Embrace Ch. 05

The awkwardly shaped remnant of a clitoris dares to peek from under its ragged hood. Amelia circles it affectionately with a wet finger and though there is no sound of protest, Sylvie tenses. Amelia lifts the offending finger off the sensitive nub and slides it very gently into the slick channel instead.

The ghoul whimpers her gratitude as Amelia begins tonguing sweet circles lower down, just around the tiny opening of her urethra. The woman's hands clutch at the floor beside her. Amelia slides her left hand under Sylvie's right and holds it gently as she begins to tongue fuck the ghoul. She adds a second finger to the hungry pussy, stretching, pressing down, resisting Sylvie's bucking hips as her tongue snakes steadily in and out, stroking across the more sensitive little hole with each pass.

"Oh mistress! Please, mistress! I can't bear it, I can't!" Sylvie's words tumble together into a little song of euphoria as her body spasms.

Amelia unpins Sylvie's cunt and allows the woman to buck and ride now, suckling the bittersweet skin of her labia, pushing out her tongue as far as it will go. Inevitably her rising eye teeth bite, tearing into Sylvie's swollen vulva like an overripe peach. She grasps both the woman's hands as Sylvie fucks and grinds into her face, shrieking with delight. Amelia gives herself over to the eager woman's need, moaning deep in her throat as forbidden morsels of ghoul blood trickle from the wounds.

Sylvie's orgasm rolls into Amelia's kiss, inseparable as the rain and the river. Amelia suckles in earnest now as Sylvie grasps her unbound hair to force her mouth down harder. Amelia surrenders herself to the ghoul's aggressive need and Sylvie rolls her over. What a beautiful sight to behold. Sylvie straddles her face and rides with not a thought for the consequences, eyes alight with fierce desire. Amelia reaches up to fondle her lover's swinging teats, offers her finger to sweet Sylvie's mouth as her tireless tongue splits the ghoul's sodden cunt.

"I'm coming again! Oh Jesus!" Sylvie howls. Waves of pleasure wash over them both and Amelia's vision clouds over in pink as her eyes well up with vitae. Sylvie shuffles off Amelia's face and straddles her waist, grasping the vampire's breasts hard enough to bruise and lapping at the bloody tears with passionate abandon. Amelia laughs at her enthusiasm and pulls her lover down for a more mutually enjoyable kiss. Their lips tease, tongues are split on Amelia's razor sharp teeth and forbidden fluids mix in their eager mouths.

Exhausted for now, Sylvie gives control back to Amelia. It's as subtle as the angle of her jaw, the curve of her brow. Amelia shifts her weight and the ghoul rolls aside, resting her weary head on Amelia's shoulder.

"Do you like this?" Amelia strokes the softening nipple and it springs instantly back to hardness as Sylvie gasps. "Your tits are beautiful, you know?"

"Oh please." Sylvie laughs weakly. "I know damn well I'm not beautiful."

"Your gift to me is beautiful." Amelia gently kisses Sylvie's greying hair.

"That's good enough for me."

All the aggression of the ghoul's beast is gone. There is still fear of course, but the woman's eyes are softer and more trusting now. There are so many questions on Amelia's mind, who beat her? Who cut her? All those tattoos didn't spring up overnight and Eleanor's mark is not among them, how did the elder arrange this? Indeed, what poor soul has taken Sylvie's place?

"I only scratched you with my teeth, but you won't heal well if we leave it."

Sylvie spreads her legs wide and sets her hands submissively by her sides as Amelia licks at the wounds, carefully avoiding the poor woman's mauled clitoris. Sylvie lies passive as her skin is healed over. Amelia probes inside the ghoul's sex with two fingers and watches her face. Sylvie opens her mouth a fraction and spreads her knees almost imperceptibly wider.

"I can't kiss you every night, what else do you like?" Amelia asks gently.

"Everything." the ghoul says without hesitation. "But especially this." She swallows nervously. "When you care for me."

"Because you can see I enjoy it?" Amelia asks.

"I... I used to love it when Mistress Elizabeth took care of me." Sylvie says shyly. "She would bleed her precious vitae right into my greedy pussy." Her eyes widen again as though Amelia would take offense at such a thing. "I'd say it was only a chore to her, she found our unnatural lusts amusing and she liked to humiliate us."

"Do you like being humiliated Sylvie?" Amelia teases.

The ghoul shakes her head. "It's not about that, Mistress Amelia. I desire to please all my masters. Such blood games amused Mistress Elizabeth and Master Rudolphus, but they made others weep for sorrow and they angered Mistress Eleanor. But I used to love it when everyone could see. It wasn't humiliating at all, it made me feel free." she hesitates before continuing. "Mistress?"

