Archive of Our Own

There were rumours about Wakefields and the towns that surrounded it that would have scared off any normal person. There were tales of witchcraft dating back to the times of the Witch Trials, there was documented evidence of werewolves and banshees and satyrs, and – most of all – vampires.

According to popular urban legend, Wakefields had been a haven for vampire covens for the better half of five centuries.

But Marlene had been living in a small house on the outskirts of town for around six months now, and she hadn’t seen a single one.

Now, despite popular opinion, Marlene wasn’t an idiot; she knew the signs to look out for when trying to spot a vampire, she knew that crosses didn’t actually repel them, and the most garlic would do was give them a strange rash and make them feel itchy for a few days. She knew that on average they could last half an hour under direct sunlight before they started burning, and that they never appeared in mirrors or photos. She knew that they never blinked, and they moved with a slow, hypnotising sort of grace that could only be achieved through the knowledge that they had all the time in the world to do as they pleased. She knew the only way to kill a vampire was to burn it or to stake it through the heart. She knew that they craved blood in the same way humans craved water – it wasn’t a delicacy, but a necessity.

And Marlene knew, with absolute certainty, that there were no vampires residing near or around the Wakefields.

She’d moved here in early June, when the sun was warm and bright and close enough that it would burn any vampire an angry red after only fifteen minutes standing under it. She’d spent the next four months scouting the area for any sings or sightings. She followed every lead she could, looking out for traces of recent killings or drainings, camping out in the woods where the coverns were supposed to hide, inspecting the abandoned ‘haunted’ house but finding nothing but werewolf claw marks and traces of torn out fur. The only supernatural creature that lurked around these parts looked to be a self-destructive werewolf that mostly kept to themself.

But even those claw marks were old, and Marlene watched the house for the next two full moons and saw no one enter or leave, and heard no howling or screaming. The werewolf must have skipped town not long before Marlene arrived, which was more than fine with her.

After six months of living in Wakefields, Marlene was absolutely certain that there was nothing supernatural about this town. There was no doubt that there had been, once. But the banshees and satyrs had long since moved on. And there were definitely no vampire coverns lurking around. That didn’t stop the people living here from assuming there was; they were probably brought up with the old lie that they lived in one of the most haunted towns in the US, and that legends of their ancient coverns had been inspiration for so many gothic tales over the centuries. They were right, but stories had been blown out of proportion, and these days Wakefields was nothing more than a cheap and shitty tourist destination for couples on the brink of divorce that wanted to ‘do something fun with the kids’ before shit hit the fan.

This was all perfectly fine with Marlene, because belief in the supernatural was all you needed, really.

It would be strange if a string of unconnected murders in a quiet, quaint town occurred with no prior history of violence. But if a string of unconnected murderers were to occur in a place like Wakefield… well, no one would suspect a human.

As soon as she realised that there were no vampires watching over her every move and stealing her kills, she set to work.

There was a methodical beauty in her work. It was relaxing for her, watching. Waiting. Analysing. After all this time, she’d learnt how to pick out the perfect meal after only a few seconds of observing someone. She had a rule against children and the elderly (they were far too rubbery), and she was far more likely to kill a man than a woman, because a lot of the time, the men just deserved it more. Part of the pleasure was in the chase, so she always liked to pick people who at least seemed like they would fight back, but she never chose someone she knew could overpower her. People in their thirties tended to taste the best in her opinion, but she couldn’t take too many at once, because patterns were what tipped off the police, so she couldn’t indulge too much.

Her first kill in her new home as a woman. Louisa. Twenty-seven years old. Light brown hair. Brown eyes. Freckles. She had an annoying laugh, and her nail polish was always chipped, and her lips were always over-lined. She said she was straight, but when Marlene approached her in the bar that night in mid-October, she was more than happy to make-out. She said, through panted breaths half-way through, that her ex-boyfriend Marvin found it hot when she kissed girls, and he was stood a few paces away. She said that it would make him jealous if Marlene were to take her home. And it was that fucking easy.

Marlene didn’t end up taking her home, because getting blood out of the carpet was a nightmare. Instead, she convinced Louisa to go on a walk with her in the woods. Louisa had a stupid sort of bravery, stating that she’d never been afraid of vampires, that she could ‘easily take one’ if the need to ever arose.

Marlene ended up eating her out on the forest floor, and made her come twice (because Louisa was clearly a lesbian, and the poor girl would never have the time to come to that realisation, so it was only nice that Marlene let her have at least one good sexual experience before she kicked the bucket). While Louisa was still coming down from her second orgasm, Marlene picked up the large rock at her feet, and before she could even scream for help, Marlene dashed her brains out on the floor.

She carried on eating her well into the early hours of the morning and hacked parts off of her to store in the freezer and cook up later, leaving only an identifiable carcass in her wake.

Two days later, when Louisa was found, the police were called. They barely even glanced at the crime scene, stating the cause was supernatural – most likely vampires – and that the SDF would be called. They recommended everyone carry garlic on them at all times, and place crosses on their doors. Marlene played the part of the scared neighbour, went to her job at the gas station, and started scouting for her next kill.

Three weeks later, in early November, Marlene decided who it would be.

He was a little younger than what she’d normally go for – only a few years out of high school – but it was evident already that his life would be a huge disappointment. It would be best for everyone involved if he just stopped while he was ahead.

Preston came to the gas station every Saturday at eight O’clock to buy a pack of beer and to try and get Marlene’s number. He was trying to grow a beard, but was failing miserably, and stank of cheap cigarettes and body odour. He’d had three girlfriends so far, had cheated on two of them, and dumped the third one because she ‘cried too much’. He had an awful tattoo of a lion on his forearm and called it his ‘spirit animal’. He’d told Marlene the story of him fighting and killing the werewolf that used to live in the abandoned shack five times in the last two weeks, and every time he changed it. Marlene couldn’t wait to kill him.

She’d planned it all out. This time next week she’d take him up on his offer to take her to the shack and let him give her the ‘complete rundown’ of his werewolf battle. All she had to do was stow the ropes in the house beforehand, and then she could attack him while his back was turned. He’d pissed her off enough these past few weeks that she wanted to take her time with him – something that she didn’t get to do a lot. She’d eat him slowly, piece by piece, making him watch. She’d paint his face with his own blood, and then lick it off him. She’d keep him chained up for days, coming back whenever she got hungry, cherishing his screams every time he heard the door to the shack open. She’d linger in the doorways sometimes, just to hear him shout for help. She’d get off on those sounds, on the knowledge that she’d done that. She’d made him so afraid, so terrified, so weak. It would be pure ecstasy.

She was so wrapped up in the daydream, that she didn’t even register Preston walking in until he was already speaking to her. “Marley!” He called, in that annoying voice he put on, trying to make it seem deeper than it normally was. Marlene’s blood boiled at the use of the nickname he’d given her the second time they’d spoken. She’d eat his tongue first, she thought. “I want you to meet my friend, Cassie.”

Just like that, she realised the girl next to him. And- Holy fuck.

Her skin was dark, but she had blue eyes so light they almost looked grey. Her hair was braided and hung all the way down to her waist. Her waist. She must not have felt the early November air, because she all wore was a low-cut red top and even lower rise denim jeans, showing off the naval piercing resting there. Her skin was completely smooth and unblemished, she wore red eyeliner and matching deep, cherry red lipstick that Marlene itched to smudge.

She wanted to ruin this girl. She needed to.

She didn’t even want to kill her or eat her. She didn’t want her dead, but she wanted her to bleed. To suffer and to survive and to come back for more. She wanted to carve her name into her bones, to own her, worship her, sink her teeth into her-

And she was with Preston. Preston. He had his arm wrapped around her shoulders, even though Cassie was ever so slightly taller than him due to her heavy black boots.

Marlene must have been glaring at all the points where the two of them touched, because when she finally dragged her eyes up to Cassie’s face, the girl wore a strange look of smugness.

Did she think Marlene was jealous of her? No. Never. The only way she’d ever come close to Preston was if he was writhing on the floor in agony because she had put him there. This girl – Cassie – should not be with someone like him. There was no way she could like him, because there was nothing to like. He had a decent looking face, but even that was a stretch in certain lights, and if she did like him… well that was a shame, because he’d be dead in about a weeks’ time. Cassie didn’t deserve to be unhappy. Marlene had a feeling she would have the most beautiful smile.

“Not your usual time, Pres.” Marlene put on her best grin, trying to ignore the strange instinct she had to look over at Cassie again.

Preston just laughed. “Well, my girl Cassie was back in town, and I thought we’d catch up.” He said, pulling Cassie in closer to him. Marlene wanted to snap that arm from his body. “Cassie, Marley. Marley, Cassie.” He introduced.

Cassie grinned, her teeth a perfect shade of white. Marlene wanted to wear them as a necklace. “Marley?” She repeated.

“Marlene.” She corrected. Fucking Preston, making her look like an idiot.

Cassie’s smile just widened. “Dorcas.” She said.

“What?”

“You can call me Dorcas.” She never once took her eyes off Marlene, and she got the strange feeling she was being inspected. Analysed. Was she threatened by Marlene knowing Preston? She really shouldn’t be; Marlene had only been with a man once and it was undeniably the worst night of her life.

“Well,” Preston announced loudly, seemingly oblivious to the entire conversation Marlene and Dorcas were trying to have with their eyes, without knowing at all what the other was saying. But that was to be expected –Preston had always been thick. “Me and Cassie were just driving, and I figured we’d pop in. I know it’s not our usual date, but I still figured you’d be happy to see me.” He winked. He fucking winked.

If Preston ruined Marlene’s chances with Dorcas, she’d scrap her entire plan of savouring her meal and murder him right there and then. Surely there was no universe in which Dorcas believed that she was attracted to, not only him, but men in general. Her shirt literally said DYKEA for God’s sake.

But she couldn’t lose it with him today. She’d be able to berate Preston for all of his failures while ripping out all his finger nails in just one week. So instead, she put on her best customer service voice, and reminded herself that murder in public places was always bad. “Of course. Anything I can do for you guys?”

“Just the usual.”  He said, then turned to look at Dorcas. “Cass?”

She studied Marlene for a few seconds, eyes lingering in every place for a little bit too long. She hadn’t stopped grinning once. “I’m good.” She answered finally. Which was unfortunate; Marlene would have given her the whole store if she’d asked. But instead, all Dorcas was getting tonight was cheap beer and small talk so dry it would make the Sahara Dessert look like a water park. She couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched as Preston continued to try and flirt with Marlene as he paid for his beer while having his arm still draped around Dorcas. He kept on asking her to join him, said they could make a party of it. Marlene declined continuously, even though she longed to spend even a second longer around Dorcas.

Perhaps they could become friends after Marlene was finished with Preston? Perhaps Marlene could feed pieces of him to her at dinner? The thought was enough to make Marlene’s knees weak.

She heard Dorcas muffle a small laugh, and when Marlene looked up at her, the other girl was still smiling at Marlene. But there was something more to it now, something she was trying to say with her eyes, but Marlene couldn’t figure out what. It was like Dorcas had found whatever she’d been trying to find in her earlier. It was unnerving. It was interesting. Marlene wanted to beat the information out of her.

“Thanks Marley.” Dorcas said knowingly when they finally turned to leave, but Marlene was too busy watching her to reply.

“See you Saturday.” She heard Preston say just before he slammed the door shut behind him, but Marlene still didn’t answer. She just watched as they climbed into Preston’s shitty red pick-up truck. She seethed as Dorcas laughed at something Preston said. She was gripping the countertop in anger as Preston leaned in and pressed a kiss to Dorcas’ cheek. She was five seconds away from walking out there and shooting him in the head when Preston placed a piece of gum directly on Dorcas’ tongue.

But then Dorcas made eye contact with Marlene through the glass as Preston’s finger lingered on her tongue, and all the ways Marlene was planning on killing Preston flashed before her eyes. All the ways she’d make him scream, cry, beg. She loved it when men begged. She imagined the colour of his blood, using it as lipstick as she kissed Dorcas. She imagined chaining him up, making it last, making it hurt like nothing she’d ever done before. She’d make it special; she’d make Dorcas watch.

As Preston drove away, Marlene could have sworn she’d seen Dorcas’ eyes darken with each sinful thought.

She got home late, like she always did. She lived in a shitty little house in a rundown part of town, next to a nosy old woman who couldn’t mind her own business, and a couple that grew weed in a shed in their backyard. It was far from the worst place Marlene had ever lived, though.

When she got home, she immediately stripped out of her work clothes and went to bed. Normally, it would only take her a few seconds to fall asleep, but that night, she was kept awake, tossing and turning, her mind replaying images of that girl over, and over again.

Had Preston fucked her? Had he taken her home, taken her clothes off, and fucked her? Or did he even bother with a bed? Did he simply pull over on the side of the road, push their seats back, and take her like that? In a dingy, shitty car? Dorcas deserved more than that, she thought to herself. Marlene hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her since she left, hadn’t been able to stop picturing all of the things Preston might be doing to her, and all the ways Marlene could do it better.

