Myanna closed her eyes, letting the warmth of Gwendolyn’s hand, or rather the projection of Gwendolyn, ground her and take her out of a fighting state of mind. The half-vila’s hand squeezed her arm gently as she brought her other hand to the wound in her shoulder. Then, without even the slightest pain, Gwendolyn pressed her hand against the open wound, and it was gone.

“You can heal?” Myanna asked, looking over at her restored shoulder. There wasn’t so much as a scratch now. Even the blood that had flowed so freely from it was now absent.

“No,” Gwendolyn corrected, “But I can help you realize you’re not wounded.”

Myanna stared at the shorter woman briefly, then nodded in understanding. Myanna’s body here wasn’t real; thus, its damage wasn’t real either. Only when she believed she had been wounded did she experience the effects of that wound.

“I can’t say that I care much for subjective reality,” Myanna muttered as she turned back to the vampire banging on the mirror’s glass from the other side. The cuirizu stepped to one side to look behind the standing mirror, utterly devoid of any presence there or even something for the mirror to lean against. Instead, it simply hung there in the air on its own.

“With any luck,” Gwendolyn said as she turned her attention to Kaethe, “It’s not something you’ll have to deal with much in the future.”

Kaethe screamed angrily as she continued to pound on the glass, which only seemed to cause the slightest rattle in the frame of the mirror.

“She can’t get out of there?” Myanna asked.

“No,” Gwendolyn replied confidently, “She’s expended far too much energy at this point. While you were keeping her occupied, I was boxing in the space she had to work with, which is why she had to use such a recent memory a moment ago.”

Myanna glanced sideways at Gwendolyn, not understanding the logistics of all this but trusting that the mental projection did. Gwendolyn continued respectfully, “Memories are easier to conjure up in a dreamscape. But there is a significant risk that the subject will recognize imperfections as a dream. Initially, she had created everything from scratch, perhaps using portions of her own memory to lend a weight of authenticity without making you aware of the nature of things.”

“Recent memories are even riskier. Because they’re fresh in your mind, the experience of deja vu can immediately tip you off, as you feel like you’d just been in that place a short time before. Only by re-routing your pain and using Azade’s appearance was she able to distract you from that.”

“Who are ye!?” Kaethe spat toward Gwendolyn.

“A countermeasure against those like yourself,” the blonde replied calmly. “Left behind by someone with some skill in Oneiromagic as well.”

“I never detected yer presence,” the vampire growled, resting a hand on the glass. “How?”

Myanna raised a hand to cut Gwendolyn off, “It doesn’t matter,” she said curtly, “This game is over, and I have won.”

Kaethe’s green eyes shifted back toward Myanna, but the power held in her gaze before was completely absent now that she was contained within the mirror, “Ye think so?”

“I know it,” Myanna said confidently, “and I think you do too.”

The vampire stared at Myanna long and hard, the defiance in her eyes beginning to melt as she lowered her head, “Why? It would have cost ye nothing. All ye had to do was do what cuirizu naturally do, and we would have both been happy.”

“I am not some plaything for you to toy with,” Myanna said reproachfully. “And I am not something for you to snack on at your leisure.”

“This wasn’t about feeding!” Kaethe screamed, tears forming in her eyes. “The feeding, the fucking... it’s just a metaphor for extraction and transfer!”

Myanna spread her hands, “I don’t care what it is. It’s something of mine that you tried to take from me through deception.”

“How dare ye,” Kaethe sobbed, shaking her head as the tears streaked down her face, “With all yer children. All those around ye willing to give ye more. And ye wouldn’t just give me one thing. Just the one so that I can have children too?”

Myanna’s brows furrowed as she looked at Gwendolyn, who responded with a single shrug. Myanna tilted her head and looked back at the mirror, “Vampires can’t have children.”

“No,” Kaethe admitted, “Not normally. But there is a spell locked away in Willowridge. The Abyssals obtained it at some point during the war. It allows a vampire to become mortal in short intervals. Perhaps long enough to at least conceive a child.”

Myanna crossed her arms over her chest. Her curiosity for such arcane things and the bending of eldritch rules piqued her interest, “So use the spell, conceive a child while in a living body, carry it to term in a dead one? Would that work?”

Kaethe looked at her exasperated, “I don’t know, but I’m not spoiling for options now, am I!?”

“What does this have to do with me?” Myanna sighed, “I don’t know this spell. I have no use for it. Nor do I know its location or where it might be kept.”