Amelia feels the woman's pulse quicken as she resumes steadily fingering that slick cunt.

"Don't you fret. Would you like me to fuck you again tonight?"

Sylvie gives an eager nod and gasps as Amelia twists four fingers into her cunt and rests a little finger on the dark ring of her arse."

"Ingrid has prepared a bath in the kitchen, I would love to molest you in front of such an innocent witness. The more I see of you the more I have to wonder. How many of these scars you're wearing are from punishments?"

Amelia slaps Sylvie gently on the arse and the woman grunts as the vampire pulls her fingers into a half fist and forces her thumb up beside them.

"And how many were rewards?"

"Uh! Fuh!" She bleats as Amelia's fist pushes higher. "Ah! Ah! Ah!" She whimpers a helpless staccato as her anatomy is forced to accommodate Amelia's entire slender hand. The vampire smirks as the warm cunt swallows up more of her wrist than she anticipated.

"Poor thing." Amelia says breathlessly. It does hurt, it burns like fire as her knuckles pinch nerves against bones, the blood they shared blurs the lines between their bodies. It's heaven.

"Sorry mistress. It feels lovely now that you're inside me." Sylvie corrects herself, as the echo of Amelia's pleasure confuses her emotions. The dishonesty makes Amelia uncomfortable.

"I wish you did love me inside your body. Did anyone do this to you before?"

"No mistress." Sylvie sniffs pathetically. " They used to say it was n... nice and tight... before."

"You are nice and tight. But I don't have a little cock." Amelia carefully nudges in and out, barely half an inch as Sylvie grunts, holding her shaking legs as wide as they can go with white knuckle grip. "I know you aren't afraid. You need to relax sweetheart. Relax and trust me to fuck you properly. You've come twice and you're soaking wet all the way inside. Now if you were some weak little mortal I would offer you some oil. Is that what you are Sylvie? Is that what you want?"

"No mistress, and I do trust you."

Amelia kisses the ghoul's bullet hard nipple and gently licks and sucks the sensitive little scrap of flesh as she inches her hand inexorably further in and out. Sylvie gives an excited gasp as Amelia puts more pressure against the softer tissue at the back. The ghoul whimpers as Amelia closes her fist and works it against the muscles. How deliciously similar it feels to being buggered.

"Mistress," Sylvie whispers fearfully, "you're going to fuck me so hard aren't you?"

"Oh yes my sweet pet. When you're ready."

"Whenever I was in your room mastubating, I'd picture you on that first night. I'd remember how your beautiful hair felt. You're so graceful when you move... Uhn! Ooh! I n... never imagined you'd be c... capable of this."

"Surprise." Amelia carefully withdraws from Sylvie's reddened hole. "A lot has happened since then." She smiles and waits patiently.

"Thank you Mistress." Sylvie says shakily. She kisses Amelia's damp hand.

"Come now. Let's decamp to the nice warm kitchen. How long has it been since someone did anything exciting to your sweet little bottom?"

"Some time." Sylvie says quietly. "I should have known better than to act like this, but I missed it so much." She pulls the coverlet off the foot of the bed and offers it to Amelia. The vampire takes it and drapes it over the ghoul's shivering body instead.

"We're pushing our luck, Sylvie. I don't want to cause trouble, you know what could happen."

"I know." She sits on the blanket box and waits, watching Amelia.

Modesty is a difficult habit to kick, but Amelia thoroughly enjoys the ghoul's hungry eyes on her as she pulls her negligee back on.

"I was always manipulating them into feeding from me, in the end they pilloried me for it and left me without for some time. Master Rudolphus oversaw it all. He was kinder than I deserved, he said it was for my own good, and it really did h... help I suppose. I'm not as lustful as I was, and I learned my place." She wipes away an errant tear. "So in honest answer to your question, Mistress Amelia, it's been well over ten years since anyone has had me that way. And I'm scared of what will h... happen to us now."

"Why?" Amelia says gently. "Do you think it's your fault that we can't control ourselves?"

She sits beside Sylvie and dabs at the ghoul's tears with the sheer sleeve of her silken gown.

"They set you up from the very first day with their conditions and commands. They kept you ignorant and weak. You had enough knowledge to hurt them, so they had to control you and manipulate you and the easiest way was to make you feel ugly and unwanted, Sylvie. Now the first time I show you an ounce of kindness you cling to me like there's no one else in the world, except it's not true. They stole your youth, yes. But you were never unlovable. You were never ugly. I wish I could help you see it."

