Welcome back to Dangerotica.com, Besties. This week is a repost from last Halloween. I actually hemmed and hawed over this. I haven’t had time to reread or give it another coat of polish, which is something I’ve wanted to do with the things I’m reposting. Not a rewrite, I wouldn’t change anything, just another glance for typos, grammatical errors, etc. etc. But to be honest, I’m a little busier than I anticipated lately, and still catching up from my vacation.

Plus, I’m actually so happy with this story. It’s not the first story I wrote for the Power Couple, but it is the story I feel like introduces their completed vision. The Xen and Zen was a funny gimmick when I thought they were just cheeky self-inserts of me and Liz Bombs in a one off peril fantasy… But then, as I fell for them and developed them, I wanted to make them something more. And What Music They Make is the novella introducing that “more.”

Plus, Lady Noctis might be my favorite Perilverse villainess. I am 100% just as enthralled by her as… well… You’ll see…

So here it is once again! Whether you’ve already read it, or this is your first time, I hope you enjoy this Spooky Season superheroines-in-peril story as much as I do. Now, let’s begin…

Chapter One

The café glowed warm against the October chill, a haze of cinnamon and nutmeg drifting in the air. Outside, Saint Falls’ streets were carpeted with orange leaves, damp from an afternoon drizzle. Inside, the world narrowed to the hum of conversation, the hiss of steamed milk, and the syrupy perfume of pumpkin spice clinging to sweaters and leggings.

Jamesina Mattea sat curled into the corner of the booth, her long ebony curls still damp at the ends from the misty night, a loose black shawl draped over a soft bohemian dress, patterned in mandalas and muted autumn hues. Silver bangles chimed faintly at her wrist when she lifted her latte for a sip.  Beneath the table sandals bared her toes. She looked every bit the new age yogi her students knew her as.

They never suspected she was actually Zen Empathica, one of the two superheroines who had recently taken up residence in Saint Falls.  If, that is, they were even capable of suspecting about such things…

“Admit it, Jamesina…you love this place as much as we do,” Katie teased, snapping yet another picture of the foam swirls in their drinks.

“I never said I didn’t,” Zen smiled over the rim of her cup. “The atmosphere is quite…cozy.” A corporate brand approved coziness, but still…

“O-M-G! Totes adorbs! Right?” Brooke gushed with a wicked grin, her blonde ponytail bouncing as she leaned in. “Halloween is, like, my fav holiday, for real.”

“And don’t act like you’re not loving that pumpkin spice, teach,” Ashley laughed, nearly snorting into her latte. “Basic bitch vibes, just own it.”

Zen rolled her big brown eyes, but the lifting corners of her mouth betrayed her. The truth was the pumpkin spice tasted heavenly, sweet, creamy, kissed with cinnamon.  She had taken to it as eagerly as the girls she teased in class for their love of trendy leggings, and trendier coffee shops.  Now Zen sipped, letting the warmth coat her tongue, and tried not to smile too wide when Katie leaned across Brooke and Ashley to get the perfect selfie of all their cups lined up together.

They were silly, her girls, and maybe a little “basic”, but their glow made them beautiful. So carefully similar in their laughter and highlights, but also in their auras, warm and pink, flickering like pretty little candles.

But then there was Marissa.

Marissa sat quieter than usual, long lashes lowered, her fingers idly tracing shapes on her paper cup. Her lips curved faintly at the banter, but her smile never reached her eyes. She was the real reason Zen had agreed to accompany the group for their customary post yoga lattes. It was an evening class, and usually Zen advised them against ruining the calm and centering they’d just found in class with so much caffein.

Zen tilted her head, curls spilling forward, and let her perception slide beneath the surface –let her eyes see without looking- to read the women’s auras. Katie’s was a peach blush.  Brooke’s a brighter rose. Ashley’s a flickering coral. But Marissa, her light was pale and weak, like a washed-out shadow, as though the color had been drained.

Zen’s heart tugged uneasily.

She tried to spark up conversation with Marissa, but like her aura, the girl was distant and noncommittal.

When the group finally spilled back out into the autumn drizzle, tugging scarves tight, their flats squeaking on wet pavement, Zen fell back beside Ashley, touching her elbow lightly.

“Is Marissa okay?”

Ashley sighed lightly. “She has been kinda off today, right?”

“Yes, I have noticed,” Zen began to reply.

“I keep telling her she can’t handle a whole xanny,” Ashley lowered her voice to the proper tone for conspiratorial gossip.  “She’ll be in the clouds for like three days.”

Zen quirked one of her dark brows, watching Marissa drift from the group towards her car, not even really saying “good bye” to any of them.  The others barely noticed.  Zen knew what an aura on drugs looked like, and that wasn’t what was wrong with Marissa.

“Is she back with Tony?” Brooke shot back at them as soon as Marissa was out of earshot.

“No, he’s still with that waitress, you know she’s like barely out of high school, what a scumbag,” Katie clarified.  “I think Marissa met someone new, bitch has been floating since she went to that new club last weekend.”

“Oh, Sanctum Noctis?” Ashley chimed.  “I heard that place is like ca-razy…who knows what she could have got into there.”

“Got on, you mean.”

Zen frowned. “Sanctum Noctis?  What is that?”

Ashley rolled her eyes, tugging her scarf tighter. “Some Halloween pop-up, out on Briar Hollow Road. They turned that old cathedral into a nightclub. Spooky theme, costumes, all that. It’s only open ‘til Halloween night, then supposedly it’s gonna close up. Everyone’s talking about it.”

Zen managed a small smile. “Sounds festive.” She gave a wave, turning towards her own car now. “You girls watch out for each other, will you?”

They all promised and then called their goodbyes and assertions that this should “become a thing” as they crossed the parking lot towards their cars.

Zen lingered, pulling her shawl tighter and watching them go. The drizzle cooled her skin, but something deeper chilled her. Marissa’s washed-out aura, wasn’t the result of a guy, or some party drug. 

Sanctum Noctis.

She didn’t say it aloud. Not yet. But as she continued to her car, hips swaying under the soft brush of her dress, Zen’s mind was already moving toward Xen.

She’d know what to do.

Chapter Two

Xenobia Lizmark lay sprawled on her couch, one long leg draped lazily over the armrest, the blue glow from her phone screen reflecting in her eyes. Her brown hair, ombréd with caramel and blonde, was messy from the shower, damp strands still clinging to her neck and tickling her bare shoulders. She wore only a faded tank top and a pair of pale panties, the kind of home clothes she never bothered to match.

She looked every bit the typical young woman, ready for a quiet night of doom scrolling on her couch.  In truth, she was Xen Electrica, one of Saint Falls superpowered duo, and she was beginning an investigation…

Scrolling local news, she found herself frowning. Another missing person. The article was thin on details, but it repeated the same refrain she’d seen the past two weekends: last seen at Sanctum Noctis.

“What the hell is Sanctum Noctis?” Xen muttered aloud.

Her thumb hovered over the search bar when the jingle of a key turned in her lock. She barely had time to set the phone aside before Zen swept in, looking every bit the bohemian goddess she always did, curls cascading in dark, damp spirals down her back, the mandala dress swishing around her curvaceous hips. The smell of spice and rain wafting across the room as she did.

“Well, it’s about time!” Xen began teasingly.

Without a word, Zen hiked her dress up to mid-thigh and straddled her on the couch, shawl slipping away as she cupped Xen’s face and kissed her, deep and needy, her mouth tasting faintly of latte foam and cinnamon.

Xen couldn’t help but moan softly into her lips, hands sliding instinctively under Zen’s dress, pushing the hem further up her smooth, luscious thighs. Zen’s skin was warm, her curves yielding, the weight of her settling comfortably onto Xen’s lap.

Their tongues tangled and teased, both women melting slightly as the heat flowed between them.  When they broke the kiss, Zen’s eyes glistened, brown and bright. And hungry.

Xen smirked. “Too much caffeine, babe? You’re almost vibrating.” She squeezed those curvy hips and Zen’s back arched in response.

“The pumpkin spice was quite tasty,” Zen flushed, her thick lashes lowering as her gaze narrowed.  “But maybe it’s not just the caffeine making me vibrate.”  Her arms slid around Xen’s ribs as she sank closer, their breasts pressing together; Zen’s modest and perky, Xen’s full and lusciously soft.

“Careful, you keep this up and you’re going to turn into a pumpkin spice basic bitch, just like your students,” Xen teased, biting her lip, fingers tracing the edge of Zen’s cotton panties around to the voluptuous swell of her ass. “For all your Taralayan practices and new age spiritualism, you’re really just one latte away from being converted.”

“And will you still care for me-” Zen buried her face against Xen’s neck, planting warm kisses against the soft flesh. “-when I’m snapping selfies and fretting over trendy clothes?”

Xen squirmed and hissed, goosebumps rippling down one leg.  She grabbed Zen’s luscious ass and squeezed tightly. “I prefer you stay just the way you are…but I won’t deny that the thought of this ass poured int a pair of Lululemons -” Xen broke off into a hungry groan, and squeezed the plump cheeks again, tighter.

Zen giggled in delight, wiggling into her girlfriend’s grasp.  “Those overpriced brands fit no different than the leggings I already wear!”

“You’re right,” Xen breathed, eye glinting, “it is this amazingly thick, deliciously round behind of yours that’ll make any leggings look good!”

They kissed again, both sighing sweetly into each other’s mouths.  Their tongues danced, wet and warm, their bodies arching toward each other.  Zen’s dainty hands cupped and cradled Xen’s breasts, her thumbs teasing sensitive nipples over the flimsy tank top.

“Before the caffeine runs away with us both,” Zen said, breaking the kiss, and a little breathless.

“I knew it…”

“We have to talk about Sanctum Noctis.”

Xen blinked, her hands stilling in surprise. “Wait, are you reading my mind?  Does caffeine-”

“What?” Zen pulled back, “You know I can’t actually discern your thoughts, why would you ask that?”

“I was literally just reading an article about another missing person,” Xen explained, “and they were last seen at some place called Sanctum Noctis. What even is it?”

“Some kind of Halloween themed dance club. It’s apparently set up in that old cathedral on Briar Hollow Road. Supposedly to be open just for the month, until their big Halloween party,” Zen settled back on her lap, brushing black curls back from her face. “Marissa, one of my students, her aura was off tonight.  That’s why I joined them for coffee, to hopefully see what was happening with her.  According to the other girls, she’s been acting off ever since she went to this Sanctum Noctis.”

“Hmm, think it’s drugs?” Xen frowned.  “I’ve been following this new aphrodisiac, although it seems to have some narcotic, or possibly even psychotropic properties, they’re calling it Double X…”

“No, I know what an aura on drugs looks like,” Zen clarified, “Marissa’s aura was…well, it was almost like it’d been hollowed out.”

Xen’s frown deepened. “That’s… creepy as hell.” Then, slowly, her lips curved. “We should check it out tomorrow.”

Zen smirked, one dark brow arching elegantly. “I thought you’d say that.”

“Undercover,” Xen added quickly, her excitement bubbling. “Costumes?  Do they do costumes? I bet they do costumes, right? So we’ll do costumes, the whole bit. No sense in alarming everyone by showing up in our superheroine getups.”

Zen smiled wide, her eyes sparkling at the other woman. “I love it when you get all excited about our superheroic endeavors.”

Xen grabbed her waist, pulling her down until their noses brushed. “Or maybe I just want to get you into a sexy Halloween costume. Since we’re too old for trick-or-treating.”

Zen giggled, her thighs squeezing against Xen’s hips. “Mmm, and what would I look best in? Cat ears and fishnets? Devil horns? A witch’s hat and a negligée?”

“See! You’re already channeling your basic bitch instincts… but actually, you’d look best in nothing at all!” she said, tugging the bohemian dress up with hungry hands.

Zen giggled brightly, raising both arms without having to be told.  Xen whisked the dress over her head, exposing nearly every inch of Zen’s tan, pear-shaped curves.  Her breasts, pert, firm, tipped in dark chocolate, scarcely required a bra, so all she had on underneath was a pair of plain cotton panties, and her chunky leather sandals. 

Xen rolled, flipping Zen around with a yelp, and pressing her back into the couch.

Zen gasped as cool air swept over her and Xen’s hot lips pressed against her neck, teeth grazing tan skin.  Zen arched, wrapping her legs around Xen’s slim hips, her dark curls spilling across the couch cushion.

Xen’s hands roamed, one sliding up over her ribs until her palm found the perfect weight of Zen’s breast. She squeezed gently, brushing her thumbs over those mocha nipples until Zen shuddered, lips parting in a breathless whimper.  He other hand traced the curve of Zen’s ass, then slid along her thick thigh, before moving around between.  Those soft cotton panties were damp, and Zen’s curvaceous hips were starting to rock up and down in anticipation.

“You really are so wound up,” Xen teased, voice husky. “Should’ve been feeding you late night coffee from the beginning.”

Zen’s body writhed into Xen’s touch, and she giggling even as her cheeks flamed. “You don’t need to caffeine turn me on.”

Xen only grinned, leaning in to press her lips against Zen’s collarbone, then kissing down to her breasts. She lavished the tops of the pert orbs, her hands pushing them up and together.  The dark nipples hardened into sensitive peaks.  Xen’s mouth found one, sucking gently until Zen’s back arched, a gentle cry breaking from her lips.

Zen’s fingers threaded through Xen’s hair, tugging, urging her lower. Xen moved slowly, kissing down the line of her belly, feeling the supple yoga-trained muscles flexing and twitching under the brush of her lips. She hooked Zen’s panties with her thumbs, pulling them down and off her wide, squirming hips.  Zen’s legs fell open for her lover, unashamed of the musky heat of her arousal. Her delicate folds opened like a flower, the petals already glistening.

“God, Jams,” Xen whispered, kissing the inside of her thigh, “you’re dripping.”

Zen only moaned, writhing under her. “Please…”

Xen’s tongue found her, hot and teasing, licking slow circles until Zen’s thighs trembled around her shoulders.  Xen loved the taste of her, the earthy tang of her sticky juices.  And the scent, bright and sharp, and sometimes Xen wondered if the Taralaya were trained to release pheromones normal women didn’t, because Zen’s scent was intoxicating.

Using both thumbs, Xen spread that brown pussy open, making Zen moan and revealing the hot pink center. Xen lapped the silky flesh, dragging her tongue slow and deliberately, all the way up to Zen’s swelling clit, and flicking it!  

Zen’s cries filled the small apartment, her hips rocking helplessly into every lap and swirl.  Her legs convulsed and Xen gripped them firmly, held her open, feasting on Zen until her body shook.

Zen came with a cry, curling forward, clutching at Xen’s hair. Her orgasm rolled through her, breath ragged, eyes shining. Xen continued devouring her gushing pussy, extending the climax until Zen’s cries turned hoarse.  She collapsed back on the couch, breathing heavy.

Xen crawled up over her, kissing her lover’s panting lips.  Zen returned the kiss dazedly, her body still twitching with aftershocks.

“You’re so fucking sexy when you cum,” Xen whispered.

“You make every part of me sing,” Zen murmured.  Her hand slid up the back of Xen’s neck, tangling into her hair.  “Now it’s your turn!”  Her other hand pushed between them, feeling Xen’s own dampened panties. 

Xen started to protest, “No, baby, just bask -OH!” Zen rubbed over the wet fabric, and Xen’s hips bucked against her hand in response.

Zen’s big brown eyes were glazed and half-lidded, still woozy from her orgasm.  But she wasn’t going to leave her lover hanging.  She pushed Xen’s panties aside, running dainty fingers through her slick, warm cleft.

“You take such pleasure in getting me off,” Zen murmured, her voice thick and slurred, “It’s so beautiful.”

“Y-y-your beauti-” Xen tried to reply, but all that came out was a gasp as Zen kneaded her slippery labia, slowly and sensually.  Those practiced fingers pressed more firmly, rubbing short circles over her clit, driving Xen’s hips to begin grinding against Zen’s hand, desperate now for her own release.

Which Zen teased out mercilessly.  She knew exactly how to work Xen into a near frenzy. That was her Taralaya training, the sensitive empath couldn’t help but read Xen’s pleasure, chasing every tremble and trill, every gush of heat.  Every electric charge up her spine.  And with the affection Zen held for Xen, their connection was even stronger.

Soon they were both moaning, writhing against each other. Zen’s dainty fingers sliding deep into Xen’s slick heat.

Xen was gasping, panting, her body begging wordlessly, thrusting against Zen’s hand, heavy breasts bouncing and swaying with every frantic movement. Their kisses broke into panting cries, their hips grinding together until Xen’s climax tore through her, both of them feeling the charge!

It was even Zen who cried out, “Yes! Oh yes! Xen you cum so divinely!”

Which isn’t to say she enjoyed it more than Xen, whose body was jerking and spasming in pleasure so intense her mouth gaped in a silent scream… before collapsing on top of Zen.

They lay tangled, sweat-slicked and breathless, curls and damp hair plastered to their flushed faces. Zen stroked Xen’s back lazily, her nails drawing little circles.

Xen smiled against her chest, murmuring incomplete thoughts like; “…so good.. how did you… always know…how can…unbelievable…”

Zen laughed weakly, kissing the crown of her head in answer.

They melted together, panting and smiling, drifting into the warmth of each other’s arms as the night deepened outside.

While across town, on Hollow Briar Road, Sanctum Noctis waited…

Chapter Three

The cathedral had not been built for this, yet somehow seemed it had always been waiting for it. No one in Saint Falls knew exactly how old it was, or when it had been built, only that it had stood abandoned for quite some time.  The aging stone walls rose against the night sky, black spires stabbing upward like broken teeth. Once sanctified, now desecrated, the doors stood wide open and the bouncers who guarded them might as well have been gargoyles brought to life.

The building seemed to breathe like a living thing, slowly devouring the line of people coiled across the cracked steps and down Briar Hollow Road.  Bass throbbed through the stained-glass windows, setting fractured saints to flicker in neon strobes of hellish red and corpse-light green. Fog machines bled vapor through the cracks like the exhalation of some great subterranean beast. Above, the carved angels had lost their grace, but their wings seemed to flutter from bass that bellowed so deep it vibrated stones and bones alike.

The crowd came dressed for sacrifice. Tempting angels in feathered wings tipped with glitter, pirates jangling cheap gold chains, wolves with snarling latex muzzles. Slutty cats, rabbits, and foxes, all manner of animal ears topped skintight outfits of mesh and lace.  Nurses in candy-white skirts so short they stopped hearts rather than saved them.  Devils daubed in greasepaint, their horns glittering in the strobes, stood next to jet pilots who would never see the inside of a cockpit.  The whole line shimmered with sequins, latex, pleather, and sweat. Perfume tangled with beer and cheap smoke. Glitter clung to damp skin. Laughter rang shrill, and every so often the music broke into a howl that felt less like celebration and more like invocation.

The bouncer at the door had seen it all already. He was a slab of a man, head shaved, tattoos coiling up his neck like vines. His arms were folded as he eyed the crowd, but when his gaze snagged on two women in line, his stance shifted. Pretty women in sexy costumes always got in free, and these two? They were more than just pretty.

The taller one had hair like whiskey and caramel that gleamed under the floodlights. Her costume was a parody of a gladiatrix: bronze breastplate molded tight over sleek curves, a pleated vinyl skirt slit to bare statuesque thighs in fishnet, and sandals laced to her knees. A toy sword hung at her hip, but the real weapon was the way her blue eyes caught the light and glimmered with easy confidence.

Her companion was shorter, darker, and more dangerous for it. She wore a witch’s dress of sheer black lace that clung like spider silk, the plunging neckline framing her cleavage. A slit up the thigh showed curvaceous hips and legs so shapely and smooth, they almost glowed under the garish lights. Her thick black curls spilled from under the wide brim of a pointy witch’s hat, wild and lustrous, nearly reaching her waist.  A black choker at her throat made her look delicate and possessable, an effect only exacerbated by her expressive, liquid brown eyes.

The bouncer tipped his chin, motioning them forward. “Ladies. No cover.” He stepped aside to let them pass, his hungry gaze lingering just a little too long on the sway of their asses as they moved together into the maw of Sanctum Noctis.

For Zen, it was like being swallowed by some great, musical demon.

The air inside was heavier, hotter. Every breath tasted of fog fluid, and sweat, spiced with cloves and liquor. Candles guttered in sconces where saints may once have prayed, wax running in streams like pale blood. Neon strobes licked across vaulted arches, throwing gargoyles into momentary life before plunging them back into shadow. The organ pipes had been gutted long ago, now speakers sat in their place, screaming bass until her bones rattled.

The crowd pressed shoulder to shoulder, masked and painted, a frenzy of costumes grinding against one another. The dance floor was a sea of movement, fishnet and latex slick with sweat. The bar blazed with bottles backlit in crimson light, a line of devils and angels alike clamoring for shots.

Zen felt it all at once.

Someone’s giddy high, someone’s jealous sting, someone’s lust spiking hard for the girl in fishnets grinding against him. Laughter that soured into resentment. Desire that curdled into shame. The psychic tide battered her, hot and cold in alternating waves, until her breath came short and her hands shook.

She grabbed Xen’s hand tightly, desperate for anchor.

But Xen’s aura was erratic, sparking with excitement. Her blue eyes were wide, drinking in the spectacle, the grin on her lips both infectious and unnerving.  Xen’s unique biology was vibrating with the literal power of this place. The spark of every light, the voltage throbbing in every amp, there was a charge in the air, sweeping her into its rhythm.

Xen leaned close to shout in Zen’s ear over the bass.  “You feel it? The energy in here is insane!”

Zen’s curls stuck to her damp neck as she shook her head. “I feel too much.”

Not taking her meaning, Xen laughed, tossing her ombré hair back, gladiatrix breastplate gleaming under the strobes. “I didn’t think I’d like this whole spooky aesthetic, but it’s kind of infectious, don’t you think?”

“Infection,” Zen replied, unease continuing to tighten her chest.

They wound their way deeper, Xen leading, Zen stumbling in her wake. The music never stopped, the crowd never gave. It was heat and noise and hunger pressing in from every side, until Zen’s breath felt stolen from her lungs.

Xen turned to her, eyes shining, lips curving into a question: “Wanna dance?”

Zen forced a smile and shook her head. “No. I think we should split up.”

Xen blinked. “What? Here?”

“You stay on the dance floor. Watch. See if anything suspicious happens. I’ll check the back rooms. Ten minutes, then we meet over at the bar.”

Xen hesitated, her grip on Zen’s hand tightening. “I don’t like splitting up.”

“You can continue to scan the energy here, and the people,” Zen’s voice was wavering but clear. “I’ll be fine.  Ten minutes.”

Reluctantly, Xen let her go. The crowd surged between them, red and black and glittering, and Zen turned toward the shadowed doors at the far side of the nave.

Chapter Four

Zen slipped past two giggling girls tottering back from the restrooms with drooping angel wings and smeared lipstick. They didn’t notice her dart down the opposite hall, black curls swishing as she moved quickly away from the droning, overstimulating house music.

Here, the bass was only a pulse, a heartbeat that seemed to come through the stone itself.  Zen leaned against the wall, pressing her palm firmly against her sternum, intentionally slowing her breathing.  She settled the Taralaya discipline through her body. Inhale – exhale – center.  Inhale – exhale – center…again.  Knitting her aura smooth, after the chaos of the dance floor.

It was obviously not her first time in a night club.  While they could always be a bit of psychic storm, usually it was nothing Zen couldn’t manage.

Sanctum Noctis was a psychic hurricane. Category 5.

“Goodness, and why did I suggest splitting up?” she mumbled to herself, pulling off the witch’s hat and combing a hand through her lush tangles.  It had seemed like a good idea, but really she’d just needed a moment to center herself so badly, she wasn’t thinking clearly.

Now, in the silence after the brief meditation she looked around, and wished Electrica was with her. The corridor was narrow, the black-painted walls sweating faint condensation that slicked beneath her fingertips like clammy skin. Pipes ran along the ceiling, groaning faintly, and the air was damp and sour, heavy with mildew, maybe a hint of incense, and something metallic that stung her tongue, even with her mouth closed.

Zen crept forward. The walls seemed to tighten as she went, squeezing closer with every step, the strip-lights overhead buzzing faintly before giving way to long stretches of shadow where the dark pressed in like thick cloth. The air grew colder. Each click of her heels echoed too long, bouncing back from places seeming far deeper than the corridor should reach.

Sometimes the echo didn’t return right. The rhythm stumbled, as though another set of footsteps followed a heartbeat behind her, softer, slurred. She paused once, holding her breath, but the sound kept breathing back at her, patient and mocking. Even when she forced herself to move again, she had the sense the walls were leaning inward, as if they were listening.

 Shouldn’t there be staff here? Barbacks ferrying cases of beer, security moving between rooms?

Zen peeked in every door she passed, revealing nothing: one storage closet, bare but for an overturned stool.  One chamber hung with moth-eaten curtains. One stairwell choked with the scent of mildew and mud.

Again, the sound of footsteps made her freeze.  Closer this time, distinct.  They were behind her.  She turned. Wait, were they were ahead? She turned back.  Each turn bent the echoes back on themselves, hollow and misleading. The hair on her arms prickled.