Did Dorcas even know better was out there? That sly, knowing smile she’d given Marlene told her she did, but then why on Earth was she with Preston?

Preston, who was probably fucking her with a sub-par dick right this moment in the back seat of his pick-up truck. Right this moment, Dorcas was probably faking moans, having to listen to whatever drivel he was spewing, having to think of someone else to get her through the ordeal. Poor Dorcas.

Marlene could do so much better.

She’d take her time with it. She wouldn’t be like Preston, who shoved it in with no preamble. She’d make her desperate for it, make her beg for it. She’d take her apart slowly with her fingers, and then with her tongue. Marlene just knew she would taste good.

It was almost definitely frowned upon to touch yourself thinking of someone you’d only met that day and had seen for only around five minutes, if that. But cannibalism was also frowned upon in a majority of places, so. If Marlene was being honest with herself, she’d probably been turned on all shift from thinking about Dorcas. She was already tender by the time she reached in between her legs, already soaking through her underwear.

She ran her fingers up and down her cunt over her underwear, picturing Dorcas. She imagined her splayed out for Marlene in the backseat of her own car, in that lacy red top, imagined the way the streetlights would reflect in her bellybutton piercing. She imagined how that skin would feel under her fingers. It looked so smooth, and Marlene wanted to ruin it. She pressed her palm down, slowly grinding against it while she pictured the way Dorcas would feel underneath her. Shaking. Panting. Writhing.

She groaned, and realised she was really going to have to do this. She had no other choice, really, when you think about it. There was nothing else she could have done, other than pull her soaked underwear off, and slip a hand between her folds.

She moaned heavily and closed her eyes. Imagined it was Dorcas’ finger inside her, imagined it was Dorcas’ palm pressing against her throbbing clit. She remembered the perfectly manicured red nails she’d had. Remembered the heavy gold rings that matched the rest of her jewellery. She remembered the dark red lipstick, that, in the shitty light of the gas station, looked more like blood. Marlene groaned loudly at the thought of Dorcas’ blood. At the thought of licking it out of her.

She added another finger, and considered reaching into her bedside table to get her vibrator, but she couldn’t bear the thought of stopping even for a second. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this turned on, and Dorcas wasn’t even here.

If she was here, Marlene would have her pinned against the bed. She’d have one hand wrapped around that perfect, delicate neck, leaving the imprint of her hand there for everyone to see, and she’d force Dorcas to wear it like a necklace. Preston would never think to touch her then. She began to move her fingers faster, pressing them up, fucking her self onto them, pretending they were Dorcas’. She imagined touching Dorcas in return; the sounds she’d make, the way she’d curve into the touch, the way she’d beg for Marlene to make her come over, and over, and over again.

And Marlene, ever the giving lover, would oblige. She doubted anyone else had ever given Dorcas the care and attention she deserved. It would be like touching a virgin – someone completely new to the idea of pleasure. She’d be so responsive, so sensitive. Every featherlight touch would feel like pure ecstasy against her skin. Marlene would give her everything, and she’d take everything in return.

She reached her other hand down, rubbing against her clit and added another finger inside herself. She might have moaned Dorcas’ name once or twice, but no one was around to hear, and Marlene didn’t feel something as common as shame anymore. When she was done with Preston, she was going to find Dorcas. She was going to find her, and if Dorcas had the audacity to mourn him, Marlene would fuck it out of her. She imagined Dorcas trapped beneath her, imagined the taste of her come, imagined the way her body would feel pressed against her while they both finished, imagined kissing every inch of her, making her feel good in the way she deserved.

Marlene orgasmed to the thought of licking Dorcas’ come off her fingers, and the image of her fucked out face and ruined make-up beneath her.

She fell asleep to the memory of Dorcas’ eyes, and the way they’d felt on her while she drove away. How dark they’d looked as Marlene imagined killing Preston.

She looked out the window and saw that same flavour of darkness staring at her where the moon was supposed to be.

She fell asleep, and she did not dream.

Plans had to be pushed forward after that.

Ordinarily, she would have liked more time to spread the rumours that there was a vampire lurking in the shack in the middle of the woods, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

That same night when she got off work, Marlene was awake well into the morning laying out a trail of dead rabbits circling the shack and leading up to it. The next day, she told her neighbour – a gossiping old bitch of a woman – about the haunting trail of dead animals she’d found on her morning run. On Thursday, she went back and scattered around some old remains that had gone rotten from laying around in her freezer for too long. It was nothing much – just an arm, a few fingers and half a foot – but it was enough to warrant the attention of the police and not just the town gossips and a few misbehaving teenagers.

By Saturday morning, the police had issued a warning to everyone that they were, under no circumstances, to go anywhere near the shack. They reminded everyone that the Supernatural Defence Force had been called and would be with them next week, and stated that they were heavily monitoring the area, and that anyone found there would be shot on sight.

These rules, obviously, did not apply to Marlene.

“Marley!” Preston shouted on Saturday at 8 O’clock sharp, and for the first time, Marlene gave him a genuine smile back.

“Hey, Pres.” She answered, looking at him intently.

“Busy night?” He asked, making the same mind numbingly boring small talk that he always did.

“Nah,” she sighed. “I’ve never seen it so empty out here. Everyone’s scared to shit of those vampires.”

“Pfft,” he scoffed, just like she predicted he would. He puffed out his chest, rolled his eyes and rested his elbows on the countertop between them. “That’s a load of rubbish, there’s no vampires ‘round here.”

“Really?”

He shook his head. “Not a single one.”

“Then what were all of those dead animals? And the body parts-“

He waved a hand, “The animals were some kids messing around, and there weren’t any body parts.”

“You seem pretty sure…”

“I know this town like the back of my hand,” he said, like that was something to be proud of, “and there have never been vampires living around here.”

The easiest way to get someone to do what you want, is to make them think they want to do it as well. All Marlene had to do really, was to make Preston thinks he wants to go into the woods tonight with Marlene. She has to make him think he wants to prove a point, wants to make him think he has to make a few foolish decisions all in the name of impressing a girl. She has to make him think he has a chance. “Oh, but there have been werewolves living ‘round here though, right?” She asked subtlety.

“Well, not anymore, as you know.” He smiled.

She laughed. “I’m still not sure if I believe that, you know.”

“That there was a werewolf?”

“That you killed it.”

“Don’t think I could?” He asked, leaning over the counter slightly.

She hummed, inspecting him. “I’m undecided.” He had deep, brown eyes. Those – she had found – always tasted the sweetest. The painful flirting would be worth it if she got to get a taste of even one of those eyes.

“Need convincing?”

It was almost pathetic really, how easy it was to manipulate Preston. All Marlene had to do was play the part of the weak, curious girl new to town, and he had fallen hook line and sinker. “A physical demonstration might help.” She said, fighting the urge to vomit as she did.

Preston didn’t think her ‘flirting’ was cringy, though, he was lapping it up like an overexcited puppy. “Well, if we go back to mine after your shift-“

“No.” Marlene said immediately. No fucking way was she going to his house. “No, I…”

He furrowed his brows. “You…?”

“You offered to take me to the shack the other week.” She said shyly.

He smiled a little at that, more than happy to play the part of the brave werewolf killer he’d given himself. “I thought you were scared of vampires?”

“I have you. I trust you.”

“It’s a date then.”

“I finish at twelve.”

“I’ll be here.” You’d better be.

Marlene walked out at midnight on the dot and was greeted by Preston’s pick-up truck sat in the parking lot. He was leant up against the side of it, cigarette dangling from his teeth, hardly hiding the fact he was looking Marlene up and down as she strolled over to him. She couldn’t wait to rip those eyes out of his body. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this excited about a kill. Most of the time she killed out of necessity – it was her job to rid the world of these creatures, and there was something about the taste of human flesh that fuelled her so much better than any other food she’d tasted before.

Marlene had tried not to be a cannibal, she really had. It wasn’t something that you aspire to be, and it always seemed like a line you just couldn’t cross. The murdering was fine by her – because these people deserved it – but butchering their bodies, making their deaths drawn out and painful, and feasting on them afterwards, that had taken time to get used to. But now she was there, she could never even consider looking back.

Sitting in the passenger seat of that beaten up truck, listening to Preston’s shitty music and having to endure the thick scent of body odour and rotting take-out was another kind of hell. Preston didn’t even have to decency to shut up. Every other sentence was about his upcoming football game or bragging about how brave and noble he was taking Marlene out to the old werewolf hiding place. She put on the sweetest laugh she could, batted her eyelashes and thanked him profusely for taking her out tonight while she imagined what his blood would taste like. She imagined bashing his head in with a brick and watching his skull cave in, imagined reaching her hand into that gaping hole and taking handfuls of his brains, imagined making contact with his glazed over, empty eyes and she licked his blood off her fingers.

There was police tape around the shack, but it was easy enough to get through. There was only one patrol car left at the end of the road leading up to the woods – it wasn’t even anywhere near the shack. It was concerningly easy for them to reach the shack with no one seeing them. Just as Marlene had planned.

Preston seemed to carry himself more confidently the closer they got, setting his shoulders back and stretching his spine to make himself seem taller. He boasted about the full moon that past summer when he found himself in the woods on a dare and came across the sound of screaming. Ever the saviour, he rushed to the shack only to be confronted with a full-grown werewolf. Apparently, the fight lasted almost all night, but Preston finally managed to kill the beast only moments before sunrise.

It was bullshit. Plain and simple. The amount of inaccuracies in his story was shocking, like how the werewolf wasn’t chained up, why the silver of Preston’s rings didn’t burn him, how the day he claims this happened wasn’t even a full moon.

But Marlene, ever the actress, still played her part. She gasped, laughed, asked more questions, fed his ego, all the way up until they reached the shack. She had to bite her lip to stop herself from squealing. “Let’s go inside.” She practically begged, but she didn’t care to be embarrassed by it. How she had waited for this.

Preston was all too happy to go inside, and Marlene wasn’t even repulsed by the fact that he’d taken her hand, because she knew she’d be able to saw it off of his body in only a few minutes. The shack was just like she left it; decrepit, dusty, dilapidated. Preston was narrating how he chased the werewolf in here, how he took out a hunting knife and started backing it up the stairs. Marlene nodded and hummed, tuning him out and focusing on the pulse she could feel thrumming under her hand. It was racing – probably with anticipation. Preston was under the impression that Marlene was completely fine with fucking in this rank shed in the middle of nowhere, and Marlene was doing nothing to dissuade him on the notion. He started to make his way up the stairs, turning back to ‘check on her’ and Marlene licked her lips. The anticipation was becoming too much for het as well.

What Preston didn’t know, was that the upstairs ‘bedroom’ had a chest in there. In the chest, there was rope, a hammer, Marlene’s collection of knives, a saw, some gags, and an array of other tools she’d collected over the years to make someone hurt as much or as little as her heart desired. It had been far too long since she’d gotten to play with her food like this.

Sure, Preston was a big guy, but Marlene knew for a fact she was slightly stronger – and more experienced. His muscles were for show, were purely aesthetic and poorly maintained. She, on the other hand, worked for her strength. She’d taken the time to ensure that she could take down her prey, had trained herself to use someone else’s strength against them, she had the technique to match the muscle.

She was also smart.

So in the split second that Preston stood in the doorway, staring at the large, modern, out of place chest. In the split second it took him to hesitate, to stop his carefully rehearsed speech, Marlene had fished her knife  silently from her waistband and was already slamming the handle against his head. Not hard enough to knock him out, no, she wanted him awake for this, just hard enough to shake him up, to make him fall, to give her the time to shove him to the floor, climb on top of him, and pin his hands above his head.

Predictably, he started to try and shake her off, but Marlene already had both of his hands pinned in her grip, and she slammed the blade through both of them, pinning him down for good. The way he screamed was like music to her ears – so much sweeter than anything she had been imagining. She smiled, sighing, relishing in the sound. Preston continued to howl beneath her, calling her a colourful array of names, and she closed her eyes, taking it all in, submitting it all to memory.

She was sat there long enough for his shouts to become pleas. For the anger to wear off and replace itself with terror. His hands were stabbed together over his head by a knife, and the girl that had done it was straddling him, humming along to his screams like she was trying to harmonise with them.

“I’ve been waiting for this, you know,” She said gently, when eventually Preston realised words wouldn’t shake her. She opened her eyes and tilted her head down to look at him. There were tears running down his face, blood pooling from his hands. Terror in his eyes. Marlene was overjoyed. “I’m going to have so much fun with you.”

“You crazy fucking bitch.” He spat. “You’re a fucking psychopath. You- what? You-“

Marlene tuned him out again, climbing off him and making her way to the chest. “I must warn you, I’ve been doing this for a long time.” She took out the key that was hanging from around her neck and unlocked it. “I know how to make this easier, or harder on you, I know how to make you hurt, how to keep you alive for months while I carve you up into tiny little pieces.” Finally, she selected one of her saws and a few bandages. And rope. She closed the lid and turned back to him. “And now that you’ve seen my face, there’s no way you’re getting out of this, Preston. So, you might as well sit back and enjoy the ride. We’re going to be spending a lot of time with each other.”

