digging his tongue into her honey pot as he tasted her essence, as delicious and tempting as she was in the scope of her memory.

"Ohhh..." The canine moaned, turned curling and spine twisting as she struggled to contain her pleasure. "Oh... That's so..."

But she couldn't get out the words to convey her pleasure and lust as he nuzzled between her legs, his tongue flicking up to catch her clit ever so softly with the very tip of the wide, fleshy appendage. She trembled up into him as if called by a silent song, mouth opening and closing to vocalise delight that had never before, truly, been hers. There would never again be anything for her as sweet as Jacob's tongue, the canine stroked his ears over and over again, slipping her fingers into his mane as if she thought, however briefly, that she needed to keep him in place, keep him licking and teasing her right to the edge of fervent completion.

But she needed something, something more - something that called to her as the equine wriggled his hips and eased out of his pants for his own comfort, revealing a hard and aching shaft. The canine twisted, trying to crane her neck to see, but he was too far away as his tail flicked, revealing a smooth and toned rump that she simply yearned to dig her fingers into, feel the muscle shifting beneath that gorgeous, chestnut coat.

And she could have that too, if only she asked for it. His tongue dipping between her folds over and over again, however, made even thinking difficult, the teasing slip through her increasingly damp and aroused cunny driving her to greater heights of need. It would be so easy for her to not do or say anything, just let him bring her to sweet orgasm, but the canine had to try, had to have that little bit more that would make everything all the more perfect.

"Wait..." Her breath came ragged with each and every gulp, sitting up with wide eyes as she stalled him, if only for a moment. "Come over me... Here..."

Guiding the stallion over her body with his legs towards her head, Marchesa settled him into a position where she too could enjoy the delights that his body had to offer - and not just his tongue. Head to hoof and head to paws, his shaft hung over her muzzle, mottled pink and grey, and she licked her lips wantonly - an action that may have been considered threatening if he had not, somehow, trusted her implicitly.

Her mouth parted around his cock and then it was the stallion's turn to find some manner of difficulty in simply keeping his breathing level, teeth clenched as she swallowed down as much of his shaft as her little muzzle could take. He was thick, so very thick, but that wasn't going to stop her as she groaned around him, eyes rolling back into her head as his tongue, once again, pressed to her clit and sweetly swept around the fleshy nub of pleasure.

Together, their bodies rocked and ground in the prelude to orgasmic bliss but it was not for them right there and then to come to completion, merely enjoying the tickle and thrust of foreplay. There was no sense of rush or haste in their liaison either, not even as the sheets pushed up under her shoulder blades, uncomfortable but not something, by far, that she was willing to correct as her body heated up even further. Jacob fared little better, sliding his weight from one knee to the other as he groaned into her sex, lapping fervently over and over again as a paw shakily eased between her soft thighs too to tease two fingers into her sex.

That was too much for the canine who growled around his cock, muffled and moaning, as he penetrated her, teasing her as her juices slickened down his fingers. With her moisture trickling over his chin, it was all the stallion could do to keep himself in check, every nerve and instinct in his body screaming for him to thrust and buck his hips, slamming into Marchesa's maw like his ancestors of old would have done in rougher, coarser breeding encounters. And maybe the two of them would, one day, be rough like that too, only because they found it pleasing, but for that time all they craved was to tease pleasure from one another's bodies over and over again until they were both a trembling, sexually exhausted mess.

There was no stopping the call of love, however, as Jacob slowly shifted his hips back, careful of her fangs (even though Marchesa had folded her lips down over them, carefully protecting his length from their points) as he ached for something more. Oral pleasure was all well and good but there was little that could have possibly have been better than taking a sweetheart such as Marchesa into his arms and making love to her, which was all his heart wanted to do over the raw arousal of his body. He sat back against the wooden headboard of her bed, a pillow tucked into the small of his back, and drew her softly into his lap, kneeling over him with her legs spread apart to take him.