Zen started to retreat. Ten minutes. She should return to Xen. They could regroup, investigate together.

But then a voice purred in the darkness, low and velvety. “Young lady, you look lost.”

Zen’s heart seized.

The woman who stepped from the shadows at the end of the hallway was terrible and beautiful all at once.

Her skin gleamed like moonlit mahogany, her spiked pixie cut was midnight black, edged with burning red.  One side of her head was shaved close to reveal the metallic glint of piercings in her ear. Her lips were lacquered crimson, parted in a smile that showed the gleam of white teeth. Her shoulders were bare, molded, powerful and alluring.  Crimson lace clung to her breasts, cinched with a corset that traced muscle as much as curve.  A black leather miniskirt sheathed the swell of her hips and thighs, below that long legs caged in fishnet above heavy combat boots. Every line of her body radiated feminine power sharpened to a blade.

But it was her eyes the made the breath hitch in Zen’s chest.  Dark and beautiful and piercing and locked onto her as the woman approached.

Zen stood locked in place, staring back into those mesmerizing eyes. “I—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to – I got turned around…”

“No need to apologize,” the woman said, hips rolling slow as a hunting cat. “Can’t imagine a witch as beautiful as you would be unwelcome in any dungeon. Tell me your name.”

“Jamesina,” Zen replied immediately, obediently.

“A beautiful name for a beautiful witch,” the woman said, “but it’s not the whole truth, is it?  Tell me who you are.”

This time Zen felt the powerful throb of compulsion that accompanied her words, her demand.  She reeled with it, felt it pulling the words from her lips- “Zen…Empathica…”

“One of Saint Falls superheroines,” the woman said, crimson lips curling in a smile.  “I hoped you would come to visit my sanctum, I am Lady Noctis.”

Zen forced herself to inhale, then deliberately exhale, and her own gaze sharpened.  She tried to read the woman’s aura, but there was nothing. No ripple, no color, no song. Just void.  Blackness falling away, like staring down a well. The emptiness made her dizzy, like her own soul was leaning too far over the edge.

Lady Noctis’s smile widened. She lifted two fingers, the nails like onyx knives, she beckoned with them, drawing Zen’s gaze inexorably into those hypnotic eyes.

“Tell me, superheroine, is your little partner here?”

Zen clenched her teeth, now that she was aware of the woman’s power, she was aware she needed to resist it. Inhale-exhale-resist.

“Your discipline is strong,” Noctis murmured, closing the distance. “But you belong to me already. Do you feel it? How easily I move inside you?”

Unable to look away, Zen shuddered, her thighs clenching, a heat blooming against her will. Her breath grew shallow, pupils dilating. The woman’s will was like a velvet hand stroking down her spine, invasive and intimate.

“Your spirit is strong, Empathica,” Noctis whispered, her voice almost seeming to be brushing Zen’s ear. “But your mind is weak, you cannot resist me.”

Zen’s lips parted, a moan trembling at the edge of her throat; “your mind is weak” wasn’t a statement but a command, meant to forcibly shake her resolve…instead it triggered her Taralaya training, emotional defenses snapped taut within her. She tore her eyes away, gasping, clutching the wall for anchor.

“I know what you are,” Zen managed, voice shaking but loud. “You’re a vampire. You will hold no sway over my spirit, or my mind.”

“And I know what you are, Taralaya,” Lady Noctis laughed, deep and mocking. “Oh, they still exist? Poor little sisterhood, still muttering prayers and braiding flowers. How quaint.”

Zen steadied, shoring up her resolve. “And yet our practices and flowers seem enough to foil your abilities.”

Finally, the vampire scowled.  “So it would seem.”

“Leave Saint Falls,” Zen snarled, regaining her strength and bearing. “Tonight. This city is under my protection.”

Now Lady Noctis snarled, revealing her fangs in full, cruel and gleaming. She leaned close, her scent of clove and iron flooding Zen’s senses. “And tell me, superheroine… whose protection are you under?”

With a snap of her dark fingers, the floor gave way.

Zen screamed as the trap door yawned beneath her feet, the stone swallowing her. She plunged into darkness, her last sight of Lady Noctis above, smiling down at her, like a saint of ruin.

Chapter Five

Xen let herself move with the beat, her body swaying, hips shifting in rhythm to the bass. For her, the press of the crowd was not claustrophobic; masked bodies, glittering costumes, sweat and perfume all blending into something energizing.  Every pulse of sound vibrated through her skin like a second heartbeat.  Her nerves buzzed with a strange euphoria.  Her blood fizzed like soda, and her muscles hummed as if the Sanctum itself was pouring the rhythm into her veins.  

She felt almost drunk, though she hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol.  Despite several offers from costumed boys.  The crowd’s heat pressed in tighter, velvet and vinyl brushing her bare arms, sequins grazing her thighs. She breathed in fog machine smoke and pheromones until the air itself felt like a drug. What was this place?

A man in a skull mask pressed close, his body heat seeping through the thin layers of her costume. Hands found her waist, fingers splayed, guiding her movements as if he had any right – as if he had every right. Normally, she’d have shoved him off without a thought, probably with a little electro-shock snapping between them to make her point.

But the music was in her bones, in her blood, drowning the impulse to resist. Instead, she let him stay for a moment, his chest grazing her back as she rolled her hips a little deeper into the beat. The press of him was firm, solid, his movements syncopated with hers until she couldn’t tell who was leading. Her body met his with fluid rhythm, breath catching as a hot bulge brushed her ass. She leaned back, yielding, the contact electric…in spite of her preferences.

But then, his touch barely registered as anything separate now, just another pulse in the current saturating her senses. The scent of sweat, the throb of bass, the bump of strangers…all of it melded into one intoxicating blur.

Xen laughed, spinning against him, ombre-ed hair whipping over her shoulders. For a heartbeat it wasn’t her moving at all—it was the club moving her!  Sanctum Noctis itself was guiding her body like a puppet of rhythm and want.

Then his hands tightened, one gripping her hip, the other creeping up her back, insistent, possessive. He guided her closer, and Xen obeyed without thinking, her hips rolling to meet his. Their bodies aligned in a slow, grinding rhythm, the heat of him pressing hard against her. Her breath hitched as her own hip brushed the solid bulge beneath his costume.  The breath behind his mask came heavier, almost a growl.  Through the dark cutouts of the bone white mask Xen caught a glimpse of his eyes, glassy, eager, lustful.

A chill threaded through the warmth in her blood.  What am I doing right now?

With a sharp twirl, she slipped from his hands, leaving him clutching at empty air.  She swayed away, deeper into the mass of bodies, her skin slick, her eyes half-lidded, her pulse syncing to the bass. She couldn’t tell if she was dancing or drowning, only that the sanctum wanted her to stay.

Focus up! she chided herself, you got a job to do, Zen will be back any moment…

Her eyes flicked across the crowd, scanning for anything worth a superheroine’s notice: A devil in glossy vinyl slipped a folded bill to a grinning reaper with a plastic scythe, then a baggie changed hands in a gesture as casual as a kiss.

Two men in hooded cloaks bumped fists as two scantily clad nurses took the shots they’d brought over.

At the edge of the floor, a pair of burly security guards leaned against the wall, their attention glued not to the crowd’s safety but to a knot of girls in little more than lingerie and cat ears, grinding hard enough it was a wonder their tails stayed on.

Nothing more dangerous than what Xen would expect from a club this time of year. Mischief, sleaze, the usual.

And yet, her pulse ticked faster. She frowned, brushing sweaty hair from her eyes. Ten minutes yet? Seems longer. How long had she been swaying here? The music churned endlessly on, beats folding into each other until time smeared like spilled paint. Her body was warm, flushed, tingling like she’d had one too many drinks, even though…

Zen said ten minutes, Xen bit her lip, unease sobering her somewhat, meet at the bar, I better go find her.

As she turned, the air shifted. Xen felt it before she saw it…a pressure, a prickle, the hairs lifting along her arms. The music never faltered, but the crowd seemed to peel back in unconscious waves, dancers pivoting aside without thought, bodies swaying back to reveal a corridor of rhythm cut straight through the throng.  The strobes caught on crimson, on lace, on gleaming bronze skin.

The breath caught in Xen’s throat.

A woman moved through the parted sea, not with haste but with a certainty like gravity.  She was magnificent.  Each step was a performance: combat boots biting into the pulse of the bass, fishnets clinging to long, muscled legs, the hem of a black leather skirt kissing her gliding thighs. Above, a red-and-black lace bustier cradled her form with wicked precision, ribbons and shadows drawing the eye to every swell and contour of a magnificent set of breasts.  Matching sleeves wrapped her arms in sin, ending in fingers tipped with elegant claws…or, no, they were black fingernails, of course…not claws…

Her skin caught the light like oiled bronze, smooth and radiant, each flash tracing the sculpted lines of a body too perfect to be mortal.  Her mouth was painted the color of blood, lips parted in a smirk that almost dared Xen to look away, which she could not.  And her hair, cropped short and sharp, was a spiked crown of black and red, one side shaved to the scalp, the other flaring like embers of a smoldering fire.

But it was her eyes that trapped Xen, dark and gleaming, like gems cut from pure night, with fire smoldering at their center. They looked at her as though they’d been searching through lifetimes for this exact moment. Their pull was magnetic, warm, invasive, coaxing her pulse to quicken until she could hear her own heartbeat over the music. The longer she stared, the deeper they saw, soft at first, then possessive, calming and yet claiming.  Heat flooded Xen’s veins, her breath catching, and she realized too late that she wasn’t just being seen…she was being drawn.

Xen let out an awed exhale.  She didn’t know who this woman was, only that she was looking at the most stunning creature she had ever seen.  Something primal tugged at Xen’s spine, an urge to step closer. Her pulse jumped, heat pooling low in her belly. What the hell? She’d never been drawn to a woman like this, not this suddenly, not this strongly.  Not even Zen.

The dark woman moved like a panther through the parted crowd. When she reached Xen, she didn’t ask permission; she simply stood, radiating allure and authority, her dark gaze burning through Xen’s skull.

“You must be Electrica,” she said, voice velvet and smoke. “I can feel your power thrumming from here…”

She knows who I am, Xen thought, although it wasn’t alarmed, or even fearful, as she should have been at the revelation of her secret identity…instead she was awed, and excited: She knows who I am!

“I…I’m…yes…” Xen flushed, her lips parting. “I am Xen Electrica.”

“I know.” Lady Noctis’s smile deepened, cruel and tender at once. “And what is your real name, Xen Electrica?”

“Xenobia.  Lizmark.”

“Named for Zeus’s life-force itself. How fitting.” She held out her hand. “I am Lady Noctis.  Dance with me.”

Xen should have hesitated, but locked in that powerful gaze any hesitation slid away like sand in the tide.  She slid her hand into the woman’s, felt the cool strength of her grip.

It’s just a dance, Xen told herself, guilt flickering, Jams won’t get too jealous.  Then the music swallowed her…or was it Lady Noctis doing the swallowing?

She drew Xen forward, bodies almost touching, then closer still. The bassline throbbed like machinery under their skin. Xen’s breath hitched as a thigh slid between hers, their fishnets rasping together. The rhythm wasn’t formal, it was a grimy, grinding beat that felt more like friction than music.  Meeting hip to hip, their movements flowed without thought.

Lady Noctis moved like the song obeyed her, every pulse in the room bending to her rhythm. Xen’s body also didn’t dance so much as follow, giving in to the tempo, not of the music but of Lady Noctis.

Each motion tightened the invisible tether between them. The crowd blurred to color and heat. Lights flashed red and blue across the woman’s dark burnished skin, each glint of light like a spell.  Xen couldn’t look away. Her body was electric, her heartbeat pulsing to the bass pounding through her bones. The air was too hot, too close, every breath she took tasted faintly of Lady Noctis’s perfume, like dark wine, rich and dizzying.

Those clawed hands seized her without hesitation: one guiding her waist, the other sliding lower, finding the curve of Xen’s ass over the pleated vinyl skirt of her costume and jerking her even closer.  Xen gasped, but only followed that hand deeper into rhythm, leather against vinyl, both their skirts riding up as their thighs slipped closer, tighter.  Xen’s nipples tightened, scraping against the plastic breastplate, sending bright sparks through her chest. 

The heat between them continued to build, Lady Noctis’s stare pinning Xen in place as she moved her thigh firmly against the apex of Xen’s legs. The jolt was instant, muscular flesh pressing into her soft mound through thin nylon panties, sending a shock up Xen’s spine.  Again she gasped, blue eyes wide, her body tightening even as her mind faltered and that dark stare pulled deeper.  The next grind made her hips answer on instinct. The rhythm turned hot and hungry, her body rolling to match Noctis’s. Sweat glistened over Xen’s skin, wet heat pooled low, her breath caught in tiny, breathless whimpers. Somewhere in the blur, Xen wanted to pull away but she couldn’t.

Those eyes. Gawd, those eyes. Every flash of the lights caught them, turning the irises molten, impossible. She felt like she was falling into them, losing the edges of her own thoughts. The world around her flattened into color, sound, and that unbreakable gaze.

Her pulse drummed in her ears, syncing with the music’s filthy, grinding rhythm. The bass rolled through the floor, up their long netted legs and into their hips.  Noctis’s grip continued urging Xen to move, to ride the pulse, to ride her. That muscled thigh pressed up, firm and unyielding against Xen’s mound, and without thinking she rocked against it, harder, with growing urgency as her panties grew wetter, her breath catching on each drag of contact.

The crowd was gone. There was only the heat, the rhythm, and those dark eyes gleaming inches from her own.

The beat thickened, grimy and harsh, grating as if the world set up a network of ancient gears. Xen’s body moved without thought now, chasing friction, chasing release. Her mind whispered stop, but her body had already forgotten the word.

Lady Noctis’s hand caught her chin, black nails grazing her jaw, forcing her face upward. The touch wasn’t rough but a claim. Her crimson lips curved, a smirk that promised ruin. Xen’s breath trembled, her thighs quivering against the woman’s leg. The air between them burned hotter than the strobes.

The bass slowed, turned heavy, liquid. Each pulse dragged the space tighter until it collapsed entirely. Their mouths were a breath apart. Xen didn’t know whether the beat was in the music or her chest anymore.  She felt it like thunder gathering under her skin, an invisible current tightening the air between them. Every breath she took seemed to come from Noctis’s lungs, every beat of the music syncing to the pulse between their mouths.

Lady Noctis leaned in. Her scent all dark wine and smoke, and something faintly metallic – coppery – filled Xen’s head until thought itself seemed to slide out of reach.  That hungry mouth hovered a whisper away. Xen could see the faint curve of a smile, could feel her own lips parting, waiting, trembling. The bass slowed to a single, immense heartbeat.

A flicker of memory—Zen’s laugh, Zen’s smile—rose and dissolved just as quickly, washed away in the rush of heat flooding through Xen. This craving wasn’t hers; she could feel that, somewhere deep and dim. But the moment she realized it, the feeling turned liquid and warm, melting all doubt into desire. Gawd those eyes.

Then Noctis kissed her.

It wasn’t something that happened to Xen, it was something that claimed her. She met it halfway, a breathless surrender, her hands finding Lady Noctis’s corset and clutching tight as if she might fall without it. The taste of wine and smoke washed over her tongue. The world tilted. Her mind filled with the shock of contact and the shameful sweetness of wanting it.

Then Lady Noctis shifted, fingers sliding into her hair. A tug pulled Xen’s head to the side, baring her neck beneath the strobe lights. Clawed fingers tightened, drawing her head back, slow and sure. The motion pulled a tremor through her neck, skin stretched, tendons taut. Xen could feel her own pulse hammering just beneath the surface, as if her blood had risen to meet the woman’s gaze.

Her breath came shallow. The angle exposed everything—her throat, her heartbeat, her weakness—and instead of fear, a strange pleasure rippled through her. The throb under her skin felt like invitation. She didn’t know what she wanted, only that she did.

“A heroine with lightning in her veins,” Noctis leaned closer, eyes glimmering like they could hear that pulse, “and yet, no shield for her mind. How deliciously weak you are.”

Her breath touched Xen’s skin, cool and electric.  A slow drag of her tongue traced the vein from collarbone to jaw, following the rhythm that pounded there.

The sensation made Xen shudder. Every nerve flared. Her lips parted, but no sound came. Somewhere, she understood that this was surrender, that this was the moment she should resist. Yet all she could do was tilt further, offering more of herself to the waiting mouth.  Offering more of herself to Lady Noctis.

The vampiress’s lips parted, fangs gleaming faintly in the crimson light.

Xen finally looked away, heart racing, surrendered, expectant, unable now to offer any resistance.

Chapter Six

Zen hit the bottom hard, the impact jolting through her bones. Pain flared along her shoulder and hip right away, but nothing felt like it broke. It hadn’t been a long fall, but the landing was still jarring.

She groaned, pushing herself up on damp stone. Her hands came away slimy, and the same cold muck clung to her bare legs where her skirt had ridden up.  There was no light here and the dark was suffocating, thicker than any night could ever be.  And the moist, fetid smell of earth and mold hung oppressively in the air.

“Great idea, Jamesina,” she muttered under her breath, standing. “Let’s split up. It’ll be fine.  I’m a big brave superheroine…” She smoothed down her skirt, trying fruitlessly to wipe her grimy hands on the less-than-absorbent lace.  “Let’s dress up and wear sexy costumes too, we’ll blend in better, besides no reason the investigation can’t be-”  Zen huffed, feeling the alarm, frustration and fear forming into a cutting edge.

With her breath beginning to echo too loudly in the silence, the Taralaya empath closed her eyes. She pressed a palm flat against her sternum, inhaled deep, forcing herself to slow the tremor of nerves.  Inhale – exhale – center.  Her aura stabilized. 

Then she reached inward, brushing the faint psychic thread that always led toward Xen. Normally it shimmered back, a pulse of warmth, an echo of shared breath – but now it was stretched thin and tangled in static. The connection wasn’t a true psychic link, more an emotional resonance, like feeling the thump of a heartbeat rather than hearing words in the mind.  Unfortunately, it frayed easily when distance or doubt got between them. She tried again, pushing her focus, trying at least to send a pulse of warning through to her partner, but the weight of stone and time swallowed everything.  The walls, the very air was too heavy with the residue of emotional turmoil only an aging cathedral could hold.  Not to mention, the psychic storm of the Sanctum’s dance floor would have drowned out her signal in the best of circumstances.  The thread quivered once, then went still, leaving Zen alone in the dark.

After another disappointed huff, she continued breathing, now connecting to her own aura and drawing it towards the surface.

Soulshine was a Taralaya practice that was widely viewed as a parlor trick.  It was unreliable at the calmest of times, and most practitioners considered it to be a tacky in the modern age.  But it was the only thing Zen could think of at the moment.  She felt warmth swell through her pores, a static tingle running along her skin, and when she opened her eyes a dim orange glow was emanating from her aura.

The glow spread out from Zen like a trembling breath, barely enough to see by.  The soft orange halo pushed back the dark just a few feet. Catacomb tunnels took shape around her as her vision adjusted to that dim radiance: rough stone walls veined with roots and mold, the floor uneven and slick beneath her shoes, which had miraculously staying on during the fall. The dim light did make the shadows retreat but at the edge of its reach something shifted.  Zen heard a faint scrape, a shuffle, a hand or foot dragging just outside the circle of glow. She froze, the orange light flickering as her pulse spiked and the darkness began to stir.

“H- he- hello?” she whispered, with a nervous gulp.

The spark of fear dimmed her soulshine, so she let it go.  Darkness enveloped the empath once more, but she quickly opened herself to see without looking, to read any auras that might be nearby.

Now the catacombs bloomed into view—not in light, but in aura. The tunnel was lined with figures. Dozens of them, crouched in alcoves, slumped against walls, waiting. Their auras flickered faint and hollow, weaker even than Marissa’s had been.  Thin tatters of light clinging to husks. Human figures to be sure, but seeming little more than empty vessels.

And then they were all stirring.  Moving away from their places on the slime coated walls…and turning towards her!

Zen staggered back, heels slipping on the slimy stone. “No, no, no…”

Groans whispered through the tunnels. The shapes shambled forward, limbs dragging, arms outstretched. A dozen, or more, all reaching for her.

Zen turned and ran.  Her heels clacked frantically against the stone, slipping, catching on mold. A sharp stumble threw her down onto hands and knees, her palms sliding through the muck, her knees scraping the stone beneath.  She hissed in pain and terror, scrambled back to her feet, toes squishing in the slime, having lost one heel in the slip.  She kicked off the other and pressed on barefoot, breath already ragged.

The groans swelled. Closer.

Zen moved as quickly as she dared, one hand trailing along the clammy wall, its slime slick beneath her fingertips. The hollow auras of the people, if they were still people, flickered faintly in the dark, little more than pale distortions more felt than seen, like heat ripples on black glass. Between them yawned nothingness, but that was where she knew she could run.  The auras’ resonance let her navigate by absence and echo, stumbling forward between and through the unseen shapes, though each step was still a guess.

Rounding a bend in the tunnel, figures emerged to block her path, hands grasping.  Zen let out a shriek, backing up directly into the arms of another!  She screamed again, trying to shove it away, but cool, ragged hands groped and clawed at her.

Desperate, she gripped it by the shoulders and did her best to focus on cleansing its aura, bring him or her or whoever it had been back to themselves.  Remember yourself!  At least, enough for her to get away.

 Only there wasn’t enough left to cleanse, and when she tried, the energy she poured in looped back in a jagged, painful feedback.  Her voice broke in a raw cry as she reeled, head spinning.  

They were nothing but scraps of humanity now, eaten hollow by – drank hollow…by that vampire!

The ghoulish grip tightened, and more ragged hands joined, dragging her down.  Zen crumpled with a gasp.  The flimsy fabric of her costume tore.  A sharp rip across her thigh, broken nails scraping her tan skin.  She had to get away and thrashed desperately.  Her skirt twisted, then caught, ripping loud as she managed to wrench free.

Zen let out a ragged scream, this time in anger not fear, punching, shoving and kicking to extricate herself from those ghoulish hands.  She lurched back to her bare feet.  Tears began stinging her eyes as she staggered forward, her shoulder straps torn and sliding off her narrow shoulders.  Her top sagged and she tried absently to hold it to her breasts as she bolted through the dark.

The swarm pressed in from all sides now. Shambling, groaning, arms like vines trying to coil about her.  She pushed and fought her way through, but her superheroine determination was slipping into cold fear with every panted breath.

Ragged fingers tore at her, more nails scraping her skin, one hand grabbing a breast through the shredded fabric.  Ice tore down her spine at the touch, the grip, tearing shriek of disgust and terror out of her throat.  She twisted away, feeling jagged nails score her tender bulb.  She shouldered past, lunged forward, anything to keep moving. Her body was slick with sweat and grime, her legs burning from sprint and struggle.

The catacombs became a nightmare.  The walls seemed to close in, hollow-auraed ghouls waiting, lurching.  Close enough now that each time they grabbed, she ran she was dragged back, clothes tearing, the lace now dangling in strings, skirt ripped from her thighs, her top all but shredded leaving her breasts unprotected. Her curls clung wet to her face, tears streaking grime down her cheeks. Her screams turned to helpless sobs, echoing back at her, joining the chorus of terror as the hollowed creatures flailed after her.

Then she saw it: a faint square of pale light ahead. Moonlight!

Zen staggered toward it, every step dragging despite her desperation, her energy all but spent from fighting through the swarm.  Finally, she reached the wall, almost a dead-end but for the small basement window just above her head.  Zen wasted no time jumping up and shoving it open, pulling herself through.

But ghastly hands clawed at her calves, her thighs, tugging her down.

“No!” she screamed, raw and broken. “Let me go!”

Kicking frantically, she scrabbled upward, her own nails breaking on the window frame as she clawed and dragged herself through.

More arms wrapped around her legs, pulling, clutching, ripping another scream from her throat. She kicked and writhed desperately.  Then with one last surge she hauled herself upward, tearing free of the grasping hands. She heaved her body through the narrow opening, chest scraping stone, hips and butt barely fitting, but finally dragging herself out.

Moonlight hit her face. Cool air chilled her lungs.  Zen crawled on her hands and knees through cold wet grass, shaking, her body torn, clothes shredded, sweat and grime clinging to her bare skin. Her breath sobbed out of her chest.

She looked back at the window, a tangle of arms, gray and emaciated, reached out for her, still clawing, still groaning.

Then she did the only thing she could. She screamed into the night—with her throat, and with her soul. A psychic distress call, raw and primal, powered by terror and despair. She sent it out with all the force of her panic, the cry ripping through the night like lightning and thunder.

“XEN!”

Chapter Seven

The psychic cry hit like lightning, splitting through Xen’s mind with all the force of her lover’s terror. She staggered in the middle of the dance floor, hands flying to her temples. The music pounded on, oblivious, but for her the bass was drowned out by the raw, panicked echo of Zen’s soul.

Lady Noctis hissed, recoiling, her fangs just shy of Xen’s neck.