The pure, unadulterated terror in his eyes was beautiful. Better than anything Marlene could’ve imagined. He started kicking as she began to talk towards her, started screaming, and yelling. He was thrashing, wincing against the searing pain he was feeling in his hands as every movement snagged against the knife speared through them. It was pathetic. Beautiful. She needed a taste.

Marlene crouched down at his head, ran a finger around where the blade met his skin, dragged it through the blood, and brought it up to her mouth. That rich, iron taste flooded her tongue. Everyone tasted slightly different, everyone had their own intricacies and specialities, and she’d worked hard to remember them all. Preston was rich, sturdy, nourishing. He would feed that deeply sated hunger in her for weeks, she could get by from the memory of this blood alone, and she knew that the taste of his flesh would be just as good.

He'd been worth the wait after all.

“You’re a pathetic excuse for a human being, you know.” She mused aloud, taking up the saw. “You’re not particularly good at anything, your futures as bleak as they come, your face is okay but that doesn’t hide the fact that you’re just fucking stupid.” She watched him as she trailed the saw lightly up and down his arm, debating how much to cut off. “No one’s going to miss you, Preston. I’m doing the world a favour.” Elbow. She decided. Just below it. “You’re lucky that I’m even doing this. It’ll be the only useful thing you’ve ever done with your life, the only thing you’re capable of doing right.”

“And what’s that?” He asked, trying and failing to hide the shake in his voice.

“Being a good meal. Maybe I’ll let you have a taste too, before you go. So you know that this was all worth it.” He screamed again, and Marlene laughed as she went about hacking his arm off his body.

That night, she cooked herself dinner.

She spent hours in the kitchen, humming along to the memory of Preston’s screams as she cooked his flesh. She makes black pudding, because it’s been far too long since she’s had a good one. It isn’t ready until the early hours of the morning, and Marlene eats alone at her dining room table, watching the sun rise, a ridiculous smile still plastered over her face.

She goes to work the next day and carries on as normal. As predicted, no one’s yet to realise Preston’s missing. His mother hasn’t reported his absence, and likely won’t for another few days, and Preston had no friends that would actually miss him. The only person that would be slightly annoyed by his disappearance would be his manager at the Walmart he worked at when he doesn’t turn up to work on Monday.

The police will boil his disappearance down to vampires immediately. They’ll leave the investigation to the SDF, who’ll find traces of his blood in a few days on the other side of town by the creek after Marlene plants it there. They won’t find a body. They’ll have a funeral that a handful of people will attend, and, after a year or two, no one will even remember he existed.

It took everything in her not to flee from the gas station and make the drive over to the shack. She was impatient and snappy with every costumer that walked through the door, as if getting them to leave faster would also make the minute hand on the clock move faster.

The second it hit midnight, she was already out the door.

And she knew something was wrong the second she walked inside the shack half an hour later.

There was no immediate evidence that something was wrong, but there was the feeling. The feeling that someone had been here, someone had walked through this doorway and up those stairs. Someone had breathed this air, and they’d walked right back out as well.

Marlene had her gun in hand immediately, but she knew whoever had been here was long gone. It felt empty.

Empty.

He was gone.

Gone

Gone.

Gone.

The shackles were empty, only a small puddle of blood remained where Preston was lying only yesterday. There were no signs of a struggle, no signs of him breaking the shackles off, no dents in the wooden walls or floorboards. He had quite literally disappeared.

Or someone let him out.

Calm. She needed to be calm. She needed to focus, to think rationally, not let her emotions get the better of her. She needed to be calm.

Marlene had never been a calm person, though. How could she be, when she does what she does? No calm person becomes a serial killer and a cannibal. No calm person kidnaps men, tortures them, and eats them. Marlene took a total of one deep breaths, and started shooting the blank, bloody space on the floor where Preston used to be. When she ran out of bullets, she started ripping up floorboards. She emptied out her chest, took out the golfclubs and started hitting them at everything she could find. She took out knives and stabbed the already broken bed. She screamed, and swore, and laughed manically throughout it all. She wondered if the police were already on their way, if they’d find her like this – crazed – if they’d back away in fear or shoot on sight.

She didn’t care, though. She’d kill them anyway. She’d kill every single fucking one of them. She’d slaughter them like pigs, bite out their throats and eat them raw, leave trails of organs littered throughout the woods, section them off into so many little pieces that they’d never be whole again, they’d never be found, never be identified. She’d butcher them until-

A piece of paper sat by the chains. Paper that wasn’t there before. It looked too white, too pristine, too perfect to be sat here in this mess of a shack. Marlene didn’t know how much time had passed, but the room looked as if a storm had ripped through it.

Still, she lunged for the paper, snatched it up from the floor and read the perfect, looping, intricate writing on the back of it.

‘I’d love to have you for dinner

D xx’

There was an address as well, and Marlene didn’t think twice about reloading her gun, strapping six of her knives to her person, and leaving the shack behind.

The house was on the outskirts of town, down a long, winding, dark dirt road. Marlene walked there – she didn’t want her car to be found anywhere near the property. The house was large and looming, a dark brick exterior surrounded by oppressing trees on all sides, with vines growing up the walls. It was nearing four in the morning by the time Marlene finally arrived, and the furry was still burning its way through her blood. The porch light was on, so were a few others, and when she approached the door, she realised it was open ever so slightly.

Like they’re waiting for you. Like they know you’re coming.

She moved silently, having perfected that art many years ago. The door made no noise when she opened it just enough to slip through. She didn’t take any time to look at the interior of the house, just kept her eyes focused on the doorway down the hall, with the light sliding its way through the gap between the door and the floor. She kept her gun trained out in front of her, kept her anger in check so she didn’t run into every room in this house searching for whatever idiot stole her food.

The element of surprise was what she needed now. Whoever ‘D’ was, they were likely expecting the sound of a car pulling up to warn them of Marlene’s presence, the house being so far away from town. Marlene was going to catch them by surprise, shoot them in the head, and then cook their heart in their own kitchen, eat it at their table, and burn this house the ground. Fuck the consequences. Fuck the police and their investigations. She’d take Preston with her and leave this stupid town behind, she’d move onto the next and never look back.

She breathed in once when she came to stand in front of the door. Paused. Composed herself, and then nudged it open slowly.

She hadn’t known what she’d been expecting in there, but it wasn’t this.

The room was lit by a dozen candles and oil lamps, bathing the dining room in an intimate orange glow. The walls were covered in a dark crimson wallpaper, a black brick fire place on the far side, and on the mantlepiece was a painting of a woman in some early 20^th century dress. The table took up most of the room. It was made of ornate, expensive wood, with around ten chairs lining it. The table was laden with food – an entire hog roast, various fruits, side dishes, deserts, starters. All of it was still warm, all of it cooked to perfection, all of it looked so perfect it almost didn’t seem real.

But the most surprising thing of all, was the woman at the head of the table, watching Marlene intently.

She looked exactly as Marlene remembered her, with braids pulled over one shoulder, with high cheekbones and impossibly blue eyes. Tonight, she wore a black dress with tiny, thin straps, and fabric that hugged her body perfectly. Her make-up was immaculate, her lipstick a dark shade of maroon, her eyeliner sharp. She was decked out in gold jewellery as if it were her armour, and it seemed to glow under the firelight.

Dorcas was sat with her legs kicked up on the wood, eyes trained on Marlene’s every moment. She didn’t seem surprised that Marlene had broken in – if anything, she seemed pleased. There was a wide grin on her face that showed off her too white teeth. She was holding an ornate dagger in her hand, spinning it around her finger with the kind of precision that could only be achieved through years of practice. She was as painfully beautiful as Marlene remembered.

She almost didn’t even notice Preston. But then he just had to make a noise.

Marlene’s head spun around and she saw him tied to  the chair on the opposite end of the table. He looked worse than Marlene remembered: his skin was far too pale, there was blood running down a harsh cut on his hairline, his clothes were torn and bloody, he had a few deep gashes on his wrist that were still fresh and running with blood, and half of his arm was still very much missing. But there was a gag tied over his mouth, so that was good. It meant Marlene wouldn’t have to hear him talk.

“Interesting choice, I must say.” Dorcas mused. She was still watching Marlene easily, lounged out on her chair like it was a throne. She didn’t seem to care about the gun trained to her head, or the fact that Marlene had nothing against killing people regardless of how pretty they were. Dorcas laughed. “Do you not choose based on looks then?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

She rolled her eyes, like there was a joke somewhere that Marlene simply wasn’t getting. “Why him?” She spat, motioning carelessly to the terrified man tied opposite her. “Out of everyone in this town, why him?”

“He pissed me off.” Marlene stated blandly. Usually her kills weren’t so personal, but he really pissed her off. “And you’re starting to piss me off too.” She took the safety off her gun.

Dorcas laughed again. “It’s a shame, really.” She sighed, biting her lip and looking Marlene up and down. She fought the urge to shuffle under her gaze. “You had potential.”

“You talk too much.”

“And you chose the wrong place to hunt.” Dorcas bit back, and for the first time Marlene saw the flicker of something in her eyes. Danger. Violence. Death.

“I thought you weren’t from ‘round here.” Marlene mused, remembering what Preston had said.

“I’ve been here longer than you can possibly imagine.”

Marlene lifted a brow. “There’s not been a single record of homicide around here for the past fifteen years.”

“I’m not as clumsy as you are. I don’t draw attention to myself.”

“Well I haven’t been noticed yet.” Marlene said, And it was true. A lot of people – foolishly – mistook her for being too emotional, too angry, too dumb. But she knew how to choose a target, she knew how to lure them, knew how to kill them and butcher them, and knew how to dispose of them. She’d gotten so good at it over the years that she could even have fun with it now. She could experiment and draw things out because she knew there was no way she was going to get caught. She was damn good at what she did, and she wasn’t going to let some random bitch tell her otherwise.

“I noticed you.” Dorcas smiled.

And how had she? They’d met once, for probably around three minutes. And now here they were. What had given her away? Had she been followed? Was Dorcas a cop? The reality of what was happening slowly started to creep in. Dorcas knew. And there was only one thing Marlene could do about that.

Dorcas laughed. “You gonna kill me?” She taunted, as if she could read her mind. She lifted her legs off the table and rested her hands in her chin, smiling madly up at Marlene as if there wasn’t a gun trained to her head. “You gonna eat me?”

“You stole my dinner.” She shrugged. “Seems only fair.” It would be a shame – killing someone as pretty as Dorcas. But there was no way she was getting out of this ordeal alive. And it’d not like she would go to waste, no; Marlene would savour every drop of her, someone as pretty as Dorcas deserved to be honoured, treasured.

Dorcas surveyed her for a moment, looking her up and down with those frustratingly perfect eyes of hers. Marlene wanted to rip them out of her skull and eat them like grapes. “Why here?” She asked. “You come out of nowhere – to my town – and start butchering anyone that takes your fancy. Why?”

“I didn’t realise this was your town.” Marlene scoffed.

“Why?” Dorcas asked again.

“Because no one would waste time looking for me, if they were looking for a vampire.” She said simply.

“You didn’t think the vampires around here would take offence to that?” She taunted.

Marlene laughed. “I thought you were smart.” She said. “There are no vampires ‘round here. Means I have the town to myself.”

Dorcas hummed, and Marlene was filled with the sickening feeling that she’d missed something, that there was some key piece of information that she was not made aware of. It was like there was some huge inside joke that she wasn’t a part of, and her friend group was laughing, and she wasn’t involved. It was reminding her of high school, of the popular girls whose throats she’d ripped out.

She’s sure Dorcas was one of the popular girls. She looks like the type: with perfect skin and hair and lips and body. Marlene is sure she was a cheerleader, had good grades, sure she charmed all of the teachers and students into thinking she was some sort of angel. She probably got prom queen, probably had a perfect home life complete with a white picket fence and a family dog called Buster.

She probably didn’t think she was better than everyone else – she knew it. She knew she was smart, and gorgeous, and that she had the whole town wrapped around her finger. She knew she could do what she liked, and no one would think twice. Marlene hated that.

“Are there really no vampires here?” She asked, with that faux innocence that made Marlene’s skin crawl.

“You know as well as I do there hasn’t been a single covern here for at least fifty years-“

“Eighty.”

Marlene hesitated. “What?”

“The coverns disappeared eighty years ago.” She elaborated, a strange glint in her eyes. “There used to be many. They were ancient coverns, the kind with old, forbidden powers that only exist in bedtime stories and horror movies now. You know the kind, right?” She asked. “Sunlight doesn’t harm them, they can go weeks without blood, they can read the minds of humans, can summon fire and see the future?”

“Vampires can’t do that.” Really, Marlene thought she was smart. Dorcas was the only person to ever catch her – she was supposed to be smart. She was supposed to know better than to believe in stupid fairytales and rumours and conspiracy theories. She couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

“Only the oldest can.” She insisted. “Not many ancient ones exist anymore. Hunters have become more efficient, humanity’s grown at a rapid rate, and there’s no place for vampires in it anymore. Most of the ancient ones disappeared in the fifties.” She ran a finger lazily down the wood grain of the table, focusing her gaze of the candle flickering in front of her. “You know, many of the old coverns fled here. Wakefields has always had a history of vampirism. It was a haven for a dying race, back then.”