No tears now. They sit together on the edge of the narrow little box holding hands.

"We should go down stairs before the water gets cold." Sylvie says. "Did you really mean all that?"

Amelia shrugs. Bloody Eleanor. Pulling people's lives apart, patching them together.

"Every word." She brushes a thumb against the ghoul's crow's feet. "I'm not interested in forcing you, Sylvie. Do you want me to come down stairs with you tonight?"

Sylvie nods, an adorable twinkle in her eye.

Amelia decides to push her luck.

"Do you want to come out with me next weekend and meet some open minded somewhat feral nobles that will happily take turns stuffing all your holes?"

Amelia takes guilty pleasure in allowing Ingrid to watch her games with Sylvie that night. Though she is a poor servant, the disgust on her face as Amelia bends Sylvie over the kitchen table is worth every penny. It titillates Sylvie, easily doubles the ghoul's pleasure, and it grounds Amelia. It helps her remember why secrecy is a matter of life and death. Ordinary God fearing people would see women hang for this sodomy. Amelia conditions the maid thoroughly, so the poor girl has no chance of ever being able to give an account of what she's seen.

The girl is paid double the going rate for a house maid, though her work barely passes muster. Sylvie finds the girl's laziness and contempt irritating, especially when Ingrid foolishly lies about completing her chores. Amelia loves to see this side of the ghoul. She gives Sylvie free rein to discipline Ingrid at will and the floors are soon polished to perfection.

Sylvie seems to take pride in correcting the idle servant with all propriety, forcing Ingrid to admit her omissions and falsehoods and regularly tanning her backside in full view of the other servants as an example.

What begins as bitterness and resentment drifts to compliance and even affection over time, as Ingrid slowly comes to the realisation that this is her lot in life. The young woman sends much of her money home to her parents who live a good day's travel from Vienna, but little luxuries and small freedoms mean a lot to the maid.

Though Sylvie will never admit it, she is learning from Ingrid too. The ghoul's life at the palace was so far removed from ordinary experience, she takes joy in the most mundane activities. In the beginning, choosing her own unique clothes, anything but the drab grey uniform, feels alien. Soon she is deciding what to eat, when to go out, filling the house with flowers and plants.

Amelia watches the gradual change from frightened slave to contented servant with some satisfaction. Yet the marks of Sylvie's enslavement are plainly written on her body and cannot be ignored. Until Amelia can claim the ghoul for herself, all this is a mirage of sanctuary, fleeting as her time with Meryem. Knowing that, she squeezes every drop of pleasure from this precarious existence.

*

Sylvie fits in well with Amelia's lovers and playmates. To say the woman is eager to please wouldn't do her justice. Even the most well endowed and impatient lover finds the ghoul's mouth a deep well of pleasure. She heaves and drools, sometimes forgets to breathe and becomes lightheaded as she makes an eager cunt of her face. All the skimpy costumes, sometimes no more than a few strips of leather make her self conscious at first. The truth is, nobody could care less about her sagging skin and wrinkles. Among the nightlife of Vienna her battle scarred body is a badge of honour.

Amelia laughs about it on the way home at four in the morning.

"I don't need air and I can't keep up with you. What's your secret?" Amelia teases. "Have you learned to breathe out of your arse?"

Sylvie smiles knowingly.

"Ah, well," she says proudly, "when they taught me to suck cocks they seemed a lot bigger than that."

"Don't be ridiculous." Amelia scoffs. "You swallowed over eight inches as thick as my wrist. And what was that thing you did with your tongue?"

Sylvie grins. "Precocious talent you could say." She turns her face up to the cold clear sky. "You've helped me so much, Mistress Amelia. I think I'm starting to accept this tired old body for what it is at last, and it means a lot to me."

It takes all of Amelia's skill as a courtier to fix the smile on her face and change the subject.

*

When Amelia finds the courage to ask about it, Eleanor seems pleased with her.

"The vessel was a little whore." Eleanor replies without even looking up from her needlepoint. "Orphaned, I believe."

Amelia's head is spinning.

"Why ghoul a child? Why steal an orphan, a child for God's sake and feed from them!"

"Precisely." Eleanor says, the word dripping with disgust.

Amelia sits on the little stool at Eleanor's feet and takes the basket of thread. She orders the skeins and lays out the gold and green ones on the arm of Eleanor's chair. The elder divides the fine threads into tiny wisps and twists them, the gold and the green together, as she details the little tapestry. It's not obvious what it will be when it's finished.