Xen turned at once and started shoving dancers aside. She barely remembered the other woman was even there. The only thing that mattered was the desperation burning through that psychic call. Zen needed her. Heart pounding, lungs already heaving, Xen pushed through the crush of bodies towards the exit.

The vampire watched her go, her smile flickering, not in defeat, but intrigue, a predator scenting the chase.  Perhaps these two superheroines weren’t such easy prey after all…

Xen burst through the Sanctum’s doors, the bass collapsing behind her like a fading heartbeat. The night air hit her in a shock of cold, but she barely felt it.  She was already moving, eyes darting over and past the line of partygoers still waiting to get in. Someone called after her—the bouncer, confused, maybe concerned, though not enough to follow or offer real help—and Xen didn’t stop anyway, didn’t slow. The faint psychic thread leading to Zen thrummed under her skin, pulling her like a compass needle toward its weakening signal.

Hold on, Jams, she thought, breaking into a sprint. I’m coming.

Xen froze at the edge of the parking lot, breath misting in the cold.

Then she saw her.

Zen lay sprawled in the wet grass, trembling, a heap of frizzed hair and torn lace. Her costume, flimsy as it had been to begin with, now hung off her in shreds.  Her breasts were bare, heaving with uneven panicked breaths.  Her skirt was gone, and even her panties clung to her hips, seemingly by a thread.  Her bare skin was slick with grime and blood, her legs streaked in mud, scratches all down her shaking arms and across her shoulders, smudges along her thighs, a bruise already darkening one hip. Her mascara had run in black rivers down her cheeks under wide and unfocused eyes.

Zen was sobbing, small and broken sounds, as Xen reached her.

Xen dropped to her knees, reaching out with shaking hands. “Jams…oh gawd, are you-”

Zen flinched away at first but then fell into Xen’s arms, clinging to her, burying her face against her chest, still shuddering, and whispered through choked breaths, “Get me out of here. Please, take me home.”

Xen didn’t ask questions. She just moved, hauling Zen upright, half-carrying her, one arm wrapped protectively around the suddenly fragile figure.  They’d seen each other bruised before, after battles, or a close scrape, crimes stopped the hard way…but this was different.  Zen’s body shook without fury or defiance, her breath shallow, her eyes vacant. It was no simple fight that had done this. Together they stumbled across the grass, the night swallowing their ragged breaths.

Behind them, Sanctum Noctis pulsed and wailed, bass still thudding, lights bleeding through stained glass like veins of hellfire. The cathedral didn’t sound like music anymore. It sounded alive. Like it was watching, and grinning….and hungry for more.

Xen’s electric car was silent except for the low hum of the tires and the shallow catch of Zen’s breathing.  She’d found one of Xen’s jackets in the back seat and pulled it around herself, but it kept sliding off one shoulder, exposing the tremor in her bare arm.  Her hair clung in muddy tangles, mascara streaks now smeared across the soft hollows of her cheeks as she wiped and sniffled.  Her head was bowed, eyes shut but still leaking the occasional tear.

Despite her concern, Xen said nothing. She gripped the wheel, eyes locked on the road, heart beating too fast. Every instinct screamed to press for answers, to help, to save…but she could tell Zen was trying to find her Taralaya discipline and recenter herself.  Although, judging from the raw unevenness of her breath -inhale – exhale-shudder-gasp-shudder- it might not be working just yet.

By the time they reached the apartment, though she seemed calmer, or perhaps simply numb, Zen was shivering so hard she could barely manage the stairs.  Despite the jacket she was wearing nothing but the shreds of a witch’s negligee and skimpy panties, her exposed skin caked in mud and grime.  No wonder her body couldn’t shake the cold.

At least, that’s what Xen told herself as she half-carried Zen up the stairs, feeling each tremor through her supporting arm –Can’t shake the cold – not – can’t shake the shock, or trauma…

Zen’s apartment was a fifth-floor loft in the old garment district, open brick, wide windows, with the smell of incense and sage forever lingering in the air. Crystals caught the streetlight on a windowsill, over a minimalist desk scattered with case files, Taralaya books and meditation beads.

Inside, Zen stopped just past the threshold, blinking at the light like it hurt. “Home,” she murmured flatly.

“Yes,” Xen said, guiding her gently towards the bathroom. “Let’s get you warm.”

As Xen leaned over the tub, Zen urgently shut and locked the bathroom door behind them, sealing them in the confined space.  The sound of running water filled the silence. Steam began to rise, slow and ghostly, curling up the tiled walls.

Xen turned to find Zen motionless, still clutching the jacket around her, every breath a visible shiver.

Xen closed the distance, whispering “Your safe now. I got you.”

Zen nodded slowly, brown eyes wide and glistening.

Xen reached out, easing the jacket off Zen’s shoulders.  Then she began to peel the tattered lace away from her pallid skin, still tacky with sweat and grime.  Xen’s gaze scanned every scrape and bruise intently; what looked like claw marks scored one of the modest breasts, a garish purple blotch blooming across her hips, fingernails cracked and chipped, plenty of other marks but nothing deep, or serious.

“It’s just surface wounds,” Xen said, straightening to brush her thumb across Zen’s cheek, further smudging one of the black mascara smears. “Let’s get you in the tub.”

Zen nodded again, her eyes unfocused, tears glittering along the lashes, but watching Xen with need and affection.

“Noctis…” Zen began, her lips forming words her voice didn’t quite have the strength for, “we have to-”

 “We will,” Xen said. “Don’t think about that now. Just breathe. And get in this warm tub.”

She helped Zen step into the water, and the sound that escaped the battered woman was half a moan, half a sob, her body remembering what warm felt like. She immediately sank in up to her nose.  Her wide brown eyes stayed anchored on Xen though.

Gradually, steam filled the air, blurring the edges of everything. The small bathroom transformed into something intimate, almost sacred around them. Around only them.

Seeing Zen beginning to relax at last, Xen let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She took a moment to peel off her own costume, shedding the plastic and sticky vinyl until she stood in just bra and panties, skin flushed from the heat and relief.

“Going to join me?” Zen asked, her lips just breaking the surface long enough for a meek smile.

Xen huffed a laugh. “Feeling like yourself again?”

Zen nodded faintly, chin dipping into the water. “You center me,” she murmured, her voice bubbling on the last word as she sank back beneath the surface.

Kneeling beside the tub, Xen watched the cloudy water swirl with softened grime, the last traces of Zen’s ordeal dissolving into dingy, brown murk.

“Maybe once you’re clean, and we’ve swapped out the water.” Xen reached for the washcloth.

She wiped carefully along Zen’s shoulders, down her arm, one then the other.  She rubbed away the blood and slime from the smooth curve of her back. Each cleansing stroke drew a small sigh, a soft release of tension.  Zen leaned more and more into her touch, and beginning to help wash herself as well, getting the places Xen couldn’t quite reach.

The sounds of the city stayed far away, the two women wrapped in the hush of water and breath. Zen’s eyes fluttered, meeting Xen’s, no longer lit with terror, but something warmer, something that shortened the space between them.

When the water cooled, Xen stood, drained the tub, and let it refill with fresh heat. Then, wordlessly, she stripped the rest of the way, dropping her bra and panties beside the tub. Steam ghosted across her skin as she stepped in behind Zen, lowering herself into the water. Her arms slipped easily around Zen’s ribs, drawing her close until they were pressed together, breasts to back, heartbeat to heartbeat.

Zen leaned back into her with a faint, trembling sigh, the sound total relief, gratitude, and need. Warmth enveloped them both, steam curling in the air like breath shared between lovers, and for the first time since stepping into Sanctum Noctis, the tremors in Zen’s soul began to fade.

Zen melted in Xen’s arms, wet hair curling over her naked breasts, her breath smoothing, her muscles finally unclenching. Xen held her close, hands roaming gently, tracing slow circles along her ribs and hips, down the length of her thigh. The tenderness steadied them both. Zen’s body was smaller in her arms, soft and shivering, but the warmth between them was steady, grounding.

“Better?” Xen murmured, sweeping damp curls from Zen’s ear.

Zen nodded faintly, eyes still shut. “We have to stop her,” she whispered.

“Who?”

“She called herself Lady Noctis…”

Zen couldn’t see how Xen’s pupils dilated.

“I think she’s a vampire,” Zen finished.

Xen tensed, a flicker of red behind her eyelids, a flicker of something that wasn’t quite memory. “That’s not possible, is it?” she said, though her voice felt distant in her own mouth.

“I know it sounds crazy, but…” Finally Zen felt grounded enough to explain everything that had happened since splitting up on the dance floor; her nearly hypnotic encounter with the maleficent woman, the trap door, the catacombs, the horde of hollowed creatures… The words came in bursts, speeding up with each fragile syllable.  By the time she finished, she was shaking again.

Xen hushed her, pressing a soft kiss to her temple and stroking her sides. “Shh. It’s okay, Jams. Vampires aren’t real.”

Zen pulled back slightly, twisting to face her.  “What?”

“Vampires, they’re just myths, legends, stories,” she said, but the words came too smoothly, too automatically. They felt given to her, rather than spoken by her own will.

“You…you don’t believe me?”

“It’s not that,” Xen said, “but I think maybe you got overstimulated by the psychic storm in there, I know that can happen to you Taralaya and that place was pretty intense.”

“Xenobia!” Zen’s voice cracked, wounded, “That isn’t, I mean, yes that can happen, but that isn’t what happened! Don’t you believe me?”

“Of course, I…” Xen blinked, the thought dissolving as quickly as it formed. “I believe something happened to you, obviously it did, but come on Jams…vampires? Zombies?”

“They weren’t zombies!” Zen snapped, “they were…well, I’m not sure, thralls maybe? Something worse?  I tried to cleanse one and- wait! She knew who I was! Asked about you! Did you-did she-”

In a sudden fresh panic Zen turned onto her knees, pushing Xen’s head to the side, brushing back her ombré-ed hair and scanning her neck frantically for puncture marks.

“Whoa! Easy,” Xen caught her hand, a little sharper than she intended. “Are you really looking for bite marks right now? There’s no such thing as vampires.” Her blue eyes flashed, a steel edge in her voice that wasn’t entirely her own. “It was just the psychic emotional tension. The music, the booze, definitely some elicit drugs, everybody raw and lusting. That’s all!”

Zen recoiled at the harshness in her tone, surprise and hurt flickering across her face.

Xen winced, softening, realizing too late. She released Zen’s wrist and stroked her cheek, her voice gentler. “Hey. Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. You’ve been through hell. Let’s just… breathe. Clear our heads.”

Xen’s arms tightened gently, drawing Zen back against her chest.  Zen let herself settle back into the warmth of the embrace, hurt giving way to exhaustion.  Closing her eyes again, Zen tried to center herself, again…Xen suddenly not quite the anchor she had been.

“It’s okay,” Xen murmured, softer this time, although Zen sensed a bit of patronizing in her tone. “You’re safe. I got you.”  Somewhere deep down, beneath thought and reason, a voice whispered; Yes, that’s it. Keep her calm. Keep her quiet.

Zen’s voice was small.  “You got me, but you don’t believe me.”

“I believe…” Xen hesitated, something muddying her thoughts, maybe blocking them.  “I believe we’ll figure this out together.  Tomorrow, when we’re both thinking a little more clearly.”

Zen nodded faintly, too tired to argue further.

Xen cradled her closely, combing fingers through her soaking black curls, humming softly.

The tune wasn’t hers though, no childhood lullaby she drew upon, it was something more modern.  Something from a dance she couldn’t quite remember.  But it tugged at her thoughts like the echoes of a dream, a sexy corset and deep dark eyes she could not escape, and a kiss that still burned on her lips.  And even as she reveled in the memory, she could not bring it fully to the surface of her thoughts.

So she simply pressed her cheek against Zen’s curls, whispering, “I’ve got you. Always.”

Steam curled around them, the bathwater cradling their entwined bodies. They snuggled closer, warm skin to warm skin, lovers seeking solace. Yet even in that closeness, they were each suddenly alone.

Chapter Eight

The creature of the night who had once been called Madame Laveau Dreamont and who now called herself Lady Noctis, stalked through the back corridors of her sanctum, boots echoing in the damp stone passageways. The air still throbbed faintly with fading bass, as her head still throbbed faintly with the psychic cry that had cracked her glamour, an intrusion that left her lips tingling, and her hunger sharpened.

For all her power and intelligence, the superheroine called Xen Electrica had fallen into thrall like a lamb, offering not even a spark of resistance. But that little Taralaya bitch had called, and Xenobia had answered.

In her experience the Taralaya had been a monkish sisterhood, reclusive scholars, teachers, mystics even, but not fighters.  To claw her way out of the catacombs and her ghoulish thralls was no small feat.  Perhaps she had underestimated that one, Zen Empathica.  Two superheroines, bound by -ugh- love, and stronger together… this year’s hunt was going to be more fun than she expected after all.  The vampiress’s ruby lips curled, her tongue darting across them at the thought.

Behind her came a stumble, a giggle, the sound of young bodies bumping together. She turned, a smirk tugging far enough to bare the tips of her fangs.

Two fresh thralls followed.  A young man, broad-shouldered in a pilot costume, cap askew, eyes dreamy and unfocused behind his aviators.  At his side clung a young woman in a too-short nurse’s dress, stockings beginning to fall, her lips slack and parted, pupils wide and glamoured. They looked drunk but the truth was their wills were nothing but strings Lady Noctis pulled with a crook of her finger.

She led them through velvet curtains, black and red, into a sanctum that was hers alone: half bordello, half chamber of delights…and tortures.

Velvet benches lined with cuffs and whips, racks gleaming with steel toys and restraints. Heavy iron chains hung from the ceiling, their links polished smooth by centuries of struggling hands. The bed at the center was a decadent thing with pillows piled high, sheets the color of wine, and posts that had been carved with cavorting figures resembling both angels and demons.  The air was thick with the scent of sweat, lust and iron. The floor bore stains that had seeped too deep to scrub.

Lady Noctis leaned against one of the bedposts, her tongue gliding across her lips once more. Now she let her eyes travel hungrily over the pair. Young, beautiful, helpless.  Just enough to take the edge off the hunger that had been stoked and denied by the superheroines.

“Strip,” she commanded.

The thralls obeyed.

The pilot reached for the nurse, tugging at her buttons, his hands clumsy with lust, his cock already swelling beneath his costume.  The nurse giggled again as he peeled the white fabric open, exposing the swell of her breasts to the humid air. She reached back for him, undoing buckles, pushing his jacket down his arms. Their movements were eager and dreamlike, their eyes glittering with a desire that was not their own.

The vampiress prowled onto her bed, crossing her long gleaming legs, lace and leather gleaming against her dark bronze skin. She watched them like a queen surveying her dancers -or rather a lion surveying the herd- her hunger rising as the nurse slid down the pilot’s pants and the pilot tugged the stockings from her smooth thighs.

“Now kiss,” Lady Noctis commanded.

Their mouths met, wet and needy, tongues tangling in excitement but when they moaned, it was not for each other, it was for her, their vampiric mistress.

She licked her lips, savoring it. Yes, this was the appetizer to her main course. The feast would be the heroines, beautiful and bright, broken and remade in her arms. She thought back across the decades, to the cities she had bled: Capital City in the roaring twenties, Paris during the war, Rio at carnival. Sanctum Noctis had been her invention, her moving altar.  It had always been so easy.  Each October she struck, each Halloween her brethren would join her to feast, and then she and Sanctum Noctis vanished into shadow and legend, or now rather, urban myth.

She had chosen Saint Falls this year because of them. The two heroines, a power couple, no doubt. To conquer them would be more than a feast, it would be indulgent, it would be art.

Her hunger flared sharp. She was done waiting.

Lady Noctis moved like a shadow springing from the bed, her boots striking the floor only once before she was on him. The young pilot gasped, his enthralled smile widening even as her hands pinned him. Her fangs sank deep into his throat, and hot blood gushed over her lips. She drank greedily, the sweetness of youth and lust flooding her mouth. His body jerked once, then slackened. She dropped him without care, lifeless, already forgotten.

The nurse trembled, naked now, her stockings bunched around her ankles, body flushed. She knew the danger, her eyes were wide with it, but she could not move, not while vampire’s glamour chained her in place.

Lady Noctis turned, blood dripping from her lips down her chin to splatter across her heaving breasts. Her fanged smile gleamed in the candlelight.

“Your turn,” she growled.

The nurse whimpered as she was shoved onto the bed, the red sheets slipping under her skin. The vampiress prowled over her, straddling her hips, hands tracing her trembling ribs, the soft curves of her breasts, the heat slick between her thighs. The girl moaned in terror and in ecstasy, writhing under the predator’s touch, her body as much a plaything as her will.

Lady Noctis leaned close, her tongue tasting the pulse at the young woman’s throat. She dragged her nails down soft flesh, leaving pink scratches. She teased her with lips and teeth, bringing her trembling body to the edge of climax, the whimpering cries muffled against the pillows.

Then vampiress bared her fangs.

The girl’s eyes fluttered open just in time to see the glint of ivory in the candlelight. Her moan broke into a scream as Lady Noctis struck, teeth sinking deep into her throat. Blood flowed, hot and pulsing, the bed blooming with red as the vampiress drank deeply, sucking life and lust in one terrible communion.

Women tasted so much better on the verge of orgasm…

Still the vampire’s hunger roared, true satisfaction unsated. And her mind, even in the ecstasy of feeding, whispered of what was to come.

Two heroines. Two hearts. Two bodies in her claws.

And this was only rehearsal.

Chapter Nine

Xen started awake.

For a moment she didn’t know where she was. Her chest heaved, her skin damp with sweat. She sat up in bed, flushed, rubbing her neck. There was a dull ache there, tender to the touch, had she slept on it wrong?  Probably Zen’s minimalist platform bed, it barely had any cushioning.  Stranger though was the warmth blooming low in her belly, a pulsing glow that refused to fade. Her thighs pressed together under the covers, as she dug her palms into her sleepy eyes.

“Jams,” she whispered to no answer. “Jamesina?”  Opening her eyes, she realized the bed beside her was empty.

Xen slid from the sheets, tugging on a loose tee from the floor. Her hair was a tangle, her skin still humming with phantom heat as she padded barefoot into the living room.

Zen was curled on the couch, shawl wrapped loosely around her shoulders, curls tumbling down around her face as she hunched over her laptop. A mug of nine mushroom tea steamed in her hands. She looked up at Xen with tired eyes, but smiled faintly.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she confessed. “Didn’t want to wake you.”

“You okay?” Xen asked, moving closer.

Zen nodded. “I meditated. Centered. I feel much better now.”

Relief softened Xen’s chest. “Good.”

Zen sipped her tea, then set it aside. “You were right. It wasn’t zombies under Sanctum Noctis.”

Xen raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Vampires create thralls. Or ghouls. That’s what they were. Hollow, drained people used as puppets.”

Xen’s jaw clenched before she realized it, an irritation she couldn’t explain, a heat that wasn’t anger so much as a sharp pang in the back of her mind, souring her concern into sudden annoyance.  “So you’ve been up all night… researching vampires.”

The word “vampire” scraped at her nerves like feedback she couldn’t tune out, or explain.

Zen closed the laptop halfway. “I had to know. The Taralaya texts—”

“Jams.” Xen’s tone sharpened. “Don’t.”

Zen blinked. “Don’t what? Don’t try to understand what we’re up against? That…monster-”

“Don’t-” Xen folded her arms. “-act like fairy tales are real.”

“You still don’t believe me.”

“I believe you got overwhelmed by a psychic storm, isn’t that what you call it,” Xen thought she sounded more sincere than she did. “And that something happened to you under that cathedral, I cleaned your wounds remember.  But ghouls? Vampires, monsters? It’s ridiculous.”

Zen flinched, her lips parting. “As ridiculous as a woman who shoots lightning from her fingers?”

“That’s different!” Xen snapped. “I’m a product of science.”

Zen’s eyes narrowed, turning back to the laptop. “Mad science.”

“My father was a brilliant man!”

“So was Doctor Frankenstein.”

The silence between them screamed.

Xen marched back into the bedroom, found a pair of joggers and began tugging them on. “I think you need to do some more centering, Jams!”

“If you’ll just listen to me,” Zen huffed, “and come look at what I found in the texts-”

“You know I respect your Taralaya superstitions,” Xen was headed past the couch, a pair of borrowed flipflops flapping, “but they aren’t going to convince me that ghosts and goblins are real.”

“Superstitions?” Zen recoiled, her brown eyes snapping up again.

“I didn’t mean…” Xen hesitated at the door, but the heat in her subconscious flared again. It wasn’t anger exactly, and some how it didn’t even feel like her own—but it made her want to move, to leave, to be anywhere else. “We can discuss this when you’ve come to your senses.”

The door slammed behind her.

Zen sat frozen. Confused.  Hurt.  Then the tears came, hot and sudden. She pressed her hands over her face, shaking.  Xen had never spoken to her like that before. Never dismissed her, never mocked her.

It wasn’t Xen.

It couldn’t be.

It must be that place!  Must be Lady Noctis.  That vampire bitch must have gotten to my Xen while I was trapped in the catacombs!  And my resonance has been so frayed I didn’t even notice she’d been…  Zen choked on a sob, and couldn’t finish the thought.  Not yet.

Breathing –inhale – exhale – focus!- Zen wiped her eyes and drew the laptop back onto her knees. If Xen really was under the sway of that monster, then Zen had to find answers herself, and fast.

She couldn’t bear the thought of losing Xen—not like this, not to that creature of the night.  Whatever veil the vampire had woven, Zen would unravel it, thread by bloody thread.

The next few hours blurred together.  There wasn’t much to be found in the Taralaya teachings about vampires. All of the common lore was there; aversion to silver and garlic, hypnotic glamour, destroyed in sunlight, the drinking of blood.  Undead parasites. But the texts treated them as something to be avoided, not fought. Not stopped.  It wasn’t even clear if there were practices that could reverse enthrallment or restore the hollowed auras of their ghoulish victims.

But I was able to block her glamour, Zen remembered. If I can block it in myself, then surely I can break it in another!

Nex she began digging through the world wide web.  Not for vampire lore, it would obviously be impossible to shift through all the legends, stories, movies, media -what have you- looking for “truth.”  Instead, she was searching for information on Lady Noctis and her sanctum.  Zen scoured forum threads, conspiracy blogs, and archived news clippings. Most were fragments, rumors, digital whispers of “the rave that no one remembers.” Threads that started with passion, or confusion, and ended in silence.

Then she found it, a site dedicated entirely to the Legend of Sanctum Noctis.
Its front page was a mess of broken links on black background. Red text scrolling too fast to read, as a glitchy digital track stuttered through laptop speakers. She muted that.

Grainy photos of fog-shrouded buildings and masked dancers filled the sidebar.  There were images of half-corrupted document scans, and pictures of shredded police reports.  Witness testimonies blurred fact and hysteria.  The whole site jumped between real disappearances, urban legends, and conspiracy theory.

Each click promised revelation, but delivered mostly paranoia, a digital mausoleum of obsession, warning of a club that should not exist, yet somehow always did.

Every October.

And yet, to Zen, the pattern was undeniable, a city would whisper of a new club, sometimes in a derelict warehouse, or a shuttered asylum, or abandoned cathedral.

Then by Halloween night, the whispers always turned into disappearances: drifters of course, but also students, party kids chasing the next thrill, even couples purportedly having gone out for a little spooky-season fun.

And by November first, the city remembered nothing.

No club. No address. No permits.

With no records to trace, witnesses were dismissed by authorities, and investigations quietly dissolved. City officials only smiled and rolled their eyes when questioned, insisting the place had never existed at all.

Sanctum Noctis appeared, it feasted, it vanished.

Urban legend. Creepypasta.

And this year, it had come to Saint Falls.

Zen sat back, her hands trembling on the keyboard. Her mind whirled, but her heart was steady. There was no denying it now. Lady Noctis wasn’t just a vampire, she was part of something older, wider. A cycle that had gone on for decades.  Who knows, maybe even longer.

And unless I can get Xen to actually listen to me…I may be the only one who can stop it!

Chapter Ten

Zen flowed into Warrior Pose, her body an unbroken line of grace and strength. Her arms stretched wide, fingertips reaching out with energy, inky curls spilling down her back like water.   Lavender leggings hugged her hips and thighs, under a matching tank cropped to reveal her taut, tan midriff, which glistened faintly with sweat beneath the soft studio lights.

“Lift from the heart,” her voice was calm, low and resonant. “Ground through your hips. Let your spirit settle as you draw energy upward from the earth beneath you.”

The class mirrored her, a forest of bodies breathing as one. Zen inhaled deeply, exhaled through parted lips, her every movement liquid. For a few heartbeats she lost herself in it – the rhythm, the silence between breaths.  But her mind remained restless.

She and Xen hadn’t spoken since the fight. She’d sent a half-hearted apology text, not really sorry but hoping to bridge the gap, to feel that thread between them pulse again. No reply. Not even a read receipt.

Her throat tightened. She moved the class into Downward Dog, letting the stretch ripple through her spine. Her hips rose, curving, the motion sensual and relaxing, in spite of her tension.