Marlene started to move forward, Dorcas clearly distracted by her impromptu history lesson. Marlene had no interest in what she was saying, she could talk all she liked. She would be dead soon anyway.

“But so many coverns in close quarters lead to high tensions. Territory wars, food shortages, centuries old rivalries coming to light.” She let out a dry laugh. “It as a mess.” She looked up to Marlene to find her looming over her, a gun trained to her heart. But she was relaxed, so relaxed that Marlene could hardly see her breathing. “The last of the ancient coverns died here in 1957, and no vampire has stepped foot in Wakefield since.”

“That’s real nice.” Marlene said impatiently. “Any other last words?”

Dorcas smiled.

It happened too quickly. Less than a split second, less than a millisecond, it was an impossibility to be able to move that fast, vampire or not. But one moment Marlene had a gun trained to Dorcas’ head, her finger already squeezing around the trigger, and the next she was pinned to the wall, gun on the floor, and a hand around her throat.

“You-“ She breathed, but Dorcas closed the hand around her neck tighter, cutting off her airflow.

“You want to know why there are no coverns around here?” She whispered tauntingly, and Marlene was surprised to feel the warmth of her breath on her face. “You want to know why they left and never came back? Why this town is so haunted, and yet there is not a single vampire, or werewolf, or banshee in sight?” She leant in closer, so close that her nose brushed Marlene’s. “It’s because I killed them.” She smiled, and Marlene felt its ghost like imprint against her lips. “I slaughtered the whole pathetic, cold-blooded lot of them. I butchered them and put their hearts on spikes and made sure that no one would hunt in my home ever again. And no one has. Until you.” The hand around her throat tightened and Dorcas pulled her up, so only the tips of her feet brushed the floor. “An insignificant, close-minded, stupid human.”

Marlene didn’t even have time to think. One second, they were face to face, Dorcas’ eyes blazing with barely contained furry, and the next-

She’d ducked down to the place where Marlene’s neck met her shoulder, and she bit.

It was a kind of pain she’d never felt before – a kind of extasy she’d never felt before.

She could feel the moment Dorcas’ fangs pierced her skin, could hear her suck her blood out, could almost taste her venom. It was like a drug.

It was a drug.

She might have spent hours like that, pinned to the wall with hand wrapped around her throat, cutting off her airflow and tilting her head to the side so that Dorcas could drink. Absently, she registered her blood running down her neck, she registered Dorcas bending lower to lick it up. She registered the warmth of a tongue on her skin, dipping just low enough to send shivers down Marlene’s spine, and then dragging all the way back up to her ear.

“I’ve killed vampires millennia older than you like they were babies fresh from their mother’s womb.” Dorcas whispered, her lips brushing against her ear, and Marlene found herself wishing that she’d bite her again. She wanted Dorcas to drain her dry. She wanted to drain Dorcas.

And she knew the vampire bitch could hear every thought running through her head, knew she was seeing every scenario Marlene was planning out for them: every brutal death and vicious bite. Dorcas moved her head, dragging her lips against Marlene’s cheek and smearing her blood there until they were looking into each other’s eyes again. “What makes you so special that I’d spare you?”

 “Because you’re curious.” She choked out, and Dorcas loosened her grip slightly. Not enough to place her back on the floor, but just enough so it didn’t hurt to breathe or speak. “You want to know what would happen if you gave in.” She said lowly, leaning in closer so that she was practically talking into Dorcas’ mouth. And she, miraculously, let her. “You want to know what it would feel like.”

A thought popped into Marlene’s head – a stupid, suicidal thought – and before Dorcas had the time to read it, and before Marlene had the time to talk herself out if it, she’d already leaned forward.

She stuck her tongue out and licked a stripe over Dorcas’ mouth, collecting up her own blood from her lips and chin. “What it would taste like.” She finished.

There was a second where Dorcas looked at her, and Marlene had no idea what she was thinking. But then she watched, tracking every minute movement as Dorcas, slowly, licked her lips. There was a flash in her eyes of that same danger as Marlene had seen before, then she pulled her forward by the hand around her neck and forced their mouths together.

Marlene immediately fought her way into Dorcas’ mouth, licking her way in to taste. She was desperate for it. It was messy, and bloody, and painful, but the taste. She was moaning from it immediately; high pitched whining sounds that would have made her embarrassed if she spent enough time to focus on them. But Dorcas was biting back, digging her fangs into Marlene’s lips and spilling more blood between the two of them, and Marlene could taste them both, together, and it was like heaven and hell were colliding.

The hand around her neck angled her head in whatever angle Dorcas wanted, and Marlene just let her. She’d never done that before – she’d never liked the idea of being used, of being controlled, but Dorcas did it so easily, and she held her so tightly. There was no point in trying to fight back. Her back was digging into the wall, her hands pinned above her head in a lazy but unrelenting grip. She strained against it just for the fun of it – just to feel Dorcas hold her in place. And she did. She held her wrists so tightly in that one hand that they throbbed with pain, and Marlene just knew they were going to bruise.

Her entire body buckled forward at the thought of Dorcas bruising her. Leaving her purple and blue and aching.

Dorcas laughed into their kiss, biting deeply into Marlene’s lip as she drew away a little. She groaned in frustration at the loss. “Y’want it to hurt?” She whispered gruffly. “You want it to ache?” One of Dorcas’ knees found their way between Marlene’s legs, pressing against her just right.

“Oh, fuck you.” Marlene breathed, trying to fight the temptation to move against Dorcas’ thigh. She tilted her head away, but it was dragged back around.

“Ask nicely.” Dorcas said, with that annoyingly attractive trans-Atlantic accent.

“Either fuck me, or fuck off.” Marlene spat, returning to herself slightly. She didn’t beg. Had never begged for anything in her entire life, and she wasn’t about to start now. No matter how tightly Dorcas held her, how much she choked her, how good she tasted or how hard she bit, Marlene would not beg.

She laughed again, her gaze dancing between Marlene’s eyes. “Oh, we’ll see.”

Then she was leaning in, digging a brutal kiss into Marlene’s mouth, and she didn’t even have the time to respond to it before Dorcas was making her way down her neck. There was no time to register anything because Dorcas’ mouth latched onto her bite mark and sucked. She sucked and bit and kissed her way around the mark and up Marlene’s neck, and it was instinct really, how Marlene thrust forward. And the friction-

It was everything she needed, and she let out the most embarrassing moan at the feel of it. She was sure Dorcas smiled against her skin, but then she was biting in – deeply – her fangs making a home in her neck, and Marlene was riding her thigh.

She screamed as she felt the venom enter her body, as the pleasure rose to a high she didn’t even know was possible, and she moved faster. She fought against Dorcas’ grip, her entire body searching for more. She tilted her head to the side further as the teeth left her skin, a high-pitched noise in her throat came out, asking for more. But Dorcas just tutted and tilted her head harshly in the other direction so she could go to work on the other side of her neck.

Marlene’s head hit the wall, but she didn’t register the pain. The room was filled with the sounds of Marlene’s moans, Dorcas’ harsh kisses, and the sound of fabric rubbing. The denim on Marlene’s jeans rubbed her clit just right, but there still wasn’t enough. She was so wet she could practically hear that obscene squelching sound, and she knew that her underwear was soaked through. She wondered if she could come like this – rubbing herself like a dog against Dorcas’ leg, pinned to the wall with blood running down her neck. It would be a first, but if anyone could get her there it would be Dorcas.

They were plastered so close together that Marlene could feel everything. There wasn’t a sliver of space between their bodies from where their legs were entwined to where Dorcas had her arms held above her head. Marlene was practically hanging off of her by this point, held up only by the weight on her wrists, the hand around her throat, and the leg that she was humping repeatedly. She could only imagine the state her neck was in right now. It was probably a Jackson Pollock of blood and bitemarks and bruises in the shape of long, slender fingers.

She wanted those fingers inside her.

She wanted those fingers to fuck her harshly, so hard it hurt, so hard she couldn’t walk after. She wanted those fingers to press against her clit until she physically couldn’t come anymore, and then she wanted them to force her to come anyway.

“You have quite the imagination.” Dorcas mused from where she was sucking painful hickeys into Marlene’s throat.

“You talk too much.” She sighed, her mind focused solely on the pressure between her legs. If Dorcas wanted to talk, then she could fucking talk to herself, Marlene was busy.

“Did no one ever teach you manners?” She asked, and Marlene ignored her. Her breathes were coming too fast, there wasn’t enough time to form words, there was no time to think of some snarky comeback, or to tell Dorcas to shut up and get on with it, she didn’t have the mental capacity to do anything other than rub her throbbing cunt against Dorcas’ leg and wish that there was more. “I asked you a question.”

Dorcas pulled away from her throat and slammed her head back against the wall, and Marlene was about to ignore the pain in the base of her skull and continue chasing her high, but then Dorcas moved her leg away. Marlene whined at the loss. She stretched her body towards Dorcas, straining for contact, for something other than the hand at her wrists and neck.

It wasn’t enough. How could that be enough? Dorcas was so far away; she was barely even touching her. It was supposed to hurt, and ache and Marlene was supposed to feel it in her bones. She felt empty now, empty and naked and exposed, and she needed Dorcas to-

“Shhh.” She cooed, and Marlene zoned back in to see the smug smile painted all over her lips. They were drenched in blood – in Marlene’s blood – and it was beautiful. She let out a pathetic sound at the sight of it, watching a single drop fall from her bottom lip and down her chin. For the first time, Marlene found herself wondering what she tasted like. All the people she’d killed, all the people she’d eaten, and she’d never wanted someone to do that to her. They’d always been prey, and she was the hunter, but now she wanted to be consumed. She wanted to know if she was sweet, or tough, or if her meat would fall off the bone. She wanted to watch as Dorcas took her apart piece by piece, as she ate every ounce of her flesh and didn’t leave so much as a fingernail behind. She wanted to be savoured, and loved, and cherished. She wanted to be the altar that Dorcas worshiped at, an omniscient God that oversaw every sacrifice in her honour.

She wondered what kind of venom Dorcas had been slowly pumping in her to make her think such thoughts. She wondered if there was some sort of ancient vampire spell she’d cast to make her so… submissive. Dorcas was looking at her like some sort of proud mother watching her child take their first steps, and a part of Marlene wanted to rip if off her smug face, but the other part wanted to make sure that smile never left her lips, and that she would always look at Marlene like that.

But the longer the distance between them stretched on, the more Marlene returned to herself. It had only lasted a few seconds, but she was already regretting the way she’d whined and keened and almost begged for Dorcas to fuck her properly. Her eyes hardened, and Dorcas’ grin widened, reading every single one of Marlene’s thoughts like they were a particularly interesting book. “What did you do?” She asked her, hating how breathless she sounded.

“Nothing.” Dorcas shrugged. “It’s good, isn’t it.” She said, removing the harsh grip on Marlene’s neck. She pressed a finger down onto Marlene’s clavicle, she felt her sharpened finger nail pierce the skin and let out a small gasp at the feeling. Dorcas’ eyes stay trained on the small drop of blood that emerged on the centre of her throat and dragged her finer down. The touch was ghost-like, so light that Marlene had to focus to feel it. “All I did was make you forget,” she said gently, running the finger down over the curve of Marlene’s tits, “I made you forget to care about anything other than me,” her finger ran past her belly button, “and what I do to you.” She whispered, and her finger slipped lower, skimming the waistband of Marlene’s jeans and brushing the sensitive skin down there.

She hated the shaky intake of breath she let out at the feeling of it, the way she instinctively moved her hips closer in a silent request. “You’re like a fucking drug.” She bit out.

She really was high – high on Dorcas’ venom. It was like being drunk, like she was floating and suddenly didn’t care about the very real threat of death hanging over her. She didn’t care about her pride, and her anger, and all the reasons why allowing a vampire as old and powerful and Dorcas to fuck you was an awful idea. She knew, logically, that she shouldn’t, and she clung onto that logical part of her brain with both hands.

But then Dorcas leant in closer, and she left a gentle, closed mouth kiss onto Marlene’s lips. It was soft, and kind, and loving. “And you’re addicted.” She said.

Marlene hated that she was right. The second she’d tasted Dorcas she’d known there was no letting go until she’d consumed every part of her.

“I can make you feel so, so good.” She told her gently, leaning in and resting her head on Marlene’s shoulder, nuzzling into her neck. “I promise,” she breathed, the warmth of her breath caressing Marlene’s skin. How was she so warm? She thought to herself. “I promise it will be worth it.” Why was she being gentle? The brush of her lips against Marlene’s bruised and battered skin was so soothing. It was gentle and calm and nothing like before. And that finger was dipping lower – beneath her jeans, dancing over her underwear and leaving featherlight impressions over it that made Marlene’s entire body jolt.