Sylvie's four clan marks are aligned from top to bottom, starting from the nape of her neck. The three older tattoos have faded to grey, and their shapes mean nothing to Amelia. Rudolphus' black mark is the freshest, but he left the city the night Meryem died and she has no way of asking him now.

"Clan records aren't enough, my lady." Amelia says. "Though I pored over the ledgers, I swear half the ghoul's marks may as well be penned in chinese."

"And you are wise enough not to press for the information, good. Very good. You would undo much progress if you force her to dwell on the past, and you recognise that."

"Does the past matter now?"

Eleanor glances briefly down at Amelia. That wicked smile of hers is back.

Amelia says nothing more, allows the question time to gather substance. Eleanor inclines her head at last, presumably in approval.

"Certainly it should matter to us if it matters to Prince Paracida. Why should the records be incomplete?"

*

Leopoldine has always been very approachable, and no one else is as familiar with the clan records.

Wary of drawing Wolf-Dietrich's attention, Leopoldine spirits her away to a quiet corner of the labyrinth beneath Schönbrunn to talk in secret of why the meticulously kept scrolls have omissions.

"It happens to be an old Roman custom, the Latin for it is damnatio memoriae, but it's obvious, right?"

It's not obvious at all to Amelia but she remains silent.

"You upset the prince, you suffer. Your legacy becomes a cautionary tale, but it cannot remain in the record, it cannot erode the dignitas of our clan. Paracida tolerates vices as far as he can, but if they threaten the masquerade... You're lucky. The true path of enlightenment is humanity, everyone agrees these days. Even those who proudly flaunt their inhumanity are prevented from deliberately destroying the souls of their childer. Your sire never had time for such nonsense, but his sire? The less said about it the better."

It's tempting to digress and ask Leopoldine more about this spirituality, but Amelia keeps her focus.

"Were any of these my grandsire's domain marks?"

Leopoldine takes the proffered scrap of paper and casts a wary eye over Amelia's carefully copied symbols. She lifts the note up to the torch and sets it alight.

Amelia holds her tongue. Poor Sylvie. What is this madness?

"I would be doing you a grave disservice if I answered that question. Where did you obtain such contraband?"

"Madame, it makes no sense to me at all. These are domain marks, I'm sure of it, but there are no examples of them in the ledgers."

"Twelve years ago the prince ordered our records purged of all reference to your grandsire. Mere weeks before your embrace, the records were similarly purged of all reference to your brother in blood. You have no idea how quickly the hammer can fall on a transgressor, so I am telling you now to drop this nonsense. Whoever put that information in your hand is no friend of your sire."

"It was the Lady Eleanor." Amelia says.

Leopoldine's face is like thunder. Her words drip with saccharin sarcasm.

"Then how considerate of you to involve me."

"I am friendless, madam. Truly, friendless. My sire would see me burn, my only patron would give me enough rope to hang myself, and you, once my only glimmer of hope, would cast me underfoot. I'm so sorry to have troubled you."

Amelia hurries away into the shadows lest her damned emotions embarrass her yet again, but there's nothing to stop Leopoldine summoning her back, of course. Amelia does not resist the summons. She wills her frustration away, and takes a knee contritely at Leopoldine's feet, and meets the scrutiny of her elder just as she's been taught.

All Leopoldine's girlishness may well have been an affectation. The vampire is as stony faced as any other soulless courtier.

"No-one in their right mind would tell you any of this. If the prince gets wind that you know what I'm about to tell you, you might not be alive long enough to realise why you're dying. Do you understand me, Amelia-Marie? If you value your patron's reputation at all, if you value mine, keep this madness to yourself."

"Yes my lady." Amelia replies.

"Alright."

Amelia sighs with relief as Leopoldine's expression softens at last.

"It is absolutely forbidden to use a ghoul as a vessel, it is absolutely forbidden to arm them with the knowledge of what we really are to them, but it was not always so in Vienna, stupid and dangerous as that might seem. One or two respected kindred had difficult feeding preferences, and so without a ghoul's fortitude, their vessels would not have survived a single feeding."

"Respected kindred like Catherine?"

"You have no instinct for self preservation at all do you?" Leopoldine scoffs. "Something like that I suppose, but without the shameless insanity you could say. Anyhow, none of Rosemary's childer had her aptitude for cruelty, and none of them showed any interest in her twisted visions of the road of heaven either. Your grandsire had more success influencing these secretive kindred, supplying them vessels robust enough to last a few weeks. Ghouled specimens of older, younger, or erm... maimed kine."