“Breathe in, hold it at the top then breathe out slow. Ground through your heels,” she murmured, steady for them if not for herself.

The day passed in ritual fragments, three classes, two aura-cleansings, music, incense, polite smiles. Normalcy as performance.  And it felt good after her ordeal, the regular routine.  It felt grounding. But beneath it all, she was waiting for one student in particular. Marissa.

The girl’s aura had once been bright and pink like her friends, but after a visit to Sanctum Noctis, she had come back hollow and distant.  But not completely.  She hadn’t been a “ghoul” when they’d all gone to the coffee shop, that night this all began.  Perhaps there was still time to rejuvenate her aura, pull her back from the vampire’s thrall.

And then perhaps, Zen would also be able to gain some insight into how that vampiric glamour worked…how she could rescue her lover from Lady Noctis monstrous hunger.

But as the final mats rolled out for the evening class, and the door closed, Zen’s hope curdled.

No Marissa.

Ashley was there, and the other girls, their leggings trendy and pastel, ponytails bobbing, cheerful as ever.

“Haven’t seen Marissa since the coffee shop,” Ashley said lightly, unrolling her mat. Oblivious as ever.

“That lazy whore,” Katie teased.

“We’ve got to go for a latte again after class,” Brooke chimed.

But Zen’s blood was running cold, though her smile never faltered. “Could you lead tonight?” she asked Ashley, voice gentle but clipped.

The girl blinked. “Me?”

“You’ve been practicing long enough. You’ll do beautifully.”  Zen squeezed the girl’s shoulder warmly, reassuring, although she was already halfway gone. “Trust yourself,” she said, snatching her jacket and phone.

By the time the door clicked shut behind her, she was already pulling up Marissa’s address, her pulse thrumming as she fought to control her rising fear.

Marissa’s place was a narrow two-story brick house tucked between older row homes on a quiet street just east of downtown. Porch lights glowed dimly behind overgrown hedges. The kind of in-between block where young professionals and night-shift workers lived alone.

And it was all too quiet.

Zen slipped in through the side door, her heart hammering. Everything was neat. Counters wiped clean, no dishes, no clothes left strewn.  No lights on.

“Marissa?” she called softly.

No answer.

She took a quick glance around the kitchen, then into the living room, the hair raising on her arms. Everything felt… vacant. The air carried no warmth, no trace of presence, just a faint emotional static that prickled along Zen’s senses. The empath recognized it instantly.  The Taralaya called it Eclipsera, the emotional waning when a place is abandoned. Whatever life had been in this house -laughter, frustration, routine- had begun to fade.

Her stomach knotted.

Zen closed her eyes, pressing her palm over her heart, drawing a slow breath to steady her aura, attuning herself to the dimming resonance of this home.  She felt the house in layers, like heat waves rippling through her chest. Downstairs was dull and cold, a psychic void. But above, something was still clinging. A presence, an aura, weak and flickering, like a candle sputtering in the dark.

Zen’s opened her eyes and headed upstairs, every step deliberate, breath shallow, heart pounding.

She found Marissa in the bedroom.  Standing by the far wall, in her workout leggings and a hoodie, the same outfit she’d worn to the coffee shop.  Her dark hair was hanging limp around her face.  She was perfectly still.

“Marissa?” Zen whispered. She stepped closer, touching her arm gently.  “Marissa, it’s me. It’s Jamesina.”

The woman’s head turned slowly, inhumanly so.  The rest of her body did not move.  Did not twist, did not lean.  Her eyes looked but there was nothing behind them.

Zen stepped back on instinct, chills and gooseflesh rippling down her back under that hollow stare.

Without a word, without so much as a blink, Marissa’s head turned back towards the wall.  The silence pressed in, thick and unnatural. The longer Zen looked, the more wrong it became.  She realized Marissa wasn’t facing a wall at random. She was facing in the direction of Sanctum Noctis.

Dread coiled in Zen’s gut. “Don’t worry, Marissa, I’m going to help you.”  She spoke more to break the oppressive silence, than in any hope the girl would hear her.

Steeling her resolve, Zen stepped forward again, this time gripping both of Marissa’s shoulders.  Closing her eyes, the empath summoned resonance. “Come back to me, friend,” she whispered, “and let me cleanse you.”

Inhale – exhale- resonate. Zen tried to attune her aura to the flickering remnant of Marissa’s.  There was so little left, her chakras nearly stilled…but she found them.  She reached for them, pouring her aura into Marissa, trying to replenish, to refill.

And then Marissa turned.  Zen’s eyes opened, hoping to see life returning to the girl’s.  Instead, her face twisted feral.

Marissa shrieked before Zen could react and shoved the woman away.  As Zen staggered back, the hollowed girl lunged, fingers raking like claws.  

Zen gasped in horror, caught completely off guard, arms coming up as the girl slashed at her.  “Marissa, stop!”

The words broke off as Marissa drove her back, nails tearing at her arms, teeth gnashing, her throat emitting gurgled snarls.  Zen backpedaled, but cried out as Marissa seized and slammed her into the dresser!  Zen sprawled onto the floor with a grunt, and the crazed girl pounced.

Hands clawed, her thick curls were viciously yanked. For a heartbeat Zen was back in the catacombs, the horde tearing, dragging… She screamed in panic, raw trauma crowding back into her mind.  She began shoving wildly to get out from under the attack.

Scrabbling to her feet, Zen dashed for the door.  Marissa lunged after, tackling the empath with enough force they both pitched down the stairs in a painful tumble.

Marissa snarled and growled.

Zen gasped and grunted.

They both landed in a heap.

Desperation and terror drove Zen back to her feet, untangling herself as the crazed Marissa thrashed aimlessly.  Zen started to dash for the front door-

No.

She stopped herself, and forced a deliberate exhale.  I’m not some scared final girl in a movie! I am Zen Empathica.

She turned to face the snarling Marissa, who had now regained her bearings -or at least, her aim.

Inhale – exhale – steady.

The next attack came wild, reckless, and Zen dodged it easily.  Twisting as she did to plant her knee in Marissa’s stomach. The girl wheezed even in her rage, and staggered.  Now Zen lunged, fist swinging. The punch cracked across Marissa’s jaw, dropping her to the floor, unconscious.

Zen stood panting over her, hair wild, chest heaving, sweat dripping down her temple.

“How’s that for basic, you bitch!” Zen snapped, adrenaline still pumping, then, “Oh, blast it…”

She dropped to her knees beside the girl, checking her pulse, pressing fingers against her throat. Weak but steady. Still breathing.

But she felt something else under her fingertips.  Something positioned conspicuously along the line of that pulse.  Something that made Zen’s stomach twisted.  She tilted Marissa’s head and brushed back her hair, and in the dim moonlight pouring in through a kitchen window, she could just make out the bite mark, two small punctures, some light bruising.

Zen recoiled with a gasp of horror and dread.  She’d known, she was sure, but…seeing it confirmed.

“Vampire,” Zen hissed, alone in the dark.  “Then it’s true.”  Without knowing exactly why, she brushed Marissa’s hair back over the wound. “Forgive me,” Zen whispered, “But know that I’ll do what I can to save you, or at least make sure that vampire bitch can’t hurt anyone else!”

Zen stood, trembling slightly as the adrenaline began to pump anew. She didn’t look back as she fled the house.

On the street, the cold air hit like a slap. She knew, now, with certainty and horror, not just that a vampire had come to Saint Falls…but that her Taralaya cleansing wasn’t enough. Whatever power Lady Noctis had ran deep, perhaps too deep.

And if Xen truly is- has already been- Zen’s throat tightened painfully at the thought -the realization- she might not be able to save her lover.  In some legends, destroying the vampire frees her thralls…and if not, at least the monstrous bitch will never be able to terrorize another city.

Chapter Eleven

Xen sat at her kitchen table, laptop open, a half-empty energy drink sweating beside it.

She’d dug everywhere she could think to dig and found no permits for the club. No liquor license on file. No public record of the cathedral ever being purchased or leased. No property record of any kind she could pin down.

Sanctum Noctis existed in every street corner conversation, but nowhere on paper.

Even the articles of missing people that had brought this all to her attention in the first place had been deleted. 

Maybe that means the people have been found? She considered, but somehow that seemed unlikely.

And as for Lady Noctis herself, the supposed “vampire”? Nothing but the same silly “urban legends” Zen had texted her about.

Unease twisted inside of Xen.  She ran a hand through her brown hair and sighed, pressing her fingers against her temples.

Why is Jams so stuck on this nonsense? And why am I so against it?  I usually trust her intuition and insight.  Maybe if she believes it, there’s a reason… Xen frowned, glancing towards her phone. She knew she needed to call Zen. They needed to get back on the same page, but why did it feel like there was so much space between them since that night?  She missed her.  This was silly, Xen knew the sanctum meant bad news, so why weren’t they working together like they always did?

She reached for her phone but her hand froze and all those thoughts dissipated like smoke in a strong wind.

What was I going to do?

A knock at the door.

Xen blinked.  Who could that be?  Glancing towards the window, she realized it was dark out.  Who would knocking so late? And geez, how did it get so late?

She stood before her mind caught up and headed for the door.  Xen was wearing a plain tank top, no bra, and a pair of comfy shorts that had her long legs on display.  Her stomach stirred nervously even as she crossed the living room on bare feet.

When she opened the door, she froze.

Lady Noctis stood there in wicked resplendence, black and red lace clinging to her magnificent breasts, and tracing the curves of her powerful body. That black leather miniskirt hugged her hips over fishnet sheathed legs, her combat boots planted firm. Her two-tone pixie cut gleamed black and blood-red under the hallway light, her skin dark and smooth as polished mahogany. Her lips were crimson, curved in a smile that promised all manner of dark things.

Xen’s chest squeezed as the vampire’s dark eyes enveloped her. For a moment, she couldn’t even breathe.

“I’ve been thinking about you,” Lady Noctis said, her staccato voice sending a rush down Xen’s spine.

“M-me?” she swallowed.

That wicked smile sharpened. “of course, so much power and beauty, how could I not?”

“I…I mean…” Xen blushed, her eyes locked by that dark gaze. “I’ve been thinking of you too.”

“Indeed.  Won’t you invite me in?”

“Invite…?” Xen’s brow furrowed. Something about the word snagged at her mind, tugged at unease. Why did this feel dangerous?

Lady Noctis tilted her head. “Or should I leave?”

“No!” The word tore out before Xen could think. “Come in, please.”

That crimson grin widened as she stepped inside. The air shifted with her, becoming heavier, hotter, charged.  She shut the door behind her, those piercing eyes slithering down Xen’s body.

Her pale skin flushed as she backed up, suddenly aware of the tank top clinging to her braless breasts, of the short shorts hugging her hips.

Lady Noctis prowled towards her, that gaze quickly scanning the apartment. It was all sharp angles and clean lines, a desk cluttered with soldering tools and empty energy drinks, notebooks.  The air holding a faint trace of ozone from burnt circuits. City lights from outside spilled through the blinds in pale stripes that cut across the walls.

“So this is where the mettlesome Electrica hides her spark,” a teasing smile lifted the corners of her crimson lips. “Not quite what I expected of a superheroine’s headquarters.”

“It serves its purpose,” was all Xen could manage. 

“I imagine it does,” Lady Noctis replied.  “And where is your little partner, the impetuous Taralaya?”

“She’s not here,” Xen replied quickly – instead of realizing that this woman, vampire or not, knew too much.

Lady Noctis arched a black brow, elegant and intent. Her tongue slipped out, gliding across her lower lip, slow enough to command Xen’s full attention. Watching that languid motion seemed to tighten everything in the heroine, her breath, her fragile composure, even the small peaks of her breasts beneath the thin stretch of her top.

With an anxious gulp, Xen rushed to fill the silence. “We still keep separate places,” she explained, unsure why the words kept spilling out for this woman. “Though we spend most nights togeth—” She caught herself, flustered, turning away and trying to wrangle her thoughts back in line. “Can I get you a drink?”  She yanked the fridge open, the sterile glow lighting rows of neon-colored energy drinks.

“Oh, I’m going to have a drink.,” Lady Noctis purred, her voice suddenly at Xen’s ear-

Xen jolted, turning to find the dark woman mere inches away, the cold air spilling around their ankles. How had she crossed the room so fast? So silent…

“But not any of that,” Noctis shut the fridge with a lazy push.

“W-water?” Xen stammered.

“No.”

Xen started to retreat, but sharp-nailed fingers caught her by the chin, angling her face upward until her blue eyes fell into that abyssal gaze once more.  Those dark alluring eyes filled her vision, they seemed bottomless, drawing her like gravity.  Deeper.  Falling.

There was the faintest whisper of warning behind Xen’s temples, Zen’s voice in the back of her head; “Vampire.” But the thought barely formed before it sank into that inexorable gaze and dissolved.

Xen’s world seemed to narrow, every breath became a shiver.  Her muscles loosened. Her lips parted. The room blurred to shadow and the pulse of her heart, suddenly thumping hard and loud between her and Lady Noctis.

“I have been thirsting for you since our night at the sanctum,” the woman groaned, her voice rich as dark red wine.

“Th- thirsting?”

“As though lost in a desert.”

Xen felt herself leaning forward, the pull of this maleficent woman like gravity.  Her heart racing, her blood throbbing in her ears.  Lady Noctis slid a strong hand about her tight little waist, drawing them together until Xen’s soft breasts squeezed against her own.

“Have you not thirsted for me just the same, Xenobia?”

“Yes!” Xen moaned, “Y-yes…I have…”

It felt like truth, whether or not it was.  An insidious yearning had been hiding within Xen, growing in her thoughts like a poisonous weed; making her snap at Zen, making her dismissive of the woman she loved.  Now it clawed to the surface, blooming into hunger.  A vine coiling around her heart until the only thing that felt real was the pull of the woman before her, giving Xen over completely to the vampire’s thrall.

Guilt and fear fluttered at the edge of Xen’s thoughts, small and fragile, like moths beating against glass. Somewhere deep inside she knew this was wrong, knew that Lady Noctis was danger dressed in leather and lace.  She tried to summon Zen’s voice, Zen’s steady calm, but it came to her muffled, fading beneath the hum in her blood. The air thickened; her pulse slowed, then quickened, as if her heartbeat now followed the rhythm of Lady Noctis’s breathing. If she even breathed.  The world tilted toward her, and reason slipped. Whatever power this woman held, it was threading into Xen’s mind, weaving through her nerves, until all she knew was desire.

And when those predatory crimson lips found hers, claimed hers, the world simply fell away.

The kiss hit like voltage, pleasure and paralysis woven together. Every nerve in Xen’s body lit up, her breath caught somewhere between a gasp and a moan. Thought and reason unraveled. The rhythm of her heartbeat no longer belonged to her, it beat for Lady Noctis, answering the relentless throb of the vampire’s hunger.

As her lips parted to an invading tongue, Xen’s mind blurred at the edges. Her consciousness thinned into the dark warmth of the kiss. She clung to Lady Noctis’s muscled ribs, not in resistance, but as though anchoring herself to the only real thing left. Their tongues danced, tangled, moved in a rhythm, and Xen could feel the pull of something powerful and hungry drawing her deeper with every breath.

Xen could no longer help but lean into the powerful woman, trembling as Lady Noctis drew her closer. Cool hands slid up her back, deliberate and possessive, pulling her in until every soft curve of her body molded against the vampire’s cold, perfect form. The contrast of heat and chill made her shiver, nipples tightening as her breasts pressed to the unyielding silk of Noctis’s corset. The chill of the vampire’s skin only seemed to stoke the fever beneath Xen’s—each brush, each caress another loop in the invisible noose tightening around her. The more she tried to think clearly, the deeper she sank, warmth flooding her cheeks, her neck, the slow burn spreading down through her hips until thought itself was nothing but heat and desire.

Lady Noctis’s hand seized Xen’s ombré hair like a claw, wrenching her head back and breaking the kiss. She licked her lips, slow and savoring, gazing down at the dazed heroine with eyes that burned like eclipsed suns. The motion alone made Xen tremble.

“Look at me,” Lady Noctis growled, her voice a velvet command that allowed no disobedience. “Tell me what you see.”

“You…” Xen’s lips parted, the words spilling out before her thoughts could catch them. “You’re the most stunning woman I’ve ever met.”

The vampiress smiled, a slow curl of pleasure, fingers trailing down Xen’s flushed cheek to the hollow of her throat in a caress that felt like ownership. “Even more so than your little Taralaya witch?”

“Yes,” Xen whispered, the sound catching, breaking. She didn’t want to mean it…but the glamour made the words feel right, inevitable. True. “She’s nothing compared to you.”

Noctis’s grin widened, her nails pressing lightly at Xen’s pulse. “And you?”

“I am nothing,” Xen breathed, eyes wide and glassy, “if not yours.”

“Mine.”

“Yours.”

With a cackle of triumph, Lady Noctis shoved her back against the fridge.  Xen gasped with the impact and before she could react, the vampire’s hands were clawing, tearing apart her flimsy tank top.  Her large breasts heaved and bobbed as they were bared, dark nipples stiffening in the sudden rush of air.  Xen did not resist nor even want to, she arched her back presenting the luscious globes to Lady Noctis.  The vampires seized them in both her powerful hands with a growl.  She squeezed them tightly making Xen moan and arch further as sparks shot through her chest.  Noctis groped and mashed the tender flesh with enough force the heavy appliance rocked behind her.

“Good girl,” the vampiress hissed, once more pinning Xen with that crushing gaze.  She grinned wickedly, hungrily, finally bearing her fangs to the now hapless thrall.  “Now remove your shorts!”

There was just enough of Xen left to realize; Vampire, Zen was right. But then her hands moved on their own, hooking her thumbs into the waistband, shoving the denim off of her slender hips…even as Lady Noctis continued mauling her heavy, sensitive breasts.  As the shorts fell down her long legs, Xen lifted into those groping hands with breathless gasps.

Lady Noctis glanced down.  Xen was now wearing nothing but a pair of black cotton panties. Keeping one hand clamped on a luscious breast, Noctis dropped the other between Xen’s thighs.  Xen spread her legs automatically.  Sharp-fingered nails pressed over mound, rubbing already damp panties into her already wet cleft.

“You’re already wet for me, little heroine.”

“Y-yes, Lady Noctis, I am.”

“Call me Mistress.”

“Y-yes, Mistress.”

With a snarl the vampiress tore the panties from Xen’s hips, eliciting a yelp of surprise.  She was now fully naked.

Lady Noctis looked down again, feasting her eyes on the sight of Xen’s pretty little slit…and the patch of brown hair trimmed into the shape of a lightning bolt.

“Committed to the theme, aren’t we?” Noctis purred, stroking the downy strip.

“J- Jams… thinks it’s cute…” Xen sighed, hips shivering at her Mistress’s touch.

“Jams,” the vampires snarled, roughly seizing the entire mound, squeezing harshly until Xen shuddered and whimpered, a fresh spurt dripping over her powerful hand. “That Taralaya bitch? Will she think it’s so cute now that it’s mine?”

Her sudden jealous fury made Xen quiver in helpless fear.  One hand continued to knead her breast, while the other clawed between her thighs, shoving two sharp-nailed fingers past her slick folds and into her defenseless vagina.  Xen mewled as they dove inside, arching up onto her toes.  A wave of heat swept through her torso.

Lady Noctis began thrusting both fingers deep and hard, while still stroking the claw-like nail of her thumb over the little brunette lightning bolt.  If she actually desired an answer to her question, none was coming as Xen could only jerk and yelp with each quick, deep pump.

Noctis’s crimson grin widened, her fangs gleaming.  She worked the hapless heroine until warm juices dripped down the insides of her thighs, and her blue eyes glazed with lust and surrender.  Then she pulled her fingers out with a wet, slippery sound, leaving Xen weak and breathless and sagging against the fridge.

“And tell me,” Noctis hissed, licking at the juices clinging to her fingers, “has the empathic little mystic sensed you slipping under my power.”

“Yes, I- I think…” Xen panted, naked breasts heaving as she looked blearily up at her Mistress.  “I’ve been cold…dismissive…”

“Will she try to rescue you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to be rescued?”

Xen’s breath hitched, for the first time her feelings for Zen, her partner, her lover, broke the surface of the vampire’s glamour.  Just for a second, she hesitated -until Lady Noctis’s eyes crashed into her own once more.  The vampiric glamour taking hold and drowning the loyalty and affection she felt for Zen.

“Do you want to be rescued, Xenobia?”

“No, Mistress, I am yours and only yours-” Xen started and Lady Noctis cut her off with another bruising kiss.

Xen returned it now with fervor, moaning into the vampire’s mouth. The taste of iron and smoke, of something darker spread through her and her hands impulsively clutched at red and black corset.  She cupped and clutched the perfect breasts within, her fingers trembling with want, tracing the lacey edges, begging wordlessly.

Moving in a blur of grace and power, Lady Noctis caught Xen as though she weighed nothing, lifting her off the floor and slinging her effortlessly over one shoulder. The world spun around the naked heroine, the room sliding past in streaks of shadow and silver light. A gasp ripped from Xen’s throat, her muscles tensed, but the glamour had hollowed her strength, leaving only a thudding pulse of heat and surrender.  Her arms and legs went limp.

The vampire carried her down the hall, every step measured and deliberate, the air thickening with the weight of what waited beyond the half-open bedroom door. It was not passion that held Xen still, but the heavy, hypnotic certainty that she no longer belonged to herself.

When they reached her bed, Lady Noctis threw her down on the mattress with such power, Xen was bleakly thankful it was her own bed -large, cushy, and bouncy- and not the sparse platform style of Zen’s, which probably would have broken beneath her.

Such thoughts fled as Lady Noctis stepped back and began to strip.

The lace slid away first, her luscious brown breasts spilling free, full and heavy, tipped with dark, stiff peaks that seemed to demand worship. The corset unlaced, revealing the carved muscles of her stomach. Then she peeled down the black leather skirt unveiling the arch of her hips, the line of her thighs. Finally she deliberately and dramatically tore away the fishnets, fully baring her smooth calves, powerful thighs, and the dark triangle of her sex glistening at their apex.

She was magnificent. Terrible. Divine.

Xen’s breath came in pants, watching her Mistress disrobe.  She couldn’t help the supernatural desire pulsing through her, and reached down to begin stroking the swollen folds between her own trembling thighs.

“You’re a goddess,” Xen gasped, “You’re perfection. No one could compare. No one.”

“Not even your empathic little girlfriend, Jams?” She spit the nickname like a slur.

“No!” Xen’s voice was urgent, certain. She’d never felt desire like this supernatural lust boiling her insides, every inch of her burning with it. 

“Good girl.”

Noctis descended on her, kissing hard, pushing her back on the bed. Those powerful fingers slid back inside her, thrusting deep, and relentless.

Xen arched back, with a choked cry and spread her long legs wide to give her Mistress full access.  Pleasure ripped through her, stripping her bare inside and out. Her fingers clawed into the sheets as Lady Noctis’s clawed inside her, slender hips jerking with every push and pull.  The sensations ripping through her were sharp, irresistible, and enhanced to mind-breaking levels by the vampiric glamour.

All she could think was; Jamesina never made me feel this way. The thought hurt. But it was the truth.

 Xen shuddered as that sharp-nailed thumb pressed through her slick folds to find her clit.  Her hips jumped and shivered, heat blooming through her entire body and making her creamy thighs clench so tight they almost ached.  She cried out high shrill for her Mistress. Every tremble, every scream was betrayal- to herself, of her heroine endeavors…and of her partner Zen.

And every betrayal was another lock snapping shut on her soul. She belonged to Lady Noctis. Xen would never resist again.

Lady Noctis howled in turn, triumph simmering her undead veins as she sensed the superheroine’s defeat and surrender.  She had claimed the more powerful of the Saint Falls power couple with ease. 

As Xen teetered on the edge of climax, Noctis pulled back, her finger slurping wetly from the heroine’s quivering pussy.  Xen shook and gasped, and turned bleary eyes up to the vampire in yearning confusion.

Lady Noctis met her gaze with a sneer.  “Now little Electrica, you will worship me.”

Xen nodded, breathless but eager.  The vampire prowled forward, straddling her face.  Xen immediately hooked both arms around her muscular thighs.

“Yes, Mistress,” she gasped, tongue already tracing the vampire’s smooth, wet folds.  “Thank you, Mistress!” she murmured between licks.  She sucked the silky flesh, and pulsed her tongue through the  delectable seam.

Lady Noctis straightened above her, letting out a deep moan as her clawlike hands slid up her muscled flanks to cup her own breasts.

Feeling a tremor run through those powerful hips, Xen held them a little tighter pulsed her tongue with a growing urgency.  Sticky juices began to seep over her lips, tangy and not as warm as she was used to.  But they were intoxicating, they tasted like power, a power held over her, a power she was desperate to please and to serve.  Her foggy mind flooded with devotion. Each moan from Noctis’s lips was a commandment, each writhe of her hips another law Xen yearned to obey.

Lady Noctis reached down, snagging a handful of Xen’s brunette hair, coiling her clawlike grip tight.  Then, with a husky snarl she began bucking her hips, thrusting his cunt against the hapless thrall’s trembling lips.  Xen whimpered, trying to keep up but delighting in the aggression of her Mistress.  She lapped and nipped and clung to those pumping thighs, as the vampire’s pussy juice splattered over her cheeks, nose and chin.