The worst part was, she believed Dorcas. She knew, whole heartedly, that if she just gave in, Dorcas would give her pleasure she’d never known was possible. All it would take was one simple word. She just had to give in, and it would be hers, but Marlene didn’t beg. She took what was hers, she demanded things from people and stole them with no remorse.

“You’re thinking too hard, darling.” She said, inching closer and breathing Marlene in deeply. Her finger dipped lower again, until it was tracing circles directly over Marlene’s cunt, and she knew Dorcas’ finger was already damp. “You want it.” Dorcas said shakily, and she wondered for the first time if this was affecting her just as much as it was Marlene. “You want it, you want it, I know you do. So just ask.” Another gentle kiss was placed on her neck, and Dorcas ducked her head down lower, ghosting her breath against Marlene’s skin. “Ask me, beg me, want me.” She chanted, letting her lips graze Marlene’s skin with every word until she met where the fabric of her T-shirt started. “Need me.” And if Marlene didn’t know any better, she’d think it was Dorcas who was begging.

But she still held on. Despite her quickened breathes, despite the way her hips buckled into that one, torturous finger, despite the way her cunt throbbed and despite how inevitable it all seemed, her resolve still held.

Because Dorcas was just as desperate for it as she was. She could tell from the way she sounded now: breathless. How her tone veered on a whine, like she was seconds away from begging herself. She could tell from the mindless circles she was drawing over her underwear, like she wasn’t quite conscious of what she was doing, like she had to catch herself every now and then before she went too far. Marlene could tell from how she fidgeted, in the way her grip around her wrists danced between too much and not enough, like it was taking all her focus just to stay put.

Yes, Dorcas was just as out of her mind as Marlene was, and it gave her a maddening sort of satisfaction to know that. To know that she had been the one to reduce the vampire to shreds. It was her that Dorcas was desperate to fuck, and it was her that had the power to deny her.

For a second, she considered denying her forever, but then Dorcas did whine, and the thought was banished.

“Just say please.” Dorcas whispered. She licked a stripe up Marlene’s throat.

“What will you do to me?” Marlene whispered back, ignoring the way her voice wobbled.

Dorcas moaned. It was beautiful. She rested her forehead against Marlene, sagging against her completely and pressing their bodies together. She placed her entire hand over Marlene, and the pressure and the warmth of it made her buckle. “I’ll swallow you whole.” She breathed into Marlene’s open, panting mouth. “I’ll consume you until there’s nothing left, until your blood and your bones and your very soul,” she licked the blood from her lips, “is mine.”

All Marlene could do was stare at her. She wanted to say yes, she needed to say yes. But suddenly she couldn’t speak. She could only watch with wide eyes as Dorcas stared down at her like a predator. Like how a human stares at their deity. “You want that, don’t you? To be mine?”

“Yes.” Marlene said so quietly – she wasn’t even sure that she’d said it, but then Dorcas smiled, and her finger drifted upwards, running along the hem of Marlene’s underwear.

“You know what to do, then darling.” She said gently. “You know how to ask nicely, don’t you?”

Marlene did know, and she fought against it even as her lips moved to form the words. She closed her eyes, unable to look at the smug satisfaction that would no doubt sweep over Dorcas’ face. Instead, she focused on all the places the two of them touched, on the warmth that was bleeding onto her body, on the pure, primal need that was running through her veins. She let Dorcas’ venom flow freely in her blood, let her walls down, inch by inch, until she was laid bare.

“Please.”

Dorcas moved immediately.

She let go of her wrists, and Marlene left them there, too distracted by the teeth digging into her collar bone, so deep that it felt like they were going to rip out her flesh. She screamed, and then she registered the sound of ripping fabric – Dorcas wrestling her top from her body. She registered bruising fingers digging into her side and cutting her now exposed skin with those long, sharp nails. She was covered in pain, but all she felt was pleasure.

She just stood there and took it, her legs shaking the entire time, her throat burning with how loud she screamed as Dorcas continued to bite her way up and down Marlene’s chest, unhooking her bra and slipping her thigh back between her legs. It was so overwhelming that she couldn’t even rub herself against it; Dorcas had to do all of the work, provided her with all the friction, took care of her so well. There were hands on her tits, scraping at her nipples and scratching them red raw, then licking a soothing tongue over them like it was an apology, only to bite hard enough to draw blood afterwards.

It was only when she felt a hand scramble for her underwear, tugging them down her legs that she came back to herself, at least partially. In one breath, two of those fingers were shoved inside of her, and Marlene finally remembered to move her hands.

They immediately gravitated to Dorcas, holding her around the neck as she shoved her fingers deeper, deeper, deeper. Her nails should have hurt. They should have cut apart Marlene’s insides and made her scream in agony, but all she felt was more. She felt so much she could barely form words.

She was hanging off of Dorcas, panting into her open mouth, tongue reaching out every now and then to lick her blood off from her lips and making these pathetic, embarrassing noises in the back of her throat. She kept her eyes open throughout it, staring at Dorcas like she was afraid to look away, and Dorcas looked at her too. She looked at every inch of her, running hungry eyes over Marlene’s naked body. She wanted to beg for Dorcas to take off her own clothes, but her mouth couldn’t even form the words. Dorcas didn’t seem to mind; she seemed more than happy to take in each inhalation of breath, each tremble and whine like it was the finest art on Earth.

“That’s it,” she was whispering, voice laden with awe. “Just take it. Oh God, darling. You’re taking it so well.” She punctuated every sentence with another harsh thrust of her fingers, shunting Marlene’s entire body harder against the wall. Her thumb was rubbing against her clit relentlessly, and that overstimulation was making her insane. “This is what you needed, isn’t it?” Dorcas mused, and it took all of Marlene’s willpower to register the words. But she had to listen to her, she had to listen to every word she said and savour it. “You just needed  someone to make you feel good. D’s it feel good, darling?” She asked, pressing her forehead against Marlene's again, and she was struck by how intimate it all felt.

Her hands wrapped around Dorcas’ neck, clinging to her hair so hard it had to be painful, but she didn’t so much as flinch. “Does it feel good?” Dorcas asked desperately, and all Marlene could give her was a weak nod. She rubbed against her clit again – harder this time – and Marlene’s head slammed back against the wall.

She heard Dorcas let out a breathless laugh, and then she was descending on the exposed throat again. And then she was adding another finger, thrusting them so harshly Marlene could feel it in her throat. The sounds were obscene; the wet squelching, the blood she was gradually draining and Malene’s raw screams. Maybe she was forming words, pleads, names, prayers to Gods she’d never believed in. Maybe she made pledges to worship, and maybe she begged until the word ‘please’ lost all meaning. It didn’t matter what she did. Because it meant that Dorcas stayed right there, getting her closer and closer to the best orgasm of her life.

As always, Dorcas read her mind and lifted her lips to her ear, biting at the piercings and shoving her tongue inside it as she spoke. “You love hearing what I do to you.” She said smugly. “You love knowing that I’m the only one who can do it. Who can reduce you to a begging, whining, pathetic little slut.” Her spare hand twisted her nipple. “It’s all for me. Every breath you take, every orgasm, every word is mine. My little whore, ready to get on her knees whenever I ask, because I’m the only God she’ll ever worship.”

“’M yours.” Marlene slurred, and it was a miracle how she even got the words out at this point. But Dorcas looked so proud of her when she did, and Marlene couldn’t help but preen under that soft, caring smile. The warning bells in the back of her head still screamed that ‘this was too intimate’ as Dorcas bumped their noses together, pinched her nipple again and practically punched her clit. But Marlene was too caught up in the moment to care about that.

“My little slut’s going to come for me, isn’t she?” Dorcas said gently. “She’d going to come on my fingers and make me so, so happy.”

And who was Marlene to deny her of that? If Dorcas wished something, then Marlene would will it into existence. She’d fight Hell and Heavan and slaughter any God that stood in her way. It was so easy to do what Dorcas told her, so easy to just let go and allow herself to feel good.

She latched onto Dorcas’ shoulders with both hands for support and started fucking herself against her fingers. She put her whole body into it, chasing down her orgasm like her life depended on it. Dorcas wants me to come, she kept on chanting her herself. Got to make her happy. She felt, rather than heard, the pleased hum that Dorcas let out at the thought, and she lifted her head up from where it had slumped against her shoulder to see a soft smile play on Dorcas’ lips.

That was what tipped her over the edge in the end; the image of Dorcas, mouth covered in blood, smiling down at Marlene like she was the sweetest thing on Earth. She heard soft whispers of, “that’s my good little slut”, and “don’t you like pretty coming on my fingers”, and “I’m so proud of you darling” but mostly she was just mindlessly humping the fingers still stretched out inside of her, milking every last dreg of her orgasm. She tasted blood in her mouth, and that was when she registered her mouth clamped over  Dorcas’ shoulder, her teeth digging deep into her skin. Her brain was still hazy, still tiptoeing over the edge of too much as she lapped away at the blood. She was already obsessed with how Dorcas tasted – sweet and citrusy and unlike anything she’d ever had before. It was like ambrosia, and Marlene continued to kick and whine long after she’d finished, Dorcas playing with her pussy absentmindedly the entire time.

They might have stayed there for hours like that.

Dorcas’ skin eventually reknitted itself together, and Marlene eventually caught her breath. Dorcas sensed the moment her thoughts cleared, and she removed her hand. Marlene tried to act unaffected by the loss, but after so long of being full, the emptiness was dizzying.

Still, she ignored the come dripping down her legs and the blood she longed to lick off her lips and instead looked up to glare at Dorcas. “I hate you.” She breathed.

Dorcas laughed again, fixing Marlene’s underwear for her. “Yes, I can tell.”

“You stole my dinner.” She said. But the words held barely any bite, and she was still slightly breathless. Dorcas simply smiled and took a step back, taking her warmth with her and Marlene was reminded that she was almost completely naked.

“I thought we could eat together.” Dorcas said, gesturing to the table behind her where-

Oh yeah.

Preston was here.

He looked thoroughly traumatized now. His eyes were tightly closed, his breathing ragged. He slowly cracked an eye open now that they were standing in relative silence. As soon as he looked at her though, he diverted his face back to his lap. Marlene scoffed. Now he doesn’t want to see me naked.

“Is this your way of inviting me to dinner?” Marlene joked, and she was surprised when Dorcas didn’t say anything back, just came up to her handed her a sheer red robe.

Is she..?

It was like Marlene was taking the room in for the first time again, seeing it through a new lens, and when her gaze returned to Dorcas, she took in her elaborate dress and jewellery and what was left of her make-up. “Is this… meant to be a date?” She asked, slightly baffled and slightly terrified of misreading the situation.

But then Dorcas’ eyes dipped away, like she was afraid of maintain eye contact. She looked at her feet, then at Preston and then at the table covered in scented candles and canapes and caviar. “I don’t spend a lot of time around humans.” She said dully.

Marlene let out a loud boisterous laugh. “You kidnapped a guy to lure me into a date with you?”

Dorcas’ eyes snapped back to hers. “Worked didn’t it?”

She shook her head in disbelief. “You’re almost as insane as I am.”

For the first time, Dorcas suddenly seemed unsure of herself. Marlene was baffled at how, after everything that had just happened, she was the one making what was probably one of the most powerful vampires left on the planet, shy. “Do you… want this to be a date then?”

“Can’t you just read my mind to find out?”

“Your thoughts are very confusing at the moment.” She said flatly, scrunching her eyebrows and looking intently at Marlene as she tried to read her. “You start on one thing and then jump to another, I don’t understand how you can get anything done with a mind like that.”

Marlene couldn’t hide her smile now. Dorcas was… terrifying. If she was to be believed, she was an ancient vampire – the last one alive – with powers and strength beyond Marlene’s imagination. She was capable of killing her in less than the blink of an eye, she knew what Marlene was, could sell her out in a second. Marlene had invaded her territory, killed her prey and pissed her off. And then Dorcas had stolen her meal, lured her to her house where she could torture her for eternity. She had also given her the best orgasm of her life. She was also looking at her from under long eyelashes, with nervous, piercing eyes. She had also laid the table, cooked a meal large enough to feed an entire family and kept Marlene’s catch alive for her. 

“I’d like for this to be a date.” She said gently, and the smile that overtook Dorcas’ face was worth it all. She had a gorgeous smile when it wasn’t fake or forced like it had been around Preston the first time they’d met. Now that Marlene knew the difference between them, she never wanted Dorcas to have to fake a smile again.

“You humans normally eat on dates, correct?” Oh, Marlene wanted to ruin her. “Let’s eat first, yes?” She said, reading her mind.

They sat at the table, facing each other. Marlene pulled the robe closed, tying it loosely. She caught Dorcas trying her best to hide the way her eyes dragged down every now and then, Marlene tried not to take satisfaction in that. The room was warm at least, thanks to the candles. Marlene didn’t really care about her lack of clothes, or the fact that the robe, while long and loose, left absolutely nothing to the imagination. It just gave her hope for another round.