And he seemed to slip into her a lot more easily than he had even the first time around, his cock finding her soft entrance and teasing its way inside even without the will of his mind. The two of them moaned in unison a fraction of a moment before their lips came together in a lustful kiss, tongues tangling as she rocked in his lap, arms around him to pull herself in as close as was physically possible. There was, of course, no one there to separate them as they came together, the lewd slurp of their bodies joining rising through the bedroom in testament to their bliss, but the stallion didn't even chance to glance in the mirror off to the side to see just how he looked making love to a beautiful creature who would never even see the trueness of her own reflection.

Her walls clenched around him in a teasing ripple as he tensed his glutes, moving up into her as much as he could, considering his position, but sitting as he was allowed him to bend his knees and tuck her closer in to his lap, breasts teasing against his chest. Nipples perking into hard buds of need, Marchesa groaned into his mouth, wrapping her longer, more flexible canine tongue around his, arching her back to better press her breasts against him even as she took the full length of his throbbing shaft into her pussy, far past the medial ring.

As her folds brushed his sheath, a kiss that only lovers would ever know, the stallion tore his muzzle free, unable to contain his pleasure as he whinnied, nostrils fluttering. It would have been impossible to control himself even with another lover at another time but there was something about Marchesa that made him want to seed her over and over again, if only to enjoy the pleasure their lovemaking could bring for as long as was physically and mentally possible. The emotional side, however, seemed to be a fountain that never ran dry, although a fact that they would only come to realise as they learned more and more about one another in times to come.

"P-please..."

Marchesa could barely get out the moan as she kissed his lips, his muzzle, his neck - everywhere and anywhere that she could reach - need rising and curling in the pit of her belly. There was nothing she could do but moan out her lust, clinging to her lover and trusting that he would know what she needed, how to please her as she needed, so very desperately, to be pleased.

The stallion, however, was too far gone himself to be anything but attuned intimately to her need, pressed up against her as she howled and climaxed on his shaft, a paw tucked desperately down between the join of their bodies to tease her clit, sending her sweetly over the edge. The equine grunted, jaw clenched and a muscle jumping in the corner, his ears splayed as her pussy rippled so wonderfully around him. Pulsing and massaging his full length as he remained buried fully inside her, unwilling to draw back or push her up and off him in even the slightest increment, allowing her body to pull him to the edge without any intervention at all required by him.

And she did too without knowing, kissing his lips breathlessly at the very moment that the stallion nickered throatily, climaxing inside her as he sent spurt after spurt of virile cum into her pussy, seeding her as full of sweet cream as any equine would have when faced with such a divine beauty. The coming together of their bodies and minds could not have been sweeter, breath mingling as they kissed and kissed and his balls churned to spill that need in the most visceral way possible.

But that was a need that could be refilled for them to enjoy one another all over again, the stallion breaking the kiss as he panted heavily to kiss down Marchesa's throat, nipping and suckling even as he dragged in needy, desperate breaths through his nostrils. And so they moved together until he laid her back down on the bed and drew the silk covers over her sleepily exhausted body, covering her nudity only to revealed again in the light of day, for the stallion most certainly was not going anywhere with the warmth rising in his heart for her. He could not have explained it and, considering everything else, neither did it make sense - yet did everything in the world where monsters roamed have to make sense?

Jacob didn't know and he didn't care either, murmuring sweet nothings to the canine as she slipped into sleep, a soft smile on her muzzle that he could not have honestly said that he'd seen before. Yet there was far more with the vampire still for him to discover as he wrapped his arms around her for the night, her back pressed to his chest as they lay curled up in the warmth of one another, the lantern light slowly but surely burning out as if they had, perfectly, timed it just so.

It was not a perfect situation but what was? Jacob kissed her head and the back of her neck as he drifted down and down and down himself too, trying to hold onto the waking world for as long as possible if only to keep the feel of her in his arms for just a little bit longer. He did not know for just how long the moment would last and found himself, even on the edge of sleep, determined to savour it for as long as possible. It was all he could do.

For only time and the coming of morn would tell what the day would bring for the two of them.