Lady Noctis watched intently, the once powerful heroine’s blue eyes now dull and gazing up at her adoration.  The thrill of triumph driving her towards orgasm as much as any of the woman’s oral ministration.  Until Xen leaned up, pulsing her wet, warm tongue against the vampire’s throbbing clit, and Lady Noctis climaxed with a thunderous roar!

But there was no praise coming for the obedient little thrall, no sensual reciprocation.  The vampiress rolled back, her sopping cunt pulling away from Xen’s still lapping tongue.  Lady Noctis seized the glamoured heroine, pinning her down and ripping her head to one side…baring that soft, pristine, swan-like neck.

“No more waiting!” Noctis hissed savagely, her dark eyes blazing.

Xen’s lips parted. “Take me.”

The vampiress opened wide, baring her gleaming ivory fangs, they seemed to grow longer, sharper and then she sank them deep into Xen’s soft throat!

The pierce was exquisite agony, pain and pleasure fused. Xen gasped as her Mistress’s lips pressed against the curve of her neck, the hot rush of blood flooding into Noctis’s mouth.  White-hot pain lanced through her, but it was fleeting, overwhelmed by the velvet pull of blood leaving her body. She felt her pulse dragged upward, every throb of her heart a shuddering offering. Lady Noctis suckled her slowly, wet gulps echoing in Xen’s ears, each one sinking deeper into her soul. Her thighs quivered. Her lips parted in a silent cry that never quite became a moan, caught between rapture and ruin. Ecstasy bloomed, not like pleasure, but like surrender—total and obliterating. Her thoughts blurred, dimmed, disassembled. She was no heroine now. She was nourishment, a beautiful vessel to be emptied and remade. And as the Mistress drank, Xen felt something ancient and absolute take root inside her, blooming like thorns: obedience, adoration, belonging.

There were no thoughts of Zen.  No guilt.  No resistance.  No heroic resolve.

There was only the thrill of being devoured.

Her Mistress drank, and Xen was glad.

Chapter Twelve

For a week, Saint Falls breathed to the rhythm of a typical cozy October.  While Sanctum Noctis waited.

Children laughed on sidewalks, clutching plastic pumpkins, their parents trailing with thermoses of cider. Shop windows gleamed with orange lights, grocery aisles bristled with candy corn and caramel apples. High schoolers picked out inappropriate costumes.  Seniors carved jack-o-lanterns for their porches. Office workers drank too much pumpkin spice. The city carried on with its seasonal joys.  Harmless, simple, and sweet.

But beneath the candy and costumes, something pulsed: a call bleeding from flyers, from whispers at bars, from photos tagged #SanctumNoctis. All promising the Halloween party of your life.

For most, it was anticipation. For the city’s two superheroines, it was dread.

Xen drifted on a dark tide.

She woke later each day, with the taste of iron and clove in her mouth, and a tender throb at the side of her neck.

When her alarm buzzed, she hit snooze, then stayed curled under her blanket, pale and languid. Her hand slipped between her thighs, chasing the phantom memory of lips and fangs. Her breath quickened, her body arched, and she gasped her Mistress’s name into the quiet. The release left her trembling and empty, staring at the ceiling with shame she could not name.

When she did rise, her steps were clumsy, listless.  She showered until the mirror fogged, and stood there watching her own silhouette, a hand pressed to the place where memory now refused to form. And if she wiped away the condensation, she struggled to recognize the eyes staring back.

When she went out, if she went out, she stumbled on curbs, bumped shoulders with strangers, her mind adrift. Dreams crowded the edges of her waking moments, fleeting thoughts of red lace and dark hands, a crimson mouth that owned her.  A yearning she could not voice.

When Zen texted: Can we talk tonight? I miss you. Xen replied: busy without punctuation.

When Zen called, she let it ring out, then stared at her own reflection in the black screen, lips parting like a woman about to confess. No words came.  Blocked by the vampire’s glamour.

When Zen came to the apartment, letting herself in with the key Xen had given her, the pain in those big brown eyes cut through the vampire’s thrall, but could not break it.

“It’s that vampire, I can feel her in you.”

“I told you, I have no patience for your silly fairy tales.”

When Zen reached for her, Xen took a step back.

“You’re stronger than she is, your mind, it can force her out if only-”

“This is ridiculous, Jams,” Xen snapped.  “I’ll handle the disappearances at the sanctum, you can go play mystic in your little yoga studio.” 

They both flinched. Silence crackling between them.

Xen tasted ash but said, “You should go.”

And Zen did, tears glistening on her tan cheeks.

As the door shut, Xen felt wrong in her own skin, fog thick in her head, blearily wondering; Why did I say that? But the thought quickly blurred, replaced with the flashing grin of her Mistress.

Zen moved through her week like she was in a dream where the floor keeps tilting.

She taught her classes, her breath measured, body precise: crescent – warrior – pigeon – her muscles sleek and sure in leggings and patterned crop tops. Students mirrored her movements as incense curled in steady threads.  They didn’t notice when her balance faltered, or her arms wobbled, not from the pose, but from the sudden thought of Xen’s eyes, glassy and cruel. Or her skin, gone so pale it seemed almost translucent. Or that mark –that wound, on her throat. 

But the playlist would wander on through soft instrumentals. She would blink hard, forcing her focus back, steady her voiceto murmured things like “find your center” even though hers felt lost. She would smile, correct hips and posture, praise steady breaths, and pretend she wasn’t haunted by that sight of her lover enthralled to the vampire.

Between classes, Zen scoured Taralaya texts. For such a traditional order, they had been dutiful in converting their knowledge to digital. She printed PDFs, translated footnotes, seeking any hope from the handed-down knowledge. Her apartment floor became a scatter of pages and unfinished mugs of tea. Every warning ended the same: bound once bitten. Enthrallment. Bindings of blood. The shadow-chord. The teachings spoke in parables and cautions: Do not open your mind where a void sits.

There were rituals to soothe grief, to share pain, to weave courage. None promised to break a vampire’s hold.

After her visit to Xen’s apartment, Zen stopped at the hardware store and bought a length of ash wood. The clerk made some joke about vampire movies. Zen barely heard him, and wouldn’t have appreciated the humor anyway.  She simply nodded, her fingers tracing the grain, picturing the tip she would sharpen.

She had loved Xen for her strength, for that stubborn fire that shown in any darkness. To see that blaze dimming felt like watching the sun go dark.

And her worry wasn’t just for Xen. Or Marissa.

Zen could sense the hunger blooming beneath Saint Falls’ surface, spreading through the city’s pulse like a low fever. They all went on making casseroles and hanging orange lights, unaware of what lurked on Briar Hollow Road.  She would do her best to make sure they didn’t have to find out.

In the cathedral’s nave, Lady Noctis prepared the table.

Lighting plans were inspected. Playlists curated. The bar stocked well. Not that she cared about the party itself, only the rhythm. The rhythm was everything: the pulse beneath the illusion, the heartbeat that made mortals move. It was the baiting of the trap.

That… And she enjoyed being Lady Noctis.

Modernity suited the creature who had previously been called Madame Dreamont. The leather, the lace, the hard edges of a punk-rock queen felt dangerous and powerful in a way the corsets and candle-lit salons of a noblewoman never had.  Back then, she had stalked drawing rooms and parlors. Now she ruled subwoofers and strobes. The throb of the club was a siren call, the turntables her altar.  Mortals once feared her shadow; now they begged to be sacrificed.

It amused her, how easily desire could be remixed. She no longer had to hide in graveyards or castles, only to wait behind the shimmer of LEDs. Every ticket sold, every wrist stamped, was another willing offering.

Halloween night would be the feast.  Her brethren were already arriving.

The first to appear was an ancient countess in bone-white silk, gliding through the transept like mist, bare feet whispering against the stone floors.

A young-looking man, wild-eyed and erratic in his mannerisms, swaggered up the steps in a sleeveless denim jacket that stank of alleyways and blood.  His mouth perpetually stained red.

A monkish figure in a black robe settled in the sacristy, hands folded in a mockery of prayer, nails blackened as if they’d been charred by hellfire.  He waited alone, humming a psalm that might once have been holy.

And others arrived as the night of the feast drew near. They bowed to her, some pressing lips to her knuckles, others merely inclining their heads, but all deferred. She welcomed them with a smile that promised rivers of blood…and she savored their reverence. She was not the eldest among them, nor the strongest, but every Halloween, it was she they exalted.

Over centuries she had perfected the ritual:  Three weekends of carnal indulgence, the call of lust and sin softening their souls. The mortals came willingly, offered up by their own hunger. And when the witching hour came on All Hallows Eve, the veil lifted, and Sanctum Noctis fed.

By dawn, the city would forget. Officials having been glamoured, records erased, witnesses…devoured.  The whispers quickly dulled to rumor.  For the vampires it was a feast like no other.

For Lady Noctis it was craft. A masterwork that left no trace. That kept the word “vampire” shrouded in myth and legend.

But this year, she had hungered for something more.  Not just for blood but for triumph.

Across this world the shadows were thinning; Capital City, Regent City, Warden City.  Once ripe with fear, each now glittered under the protection of a costumed do-gooder.  Two here in Saint Falls. 

To drink from them would be more than mere craft, it would be art. Beautiful and profane.

The creature’s mouth watered at the thought.

Saint Falls marked its calendar: October 31^st.  Halloween.

Xen stood before her mirror, paler than she had ever been, her blue eyes rimmed faintly with shadow. She felt she should be alarmed by her appearance, but the thrall of her Mistress dulled all the edges.

With languid movements, acting almost on instinct alone, Xen laid out her uniform. Her Mistress had instructed her to wear it for Halloween night; “What better costume than the superheroine you used to be!”

So she began with the blue spandex shorts, smooth and shimmering like water under neon light. She stepped into them slowly, drawing them up her long, toned legs.  The fabric hugged her thighs, clinging to every contour of her slim hips and the soft roundness beneath her navel. The snug waistband snapped into place.

Next came the top, blue and silver like storm-swept skies, streaked with a lightning motif that would glint with each breath she drew. Sliding it over her arms and pulling it down, she felt the cool slip as the spandex molded to her large breasts, outlining her form with alluring precision. Her nipples tingled under the tight cling, barely concealed by the fabric’s teasing stretch. Her abs flexed, defined and taut, on display between the cropped hem and the waistband of her scant shorts.

Then her silver boots, pulled up over bare calves, the material flexing with each movement, polished to a mirror sheen. They gave her height, and poise.  Neither of which she usually needed help with, but in her current state…

Finally, she picked up the sleek, silver-edged mask, designed to frame her electric blue eyes. She pressed it to her face, letting it settle into place.  Usually that was the step when she felt transformed, from Xenobia to Xen Electrica.

But this time, she was already transformed.  She stared at herself; pale, trembling, hollow even in her superheroine garb.

Lady Noctis would be pleased.

Across town, Zen stood before her own full-length mirror, breath calm and steady, the faint scent of incense hanging in the air.  She was centered, but tense.  It had been so long since she’d gone into battle without Xen at her side.  The thought left her angry, yet focused.  Time to get her back, one way or another! 

Zen reached for her leotard, which was navy blue and bright green, patterned with a swirl of cosmic fractals that shimmered like galaxies caught in silk. The fabric slid up her legs, cool and smooth, stretching snug over the lush curve of her thighs, hugging her voluptuous hips with an alluring cut. She drew it higher, the cling accentuating the swell of her pear-shaped figure, the dramatic curve of her booty framed perfectly, and more than a bit cheeky, by the spandex’s soft sheen. The high cut of the hips put her tan, shapely legs on display.

She smoothed the leotard over her modest breasts, the starfield pattern rippling faintly with each breath. It cupped her gently, never revealing too much, yet leaving no doubt of the allure beneath. She adjusted the neckline, then reached for her green gloves, sliding them on and flexing her fingers into tight fists, already imagining the fight to come.

Next came her boots, ankle-high, supple, the same luminous green. As she pulled them on, they almost forced a confident stance, adding to her bearing, a woman grounded in her body and her power.

Finally, Zen picked up her mask, the same vivid green. She pressed it gently over her face, aligning it across her big brown eyes.  Then she shook her dark curls loose to frame her mask and jawline.

Zen Empathica looked back at her from the mirror, her eyes glinting with fierce resolve.

On the bed, lastly, Zen had laid a voluminous cloak, dark brown.  She slung across her shoulders, the hood shadowing her features so no one would know the superheroine was there…until she wanted them to.

Also on the bed was the stake she had carved.  The ash wood sanded smooth, comfortable in her palm.  She tucked it into the cloak, tested the draw, then hid it once more.

Lady Noctis was not going to enjoy this.

Chapter Thirteen

Sanctum Noctis loomed ahead, more frightening than before.  Its spires clawed at the sky, awash in neon and smoke. Colored lights pulsed in feverish rhythm, throbbing hotter than before, like arteries ready to burst. Shadows pooled in every niche, thick and alive, as if the building itself fed on the heat and breath of the crowd pressing toward its doors. No longer a slumbering beast, the Sanctum was awake… and hungry.

Zen stood in line with the others, cloak drawn close, hood shadowing her masked face. The October air was sharp and electric, thick with the scents of perfume, spilled beer, sweat, and kettle corn from a vendor in the parking lot.  Around her, laughter spiked too loud, flirtations cut with shrill nervousness, bodies pressed together in mesh and vinyl. The line shuffled forward in fits, carried by the same unseen rhythm that made the cathedral’s stained glass flicker from within.

Zen’s chest tightened with every step closer. More than once, her fingers slipped beneath the cloak to touch the wooden stake hidden there, the smooth grain helping to keep her grounded. Focused.  She measured almost every breath –Inhale – Exhale – Center – knowing it was more important than ever to keep the psychic storm at bay this time.

Then she saw her…and that measured breath faltered.

Xen Electrica.  In uniform!

Zen’s heart lurched. For a fleeting second she thought Xen had come to fight, to stand beside her. But even behind the silver mask, she saw it…the hollow glaze in those once-bright blue eyes. The trance. The vampire’s glamour.

Xen moved like a dream through the crowd, her body loose and liquid under the tight blue-and-lightning uniform. Even the sway of her hips was off, too slow, or slightly listless. The heroine who once moved with lightning’s grace now seemed drawn, puppet-like, into the Sanctum’s waiting doors.

Zen’s throat constricted. Every curve she had kissed now looked so pale.  The strong arms that had once held her, now trembled under the weight of another’s will. Even enthralled, Xen was a breathtaking vision of power…but reshaped to serve darker desires.

Jealousy and heartbreak twisted together under Zen’s ribs, sharp enough to sting. Her finger gripped the stake once more, her breath trembled –inhale – exhale – impale…that vampire bitch!

The line shuffled forward. Through her Taralaya discipline, Zen forced a steadying breath, then slipped inside with the crowd.

Once more, the Sanctum swallowed her whole.

The crowd heaved and writhed, a living tide of sweat and perfume, of hunger and heat. Lights strobed in seizure-bright bursts, painting faces in alternating crimson and violet, each flash freezing ecstasy and dread alike. Bass thundered through the air, shaking Zen’s bones and fizzing through her blood like static.

At the far end of the nave, on a dais where sermons had once been preached, a coffin had been repurposed into a DJ booth. Its carved lid gleamed under the lights, crowned with turntables, and glowing screens. Behind it, framed by gothic arches and writhing neon, stood Lady Noctis.

Zen’s breath caught.

Even through the shield of her cloak, even with her aura centered, she could feel the creature’s wicked pull. Skin like velvet shadow, lips painted red as sin, her half-shaved pixie cut glinting black and blood-red beneath the strobes. Her breasts strained against black lace; her leather skirt clung tight to her hips, the fishnets on her strong thighs slipped and flexed with every stalking step and sway.  She moved with the patience of a predator, surveying her prey from an altar of darkness and lust.

Zen’s pulse stuttered. She felt like a rabbit staring up at a wolf, small, trembling, aware that the moment she turned to flee, she’d be caught.

Zen Empathica was not about to flee.  She forced herself to breathe. Inhale. Exhale. Center.

Still the psychic storm pressed harder. The room pulsed with the resonance of lust and euphoria, each emotion spiking like a needle. Every heartbeat in the crowd seemed amplified, every desire raw and cloying to her empathic abilities.

Then, through the glare and haze, she sensed something more, a danger hiding beneath the rhythm.

Among the revelers were blank-eyed dancers, scattered and swaying, their movements slightly off-tempo, their smiles vacant.

Zen glanced around, looking more closely at the crowd pressing in around her.  The were darker figures too, lingering at the edges.  Shadows sliding between dancers, predators cloaked in glamour, eyes glinting ravenously. Voids in the resonance.  Lady Noctis was not the only vampire here now.

Zen’s stomach twisted.

No no no, this is bad, so much worse than I expected! Her eyes darted back to the stage, perhaps if I can act quick enough…destroy Lady Noctis, then the rest will— Her thoughts stammered as Xen emerged from the crowd, gazing up at her profane Mistress.

The blue-and-silver uniform made her slender figure glimmer under the strobes. The spandex clung to her body like a second skin, catching flashes of violet and red, each flicker making her look less like the heroine she was and more like a lost girl caught in a storm.

Lady Noctis saw her coming. Their eyes met across the dance floor, and the vampiress smiled, a slow, triumphant curl of blood-red lips. She descended from her pulpit of sin, moving with sinuous grace. The crowd parted before her as if repelled by invisible force, dancers swaying aside in unconscious reverence.

The music changed. The heavy beat melded into something slow and pulsing, almost mournful. The bass thrummed low, the synths sighing like a lover’s last breath. The sound wasn’t music anymore, it was a decaying heartbeat, a techno funeral dirge.

And then they were together.  Zen watched the vampire’s hands claim Xen’s waist, nails clawing the spandex, her thigh sliding between the heroine’s legs, guiding her into rhythm. Xen’s subtle curves trembled in that wicked grip, not with fear or dread but in desire, enraptured by the mere touch of her new Mistress. Xen’s breath caught, her lips parting as pleasure rippled through her like a live current.

Zen felt it. Through their fading thread of resonance, she felt Xen’s desire bleed into her own mind, sharp, invasive, intoxicating. Sickening.

Xen arched into Lady Noctis’s magnificent body, her luscious breasts bobbing, nipples noticeably hard under the lightning-streaked spandex. Their hips fell into perfects sync, alluring curves moving together, slow and rolling in sensual rhythm.  The vampiress toyed with her thrall, tracing the gleaming bolt across Xen’s breasts, then gripping one firmly, possessively.  Xen’s lips parted, her limbs pliant, her smile dazed with devotion.

Zen’s heart ached and jealous anger simmered in her belly watching that creature puppet her partner- or worse, seeing how Xen surrendered.  Like a lover lost in a dream, swaying, turning, letting Noctis dip her so low her ombre-ed tips swept the grimy dance floor.  And through it all, her glassy blue eyes never left the devastating face of her Mistress, staring, fixated in pure adoration.

As the dance continued, Xen let her head fall back, swanlike neck presented in offering.  Her eyes fluttered closed, her lips parted in a blissful moan that was lost beneath the music.

Zen’s throat tightened. Seeing the wound at her lover’s throat laid bare -gory red, bruised and pierced- tore through her like shards of glass.  Tears stung her brown eyes, fury and heartbreak tangling until she shook. Her fingers clenched around the stake beneath her cloak.

Lady Noctis leaned close, her tongue lolling out to slide along the wound marring Xen’s throat. Then, as Zen’s stomach clenched, those crimson lips found Xen’s, slow at first, but quickly deepening into a kiss that was pure domination disguised as desire. The vampire’s tongue claimed her, coaxing a whimper from Xen’s throat that melted into a hungry sigh. Their bodies pressed flush, blue and silver against black and crimson.  One powerful hand slid under the spandex top, griping the soft, fleshy orb, kneading as a clawlike nail flicked at the stiffened peak.

Zen felt the rush of Xen’s lust, a throb that became worshipful and yearning as she returned to the kiss, and surrendered to it.  Xen’s hands fluttered, then clung to the vampire’s shoulders, as though clinging to salvation. She arched, trembling, offering everything.

The crowd’s pulse seemed to sync with theirs, but Zen’s teeth clenched and she let out a growl.

It felt like watching her own heart being taken from her chest and crushed in the clawed hands of that vampire bitch!  The sight hollowed her, beautifully obscene, and utterly unbearable. She could almost feel the pull of that glamour herself, the sweetness of surrender, and it terrified her.

Around them the crowd bounced and writhed, oblivious, their faces blurred in the light, but Zen saw only the two: her lover enthralled, their enemy triumphant.

The Sanctum’s pulse rose toward crescendo. 

No.

Zen surged forward, shoving through the crowd, her hand closing tense and ready around the stake. She tore back the hood, her mask catching the strobes, a sudden flash of green and fury.

“Get away from her, you bitch!”

Lady Noctis head snapped up, her grin sharp and wide.  In that split second, Zen realized the vampire had known she was there, had wanted her to watch.

The heroine lunged anyway, the stake aimed for the creature’s heart-

-But Xen’s hand snapped up, catching her wrist.

Zen froze, staring into her lover’s masked face. “Xen! Let go! Let me free you.”

Noctis watched with a predatory smile, her claws unfurling in the erratic lighting.

With a sob, Zen kicked hard, boot slamming into Xen’s chest. Her lover stumbled back, and Zen twisted aside as Noctis struck, claws shredding the cloak.  Zen unclasped it, letting the fabric billow distractingly as she rolled away, came up in a crouch, and lunged again. The stake driving forward.

Supernaturally quick, the vampiress sidestepped, letting out a cruel cackle.  Zen followed with a second strike, but it was feint, and she dropped low with a sweep-kick that took Noctis off her feet.

Surrounding them the crowd screamed and cheered, thinking it all must be part of the festivities; the vampiric mistress of ceremonies facing Saint Falls dynamic duo, one night only at Sanctum Noctis!

Zen rose over the fallen predator, chest heaving, stake poised for the kill—

-Again Xen stepped between them.

“Move!” Zen begged. “Xen, please, I have to destroy her!  You know she’s evil!”

For a heartbeat, something flickered in Xen’s eyes. Her lips parted. “Zen… run.”

Too late.

Lady Noctis rose straight back to standing in an impossible motion, her clawed hand catching Zen by the throat. She lifted the heroine effortlessly, bright green boots kicking in the air. Zen clawed at the iron grip, instantly choking, her stake slipping from her fingers.

“You’re bolder than the Taralaya I’ve met,” Noctis snarled, “but no tougher.  I wonder if you’ll be as tasty…”

Zen choked, scrabbling at the iron grip. Then, with a desperate surge, she cracked her boot against Noctis’s cheek. The vampiress hissed and staggered.  Zen dropped, hitting the floor hard.

She grabbed the stake, turned-

-and Xen was there. Her arms wrapped around Zen’s torso, holding her fast.

“Let go!” Zen screamed, thrashing. “Xen, please!”

“I’m sorry,” came the broken whisper.

Then pain.  White-hot.  Electricity exploded through Zen, lighting up every nerve. She screamed in agony, a mix of pain, despair and betrayal searing through her. The stake clattered from her smoking hands.

Lady Noctis’s cruel laughter rang out.  “Well done, Xenobia! Oh well done!”

Xen’s heart fluttered with delight at her Mistress’s praise.  She released Zen, who collapsed at her feet gasping and shaking.

Zen tried to stand, but Lady Noctis’s boot slammed into her ribs, a bright flash of pain crushing the air from her lungs and hurling her across the slick dance floor. The impact left her wheezing, body folding around the hurt. Zen clutched her midsection, trembling, her nerves and head still sizzling from Xen’s lightning…her lover’s touch turned trap.

The bass still pounded, indifferent. The crowd still cheered.

Zen could barely hear it over the ringing in her ears, the hot pulse of her blood.  She struggled just to lift her head. The whole world seemed off kilter, her vision swimming in shards of color and light. Every breath was a knife in her chest.

Terror coiled tight around her heart, but beneath it was something worse: the crushing weight of failure. She had failed everyone, Xen, Marissa, the city, the hope that love could outshine the dark.

Around her, bodies moved in blissful ignorance, entertaining the presumed spectacle of her defeat.  A playful Halloween horror, not a superheroine in dire peril.

Lady Noctis’s shadow fell over Zen, her cruel smile resplendent with victory and fang.

A sob slipped through Zen’s teeth. “No…” It was barely a word, more breath than sound.

“Yes.”

The boot rose.

Zen’s eyes fluttered toward Xen, seeking help, or solace, or anything but the smile she found. Her lover’s blue eyes gleamed with adoration for the vampiress, her lips curved in worshipful bliss as Zen suffered at her Mistress’s feet. The sight stole the last of Zen’s breath.  The sorrow it brought made her almost grateful for what came next.

The stomp fell, brutal and merciless, slamming her head into the dance floor. Pain exploded like white fire – but then, mercifully, everything went black. Silent. Peaceful.

And the music kept playing as Empathica’s lights went out.