They started to put food on their plates, passing dishes back and forth. Dorcas would tell her what everything was, and Marlene took a portion of it all. They ignored the man tied up at the end of the table – they only had eyes for each other.

People normally talk on dates, tried and find out little insignificant, boring things about the other person. But Marlene and Dorcas weren’t really the most normal people. Still, there were many questions circling around her head, and though Dorcas could likely hear them all, she made no move to answer them. “How old are you?” Marlene asked eventually, pouring herself a glass of wine. It was red – how stereotypical.

“Five-hundred-and-eighty, or there abouts.” She said simply. “I was turned sometime in the 1460s.”

She almost dropped the bottle. “Fuck.”

Dorcas laughed. “Looks like you’ve got a thing for older women.”

“I do now.”

“You know, when I heard about that girl disappearing the other month, I didn’t think anything of it. Sure, it was suspicious, but people go missing all the time. But then I met you.” She smiled to herself, cutting up a slice of meat and placing it in her mouth. Her lips were still stained with Marlene’s blood. They were a gorgeous crimson red, a red that was smudged over the entire lower half of her face. She made no effort to wipe it away, though. With every bite she took, she finished it off by sliding her tongue out to lick away a little blood, like she was seasoning her meal with it. It was maddeningly attractive. “I read your thoughts. They were so vivid, so clear. You knew exactly what you were planning, exactly how you were going to go about it, and you felt no remorse for it. It was beautiful.”

“What was I thinking?” She prompted.

Dorcas smiled wistfully. “He put his arm around me, and you decided it would be the first thing to go. You were going to feed him to himself, so he’d be able to know he wasn’t a complete failure before he died, so he knew that he was worth something. You were going to draw it out as long as you possibly could, longer than you ever had before, because he’d dared to think he could keep someone like me.”

“And I will.” She said, thinking about the arm that was already detached from his body to the meal she’d made last night from it, the leftover meat still sat in her freezer.

“When was your first?” Dorcas asked, genuinely curious.

“The first time I killed someone I was eight.” She said, taking a sip of the wine. It was rich, thick. Expensive. She made a mental note to ask Dorcas how she could afford everything. “A boy from school – Severus Snape. He pulled my friends hair, asked her to go out with him. When she said no, he started calling her a bitch, told everyone in our school that they should stop being friends with her because of it. One day I followed him home. Smashed a rock over his skull and just kept hitting.”

She remembered it like it was yesterday. How Snape had cried, how he’d thrashed. He was a skinny little thing – all bark and no bite. She’d laughed as she slammed that rock on him, over, and over again. He was unrecognisable by the end of it. His brains were dashed on the ground, blood pooling around them in shade of red that Marlene would spend the rest of her life being hypnotised by. “It was the best thing I’d ever felt.”

“And your other first time?”

“Fourteen.” She smiled to herself. “He was a year older than me. Tried to look up my skirt, and when I told him to fuck off and that I wasn’t interested, he called me a dyke.” She never learnt his name. But she remembered what he looked like – tall, brown hair, acne covered skin, green eyes. He had a black beanie and green converse. “Before I shot him in the head, I decided to take one of his fingers – the one he’d lifted my skirt with. It was meant to be a trophy or something. But when I got home… I just kept looking at it, thinking about how I needed to destroy it. Not because it was evidence or anything, but it meant that he was still here. His body was still out there, and the world would always be rotten as long as it was. I couldn’t just throw it away, and burning it was too good for him. No, I needed to do something that would put his ego to shame. Turn him from predator to prey.” She cut up a slice of pork and put it in her mouth. It was delicious, slow roasted, with hints of apple, and spices, and time, and care. To anyone else, this would’ve been the best thing they’d ever tasted. “It was heavenly, that feeling.” She said. “Not only being able to bring someone to their knees, but to destroy them. Wholey, entirely. To own their body even in death. And the taste. Even if it weren’t for the rush, I’d do it for the taste alone.”

Dorcas hummed in understanding. “Vampires as old as I am don’t need to feed as much. One meal every few weeks normally tides us over. We’re not the rabid, bloodthirsty monsters you’d normally think of.”

“But..?” She prompted.

“But, it is fun. The others could never understand that. They fed out of necessity, like a human would drink water out of necessity. They resented me for it, for how often I’d feed.”

Marlene noticed a tightness in her tone that hadn’t been there before, a bitterness at the mention of the other vampires. She ignored it for now, though. “You said there hadn’t been any supernatural creatures here since the fifties.”

“Yes.” She nodded, taking a deep sip of wine. Marlene got the sense she wouldn’t answer her question unless she actually asked it.

“I know for a fact a werewolf used to live in that shack.”

“You’d be correct.” Marlene raised her brow when she didn’t continue. “There was an attack around twenty years ago. Some werewolf came here – for the same reasons you did – thinking it would be a good place to hunt. The first and only full moon he spent here, he turned a four-year-old boy and killed his parents. I took him in. The police all thought he’d been kidnapped by the werewolf that killed his parents, and left it at that. He used the shack on full moons, and I’d keep watch, make sure no one got too close.”

She read between the lines about what happened to the werewolf that turned the boy. Marlene was sure Dorcas hadn’t let them live very long at all. “What happened to him?”

“He left. Fell in love with some guy a few summers back. We still keep in touch, though.” She smiled. “He’s getting married come spring.”

Marlene sniggered. “Does he call you Mom?”

“Fuck no.” She snapped. “No, I’m Auntie Cas to him.”

Marlene nodded, and they went back to eating for a while, staring each other down, undressing the other with their eyes. Dorcas was absolutely not subtle about the way she’d dip her eyes down, unmoving. She was staring at Marlene’s tits more than she was staring at her face. So it was only kind really, that Marlene loosens the robe ever so slightly, so that it draped off of one shoulder, exposing almost all of her. She was blessed with Dorcas’ blood-red lips tilting upwards, and that predatory gaze becoming sharper and sharper. “Preston said you’d been out of town for a while.” Marlene mused, forcing Dorcas to snap out of whatever thoughts she’d just been having.

“I show my face there every fifty years or so, when I get bored.” She said tightly, no doubt made bitter over the reminder of her other dinner guest who’d they were yet to address. “Last time I went to High School I was in the same year as him, but then I graduated and moved to New York, chasing the good old American Dream. Apparently, I came back home to ‘relive the good old days’ before my big break on a Broadway Production.”

“And when you’re not bored?”

“I stay here. I dated a witch a century ago when I first found this place. She taught my covern how to ward the house so only those we want to find it, can.”

Marlene finally gave into her curiosity. “Where’s your covern now?”

A small twitch in her eye, and the clenching of her jaw was the only visible evidence of Dorcas’ anger. “Loyalties are a fickle thing when tensions are so high. Six ancient coverns in such close quarters was always a recipe for disaster. War was inevitable. And, despite what people would have you believe, vampires are pussies. They align themselves with the winning side and leave the others in the dust.”

She looked down at the wine glass in her hand, staring at the thick red drink, running those sharp nails around the rim of the glass. “They left me.” She said. “The youngest. The most likely to die in the crossfire. The one they could never quite understand after all our time together. They allied with some vampires from the Deep South, called themselves the Death Eaters, and had taken it upon themselves to kill anyone who didn’t align with their vision for humanity. People like me.”

She scratched harder, her nail making a high-pitched grating noise as it scraped against the glass. Her eyes were on Marlene, but they were far off as well. “They weren’t my covern when I killed them. All those centuries of fighting and feeding side by side meant nothing in the end. The people that had turned me, raised me, taught me. All gone in the blink of an eye.”

“Did you make them suffer?” Marlene asked.

Dorcas’ eyes focused back in on her. “Beyond your wildest dreams.”

“Good.”

They stared at each other again. Intently. Incessantly. Dorcas could sense where Marlene’s thoughts were going to, and her eyes seemed to darken with every one. The more time that had passed, the more Marlene’s neck began to ache, the more she became aware of the necklace of bruises and bitemarks that were blossoming over her throat and collar bones. The more she became aware of the tiny pinpricks of teeth marks that had left small trails of blood falling down her skin. What an image she no doubt looked: sat in a see through robe the same colour of the blood she was covered in, sliding off her shoulder. Her hair was probably a mess, her wrists were red raw from where they had been held harshly, her face was stained with her own blood too, from where it had been smeared when Dorcas kissed her. She looked debauched, she looked feral, she looked-

“Like a good little slut.” Dorcas finished.

Marlene refused to admit the way those words got to her.

She’d always been one to take control during sex, always been the one making the calls. She liked being in control, having things her way. Being the predator, and not the pray. Never the prey.

And now look at her.

“I watched you, you know.” Dorcas said gently, like she was afraid to disturb this charged silence they’d fallen into. “The night you took him to the shack. I was watching.”

Their meal was long forgotten in front of them. It was getting cold, it was becoming redundant. But it was only ever for aesthetics anyway, as Marlene was coming to understand. It was all for show – a starter, if you will – before the real meal began. “And?” She asked.

“I’d never felt such a clear, overwhelming rush of emotions. On one hand, I was pissed. I was furious that a human would come to my home to hunt, thinking they could get away with it. I wanted you dead.”

“How would you have killed me?”

“With my hands.” She answered immediately. “I would wrap them around your throat, and squeeze. I was going to reveal myself just as you thought you were getting away with it, and then I’d kill your catch in front of you, before I murdered you too.”

“What else did you feel?”

“Companionship. I saw someone who hunted for pleasure, not necessity. I saw someone who took pride in what they did, who had perfected their art form, someone whose thirst mirrored my own.” Dorcas’ tongue wetted her lips, searching for the dried blood that still sat on them. “I wanted to have you.”

“And now that you have me,” she started slowly, leaning forward to place both elbows on the table. The robe slid off her other shoulder. “what do you intend to do with me?”

“I intend to keep you, Marlene.” It was the first time she’d said her name, and it sounded sickeningly sweet. Like fresh cherries on a summer’s day, dipped in honey, rolled around on your lips until you’d sucked the fruit clean off the stone. “Now that I have you, I’m never letting you go.”

Marlene grinned, showing sharpened teeth and bloody gums, “I’ll toast to that.”

Finally, they turned their attention to Preston. Their heads both twisted to him in perfect sync, and he immediately began to thrash against his binds. There were tears falling from his eyes in rivers. Marlene had never seen someone so terrified in their entire life, it was a rush almost unlike any other. She wanted everyone to look at her like that – everyone other than Dorcas, who she wanted to continue to look at her with that loving sort of reverence that people reserved for Gods.

“Do you want to carve?” Dorcas asked, and when Marlene looked back, she was holding a knife. It was gorgeous, with a black handle engraved with what looked like rubies that twirled around the hilt like roses.

“It would be my pleasure.” Dorcas placed the knife on the table, sliding it over to Marlene. She picked it up, testing the sharpness of the blade against her fingertip. She’d barely even touched the metal to her skin before blood was falling from her index finger. She watched Dorcas’ eyes darken as the scent of new blood flooded the room, and Marlene placed her finger in her mouth before dragging it out slowly. “Do you have a preferred cut?”

She shook her head minutely, “whatever you want.” Hmm, Marlene liked the sound of that.

She rose slowly, making her way over to Preston. He was trashing wildly against his binds, screaming behind his gag. He was like an animal caught in a snare, and Marlene revelled in the fear in his eyes, she fed on it – fed it, walking so slowly towards him.

When she came to stand in front of him, she ran the knife gently over the knub where the other half of his arm used to be. The wound was still covered by a bandage, and Marlene carefully cut it away from his body. “You have to be still,” Marlene chided him, “or I might cut you by accident.” He said something that sounded a lot like ‘you bitch’, but it was muffled, and Marlene had gotten used to tuning him out.

Once the bandage was cut away, she evaluated her options. What was she hungry for?

More.

She wanted more, in whatever form that took, she craved it. She wanted more food, more meat, more power, more pleasure. She wanted it now.

Whatever was quickest then.

“The first time I ate someone,” she said softly, running the knife up and down his arm in a calming touch, yet he still tried his best to flinch away from it, “I ate them raw. I took one bite, and the next thing I knew, it was all gone. And all I could think about was how much I needed more.” She pressed down, just above what was left of his elbow, and blood blossomed from the cut. He screamed. She ignored him. “I killed someone else a week later. I stabbed them with a kitchen knife in an alleyway.” She started to carve, dragging her knife upwards while he continued to struggle. “I ate them raw too, took bites straight off of their carcass. And then I hacked off their leg and brought that home with me.” She pulled off the small rectangle of flesh she’d just carved, prying it off from him while he howled, raised it up to the light so she could admire how the light danced off it. “I cooked their leg up, seasoned it and everything. Made a proper meal out of it, you know? That’s how I normally do it now, but… if you’d ever tasted it you’d know. You’d know that it’s always so much sweeter raw.”

She licked her lips and placed the flesh in her mouth all at once. There it was – there was that more.