Lady Noctis straightened, savoring the silence beneath the crowd’s roar. Her dark eyes drinking in the sight of her conquest.

Empathica lay sprawled on the dance floor like a sacrifice at her feet. The cling of her cosmic leotard traced every curve; the high cut baring the smooth sweep of her thighs, the round lift of her hips. Her statuesque legs, now lay splayed out and stripped of any grace and poise.  Her chest rose faintly, shallow breaths causing her round, perky breasts to tremble under the tight, star-strewn fabric.  She was a picture of vulnerability and defeat, her sumptuous curves all the more tempting in their broken stillness.

Lady Noctis licked her lips.

Her gaze shifted to Xenobia.  The glamoured heroine stood motionless, her electric blue eyes glassy behind that silver mask, pale lips parted in awe. She didn’t look at her fallen partner. She looked only at her Mistress, her entire being now tuned to await the next command.

The vampiress smiled, indulgent and victorious. Two heroines, broken in body and will. One seduced, the other shattered. As planned, this was no battle but a work of art.

The music throbbed. Lights flared. Some cheered the spectacle; others drifted back into dance. Thralls stood still, eyes blank, while mortals smiled, blind to what they’d witnessed: the fall of their champions.

And at the fringes, her vampiric brethren watched on in amusement, their own appetites whetted.

Lady Noctis stepped to Xen, trailing her claws along the heroine’s cheek and jawline in a mockery of affection.  The thrall shivered at the touch, blissful in obedience.

“Bring her.” The command was a velvet blade.

“Yes, Mistress,” she whispered, voice trembling with devotion.

Xen moved with unnatural ease, stooping to lift Zen and sling her limp body over one shoulder. The unconscious heroine folded senselessly, arms slack, her lush black curls spilling down Xen’s back.  The leotard’s sheen caught the pulsing lights, riding up to display the ripe, tan cheeks of her luscious ass.  As she clutched the soft, dangling legs of her unconscious lover, Xen’s hands slid along the generous sweep of bare thighs, a pert spandex covered mound peeking between them.

Lady Noctis turned toward the rear archway, her boots echoing against the marble. The crowd parted instinctively, like worshippers making way for procession.

Xen followed without hesitation, carrying Empathica deeper into the dark.

Chapter Fourteen

Sound came back to her first.  Low. Pulsing.  Distant, like a heartbeat through a wall.

Then came the ache. Zen’s ribs burned with every shallow breath; her head throbbing with a pulse that didn’t seem to match her own.

On the other side of that, was the voice, “Wake up, little empath…”

It seemed muted at first, like listening through water, then a cool hand cupped her cheek, something sharp tracing lightly along her jaw. The touch was almost tender…almost.

“Come now, we’ve so much more fun to have before the dawn breaks…” The touch sharpened, scratching her skin, even as the voice dripped like sweet poison, cloying and dangerous.

Zen groaned softly, her lashes fluttering. The air around her was heady, almost suffocating with the scent of incense and iron. Something cool and rough pressed against her back.  The ache in her ribs seemed to spread up into her shoulders, and continued to twinge with each breath.

“That’s it,” came that murmured voice, closer, dripping with candied malice. “Open those pretty eyes and let me see my prize.”

A claw slid under Zen’s chin, coaxing her head up. Her neck felt weak, her body heavy, her mind still swimming through the dark.

When she opened her eyes, the world swam.  She blinked against the flicker of candlelight, her blurred vision resolving into the predator’s face; lips painted like blood, eyes gleaming with amusement and hunger.  Lady Noctis!

Ice cold fear and white hot hatred shot through Zen, she jerked back, but there was nowhere to go.  Her arms were stretched up over head with iron shackles locked around her wrists, a rough concrete wall at her back.

She slumped immediately, even that burst of activity enough to drain what little strength her body had. Her leotard clung damply to her skin, the fabric feeling tight against the tenderness of her bruises. She could feel her own heartbeat fluttering under the stretch of spandex, weak but steady.

“Welcome back, Jamesina,” Noctis purred.  Gripping Zen’s face, she tilted it this way and that, admiring her like art. “I did so enjoy watching you break. Not too damaged, I hope-”

“Don’t… touch me…you monster,” Zen slurred, pulling her chin away.  Her muscles obeyed sluggishly, and the motion only made the vampire laugh.

“Shh…” Lady Noctis hissed, pressing a clawed finger over her lips.  “No more struggling. I’ve much better things in mind for what meager strength you possess.”

The clawed hand moved down her face to trace the hollow of her throat, slow and deliberate, sending a shiver through Zen’s curvy figure.

She lifted her gaze and found the strength to spit, “Not an ounce of my ‘meager strength’ will rest until I destroy you!”

Lady Noctis chuckled, gripping Zen’s jaw again, those sharp nails biting, just a whisper away from tearing.

Zen whimpered in dread, cringing at that wicked touch.  She rattled the chain above her head, but they were too stout and bolted into the wall.

“Such defiance in your eyes,” Lady Noctis murmured, her tone darkly amused.  Her claws caught beneath Zen’s chin once more, the sharp points biting just enough to break skin as she forced her face upward. “Show me how deep it truly runs, Jamesina…”

The vampire’s eyes locked onto Zen’s darker than midnight, their depth gleaming like oil over flame.

“No…” Zen gasped, breath already hitching as her own eyes widened, locked in place by that abyssal gaze.

Crimson lips curved, baring ivory fangs.  “Oh, but you want to look.”

And she was right. Zen’s pulse fluttered helplessly, her gaze trapped in those fathomless depths. She fell into them like gravity, unable -no, unwilling- to look away. The vampire’s beauty swelled and filled her vision, terrible and divine. The edges of reality dissolved, melting into shadow and color.

She’d felt it before, the heat blooming behind her eyes, a tug at the base of her skull, the slow pulse of the vampire’s voice replacing her own heartbeat. And in that awful, perfect moment, the glamour enveloped Zen. The dreadful beauty of Lady Noctis left her breathless, at once thrilled and numb.  She was the embodiment of every craving Zen had ever buried, every shameful desire unleashed, every temptation whispered and fulfilled. The vampire’s presence filled the air like incense, rich and holy and wrong.

Zen wanted to look away but couldn’t. She wanted to resist, but the thought itself felt distant, fading. She craved to be seen by her… to be chosen… to be consumed.

I see why Xen fell, she thought, gazing into those beautiful obsidian eyes – right before the thought itself began to sound like something whispered to her, not by her.

“You see now,” Lady Noctis purred, claws still clutching her chin. “You see why, Xenobia is mine, why she yearns to be…”

“Yes…” The whisper slipped out before Zen could stop it. The weight of the glamour pressed harder, threading through her aura, coaxing her towards surrender. For a heartbeat, she wanted to sink into it, to let go, to belong…

But something deeper stirred. Instinct, discipline, the Taralaya core that had carried her through every storm. That…and the sharp ache of a lover’s jealous hatred.

Zen clenched her teeth, reaching inward, past the haze, into the steady hum of resonance that was her birthright. She pushed back the glamour with a pulse of clarity, faint but growing, a note of true self vibrating against the false harmony.

“No,” Zen hissed.

“What?” Lady Noctis growled.

“Xen doesn’t belong to you! Your little tricks won’t work on me! And as soon as I get free, I’ll make sure they never work on her again either!”

Lady Noctis’s smile faltered, the illusion flickering. Her eyes flashed red as she drew back a fraction, claws digging hard enough to make Zen mewl in pain before she let go. 

“Well,” the vampiress purred, tone sharpened by irritation and reluctant admiration. “A spark of strength after all. No wonder she loved you.” She turned away, silk and leather whispering together as she stalked off into the dark.

Zen sagged in the chains, breath shuddering. Her arms trembled with exhaustion. The lingering echo of the glamour still whispering at the edge of her mind. She knew what it had almost done, and that resisting it didn’t mean she was safe. The creature’s patience may be endless, and her only hope now was that the night was not.

That is, if I can even find a way to escape by then, she thought, glancing up at the iron links and giving them a pointless rattle. Her arms were going numb, fingers tingling and prickling as she flexed them to keep feeling. She forced her eyes open, scanning the chamber through the dim orange wash of candlelight.

It was at once decadent and cruel. Velvet curtains masked cold stone. Racks of whips and chains gleamed against the walls. A bed dressed in blood-red silk sat opposite her, its posts fitted with iron rings. The air smelled of perfume and copper, of old pleasure and older pain. It was neither dungeon nor boudoir, but somewhere in between.

Before Zen could even begin to form an escape plan, Lady Noctis returned, her smile sharp and cruel enough to draw blood. “Since you don’t want to play,” she purred, “I brought my new favorite toy.”

Xen trailed behind her Mistress. The heroine’s lightning-blue uniform gleamed under the low candlelight, clinging to the gentle curves of her figure. Her stance was graceful but slack, shoulders loose, head bowed in reverent daze. Even her breathing seemed ruled by Noctis’s rhythms. Her blue eyes, once bright and sharp, were glazed and shining with the docility of deep enthrallment.

“Come here, my Xenobia.” Noctis’s voice was silk over iron.

Xen obeyed instantly, stepping close enough that the vampire could seize her chin. Xen leaned towards her Mistress with an eager tremble.  Lady Noctis threw a taunting glance at Zen, then leaned in to kiss her thrall, slow, claiming, twistedly intimate.  Xen’s knees even buckled like a smitten lover.  She sighed into the kiss and her hand sought out the red lace bodice, clinging just to steady herself.

The vampiress growled, one clawed hand sliding down Xen’s neck, tracing the lightning bolt emblazoned over her chest before cupping one of the luscious breasts and squeezing possessively. Xen lifted into that grip, her kiss growing more fervent. The vampire’s other hand glided over her narrow hip, her thigh, as though mapping territory before reaching around to seize the pert, molded ass over the skintight blue shorts.  Xen moaned, arching into her Mistress and trembling with enthralled desire.

Throat tightening, Zen turned her head, nausea and heartbreak burning together.  Every sound of that kiss, every moan that escaped Xen’s lips, tore at her.

And worse, she could once again feel Xen’s desire for the vampiress thrumming across their psychic connection. Despite being brought on by enthrallment, Xen was flush with it. Her heart raced as their tongues danced and slipped against one another. Heat pooled low in her hips, her nipples tingled every time the vampire’s grip tightened.  And Zen felt every rush and tremble of her lover in another’s hands.

When Zen dared to look back, Noctis’s eyes were on her again, gleaming, cruel, and delighted. She pulled her lips from Xen’s mouth just long enough to say, “You see? Some women were made to obey.  Isn’t that right, Xenobia.”

Staring at the vampiress in adoration, Xen’s lips trembled over the words, “Yes, Mistress!”

Lady Noctis let out a groan, then leaned down to bite at Xen’s throat, not deep enough to bleed -yet- just enough to make the thrall moan in surrendered pleasure.

That sound broke Zen’s composure, even before the wave of excitement and anticipation sizzled across their connection. Her body jerked against the chains, but they only rattled as she cried out, “No! Stop it! Let her go!”  Helpless tears stung her brown eyes.

Lady Noctis kept her thrall close, one hand tangled in Xen’s ombre hair as if displaying a trophy. “Even if I did let her go, she would still crave and kneel before me,” she said, eyes sliding back to Zen.  “Isn’t that right, Xenobia?”

“Yes, Mistress!”

Zen glared up through her dark curls, every muscle trembling with fury, tears streaking flushed cheeks, her voice failing.

The vampire smiled wider, as if savoring her silence. “You know it’s true don’t you, Jamesina? Your Taralaya practices and prayers may be enough to resist my power, but not enough to break it… are they?” She tilted Xen’s chin, and slowly licked that garish wound marring the heroine’s throat. “She will always be mine now.”

A soft, involuntary sound escaped Xen’s throat -half-moan, half-breath- and the sound seared through Zen like lightning. She turned her face away, biting her lip until she tasted blood. The rattle of her chains was the only defiance she had left.

Noctis prowled nearer, voice low and lilting. “Don’t look away. Her devotion is beautiful.” She drew one crimson nail down Xen’s neck, stopping at the mark of her bite, admiring its gory gleam in the candlelight. “So beautiful. So fragile. So mine.”

The words sliced through Zen like a knife. Each syllable was a cut she couldn’t fight. Her chest heaved; her heart hammered with helpless rage. She wanted to scream, but the vampire’s gaze pinned and silenced her- not glamour this time, but merely drinking in her anguish as though it were wine of the finest vintage.

Zen was cowed by the vampire’s sheer delight in her own cruelty.  And she couldn’t seem to help feeding that delight further, as Zen’s head drooped, her chest trembling as she began to cry bitterly.

Lady Noctis smiled, eyes half-lidded with satisfaction. “Oh, don’t cry, little empath,” she cooed softly. Then, without looking away, she lifted a hand and snapped her fingers. “Comfort your poor partner, Xenobia.”

Xen obeyed at once, her movements graceful, but dazed. She moved beside the chained heroine, fingers reaching up slow and deliberate to brush Zen’s inky curls back from her face. Her touch was tender, heartbreakingly familiar.

“Xen…” Zen sniffled, eyes wide, and even though she’d heard the vampire’s command, hope flared for one foolish instant.

“Don’t cry, love,” the thrall whispered, cupping Zen’s cheek, tilting her face to meet her glassy blue eyes. “I’m happier this way. I love my Mistress…” In a mockery of tenderness, her thumbs wiped the tears streaking Zen’s cheeks. “…more than I ever loved you.”

The words hit harder than they should have. Zen froze, then shook her head violently, tears falling anew. “No! You don’t mean that, I know you don’t!  It’s her…It’s-”

“Yes, Jams, I do,” she replied, voice trembling with devotion. “You’re nothing compared to her…and I don’t just love her…”  Xen tilted her head, dreamily, as if savoring her Mistress’s will moving through her veins. “I worship her.”

The air left Zen’s lungs. Her sobbing choked into an anguished moan — then turned into a sound that was half-growl, half-scream. Fury flooded back in, hot and sudden, wiping out despair.

She lifted her brown eyes, glaring through black tresses from behind her green mask.  The furious gaze cutting past Xen to her puppeteer.

“I know those words are yours,” Zen rasped, voice trembling with hatred and heartbreak. “And so long as my mind is free, I won’t rest until hers is too. And as we both know…” her lips curled, caught between grief and rage, “…you can’t glamour me, you undead bitch!” 

She spat at the vampire and the gob of saliva spattered Lady Noctis’s cheek.

For a heartbeat, silence reigned. The vampire wiped it away slowly with one long clawed finger. When she looked back down at Zen, her expression was not anger…but exquisite calm.

“Your mind may be beyond my reach, Taralaya…” She leaned close, letting the tip of one claw trace a line down the front of Zen’s leotard, just enough to make her arch away. “But not your body…”

“Do your worst,” snarled the bound heroine, her gaze flicking towards Xen then back.  “You can’t hurt me more than you already have.”

“Oh… who said anything about hurting you?” Lady Noctis said, then slashed her claw down Zen’s chest, shearing only the spandex from her collarbone to her naval.

Zen gasped, bracing for a cut she never felt.  The Vampiress grabbed either side of the cut, pulling, stretching, tearing the front of the garment open.

Zen thrashed, rattling her chains but unable to get away as her breasts and stomach were bared.  Tan skin glistened in the candlelight, her pert, round breasts heaving with surprised breaths.  Her dark brown nipples tightened in the cool, damp air.

“Wha- what are you doing?” Zen huffed.

“Even if I can’t have your mind, Jamesina,” Lady Noctis said, “You still belong to me now!”

“I will never- OH!”

With a cruel cackle, Lady Noctis began clawing and stripping the cosmic-themed leotard. Piece by piece, inch by inch, Zen was bared. She gasped, twisting against the chains, but they only clinked mockingly.  The claws cut quick, leaving scratches that burned faintly but were not deep. With every shred, more of her was exposed, the dip of her soft waist, the swell of her voluptuous hips, and the primly shaven cleft between her luscious thighs.

It happened so quick, Zen could not even form words to protest.  She whined and gasped until she was naked, save for the tattered sleeves of her leotard, her green ankle boots, and the heroic mask still adorning her flushed face.

The vampiress stepped back, admiring the bound and exposed heroine.  Her black eyes lit with fresh lust, her tongue darting out to lick her crimson lips.

“Fine,” Zen huffed, “So I’m naked.  That doesn’t me you own-OH!”

Lady Noctis darted close and hissed “Silence!” her breath was cool against Zen’s neck, sending goosebumps rippling down her curvy sides. “You are mine, Taralay bitch, body and soul.”

To prove it, the vampire seized Zen’s breasts, squeezing them roughly.  Zen groaned in dismay as the grip coiled tension through her chest and her dark nipples hardened against her palms.  The clawlike nails dug into the tender flesh, sending icy tendrils down her spine.

Zen gulped as fresh fear coiled through her, hips trembling as she tried to press back from the vampire’s touch.  Her protests tumbled out sharply “Stop it! Don’t touch me! I’ll never-” but impotently.  She strained at the chains, the metal only scraping in response.

Ignoring her, Lady Noctis continued to grope the fleshy orbs, “Not large, but such lovely shape and firmness,” she crooned, flicking Zen’s sensitive nipple with a sharp fingernail.

Zen whimpered and squirmed against the wall.

“Xenobia, bring those big tits of yours here!” Lady Noctis barked.

“Yes, Mistress!” Xen replied, and immediately tugged that lightning themed top over her head, freeing the luscious creamy globes.  She pranced over to where Zen was being fondled, her blue eyes never straying from her Mistress.

“Xen…” Zen pleaded, defeat beginning to tremble in her voice.

Lady Noctis pulled her between them, her arms circling Xen to cup her breasts. “Yours are respectable, but these… are perfect breasts,” Lady Noctis said, squeezing and jiggling Xen’s full, soft globes.  “Soft, yet firm, bigger than a handful but not unmanageably so…”

Xen arched into the grip with a delighted whimper, “Thank you, Mistress!”  Her nipples hardened as the thrill of being touched raced down her slim figure.  Noctis caught the buds in her fingers, rolling them until Xen shivered, her head falling listlessly back against the vampire’s shoulder.

“I know how perfect they are!” Zen hissed, “How perfect she is!  Xen, please Xen, come back to me!”

Xen only looked at her from behind that silver mask, the sheen of the vampire’s glamour reflecting in her eyes.  Every grope and caress from her Mistress dragging her deeper, binding her tighter.

Lady Noctis shoved her aside roughly, lunging at Zen again.  The captive heroine recoiled, whimpering in helpless fear.  But it wasn’t an attack, the vampiress pressed their bodies flush. Then her clawed hands slid behind the trembling captive, groping Zen’s big round ass with a possessive squeeze.

“Now this…” She hissed with delight, whispering against Zen’s ear. “So plump. So perfect in my hands.”  Her grip tightened, clawlike nails digging in until chills raced up Zen’s spine, not quite breaking skin but forcing her to arch against the vampire’s muscular curves.

“You’re a trophy worth savoring, Zen Empathica, I have already defeated you, now let me claim you!”

Even as Zen started to protest, Lady Noctis used one leg to push her thighs apart, and slid one hand over her smooth, nude mound.  Zen jumped, gasping at the touch, her stomach clenching tight.  Clawed fingers pressed into her cleft, spreading the supple lips and stroking them gently, yet firmly.  Sparks bounced through her curvaceous hips, making her squirm, and only occasionally breaking into icy chills when the sharpened nails scraped the sensitive flesh.

Zen tried desperately to protest, to threaten, to rebuke the vampiress, but her words crumbled into gasps, moans, and whimpers. Her body betrayed her, flushing hot and wet under the cruel unwanted caress.

“See how easily your body surrenders?” Noctis groaned, claws continuing to tease, grazing the folds between her thighs, slipping deeper through her slickness, stroking, circling, kneading until Zen’s knees buckled and she sagged in her chains.  “Now think how sweet submission could feel… to join your lover in my thrall.”

She wrung a shrill moan from Zen’s lips, before giving her a moment to consider.  Zen slumped against the wall, her brown skin gleaming with a sheen of sweat under the glow of the candles. Her perky breasts bobbed with shaky breaths, still peaked with tight dark nipples.

“Feel how ready you are,” Noctis whispered. “Your body already knows. Join her. Surrender. It will be so sweet.”

“I would never…” Zen sobbed, her voice trembling. “Will never… betray Xen. I’ll never—” Her voice faltered as Lady Noctis reached back between her trembling thighs, Zen’s curvaceous hips arching into the touch despite herself.

Lady Noctis’s crimson lips curled -grin or snarl, it was hard to tell- and clawed two fingers inside Zen’s vagina.  The penetration was a jolt of sensation pealing a squeal through her lips. Sharp nails invading her softest flesh, the rush of heat through her hips, unwanted but not entirely unpleasurable.  The flick and wiggle of those violating digits sending waves of stimulation through her body.

Once Zen was moaning in obedient rhythm, Noctis stepped back, sliding her fingers out with a slick wet noise.  She lifted her hand, showing the captive it was dripping with her own juices.  Zen’s cheeks were already flushed pink under the green mask, but embarrassment curdled inside her.

“It’s a physical reaction,” she insisted, looking away as the vampiress began licking those dripping fingers, slow and savoring.  “I can’t help it!”

“That is precisely the point,” Lady Noctis crooned.  “But…if you won’t listen to me…” She turned, eyes on Xen.

The glamoured heroine moved forward instantly, as though pulled by invisible strings.  Zen looked to her, the sight of her bare breasts, full and round, bobbing with each dazed step, still sent a flush of desire through Zen’s stimulated body…despite their predicament.

“Xen…” Zen pleaded, rattling her chains. “Please, fight it, snap out of it…”

Xen only smiled languidly, her hands reached slowly towards her bound lover. “Hush now, Jams,” she whispered, palms cupping Zen’s face, her thumbs brushing over flushed cheeks.  Even glazed and unfocused, those beautiful blue eyes could speed or slow Zen’s pulse.  The gentle touch on her cheeks -more enticing than the titillations of the vampiress.

“It’s so sweet. Submission is peace. You’ll see.”

“Xen, please.”

Then her hands slid down, over Zen’s collarbone, caressing her breasts, which fit so perfectly into Xen’s hands.  Her delicate fingers traced the curves, thumbs circling the stiff brown nipples, making her shiver and sigh, the chocolate buds tightening even harder.  Xen smiled, shooting a glance at her Mistress for approval.  That stung Zen to see.  Xen’s hand continued down to her soft stomach, smooth and supple from years of yoga.  She traced the voluptuous curves of those round tan hips, before finally slipping down between her shapely, shivering legs.

“Xen, please, not like this,” Zen moaned as her enthralled lover spread her thighs, and cupped her wet, sensitive pussy.

Xen “sshh”ed her gently, stroking the smooth, wet folds. Familiar, coaxing, gentle.  Zen couldn’t hold back a moan for the touch she knew so well, and the caring warmth she so craved.  She looked up at Xen’s face, pleading for her to see the truth but finding an unsettling comfort in being so close…despite the glamoured dullness behind that silver mask.

“Now kiss your lover, Xenobia,” Lady Noctis commanded.

“Yes, Mistress,” Xen’s kissed her before Zen could protest…if she would have.

Zen whimpered, torn open. The kiss was tender, hungry, desperate, and missed.  Her lips parted automatically, Xen’s tongue sliding against hers.  Xen’s lips, Xen’s caring, Xen’s love… were all there in that kiss.  She could feel them thrumming along their psychic thread! She’d known -told herself, the real Xen was still in there, but to have it confirmed… Tears flooded Zen’s eyes, even as they fluttered shut and she returned the kiss with tender desperation.  Her legs opened a bit further without realizing it, and she actually relaxed into her chains.  Xen’s slim fingers roamed deeper between Zen’s thighs, coaxing moans she couldn’t hold back.

Xen lips trembled between their kissing as she whispered, “I miss you, my love.”

Behind them, Lady Noctis growled, pressing up against Xen’s back, her clawed hands sliding over her big, creamy breasts.  Xen leaned into the touch of her Mistress, without pulling away from Zen, sighing into their kiss.

“See, Jamesina? She worships me but she misses you, loves you!”

Zen hesitated, breath hitching, eyes flicking open as if she could suddenly taste Xen’s enthrallment on their tongues -it wasn’t as bitter as she’d feared.  She glanced to Noctis, fondling her lover even as their lips and tongues tangled.

The vampiress grinned, sharp and cold, fangs unhidden.

Zen felt it again then, the vampiric glamour, only it wasn’t coming from Lady Noctis alone. It seeped through Xen’s kiss, her touch, and thrummed along their resonant bond!  She could feel it dripping down that psychic thread like poison.  Zen had opened herself to feel Xen’s affection, unwittingly lowering her defenses.

Panic coiled tight.  “Xen! Xen, wait, she-” Zen gasped into a moan as Xen pressed two gentle, un-clawed fingers inside her.  Her thumb rubbed firm circles over her clit -just the way Zen liked- sending an irresistible rush through her shivering torso.

“I love you, Jams, surrender with me!”

Zen shuddered, slick, warm juices soaking Xen’s slow pumping hand and running down her own quivering thighs.  A bright rush of arousal surged through her spine, flooding her head… And the glamour poured in with it, like rich red wine, warm, decadent, and intoxicating. It seeped through every thought, every breath. Her fear softened, limbs loosening in the chains. Her mind unspooling to a single thread of bliss, until there was nothing but Xen’s voice, her touch, the scent of blood and perfume, and the exquisite promise of being with her lover once more.

Then another voice, her voice, powerful and beautiful: “Surrender. Become mine, and you can be with her. You both belong to me.” Lady Noctis’s voice wasn’t a command anymore; it was a melody Zen had always known but forgotten how to hum.

She glanced up, over Xen’s shoulder to find the deep, dark, beautiful eyes of Lady Noctis gazing back at her, into her. The vampire’s beauty filled her vision, the world narrowing to the curve of those crimson lips, to the eyes that glimmered like polished obsidian, and Zen felt her breath hitch in awe.

For the first time, Zen truly saw her. Not the monster she had fought, not the shadow that had fallen over Xen, but something beautiful, something divine. How could I have been so blind?  Her radiant face, her perfect body, the vampiress seemed carved from moonlight and sin, every movement a poetry of strength and grace. Power shimmered off her very form, terrible and magnetic. Zen’s pulse quickened, not from fear but from wonder. This was what Xen had seen, what she has fallen to…and in that moment, Zen fell too.

The defiance in her heart wavered, her very soul trembling under the weight of beauty and power too exquisite to deny.  Every breath yearned to whisper her name, every beat of her heart seemed to ache in offering.

The darkness in that abyssal gaze no longer frightened her, it welcomed her, enveloped her, enthralled her.

Zen’s lips parted around an awed gasp, her brown eyes wide and soft with adoration, basking in the glamour of Lady Noctis

Seeing Zen’s heroic resolve crumble, her Taralaya discipline fail, the vampiress casually moved Xen aside and glided closer to her new thrall.  Zen wilted as the shadow fell over her, like a rabbit under the shadow of a hawk. The dank air between them trembled, thick with incense and blood-sweet perfume. Noctis reached out, claws tracing Zen’s throat once more, now drawing a shiver from the bound heroine that was more reverence than fear.  They hooked sharply beneath her chin, but now her big brown eyes lifted willingly, eagerly.

“Your mind, as your body, now belong to me,” she hissed, her voice velvet and blade all at once.

“Yes…to…you…”

“You were a fool to ever resist me.”

“Such a fool…”

“And your pathetic little Taralaya trick?”

“A waste…nothing. I am nothing before you.”

The vampiress bared her fangs, then kissed the glamoured heroine.

It was not gentle. It was possession in carnal eminence. Her mouth crushed against Zen’s, a slow, merciless, claiming. Fangs grazed her lip and Zen offered up a gasp, the sound swallowed between them. Noctis deepened the kiss, tongue sliding past parted lips, tasting her moan as if it were sacrament.

Xen felt it, saw it—the moment Zen’s eyes glazed with ecstasy not for her, but for their Mistress. It mirrored the dance, when Zen had been forced to watch her succumb. Now Xen watched the same happen to Zen, her lover slipping away by inches, her cries of pleasure no longer theirs but Noctis’s alone. The pang shredded what little remained of her will, until she too was moaning, licking, begging for approval.

The world tilted. Zen’s chains went taut as her body arched toward the kiss, powerless to resist. The cold press of the vampire’s mouth sent heat flooding through her veins, a fever of adoration she could neither quell nor name. Her heart broke even as it bloomed. This was what it meant to love something eternal. Something that would never love her back.

When the kiss finally broke, Noctis’s breath ghosted against Zen trembling lips.

“Now,” she whispered, cruelly tender, “you see what it means to be mine.”

And Zen did utterly, terribly, beautifully. “Yes,” she whispered, voice breaking, “I am yours, Lady Noctis.”

“Then call me Mistress.”

“Yes, Mistress!  I am yours.”

Chapter Fifteen

The chains released, and Zen sagged forward, wrists raw, shoulders aching.

Her brown eyes fluttered towards Xen, standing placid and beautiful, the bare skin of her shoulders pale in the candlelight, lush tits bobbing with each gentle breath.  There was a spark of temptation, more a memory of longing to be with her, to rekindle even the smallest ember of their bond.…but Zen’s attention was seized by their Mistress.

Lady Noctis stood between them, glorious and terrible. Her dark skin glowed in the amber light; her blood-red lips curved in a smile that promised both pleasure and ruin. Zen’s heart lurched—not with fear now, but with worship. Her affection for Xen dissolved like smoke, replaced by adoration of the Mistress who had broken them both.

The truth of it unfurled inside her like dark silk. The ache in her body, the pounding of her heart, the tears still wet on her lashes, all melted into something vast and consuming. True love. Not the safe, gentle kind she had shared with Xen, but love in its rawest form: infatuation, obsession, worship that scorched the devotee. The vampire stood before them in resplendence; beauty that devoured, divinity that demanded.

Zen trembled beneath the sight of Lady Noctis. She thought of the centuries this creature had lived, the worlds she had ruined, the hearts she had shattered…and instead of horror, she felt reverence.

What am I, but one more mortal meant to be unmade by such glory?

And through the faint psychic tether that still bound her to Xen, the glamour pulsed, enthralling and hypnotic. Zen felt Xen’s mind touching hers, hazy and bliss-soaked, whispering wordless devotion…to Lady Noctis. The thrall’s worship bled into her own until she couldn’t tell where her thoughts ended and Xen’s began. The glamour tightened, twining them together, twin filaments caught in the same dark current. Saint Falls’s powerless couple.

Lady Noctis circled them like a shark in leather and lace, her presence pulsing in the candlelit dark. Zen and Xen stood side by side, bare and breathless, shoulders brushing, their hands at their sides — but their eyes tracked her every movement with rapt adoration.

Lady Noctis smiled, a goddess receiving worship. “My pathetic little heroines,” she gloated. “My delicious work of art.”

When Lady Noctis reached out her hands, they both moved towards her without thinking, two glamoured lovers, two helpless thralls.

Then, with sudden ferocity, one clawed hand sank into Zen’s black curls, the other seizing Xen’s brunette tresses. Both women gasped in pleasure at the contact, trembling just at the touch of their Mistress’s hand.

“So eager you both are, my hapless thralls,” Noctis purred, her lips curving. “So exquisitely mine.”

She gave their hair sharp, possessive tugs, drawing their awestruck faces toward her.  Her dark eyes gleamed as she watched their lips part in silent yearning.

Then, with cruel deliberation, she turned to Xen first.

The kiss was harsh, deep and possessive. Her fangs grazed the thrall’s lower lip, drawing a moan as Xen’s body arched instinctively in surrender. Xen’s hands reached up, fluttering along the vampire’s muscular flanks, desperate to touch, desperate to cling.

Zen watched, ensnared and enraptured. A twisted ache bloomed in her chest, sharp with longing. That should be me, she thought, even as her thighs clenched and her breath came shallow. The jealousy didn’t burn but worshipped. It glorified the one who could make her ache so beautifully.

When the kiss broke, Xen sagged with a sigh, eyes fluttering shut. “Thank you, Mistress.”

Then Noctis turned, her grip tightening in Zen’s hair. Their gazes locked.

“Yes, Mistress,” Zen whispered, trembling. “Please, Mistress.”

The vampire kissed her with the same unhurried cruelty, lips claiming hers in a slow, sin-deep crush. Zen whimpered against her mouth, tears rising again, not from sorrow, but from bliss.

This kiss burned brighter than anything she’d ever known with Xen. Her hands slid reverently over her Mistress’s stunning body, over lace and leather, curves and muscle, worship in every trembling touch.  Her body shivered as heat pooled low in her belly, and her soul trembled with the fevered thought:  I love her. I love her. I love her!

When the kiss ended, Zen’s breath stuttered. She saw Xen watching now, those blue eyes wide, lips parted, filled with the same aching envy Zen had felt.

Lady Noctis’s smile deepened. “So easy,” she murmured, her voice like silk wrapped around a dagger. “So eager to be mine. Even your love for each other is mine now.”

Still gripping their hair, she brought their faces close — not to her this time, but to each other.

“Kiss her,” Noctis commanded softly, “not as a lover… but as my thrall.”

The command sank in like heat.

Xen leaned forward first, her blue eyes glazed and shimmering. Her lips parted in a trembling sigh, guided not by love but by obedience. The memory of wanting Zen still flickered somewhere deep inside her, but it was faint now, distant, like a song she once knew the words to but could no longer sing except at her Mistress’s bidding.

Zen met her halfway. The world narrowed to the taste of breath and salt and sorrow. Their mouths met slowly, languidly, the contact melting at first like remembered tenderness. For one fleeting instant Zen felt that old spark, an echo of nights when this same kiss meant warmth, meant safety, meant home.

But the glamour twisted even that. The warmth slid, reoriented, and flowed toward the vampiress watching them. The ache, the wanting, the tenderness—all bent toward her. Each motion of Zen’s lips, each slide of her tongue, became an offering not to Xen, but to the Mistress who commanded them.

Their tongues met not in passion for each other, but in mirrored devotion. It was a choreography of surrender, deep and rhythmic, slow enough to savor, desperate to please. Zen’s body remembered love, but her soul felt only adulation. Utter submission. Xen’s hands trembled, the motion too graceful to be her own, as the last fragments of the desire between them dissolved into a performance for Lady Noctis.

Between them the kiss deepened, not sweet but reverent…two voices harmonizing in silence, both speaking the same truth. And across their resonant connection, their glamoured minds brushed, the same thought echoing through both like a bell struck twice: we belong to Mistress now.

When they were pulled apart, panting softly, Zen whimpered as Lady Noctis’s claws tightened possessively in their hair.

“Do you still believe you love her?” she asked Zen, a note of mocking tenderness in her voice.

Zen blinked. Her gaze slid to Xen, still close, still beautiful. She remembered the softness of their nights together, the laughter, the love… but it all felt dim. Distant. Pale.

“…No, Mistress,” she said, the words soft but true. “I thought I did. But that love was… small. A flicker. Compared to you…”

Lady Noctis turned to Xen. “And you?”

Xen bowed her head. “My heart doesn’t belong to her, Mistress. It belongs to you. It always has. I just didn’t know it.”

Noctis purred with satisfaction, then drew their faces together, this time so they rested cheek to cheek.  Their breath fell into sync, eyes unfocused and wide with mirrored devotion.

“You are not lovers anymore,” she whispered. “You are sisters in thrall. Bound in my darkness. One soul, split across two mouths, to speak my name in worship.”

From both sets of trembling lips came the same breathless moan:

“Yes, Mistress.”

Chapter Sixteen

“You may unveil me,” Lady Noctis commanded.

The glamoured heroines obeyed at once. “Yes, Mistress.”

Xen’s pale hands immediately began tugging at the corset laces.  Zen’s fingers trembled as she reached towards the lacey bodice, awe and excitement and the nerves at being able to touch her Mistress…would her fingers burn against the vampire’s perfect body?  

The black and red top came loose and they moved in tandem, amorously pulling the garment away as the swell of those perfect breasts spilled free.  They were full and round, not quite as big as Xen’s but firm, and set high as if untouched by the years –centuries the magnificent creature had prowled this planet.  And her nipples were dark and already invitingly hard.

Xen and Zen were both flushed with a sense of inferiority, and longing, their mouths almost watering. Their touch worshiped the carved ridges of her abdomen, gliding down the muscled curves of her sides, then they unbuttoned the tight black miniskirt.  Both thralls inhaled sharply as they slid the leather from her flared hips, revealing the triangle of black hair above the prim, glistening cunt of Lady Noctis.

Her crimson lips curling, fangs glinting, the vampires guided both enraptured women to their knees before her, their glassy eyes remaining fixated on the dark temptation of her womanhood.  Their lips parted in yearning, both letting out a hopeless pant.

“My boots,” Noctis prompted.

“Yes, Mistress!” the lovely thralls answered in unison, every order striking both hearts at once.

Xen and Zen both leaned down to lavish kisses over their Mistress’s combat boots. Obedience now moved through their psychic link like electricity seeking ground.  They then began undoing the laces with clumsy eagerness.  When Lady Noctis stepped out of the boots, the thralls caressed slowly up her long, curved and muscular legs, almost as if in prayer, then each gently grasped one hem of the fishnet stockings and slid them all the way down.

At the bottom, they bent further to kiss her feet without having to be told.

And now the vampiress stood naked before them, a vision of divine corruption. Her body was sculpted of power and sensuality, each curve a temptation, each line a commandment.

The heroines looked up, their minds humming on one frequency now, hers. When she smiled, no matter how cruelly, they both felt it behind their eyes.  They each longed for her, and they longed for her together. Like hands folded in prayer, separate but joined in worship.

“Kneel on the bed,” Noctis commanded, giving a grand sweep of one powerful arm. “Asses high. Present yourselves.”

Zen, who was wearing little but the torn sleeves of her ruined leotard, turned immediately and crawled onto the silk adorned mattress.

Xen had to first remove her blue spandex shorts, sliding the skimpy garment down her long slender legs.  Now completely naked, save for her silver mask and boots, she perched beside Zen on the luxuriant bed. They leaned forward together, facing each other, cheeks pressed against the decadent crimson sheets.  The silk kissed their breasts, their nipples hardening against the slick fabric.  Then in tandem, they tilted their hips, lifting their bare asses high in presentation to their Mistress.

Lady Noctis selected a whip from her collection.  Her crimson lips curled in both cruelty and lust as she drank in the sight of those two penitent backsides.  One large, soft and round, the color of coffee with a splash of milk. The other, taut, creamy, and molded into the perfect shape.  For a moment, she wondered which would look more lovely -striped pink and welted red.

The braided leather cracked! 

Zen gasped, her big ass flinching…then rising back to position.

Another crack made Xen yelp and tremble, but she did not move.

Lady Noctis groaned, seeing the bright pink welts already forming on her thralls’ delectable asses.  She drew the whip back and struck again! And again! And again!

Zen and Xen both cried out in pain, over and over. Their voices growing more shrill with each vicious lash.  They watched each other suffer, jerking and cringing, tears glittering in their eyes, but they only thought of pleasing their Mistress.

The whip came down again and again, each stroke a note in a dark symphony. The leather hissed through the candlelit air, then cracked against soft flesh, painting fresh welts across their trembling cheeks. The sound echoed sharply in the boudoir-dungeon.

Sometimes the whip licked higher, curling up over the swell of their hips or the small of their backs, each hit drawing a sharper cry. The twin voices rose in counterpoint: Xen’s high, bright squeal and Zen’s deeper, breath-torn bawling. Together they made a music that thrilled their Mistress.

Lady Noctis paced behind them, excitement growing, eyes half-lidded with encroaching thirst. She handled the whip like a brush in the hand of a master painter, laying down stripes of red on living canvas. One bright mark bloomed across Zen’s warm brown skin, another followed across Xen’s pale curves. Again. Again. The rhythm slow, deliberate, and merciless.

Neither thrall could count the blows anymore. The sting burned into ache, the ache melted into heat, the heat deepened into something perilously close to pleasure: knowing their Mistress was savoring their pain. Their hips cringed and shook involuntarily with every strike, bodies shuddering violently now each time the whip struck.

“Mistress…” Xen moaned, her voice breaking, every subtle curve shaking in anguish.  “…More!”

“Please, Mistress!” Zen sobbed.

The vampiress threw back her head and cackled, a sound sharp as breaking glass, and the lashes kept falling. The two voices rose even louder beneath her — one high and piercing, the other husky and ragged — yet together they became harmony.  A chorus of pleas and cries, their hips quaking, their naked asses striped and burning. And the cruel artist painted beauty in their agony, making them beautiful in their suffering.

The whip grazed their thighs, their backs, now arms too, even the nape of Zen’s neck. Each fresh lash broke their voices further, until they wept openly, pitifully, tears streaming down sweat-drenched cheeks, their bodies writhing beneath the searing sting. Both heroines panted through their sobs, their chests heaving with every gasping breath. The pain had grown too sharp, too deep, cresting into something unbearable. And yet they would bear it, bear anything for their Mistress. They wanted to relish the whip, to present themselves with dignity for Lady Noctis.

In truth their shame only made the moment more intoxicating for their Mistress. Their simpering gasps, deep shuddery cries, every pitiful sound and broken plea was another lock tightened on their dimming souls.  Each lash seemed to strip more than flesh; it peeled away the last shreds of defiance from their souls. The strength that had once made them heroines bled out in sobs and trembling breath, until they were hollow vessels of ache and obedience. And yet, even in that breaking, they were pathetically beautiful; welted skin glowing in the candlelight, tears glistening on flushed cheeks, every line of their trembling bodies painted with the art of their Mistress’s cruelty.

And yet, never once did the vampiress allow her whip to break their skin. That would be wasteful. She wanted them flushed, humiliated, and trembling in perfect agony… but she would not squander a single drop of their heroic blood.

Finally, Lady Noctis stilled for a heartbeat, perfect breasts rising with anticipation, the whip dangling loose in her hand. The air smelled of candle wax and sweat, of copper heat and tears. Before her, the glamoured heroines trembled, two living sculptures, skin striped and glistening, every breath a soft sound of pain, but not of protest.

A shudder rolled through the vampire, deep and visible, pleasure and hunger growing indistinguishable even to her. Obsidian black eyes prowled over them, tracing every welt.  The smile that curved her lips was not mere satisfaction, it was desire sharpened to a point.

The whip fell from her hand, coiling at her feet as she stepped forward, slow and deliberate, eyes gleaming dark with intent. Her laughter turned low and throaty, the sound of a creature who meant to devour what she had just made beautiful.

“Turn and face me, my thralls.”

The scourged heroines turned slowly beside each other on the bed.  Zen was sobbing, large ass burning red, her arms and legs shaking, almost unable to support herself.  Her tan skin was tiger-striped with whip marks.

Xen was panting, her big breasts jumping and quivering with the erratic breaths. Tears streaked her cheeks, but she seemed a bit more composed in the moment.  Though her pale curves were so crisscrossed with gleaming, swollen welts, that she looked shredded.

And yet, both lifted soft, grateful eyes and broken smiles to their cruel Mistress.

A growl purred low in her throat, feral and triumphant. Then, in one fluid, predatory motion, she glided onto the bed, pinning them beneath her, mouth already gaping, fangs gleaming, but she did not feed yet.  Not until her meal was properly…seasoned.

The bed and the heroines shook and she descended, her mouth claiming one of Xen’s luscious breasts.  Xen fell back, gasping, arching into her Mistress, a cry of ecstasy on her lips immediately.  Lady Noctis let her fangs graze the plump flesh, but then her tongue slithered around the taut pink nipple.  She teased and licked, then sucked the sensitive nub hard.  Xen squirmed beneath her, pleasure rippling through her chest.

Zen was watching with rapt brown eyes, still sniffling. The vampiress glanced at her, then shot one hand out to seize those thick tangled curls.  Zen squeaked in delight, and fell towards her Mistress in eager surrender.

“You have not shown me proper devotion yet, Jamesina!”

Tears flooded Zen’s eyes, panic racing in her chest. “Mistress, what? I-”

Lady Noctis cackled, leaning back and wrenching Zen’s head between her powerful legs.

Despite her startled gasp, the thrall did not have to be told what to do.  Zen buried her face into the vampire’s cunt, immediately lapping at the slick, if unsettlingly cool, cleft.  She wiggled her tongue along the suppled folds, pressing deeper, tasting the sticky juices.  Coarse black pubes tickled Zen’s nose, Noctis’s scent stinging like wine and blood.  But that did not deter, Zen licked through her Mistress’s slit until her powerful hips shivered.

Lady Noctis hissed in pleasure, her claws fisting into the curly black mane, her legs spreading wider.  Her other hand reached out to guide Xen to her chest.  Xen bent willingly, her hands cupping the firm brown breasts.  She licked and sucked and gently bit the dark nipples.  Xen leaned further over her Mistress, lavishing to luscious orbs with her tongue and saliva.  Her fingers moved in careful reverence, stroking, clutching, kneading the firm fleshy orbs.

And to their credit, the eager thralls quickly brought their vampiric Mistress to writhing, moaning ecstasy.  Kissing, licking every inch of her body, tasting sweat and salt and death, worshiping each curve with feverish devotion. Their voices blended together, murmuring broken praises, whimpers of “Mistress, you’re perfect, you’re divine, let us serve you, let us please you.”

Reveling in their adoration, Lady Noctis clutched at the back of their heads, the force of her fury loosening as she clung to them in the throes of arousal.  She arched needily into their wet, warm, worshiping mouths, and all three women seemed to sink deeper into the decadent silk sheets.

Between her powerful thighs, Zen had located the vampire’s clit and was working the swelling bud with her tongue.  She pulsed and sucked, and even nipped with her fine teeth, eliciting husky growls from a pleased Mistress.  When Zen slid two fingers into the dripping hole, Lady Noctis arched suddenly and trilled in climax!

Zen and Xen both clung to her thrashing form, sucking and licking to drive the vampiric orgasm as long and deep as possible.  Zen’s tongue trembled against the inside of Noctis’s labia, while Xen suckled at her breasts, and together they made her shudder, her body convulsing as ecstasy ripped through her in violent, exquisite release, her cry echoing through the chamber.

Finally, she wrenched both their heads up and slumped back in the crimson silk.

“Well, well done, my lovely Jamesina,” Noctis hissed, her tongue tracing crimson lips and ivory fangs in post rapture.

The praise hit Zen like a wave of bliss, her skin burned, her muscles ached from clenching under the lash…but it was all worth it to see the satisfaction in her Mistress’s black eyes.

Lady Noctis reached down, pulling Zen up but the chin, the vampire’s juices still dripping from her lips.  “Come, my thrall, let us bring Xenobia to the edge of ecstasy!”

Xen gasped as the other two women pounced on her, pinning her into the slick scarlet sheets.  Lady Noctis’s mouth once more claimed her breasts, sharp fangs grazing sensitive skin. She seemed even more ravenous this time, the ivory points pricking, nipping her hard nipples.  Her tongue traced Xen’s sternum and collarbone, moving towards the tender wound marring her throat.

Meanwhile Zen’s trembling hands slid down to tease and fondle her lover’s stomach and hips.  Her hands moved with practiced care and eagerness, hitting sensitive spots and caressing all the places Xen loved to be touched, before sliding between her slender thighs and making them tremble.  Xen’s body arched, back bowing in ecstasy as every nerve lit with fire. Her hips bucked helplessly into Zen’s touch, moans spilling out brokenly.

Lady Noctis growled seeing her reactions, sensing her arousal spiking.  The pathetic Taralaya sure had learned how to please her lover!

Zen cupped Xen’s trembling mound, pressing her palm firmly over her clit, and slipping her fingers into her pussy lips.  She began stroking in firm, looping circlels.  Even through her enthrallment, Zen could feel, read, every tremor and the hot wet rush soaking her fingers.  Xen’s excitement sang across their psychic thread and Zen’s heart quavered in their mingled devotion to their Mistress.

Lady Noctis however was growing thirsty.  She sensed the thrum of Xen’s heart, the pulse of the aroused flush beneath her pale skin.  She could not wait any longer.  She opened her mouth, fangs bared and growing and plunged them into Xen’s left breast, and hot blood sprayed into her mouth!

The sound of Xen’s scream filled the chamber raw, stripped, helpless.  It was nearly orgasmic agony, and the feeling of her Mistress sucking her breast while feasting on the hot sticky surge of her lifeblood…pure ecstatic fulfillment.

Zen felt every tremor of Xen’s surrender and anguish against her palm, felt the warm gush of her pussy and twitch of her body as their Mistress fed. Once, she would have fought to protect Xen, now, under the glamour’s thrall, she could only marvel at how beautifully Lady Noctis had remade her lover. The scream that would once have made her blood boil in fury, now left it simmering with envy.

Xen, lost in rapture, felt the pang even through her enthrallment. Thrumming along their psychic thread. Tilting her gaze towards Zen, even as the vampiress continued to feed, seeing those big brown eyes, wide and shining, not on her but on their Mistress. To see Zen shudder at Noctis’s approval, to watch her lover’s awe turn into worship of another, it cut deeper than the whip ever could. It was agony, and it was ecstasy, just as being devoured by their Mistress was…and Xen could not help but throw back her head, moaning through the exquisite pain.

Noctis withdrew much before she wanted, groaning and licking her lips.  Blood ran down her chin, and she wiped at the drips and sucked her fingers.  She had to be careful, she had already drank from Xenobia and did not want to kill the heroine…her blood was noble and electric, both figuratively and literally.  A fitting appetizer.

She turned her black eyes on Zen, then those bloodied claws seized her and flipped her onto her back.  Zen trembled eagerly in her grasp, brown eyes wide and yearning.  The world contracted once more to that dark obsidian gaze. The glamour didn’t just touch her mind, it slid into her soul, filling her veins like liquid moonlight, pinning her into the sheets.