She couldn’t help but moan at the taste. It was pornographic really, how she closed her eyes, tipped her head back, and chewed loudly. She was putting on a show, though, so that Dorcas could see the movement of her jaw as she ate, so that she could hear how much Marlene liked it, hear how much she appreciated their date. And the taste really was so much sweeter raw: you could taste the blood and how rich it was, you could taste the sweat on their skin. It was chewy, and tough, and took her ages to swallow it all. But it was worth every second of it. She sighed once she’d finished her mouthful, licked her lips, and basked in the feeling for a moment, before opening her eyes.

She looked at Dorcas.

Vampires were dead, they didn’t breath, but Marlene got the sense that if Dorcas could, she’d be panting right now. Her mouth was open, like she was tasting the air, her eyes darting around like she couldn’t decide what to focus on. They flicked between the knife in Marlene’s hand, the empty gap of flesh in Preston’s arm, the blood dripping from Marlene’s mouth, the robe that was covering absolutely nothing. “Touch yourself, darling.” She said gently, encouragingly. “Let yourself feel good.”

Dorcas moved immediately, now that she knew she could. She hiked up her dress, eyes kept on Marlene and started to press her fingers inside. Marlene could tell from the look on her face the moment she pressed against her own clit-

“No,” Marlene muttered, too quietly to be heard over Preston’s sobs, but Dorcas heard. Of course Dorcas heard. She froze immediately, instantly knowing that Marlene was talking to her, focusing in on her. “So I can see you.”

And this whole mind reading thing really was convenient, because Dorcas already knew what she meant, she’d probably known what Marlene meant before she’d ever even given the original instruction, but she’d still waited for Marlene to give her the order. How kind of her, really. But perhaps she got off on being bossed around, perhaps she wanted Marlene to order her to climb on the table, so that she had a perfect view of her fingers as she fucked herself.

She made another mental note to ask her just how many strange ancient vampires’ powers she had when the night was over, because with one wave of her hand, Dorcas had flung half of the table’s contents harshly against the wall where they clattered to the floor, making a mess of the carefully curated dinner. Neither of them gave a shit though, because Dorcas was busy clambering gracefully onto the table, her dress hiked at her hips, and – God, she wasn’t wearing underwear. Marlene stood behind Preston, pressing the blade of the knife against his throat, tilting his head up to the ceiling because he did not deserve to see this. Marlene refused to let him see an image this holy; Dorcas, legs spread, leaning back on one elbow, staring Marlene down while she thrust two fingers inside herself.

Marlene understood religion now. She understood that unrelenting devotion, the prayers to a deity without the promise of a reply. She understood it intimately, all of a sudden. Dorcas was splayed out right in front of her, her skin reflecting the firelight like it was designed to do so, one of the straps of her dress sliding down her shoulder with how hard her hand was moving, her tongue hanging out of her mouth, lapping up the sparse remnants of Marlene’s blood that remained around it, her eyes watching her like it would pain them to look away. She’d make pilgrims to this room for the rest of her life if it meant she got a glimpse of this same sight, or even a fraction of it. She’d write text upon texts of the exact tone of Dorcas’ skin, of the colour of her eyes, of the way her nails scraped against the wooden table leaving deep scratch marks, the reflection of her own hungry gaze in Dorcas’ gold jewellery. She’d document it all and create a church just for her, become her soul follower because Marlene refused to share this knowledge with someone else. She’d make a temple of this dining room, and an altar of this table. She’d worship with woman with moment she breathed, and every moment after that.

A broken, high-pitched whine dragged her out of her religious epiphany. “More?” Marlene asked her, breathless. Dorcas nodded fervently.

Marlene smiled, replacing the knife on Preston’s neck with her hand, squeezing just enough to cut off his pathetic whimpers, but enough to keep him alive. She kept his head pulled back and then brought the knife up to the patch of flesh she’d cut off before and started making another precise incision next to it. He howled, but Marlene didn’t care – she only had the mental capacity to focus on the wet sounds of Dorcas’ fingers at the moment, that, and the low groan she made as the knife seeped in and fresh blood spilled out. Dorcas’ moans were practically ripped out of her when Marlene brought that sliver of flesh to her mouth and ate it. She watched as Dorcas watched her, as she continued to moan, as she fucked herself harder, as she added another finger, as she tracked the movement of Marlene’s throat when she swallowed.

Marlene could never get tired of that taste. It was probably stupid, but sometimes she could swear that she could taste the fear in her prey. The taste was thicker, bloodier. It felt more authentic, more feral, more like a victory when she could taste their terror. It gave her that adrenaline rush that she craved, and the knowledge that she had been able to reduce someone down to a trembling, incompetent mess.

Because that’s what Preston was right now. He was no longer the cocky jock she’d met almost a month ago. No, he had half a limb missing, and chunks of what was left sliced right from him. He was bleeding into a pool on the dining room floor, he was pale, and crying, and begging.

Marlene loved it when they begged.

She looked down to study that expression of fear, entranced by the maze-like journey that his tear tracks went on. She decided she wanted to taste that fear straight from the root, so she lifted one of her fingers against his cheek, like she was stroking it, her touch far more gentle than anything he deserved.

But that was what made it scarier, and his entire body trembled at the feather-light contact. More tears spilled out from his eyes, a chocked sob was wrenched from his throat, and Marlene collected the water on her index finger before she licked  it off.

Hmmm, so much sweeter. She imagined collecting his tears and making tea with them, imagined bringing that mug to a bedroom, where Dorcas had slept, imagined waking her up with the still warm mug, kissing her on the cheek, and watching her drinking it. How domestic. “You like the sound of that?” She asked out loud, still studying the way Preston was shaking under her grip.

“Yes.” Dorcas gasped. “Yes, fuck. I want it.”

“More?” She asked again.

“Yes.”

This time, Marlene forwent the knife. She just used the hand around his neck to shove Preston’s head harshly to the side and then bit down where his neck met his shoulder. He must have screamed, because Marlene felt the vibrations under her teeth. He must have screamed, but Dorcas was still all she heard. She was screaming too – heaving, gasping, wrecked screams that Marlene memorised like they were church hymns. She clamped her jaw around his flesh and started chewing, started ripping the chunk from him because he didn’t fucking deserve it, because Dorcas wanted her to, because she wanted to.

More. She thought to herself, knowing that Dorcas knew what it meant. It wasn’t a question, or a request – it was an order. And Dorcas followed through beautifully.

When she pulled away from Preston and opened her eyes, she was met by the sight of Dorcas coming. Head flung back, leaving her neck exposed, feet planted firmly on the table, hips tilted upwards, presenting her pussy like it was an offering. Marlene held her breath at the sight, mesmerised. This was the kind of thing men went to war for, the face that launched a thousand ships, the kind of thing that religions were founded on, the kind of thing that had monuments made in their honour. Marlene had the faint realisation that there was no going back after this. Either she kept Dorcas for as long as she lived, or she’d take this knife and end it all right now. She had the feeling that Dorcas intended to keep her, but if that was true then Marlene would do the same. They’d belong to each other – the only way they could be free would be to die. And that was a fate neither of them were beholden to.

Marlene didn’t know how long the moment stretched on for, because to her time had lost all meaning. Why would she care about something as trivial as the ticking of a second hand around a clock-face when God Herself was splayed on the table like a meal in front of her?

She was dripping wet, spread open, tender. God was watching her from heavily lidded eyes, three of Her fingers were still inside Herself, gently massaging Her walls, riding out Her pleasure while She watched blood fall from Marlene’s chin. God was sat atop Her alter, waiting to be worshiped.

But Marlene had never been religious, she’d never been righteous, either. Never one to do as she was told. The only thing she followed was hunger.

She’d been born hungry. There was something in her that had always begged for more. More of what, she could never quite understand, but she knew that she was meant for it, that she deserved it. She deserved the power that more gave her, she deserved the thrill, the adrenaline spike, the victory, the pleasure. She deserved every last drop of it and more. She wasn’t God’s disciple, she was Her only predator – Her equal. Marlene worshiped Her yes, but she would be worshiped in return. Because she fucking deserved it.

“You’re still hungry.” Dorcas remarked. Her voice was as much of a drug as her venom was. Marlene nodded dumbly, her eyes dancing over Dorcas’ body, desperate to take it all in at once. Dorcas looked at Preston lazily, like he was a hindrance to their very existence. “Sleep.” She ordered, her voice sounding deep and contorted and powerful, and Preston’s body slumped forward, and he was unconscious.

Anyone else would have spent at least a few seconds to marvel at that show of power, but Marlene couldn’t care less.

She moved fast, pushing Preston’s chair to the floor and standing in front of Dorcas. She moved just as fast, and in a matter of seconds, they were taking handfuls of each other, dragging the other closer, biting their way into the others mouth, both too stubborn to give up dominance now.

They kissed messily and hard, teeth clattering together, and tongues practically climbing each other’s faces for a taste. Dorcas lapped up the blood around her mouth, thighs clenching so hard around Marlene’s waist that it should have hurt, but all she felt was secure. Dorcas’ nails claws into her hair, ripped at her shoulders, ripping the robe apart and cutting her underwear away until she had Marlene naked again, leaving ribbons of red lace in her wake. In return, Marlene shoved Dorcas back onto the table and then climbed on after her until they were both lying down. Dorcas was licking the blood off of Marlene’s mouth, and Marlene stroked her tongue down Dorcas’ sensitive fangs in reply.

She managed to get a hand in Dorcas’ hair, slamming the woman’s head down to the table so she could bite at her neck. Vampires healed quickly, and it seemed Dorcas healed quicker than most. Good. Marlene bit down harshly, taking out a chunk of her skin. They both moaned, and Marlene was taking another bite before she’d even swallowed that one. The wound had already started to knit itself back together, and she dived in again. Her teeth weren’t as sharp as Dorcas’ but that didn’t stop her. She sucked blood from her skin and ripped and clawed at her neck and shoulders so she could get more.

Dorcas just moaned through it, letting Marlene take what she needed. She’d fisted a hand in Marlene’s hair, tugging and guiding her head to a new patch of flesh, her other hand resting on her waist. They rocked together in an uncoordinated mess, more for the thrill of it than for pleasure. It was bloody, and brutal, and painful. And Marlene still needed more.

At some point, Dorcas growled. The hand in her hair forced her head up so that she could bite into Marlene’s neck. But she wasn’t allowed. Marlene took the knife that she’d dropped at some point and pressed it to her throat, easing Dorcas back so their noses brushed. “You’ve had your taste.” Marlene panted, unable to hide how breathless she was. “I’m hungry.”

She didn’t give Dorcas time to reply – she truly didn’t care what she had to say either. If she had any objections to what was happening, then she could bloody well stop her. It wasn’t like she couldn’t overpower Marlene.

She took the knife, and started on Dorcas’ throat. She sat up, straddling her, and pressed down slightly so that a tiny pinprick of blood appeared on her perfectly smooth neck. Then she leant down to lick it up. “Gonna swallow you whole.” She mumbled into her skin, and she felt Dorcas laugh slightly. “Gonna fucking devour you.” She took the knife dragged it down lower and started cutting the dress from her body.

It felt like that part of her got more feral with every inch of skin that was revealed. She ripped and cut until the fabric was completely gone, every time Dorcas tried to help her, Marlene would hit away her hand or stab her lightly in the side. She got the idea pretty quickly that this was Marlene’s job. She cut away her bra as well, until Dorcas was left completely naked underneath her. She licked her lips again, tasting Dorcas’ blood there. The vampire was grinning up at her, reading the myriad of fantasies rifling through her mind at the moment. Some other time, Marlene would take her time to properly worship her God. Some other time, she’d fill a goblet with Dorcas’ blood, and drink from it while decked out in jewels. Some other time, she’d kiss every last inch of her body, take the time to memorise it by touch. Some other time, she’d have Dorcas lie on a bed of furs, and she’d paint her in excruciating detail, just like this, and hang it up in every museum on the planet.

But for now, Marlene was so hungry, it was all she could think of. She was driven by it – driven to growl low in her throat and press the knife to Dorcas’ throat, to take bites out of her clavicle, to suck on the cut in her neck, to drag the knife down the space between her tits and start lapping up the blood there. To take a nipple in her mouth and bite, and lick, and suck, and to not stop. The sounds she was making were beautiful. They were the kind of high-pitched moans that Marlene would remember as long as she lived, and she longed to rip more from her throat. She moved onto the other nipple, keeping the knife on her neck – Dorcas seemed to like that. There were hands on her hips, their legs were tangled together, riding each other’s thighs. Marlene could feel how wet they both were, could hear it too, could smell it, almost taste i-

She began to bite her way lower down, sucking at that soft, unmarred skin as she went. She bit, and cut, and left marks everywhere she touched, and watched in awe as the skin reknitted itself together almost immediately. She could take Dorcas apart piece by piece forever, and still, she’d never die. She could feed off Dorcas for eternities, and she had a feeling that Dorcas would let her.

There was absolutely nothing gentle about the way Marlene kissed her. It was brutal, and bruising, and painful. But Dorcas didn’t care – she relished in it. She caved her body up towards Marlene’s every touch, chasing it. She pulled at her hair, directing her lower, and lower, and lower.