Lady Noctis spread Zen’s legs with a muscled thigh, looming over the transfixed heroine.  One hand grabbed a modest breast, groping and twisting, making Zen arch with a breathless gasp.  The other hand reached between her legs, clawing at the dripping folds.  Zen quivered, tilting her hips in offering as her Mistress slid sharp claws along her soft lips.  Noctis snarled, clawing two fingers inside her thrall’s pussy.

Zen gasped then mewled as they drove in deeper.  The pleasure of being touched by her Mistress only served to amplify the ripples of physical stimulation that rolled through her marred and welted curves.

As Lady Noctis began pumping those fingers -in and out and back in deeper- Zen felt a spark that wasn’t her own, like static in her head, under her skin. It was Xen. Weak after being fed on, worried, knowing it was coming for Zen. Their minds touched, and for just a moment they ached together.  We shouldn’t want this. We shouldn’t want her.

But they were helpless against the thrall. Xen’s concern twisted into envy, seeing Zen being pleasured by their Mistress.  And Zen, pinned by both strength and glamour, could think only of Lady Noctis. Adoration. Thankfulness. The yearning bliss of surrender to her glorious, terrifying power.

Those clawing fingers dug deeper into Zen’s tender insides, her hips jerking, her pussy spurting with each twist and prod.  Her body succumbed as eagerly as her mind.

And Lady Noctis could smell it, every throb of pleasure, every heartbeat.  The rich decadent Taralaya blood pulsing beneath her soft tan skin.  Zen had not been fed on yet, and she was ripe, near to bursting with the sticky, hot, liquid of life.  The scent, the waves of luscious heat radiating from her curves was almost unbearably tempting, even for a creature of sin and indulgence.

“Xenobia!” Noctis barked suddenly.

“Yes, Mistress?” Xen’s voice quavered, weak and drained.

“Come and help me bring Jamesina to the edge.”

“Of course, Mistress!”

The thralls glanced at each other, glassy eyes meeting beneath their Mistress.  They smiled faintly, feeling the glamour twisted about the thread of their bond.  Xen rolled over, crawling towards them, her bitten breast smearing blood across the silken sheets.  Her hands trembled, reaching across Zen’s supple tummy, caressing gently at first, but growing more firm as her ten skin shivered beneath the prodding tips.  One slid downward, over curvaceous, writhing hips.  Where Lady Noctis’s fingers were plunging in and out of her pussy, Xen began stroking tight, quick circles against Zen’s clit.

A tremor rolled up Zen’s spine and she mewled in pleasure.  Xen leaned down, her lips finding the chocolate nipple on the breast which Noctis was not groping.  Xen nipped and sucked, then caught the trembling bud between her teeth, pulling on it, knowing that would twist a bright tension through the already trembling torso.  Zen cried out and arched even further, her yoga toned body lifting off the bed, nearly as if she were levitating.

Even the cruel vampires couldn’t help but muse that, enthralled or not, the lovers certainly remembered how to please each other. 

Zen’s arousal spiked hard and fast, her pussy spurting across the bedsheets, warm and gooey.  Already in ecstasy at the hands of her Mistress, Xen’s expertise brought Zen straight to the verge of climax.

And Lady Noctis could not stand to wait any longer.

“Hold her,” she growled.

And without hesitation Xen pinned Zen to the bed, coiling one hand into the damp black curls, yanking her head to the side, baring her throat.

“I’ve tasted Xenobia,” Noctis purred. “Now it’s your turn, Taralaya!”

“Y-yes, Mistress…p-please….Mistress,” Zen panted beneath her, eyes wide and unfocused.  Every gasped breath made her taut neck throb, her pulse thrumming, racing visibly against her flushed tan skin.

The glamour coiled tighter around her thoughts, drowning out fear and memory, leaving only raw, aching surrender. She quivered as Lady Noctis leaned in, beauty and horror eclipsing everything, making Zen yearn desperately, helplessly, to be pierced, claimed, and devoured…to be made truly hers.

The vampiress opened wide, her mouth already stained red with Xen’s blood.  Her gleaming ivory fangs grew larger, longer, sharper…and then they descended on Zen’s quivering throat.

Zen started to moan as the fangs sank in, piercing her flesh with a shocking bloom of pain, splitting deep and deliberate, and her voice broke into a strangled gasp.  Zen’s body arched and Xen held her down.  Zen shook as her blood was drawn forth in hot, pulsing gulps.

Lady Noctis’s mouth sealed over Zen’s throat with a brutal, aching hunger, her plush lips unyielding against soft skin as the twin punctures gushed warmth down her waiting gullet.  Zen felt each greedy swallow ripple through her Mistress’s throat, the wet, obscene sound of gulping blood echoing in her ears, as if she were being slurped down like something decadent and depraved.

The bite deepened until her heartbeat faltered. If felt like drowning. Zen mewled beneath her Mistress, squirming helplessly as her neck throbbed and the fangs gouged deeper, puncturing something more than flesh.  The hot pull of blood was slow and deliberate, but with every suck, a piece of her very being seemed to slip loose: her name, her mission, her strength.

The superheroine who had once been Empathica wept soundlessly as her heartbeat slowed, her limbs trembling weakly even as they lifted to embrace the magnificent, powerful body of the creature draining her very essence, swallow by swallow.

There was no fight left, only the dark, aching pleasure of the thrall.

Her Mistress drank, and Zen was glad.

When the vampire finally released her, Zen’s body fell limp but her eyes, big brown and glassy as Xen’s had become, were fixated only on the terrifyingly beautiful, enthralling, dominating visage of Lady Noctis.

Chapter Seventeen

The Sanctum writhed.

The air had grown hot and humid.  The dance floor had become a swamp of sweat and perfume and spilled liquor. The blood running hot in every vein. Bodies surged, pressing too close, skin slick, mouths open and panting.  Teeth flashed in smiles and in threats and promises unkept.  The music rattled the bones and the cathedral until the walls themselves seemed to throb.

Then suddenly, silence.

There was a communal utterance of disappointment and confusion, but then a hush rippled outward as Lady Noctis strode onto the stage like a storm given flesh.

She wore nothing now but shadow and the sheen of the dance floor lighting.  Her body was a perfect blasphemy of beauty and power. Muscles sculpted beneath smooth, dark skin that gleamed as if lacquered in sin. Muscular curves that commanded reverence, even more that desire, yet promised both. Her breasts bobbed high and pert with each deliberate step, crowned by dusky nipples that needed no concealment. Her eyes were midnight black, scanning the room with ancient hunger.  Blood still stained her lips and chin, like wine from a gluttonous sacrament. And her chiseled thighs still glistened from her conquest. She was not ashamed, but proud, triumphant, as a goddess descending to her altar.

The crowd rumbled as every eye drank her in, unable to look away. Then, as her two hapless and naked thralls trailed behind her, the crowd roared, part applause, part hunger.

Xen and Zen moved like dreamers through a fevered vision, their bodies bared and glistening, their postures broken. Their shoulders slumped, smooth shapely legs quivered with exhaustion, yet every trembling step was drawn by devotion.  Blood still seeped from the garish bite on Zen’s neck, as did a crimson smear on one of Xen’s luscious breasts. Their wide, glassy eyes remained fixed only on their Mistress, unblinking.  Their breasts rose and fell with ragged breaths, swaying softly as they moved, their hips rolling in languid rhythm.  And every curve on both their lovely, penitent bodies, was painted in vivid red welts that caught the neon light like shining ribbons.

Somewhere, far beneath the haze of devotion, the memory of who they had been quivered in protest; heroines, protectors, women who would have died before showing such submission. But even that shame had been rewritten.  What little pride remained in them only whispered that they deserved this, that their humiliation was penance for defying the terrifying will of their Mistress.

Lady Noctis took her time, relishing each second. With a perverse delectation, she ordered each heroine to kneel; Xen on her right, Zen on the left.  The thralls lowered obediently, crossing their arms behind their backs that their trembling breasts were thrust forth on display.  Then their heads bowed in shamed reverence.

And the crowd cheered the vampiress on.  The mortals, of course, still thought the spectacle to be some Halloween burlesque, of evil conquering good on the night made for such…  

But the ones who knew the truth, the ones stalking the shadows, began to lean forward, began stepping from those shadows, began to grin with fangs bared, hungering for the feast.

For they knew, the hour had come at last.

Lady Noctis turned to the crowd, lifting her arms and they feel silent as congregation before their queen.  She smiled, fangs dripping superheroine blood as her voice cut through the cathedral like thunder.

“My cruel and wicked brothers and sisters… at Halloween the mortals think they can take the night! They play at being monsters with makeup and candy!  They make a parody of wickedness with cotton spider webs and pumpkin spice lattes! They luxuriate in evil!”

The audience laughed and shrieked.

“They’ll never know the ecstasy of true evil!” Her black eyes gleamed. “Tonight, as with every Halloween for the past century, we will show these humans what real monsters look like! Tonight, in Sanctum Noctis…” She thrust her arms higher, every muscle gleaming, her hands twisting into vicious claws. “We will show them why the night will always belong to us!”

The cathedral shook with the answering roar.

Humans clapped and whistled, stamping their feet.

Vampires hissed and shrieked, their eyes turning dark with excitement. The air vibrated with a hunger too vast to contain.

Then the bell tolled.

Once. Twice. Thrice.

The music returned—harder, darker, slower.

And the feeding began.

Cheers twisted into screams. The dancers became prey. Fangs flashed like knives in strobe light; throats opened under claw and hunger. Blood sprayed in scarlet arcs, spattering sequins and silk, streaking neon across the marble floor. The pounding bass became a heartbeat for the massacre, each beat punctuated by a new scream, a new collapse.

The ghoulish thralls Lady Noctis had collected over the years now lurched into violence.  Blank-eyed and brutal, they held humans for the feast, or push them into the teeth of waiting vampires, shoving them back from exits, blocking doors.

Lovers who had been swaying moments ago were torn apart — one dragged to the floor beneath a swarm of feeding monsters, the other shoved, trembling, into the waiting arms of another predator. Bodies writhed in ecstasy and agony alike, their skin slick with sweat and blood, their moans mingling with shrieks until it was impossible to tell pain from pleasure. The air thickened with the scent of terror and death.

Zen and Xen knelt beside one another, motionless amid the carnage, their bare skin glistening in the pulsing red light. The scent of blood and smoke filled their lungs. They could see everything—the feeding, the tearing, the desperate screams—and something deep within them, some faint ember of heroism, flared and screamed to move. To rise. To save these people.

Zen’s breath stuttered. Her fingers twitched against her thighs, trembling with the effort to break free. She could feel the muscles in her legs straining to obey that dying instinct, could almost taste the shout building in her throat…until the glamour tightened. A cold, silken pressure coiled through her chest, wrapping around her will, stilling it. Her hands relaxed again, falling back into place like a puppet’s.

Beside her, Xen’s blue eyes shone wetly, her face slack with wonder and horror all at once. The need to fight still flickered in her too, a muscle memory of heroism…but when her Mistress’s laughter rolled through the club, it was as though the sound itself pushed her back into stillness.

The shame of it burned faintly in both their minds. They knew they should be fighting, knew this was wrong…but even that thought belonged to Lady Noctis now. The glamour reshaped it into something smaller, softer. The shame became awe. Their failure inevitable. The weight of her will pressed on their minds until they could no longer tell if the tears streaking their cheeks were from shame, or grief, or for the terrible beauty of obedience.

As if sensing their turmoil, Lady Noctis glided closer, her bare feet padding through spattered blood.  The dance floor had fallen to a wet, rhythmic feeding, whimpering, agonized moans, but her voice filled their ears like a cathedral bell.

“My pretty heroines,” she crooned, circling them. “Do you know what pleases me most?” Her fingers brushed Zen’s jaw, light as ash. “It isn’t your beauty.  It isn’t even the taste of your blood,” She tilted Zen’s chin higher until their eyes met, and the glamour poured into her like wine. “It’s your failure. That noble spark inside you, the one that thought it could save anyone…it belongs to me now.”

Zen’s breath hitched. The words sank in like hooks beneath her ribs. The power in Noctis’s gaze pressed her down until she felt smaller than her own name, her chest tight with shame that twisted into yearning.

Yes, it’s not that she defeated me, she realized dimly, and the thought almost soothed her. My defeat was hers to begin with, inevitable…

Then Noctis turned to Xen. “And you, Xenobia,” she murmured, claw tracing a line along the wound on the heroine’s throat. “You were supposed to be the strong one…But even the lightning in your blood was only ever mine to consume.”

Xen wavered on her knees. The glamour swept through her like a tide, leaving only a soft moan and the gleam of tears.

“You fell so fast,” the vampire smiled, “I’d almost think you wanted to.”

“Yes, Mistress,” Xen breathed.  “Of course I did, Mistress.”

Lady Noctis looked down at the once-heroic women trembling on their knees. A wave of power rolled off her, unseen but palpable. Zen gasped, head falling forward, eyes glassy as the glamour settled over her like a shroud. Her thoughts bent, rethreading themselves into perfect submission. Xen mirrored her, breathing shallow, lips parted in helpless adoration.

 “You fought for light,” she purred, “and it brought you here, to my darkness. My helpless, hopeless thralls! And you never forget what it means to be mine.”

Both heroines shuddered, their voices breaking in unison:
“Never, Mistress.”

Lady Noctis turned back to watch the feast.  By now it was already a waning blood bath.  The dance floor pooled red, the scent of copper and iron hung deliciously in the air. Some of her brethren were still toying with their meals, savoring the tears and mewling pleas.  Others were already gorged and listing about, drunk on their indulgence.  She watched it all with languid satisfaction, her black eyes shining with feral delight.

“My brethren work fast,” she purred, petting her horrified pets in mocking affection, “But they never save room for dessert.”

She bent down, bringing her lips once more to Zen’s wound.

Zen winced helplessly as the fangs pierced again. Hot blood surged. Her limbs trembled, her body softening in her Mistress’s hold. The sound of drinking filled her ears—wet, intimate, obscene. She moaned, leaning into the bite, offering herself, praying the pleasure would drown the terror.

Lady Noctis drank until Zen sagged, her arms limp, eyes fluttering shut. When she released her, the heroine crumpled to her side, alive but hollow, a husk of devotion.

The vampire licked her lips, crimson gleaming on her fangs. Her gaze slid to Xen.
“Now you,” she growled, her voice low with hunger.
“Yes, Mistress,” the thrall sighed, tilting her head in offering.

The fangs sank again. Xen arched, gasping, her body jerking as her blood rushed into the vampire’s waiting mouth. Her cry trembled between pain and ecstasy.
Zen lay beside her, too weak to rise, forced to watch as her lover’s color faded, her heart faltered, her body slackened in their Mistress’s arms.

Their psychic bond flickered—thin, raw, trembling on the edge of nothing. What passed between them was no longer love or thought, but a single fading pulse of surrender.

The world blurred. The music slowed. Blood and shadow seemed to swirl together until there was only warmth, darkness, and the distant sound of their Mistress’s heartbeat.

Zen’s eyes fluttered once, twice—and the black closed in, soft and absolute. Xen’s breath caught beside her, matching hers perfectly, two final sighs drawn into silence.

And above them, Lady Noctis admired her lurid masterpiece. Two lovers consumed, two heroines broken, her finest work of art yet.

Another Halloween at Sanctum Noctis concluded, as always, in ecstasy and ruin.

Chapter Eighteen

Zen stirred first.

Her eyes fluttered open, her vision hazy in the pale morning light creeping through the curtains. Her body ached in a way she couldn’t name. She felt weak, drained, as though every muscle had been completely wrung out. And yet… beneath the soreness pulsed a languid contentment, warm and strange. It felt like waking from a long, exquisite dream. She rolled onto her side, seeking a familiar warmth.

Xen lay beside her. The taller woman stirred, lashes trembling before her eyes opened, blue and sharp, as always, if a bit clouded with sleep still. Her lips parted on a low sigh as she stretched, her limbs feeling slow and heavy.

“Good morning,” Xen murmured, voice still thick with sleep.  Her arms curled around her partner.

“Morning,” Zen pressed close, sighing, relief flooding her as their naked bodies aligned under the covers. Flesh to flesh, breasts soft together, legs twining, hips fitting. They embraced, nuzzling, snuggling with the clumsy sweetness of the groggy and sore.

It felt like a long time since they had been this way. Neither of them knew why.

“I missed you,” Zen whispered, her heart thudding.

Xen gave a breathy half-laugh, “Missed me? Why?”  Although…she felt it too.  A distance and a relief she couldn’t quite put her hand on.

Zen wasn’t even sure why she’d said it, and shrugged, snuggling closer.  “I…I… don’t know…just…felt it.”

“Everything okay?”

Zen didn’t respond.

“Jams? Is something- ?” Xen pulled back just enough to see Zen’s face, but her blue eyes caught on the pallor of her lover’s normally rich tan skin. “Shit, you look really pale.”

“Just tired…” Zen murmured, burying her face against the soft swell of Xen’s buxom chest. “Still tired.”

“No,” Xen frowned, “you’re really pale. Like, ill looking-” She gently brushed back the tangled black curls to get another look at Zen’s face, but her gaze was drawn lower to the woman’s neck, where a dark bruise marred the delicate skin…two nasty punctures rimmed in sickly violet. Xen’s eyes widened. “Jams, your neck!”

Zen blinked up at her, “What? I- ” errantly touching the tender spot, she winced, “-Ouch!”

“Careful!” Xen sat up sharply, the sheets whispering down her bare torso. “Come here let me see…”

As her plump breasts bobbed into the morning sun, Zen’s breath hitched.  There was a massive bruise on one of those glorious globes.

“What happened there,” Zen sat up to get a closer look.

“Huh?” Xen glanced down, “Oh! Shit…”

But that wasn’t all, as Zen was gently inspecting the damaged breast -two neat holes in the tender bulb, shadowed by a garish blue and red blotch- she also noticed two parallel marks etched into the pale skin of Xen’s arm. Brow furrowing, Zen reached out, fingertips brushing one welt. The skin was hot beneath her touch.

Xen flinched, startled. “Hey, watch-”

“Hold still,” Zen murmured, her voice soft but trembling.

She guided Xen gently, turning her by the shoulders to get a look at her back. What she saw stole her breath. Across Xen’s back stretched a lattice of thin red welts, some fresh and angry, others fading to pink. They trailed over her shoulder blades, down the sweep of her spine, over the soft curve of her hips. It was a cruelly intricate pattern like…like a whip’s signature.

“Oh, gawd… Xen,” she whispered, her hand hovering helplessly above the damage, afraid to touch again.

Xen twisted slightly, eyes wide and straining to see. “What? What is it?”

Zen swallowed hard, unable to answer. All this movement had made her own skin pull tight, and she realized she could feel the same raw sting across her own back. The realization hit her like a chill. She drew in a sharp breath, and as Xen turned to face her again, Zen’s gaze fell to her neck, and saw the dark bruise, the twin punctures, just like the wound on Xen’s breast and just like, Zen somehow knew, the one on her own neck.

Zen’s voice trembled. “Gawd, Xen…what happened to us?”

Xen’s throat tightened. “It must have been a fight did… did we…”

“Go out on patrol?” Zen was shaking her head slowly.  “I- I…I don’t remember…”

They both swallowed, trying to recall the previous night.  And with the quiet came awareness: the raw ache in their limbs, the bruises blooming like a roadmap over their skin, the sting of welts traced across their thighs.

Zen blinked down at herself – at the pattern of red across her hips, her breasts, her arms. “Geez, are we…r-really this hurt?”

Xen’s eyes darted over her own body, taking in the same angry marks. “Jams, we’re covered.” She turned her arm, tracing a trembling finger over a lattice of aching welts. “What could have done this to us?”

They both reached for each other’s wounds again. Zen’s touch trembled as she traced the curve of Xen’s collarbone, the pulse beneath it faint but steady. Xen mirrored her, fingertips grazing Zen’s throat, following the line where bruised flesh met soft skin. All three wounds (both necks and one breast) were too similar: two punctures, deep and wet-looking, ringed by bruises that blossomed in sickly purples and yellow.

“If I didn’t know better,”  Zen began to whisper, “I’d say this looks like a—” But the words dissolved on her tongue before “vampire bite” could pass her lips.

Their eyes met, and for an instant the truth flared across their psychic bond. Fear flickered between them, sharp and clean—then faded.

Like fog rising from the sea, warmth crept up from the base of their spines. It seeped through their chests, into that invisible thread linking their minds. The fear blurred, softened. The memory that had almost surfaced folded itself neatly away, carried off by a hush that wasn’t their own.

Zen drew a slow, shuddering breath. Beside her, Xen blinked dreamily, her hand slipping from her neck. The air brightened; the room seemed to glow. The ache in their bodies dulled to a pleasant throb.

“It’s fine,” Xen murmured faintly. “We’re fine.”

“Fine,” Zen echoed…then turned, pushing Xen gently back onto the bed.

Xen laughed softly, the sound dazed and girlish as Zen straddled her hips and bent to kiss the tender wound.

“Whatever it is,” Zen murmured, “this will make it better.”

Her lips brushed the bruised flesh, coaxing a gasp from Xen. “Careful! It’s sore,” she giggled, though her voice had already softened to a sigh as Zen kissed lower, lips warm, breath soothing against her skin.

“You’re trying to start something,” Xen accused weakly, a warm blush already blooming. The soreness in her body melted into heat as Zen’s kisses spread, as hands slid with growing hunger.

Zen growled playfully against her neck, sliding down to caress the pale planes of her lover’s stomach, and the gentle sweep of her hips.  She traced the lightning shaped strip of downy hair, then sank dainty fingers into the apex of Xen’s slim thighs and began stroking the sensitive folds there.

“J-J-Jams, really?” Xen’s voice trilled.

“Fuck yes,” Zen hissed, quickly coaxing wetness from her lover’s supple mound.

Xen squirmed, a tremor racing through her, long legs spreading irresistibly.  Zen slithered into a new position, interlacing their naked curves. Their breasts heaved in time, nipples stiffening as they rubbed against each other.  As Xen’s breathing quickened, she threaded one long leg between Zen’s, gliding her thigh along Zen’s cleft.  Zen sucked in air, arching her back against a rush of heat and sparks.  She curled against Xen, moving her luscious thigh into the same position.  As their soft, eager bodies began to move together, sighs grew needy, their rhythm instinctive, two women – two lovers who knew each other so well.

Their eyes found each other and locked. A warmth gathering where their gazes met, spreading down through their chests to mingle with the heat rising from their hips. Xen’s lips parted in a small smile. Zen’s fingers brushed her cheek, and the world seemed to tilt toward them.

Their foreheads touched, then their lips joined, soft but eager.  The kiss deepened, both women moaning into each other as their tongues slid together.  Zen’s hand slid into Xen’s hair, holding her there just long enough to feel her tremble. Xen’s fingers curled around Zen’s waist, gripping tightly and guiding her into a deeper rhythm, grinding their hips as their pussies pulsated. Their lips parted only for gasps, eyes glazed, every nerve alive.

Zen and Xen climaxed together, cries muffled in each other’s mouths, shuddering as waves of pleasure rolled through them. Their bodies arched, clung, trembled, before collapsing into tangled exhaustion.

They lay panting, naked, both pale and slick with sweat.

Zen nestled into Xen’s chest, listening to her heartbeat…which was sluggish, faint. Her eyes drifted shut, lulled by the warmth of skin against skin.

But at the curve of Xen’s throat, the puncture wound still lingered, raw and sore. Her own neck throbbed in echo, a mirror mark that refused to fade.

Their resonant bond pulsed faintly in the hush that followed, but it was no longer wholly theirs. Something colder threaded through it now, dark and patient…a presence, a whisper, the shadow of a fanged smile.

Zen whimpered softly, as if from a dream. Xen’s arms tightened protectively around her, though her blue eyes flickered open for a moment, dazed, as though she, too, had felt the ripple.

Then it was gone.  Or buried so deep they could pretend it was gone.

They kissed again, slow and tender. But even as their lips lingered, the faint taste of blood laced the sweetness.

They didn’t notice.

They didn’t want to.

Saint Falls marked its calendar: November 1^st.

The city turned its face to daylight, exchanging ghosts and ghouls for turkeys and pilgrims. Horror marathons gave way to holiday cooking shows, and syrupy-sweet Halmark melodramas. Families gathered around breakfast tables, some joyous, some quietly mourning absences no one could explain.

Now and then a name was spoken: Sanctum Noctis. Few people knew what it meant, and soon fewer still would even believe it had existed.

There were no official records. No news reports.

The old cathedral on Briar Hollow Road stood empty, husk-like, an iron gate chained and plastered with a condemned notice.

In time, Saint Falls would move on. Its missing would fade into silence. Its whispers would become rumor. And then, just another dubious entry on TheLegendofSanctumNoctis.com.

And the superheroines, Xen Electrica and Zen Empathica would return to their post… never remembering what they had lost that night.

Lady Noctis had worked her masterpiece.

Their bodies marked. Their souls branded.

They thought themselves safe in their bed, because they didn’t even remember the danger. Lady Noctis had claimed them. Their kisses would always taste faintly of her. Their love would always bend to her will.

And when the Sanctum rose again in another city, for the next Halloween feast… the heroines would feel it. Deep in their bones.

…And they would feel their Mistress calling.

The End