She sank her teeth into her hip, licking at the blood that pooled there, and ripping out a small section of flesh. Dorcas screamed, and Marlene looked up as she chewed, watched tears slip down her cheeks, they kept their eyes trained on each other as Marlene swallowed and moaned around her mouthful, she could feel Dorcas’ eyes on her as Marlene traced a finger around the edges of the wound, poking at it, drawing out more blood as it gradually healed. She leant down and ran the flat of her tongue on the area, her eyes slipping closed at the taste of her skin.

She was so smooth. It was unnatural – how beautiful Dorcas was, and Marlene’s fantasies could never compare to the real thing. In her fantasies, she could never account for the way that Dorcas panted, even though she didn’t need to, the way her skin seemed to glow in the firelight, the shadows dancing across her skin. The perfect shape of her tits, the way her nipples felt in Marlene’s mouth when she bit down on them, and the way Dorcas’ entire body shook in response. The difference in her breathing when Marlene slowed down to savour her, and when Marlene attacked her flesh like she was her prey. The taste of her blood when Marlene licked it away. The crimson colour of it, the way Marlene clutched her body to her mouth so that she could suck up every last bit of it like it was ambrosia.

Her hands were like a vice around Dorcas’ rib cage. And Dorcas’ waist was so small that Marlene’s hands almost touched when she held her. Meant to be, she whispered to herself. You were meant to do this. You were made to do this.

She ran her tongue lower, let it slip over her hip to the inside of her thighs. When Dorcas tried to buck her hips up, Marlene clamped her hands over them and shoved her back down to the table. And they both knew that Dorcas could break free of that grip, but she made absolutely no move to try. Marlene’s finger nails dug into her skin, hash enough to draw blood, and she could’ve sworn to God that she heard Dorcas laugh when she did.

The way she kept Dorcas pinned down so that she could suck marks into her inner thighs, working her way up and down the skin, and then moving onto the other leg. The way Dorcas writhed under her mouth, the way she panted for breath even though she didn’t have to. They way she physically had to fight the word ‘please’ that was breaking its way through her throat. The way Dorcas would’ve done anything, for Marlene’s mouth to move that little bit higher.

“So good,” she mumbled under her breath, not taking her lips away from her skin even for a single second. “So fucking good.” Time seemed to loose all meaning. She catalogued the passage of seconds by the frequency of Dorcas’ panting, by the pitch of her moans, by the tensing of her muscles. She didn’t know how long she spent digging her teeth into that smooth skin, trying relentlessly to make a mark that would stick. But all throughout it, there remained that voice begging for more.

She’d find a way, she swore to herself, to mark Dorcas. She’d find a way to leave a scar. A permanent mark that said, I was here. I had her. I own her. Marlene would do it – she really would. She’d break every supernatural law there had ever been, and she’d leave her mark on the oldest, most powerful vampire left on Earth.

For now though, she took her time with it, savouring each new millimetre of skin, dragging her mouth higher, and higher and higher. Dorcas was so fucking wet, and Marlene was salivating just from the sight of it. Her mouth already dressed in blood. Above her, Dorcas whined, but Marlene still moved slowly. She ran her hands up and down her hips soothingly, while she brought her mouth forward and finally tasted her.

She licked a slow stripe over her, tantalizingly gentle, the flat of her tongue covering her entire cunt. She was sweet – the sweetest thing Marlene had ever tasted. If the venom from Dorcas’ bite was a drug, then this was something different. Something undiscovered. After all the flesh Marlene had eaten, nothing compared to this. And nothing ever would. She hummed a low, guttural sound from the back of her throat.

Nothing was gentle after that first lick. It was messy, brutal, painful. It was wet – spit and blood and Dorcas mixed together on Marlene’s tongue, and she ate it up like it was a fucking feast. She wrenched Dorcas’ legs further apart, shoving her down onto the table every time she tried to lift her hips up, holding her open and keeping her there. There were hands in her hair – not guiding, just resting, searching for something to hold on to while Marlene tore her apart. Soon enough, a finger joined her tongue, working its way inside, curling upwards, hitting that spot that made Dorcas’ entire body cave upwards. Marlene hit it again, and again, and again. Relentless. She fucked her with her tongue and her finger until Dorcas was screaming, until she came, and even then Marlene didn’t stop.

She kept her mouth on her, drinking it all up like she was starved. And she was starved. How had she gone this long without this? Without Dorcas beneath her, breathless and spent and so eager for more. Marlene spared once single glance upwards to watch Dorcas as she came – to see that furrow in her brows, the curve of her mouth hanging open, their eyes trained on hers. She watched as two trembling legs moved even further apart, so that her feet were dangling off the edges of the table, and felt the hand at the base of her neck shove her down again. And who was Marlene to deny her?

She worked another finger inside as she dragged sloppy, open-mouthed kisses up towards Dorcas’ clit. She couldn’t bear the thought of taking her mouth off of her, couldn’t bear the thought of ever stopping. She could easily spend the rest of her life here in between Dorcas’ thighs with only the taste of her as nourishment. In fact, she was almost certain she could live like that, and she was certainly sure that Dorcas would let her. 

It was the way her cunt moved around her fingers, like it was welcoming another one in. It was the way her entire body responded when Marlene pressed up, the pads of her three fingers stabbing inside her. It was the sounds she made – these howling moans and breathless pants, and the almost inaudible, nonsensical babblings of ‘more, Marlene please. Please- ah! So good. Fuck, you’re so good-‘. It was the sound of wet skin slapping together, the sight of her pussy soaked in blood and come and spit as Marlene drooled over the taste of her. It was the way Dorcas cried when Marlene bit at her clit, when she sucked on it so hard it should have been painful, but all Dorcas did was shove her down harder, fucking her face.

“G’nna make you do this every day.” Dorcas breathed. “Let you take bites out of me for the rest of our lives. Fill you up with me.”

Marlene didn’t care about the high-pitched whine she let out at the thought of being full with Dorcas. About her being the only thing she ate. The only thing keeping her alive. It ignited that possessive side of her. That feral, animalistic part of her soul that made her curl her fingers, move them faster, and clamp her mouth around Dorcas’ clit.

You’re not allowed to drink from anyone else. Marlene said in her mind, directing her thoughts to Dorcas. She knew she heard her, because Dorcas immediately snapped her head up to look Marlene in the eye, mouth hanging open. It’s only me. I’m the only one you get to taste.

Dorcas nodded shakily. She reached down to brush a hair away from Marlene’s face, an act that was far too delicate for the way Marlene was abusing her pussy. “Only you.” She agreed.

And if you ever feed from anyone else. She leaned into the hand resting on her cheek, I’ll fucking slaughter their entire bloodline.

Dorcas smiled at her, eyes full of pride and adoration. “I’d be offended if you didn’t.”

It was a tender moment – the closest to caring that the two of them had been during this entire ordeal. Marlene wished that she could read Dorcas’ thoughts, so that she could see what that soft smile really meant. She wished she could see herself through her eyes: hair a mess, mouth a collage of blood and slick and spit. She wanted to read her mind and see what made Dorcas tick – what she liked and didn’t like. She wanted to know her intimately, her mind as well as her body.

She kept her eyes trained on her now, not wanting to miss a single moment, not even blinking. She took in every micro expression on Dorcas’ face as she continued to rub against her walls, fingering her already overstimulated cunt. She watched as tears started to break through her eyes, leaving streaks of eyeliner across her cheeks that Marlene wanted to drink. She watched as Dorcas held herself up on a shaking elbow, staring at Marlene, holding her head down. She stared at the outline of those lean muscles on her forearm – muscles that could crush her skull without a second thought but instead were guiding her mouth to suck on her clit the way she wanted. She watched as Dorcas fought against herself. As her body shied away from the relentless stimulation against her tender cunt, while her mind told her to take more. She saw the furrow in her brow as she actively forced her body to fuck onto Marlene’s fingers and mouth, tracked the movement of her body, the way her tits bounced with how fast she was fucking herself. And Marlene couldn’t help but reach up, dragging her blunt and bloody fingers on her spare hand to hold her, pulling at her nipple and making Dorcas cry out.

Marlene didn’t care how long it took her to come again – at this point, she wasn’t even doing it for her. Still, she lapped up the come as the reward it was and went right back to work. Dorcas whined when she dragged her fingers out, but Marlene didn’t leave her empty for long. She licked over her opening, before fucking her tongue inside again, groaning at the taste of her. She rubbed her clit with her other hand, relishing in the tired, fucked out sounds that Dorcas was making.

She was shaking relentlessly now, but she showed no signs of wanting to stop. Good. She was staring down at Marlene with a mix of disbelief and awe, and if Marlene wasn’t otherwise occupied, she would have smiled slyly up at her. “Let me,” she sighed, then cut herself off as Marlene rubbed hard against her and shoved her tongue inside further, “let me have you too.”

I’m not finished. Marlene thought, because she refused to move her mouth to speak. Even breathing was an afterthought at the moment.

“Just- ah, just turn around.” She said impatiently, tugging on Marlene’s hair to try and get her attention. And now that Dorcas mentioned it, Marlene suddenly became aware of the wetness between her own legs, slowly dripping down her thighs as she unconsciously thrust against nothing. Her clit throbbed painfully at the lack of stimulation, and now that she realized it, she couldn’t ignore it. “Turn. Around.”

Marlene really wasn’t one for following orders, but Dorcas did have some good ideas. She mourned the loss of Dorcas against her tongue as soon as it was gone but she moved as quickly as possible, turning around and placing her knees on either side of Dorcas’ head. She’d barely even settled before Dorcas had her by the waist and pulled her down.

She gasped as a mouth pressed open mouthed kisses against her, as a tongue lapped in between her folds, worked its way up and sucked on her clit. She groaned deeply, fucking her hips into the feeling. Dorcas ate her out in the same flavour of desperation and starvation that Marlene had used on her. She collapsed into the feeling, her head dropping into the dip of Dorcas’ thighs. She breathed in the scent of her, taking in all the air she could find while Dorcas did truly unholy things with her tongue. She smelt of sex. Sex, and blood, and something so uniquely Dorcas, that Marlene just had to taste to figure out what it was.

Every day. She thought. She was going to taste her every day for the rest of her life, she swore to herself. Even if she died tomorrow, she’d die happy – knowing it meant she fulfilled this promise.

It was like she’d suddenly found her purpose in life. She used to think it had been killing, ridding the world of men, and anyone else who took her fancy (but mainly men). But perhaps that was just the lead up to this moment – the foreplay. Every act of violence, every bite, every kill, had been leading her to this dining room table. They moved together like they’d bee doing this all their lives, like they’d been made to do this. Made to consume one another, made to be consumed by one another.

Marlene panted heavily, staring down at the truly beautiful sight in front of her; Dorcas’ pussy covered in blood and come. Like it was meant to be.

With one hand, she started to play with Dorcas’ slit, rolling it between her fingers, squeezing it, grazing her teeth against it. In reply, Dorcas ate her out with fervour. So Marlene did the same.

Before long, she was fucking Dorcas with her tongue, and two finger joined her after that, scissoring her, pulling her walls further apart so she could fuck her tongue in as deeply as possible. One day, she swore to herself, she’d fuck her with a strap on until they were both crying, taking turns on each other for hours, until neither could so much as speak.

They didn’t come at the same time – because that really was something that only happened in porn, wet dreams, and fantasies. Dorcas finished first. Marlene sensed it before it happened, reading the shaking of her legs and the way her hips thrust up wards. She she bit down on Marlene’s thighs when she orgasmed, her fangs seeping in and injecting her with venom, drinking up her blood as she rode out her high.

Marlene licked up the come, sensing her own end approach. There was blood spilling down her thighs, as well as spit and slick. It was nothing short of pornographic, the wet sounds they made as Marlene continued to lick away every last bit of come, and as Dorcas continued to bite at Marlene’s thighs, barely even sucking out all the blood before moving onto a new patch.

In the end, it was the sensation of a finger running up her thigh and over the bite marks, and then into her cunt that finally made her come. It was the realisation that Dorcas was fucking her with her own blood as lube, shoving it back inside her so that she could suck out more. It was that feeling, combined with her venom, that tipped Marlene over, and she came over Dorcas’ face with a scream.

It took a while for her to be aware of anything other than Dorcas mouthing up and down her thighs, collecting a mixture of sweat, blood, and come onto her tongue and swallowing it down. Dorcas didn’t seem to care at all about how Marlene was basically just a dead weight on top of her. She made no indication for Marlene to move, so she didn’t. They lay there, nuzzling into each other’s warmth, littered with the occasional lick or bite and the others reciprocating whine for ages.

It was a grandfather clock that broke them out of their stupor, when it finally chimed six in the morning from some far-off place in the house. Marlene rolled off of Dorcas with a heavy sigh. She lay on her back, staring up at that ornate ceiling, wondering how she’d gotten so goddamned lucky.

“You’re staying the night.” Dorcas told her, even though the sun had begun to work its way over the horizon line.

“Oh darling,” she said, propping herself up on an elbow to be able to look down on her. “I’m staying forever.”