“Not consciously, no,” Kaethe admitted, “But ye spent so much time in Willowridge that ye must have seen or heard something that ye simply didn’t think to hold onto. But subconsciously, ye might.”

“You’ve expended a lot of effort on a possibility,” Myanna scoffed.

“Ye have no idea what it’s like!” Kaethe yelled at her, “When ye’ve got no options left to ye and yer forced to grasp at straws! Even if ye’ve no distinct memory of the spell itself, ye’ve unparalleled knowledge of the various traps and obstacles Olcaru left behind there. It would make searching the place that much easier, that much safer.”

“Safer? Surely Queen Morrigan has people that specialize in such things,” Myanna said dismissively before it occurred to her, “Unless...she doesn’t know that you’re doing this. You’ve gone rogue on this.”

Kaethe’s only reply was a tear-streaked glare. Myanna shook her head, “Regardless, it’s not for you to steal such things from my mind in my sleep. You should have gotten your breeding out before surrendering your life for power.”

“I didn’t!” Kaethe slammed a fist against the glass, causing the frame to rattle again, “I was turned against my will! I woke up in this body one evening. I don’t even remember being taken!”

Myanna said nothing, lifting her chin a little as she considered.

“My family, the Woodlocks, we have no heirs left. My sister is likely incapable of having children, so it was up to me. Then I wake up, and I’m a damn vampire, of a damn obscure bloodline no less. I’m a novelty to the Obsidian Court but didn’t want to be. I wanted to have a family and take over for my father when he passed. He doesn’t even know I was turned yet,” Kaethe’s hand slid down the glass slowly, “I haven’t the heart to tell him.”

Myanna had encountered vampires who turned others against their will. They considered it a bit of fun, like a sick joke. But she had thought that the Obsidian Court had dealt with them already. Perhaps Kaethe had been one of the ones to be turned before that.

“Ye have such a large beautiful family. Ye don’t deserve them. Ye don’t care about them. Ye just breed like cuirizu do. But you won’t let me have just this one thing. I would love my babies and watch over them as they grow. Even if it’s from the shadows, knowing they were happy and continuing the line would be enough.”

Myanna pursed her lips as she glanced at Gwendolyn, who seemed unmoved. It was hard to say if that accurately represented the real thing; Gwendolyn was a notoriously impassive individual most of the time. Nevertheless, it felt accurate enough to Myanna. Her eyes returned to Kaethe, “You assume a great deal about me.”

The cuirizu stepped closer to the mirror, adjusting how her arms rested under her breasts as if to put them on display for Kaethe, “But I see no reason for this to end the way it has. I can be merciful.”

Kaethe’s head rose to look up at Myanna, “What?”

“If you were to obtain this information you needed, what then?” Myanna asked.

The vampire raised a hand to wipe the tears from her face, “Well, the time ye spent there is a great deal of information. I would need time to examine all of it, essentially walking through the memories one at a time to look for clues. No detail would be insignificant.”

“And your queen? What would she say when you brought this to her?” the cuirizu wondered.

Kaethe said nothing, considering the scenario in her mind and how it might play out.

“You provoking a former Abyssal, a cuirizu, would likely anger her. Opening old wounds would have her on edge regardless of your reasons, would it not?” Myanna reasoned.

The redheaded vampire nodded slightly, only once. She hesitated to surrender the point to Myanna, but the truth was obvious now.

“Then if we participate in an exchange, a willing exchange, it will make our lives easier.”

“And what is it ye would exchange for this information?” Kaethe asked curiously.

“Well, you’re convinced that a cuirizu is bound to its nature and cares nothing for its offspring. Far be it from me to disabuse you of such a notion.” Myanna stared back at Kaethe imperiously. The vampire stared back at her, not wanting to pursue her terms but unable to resist.

“Meaning?” Kaethe said with a bit of a drawl.

“Your cunt and your womb. Both become mine,” Myanna said, raising one finger, “For the purposes of one child. Once you’ve had your fill of me here, extracted your information, and obtained your spell, I will come for you in the waking world and put a child of my own in you.”

Kaethe sneered at the proposal, “I am not some broodmare for your order. Any children I have will be my own for my line. Not yours.”

Myanna uncrossed her arms, spreading her hands. “That is my price. I’ve no interest in obtaining your lands and holdings, no claim to whatever titles your family holds. Just a child with unique traits born of a unique set of circumstances to add to the Verdant Lust.”

Kaethe stepped back from the glass and turned her head away. Silence fell in the chamber as she considered the offer, the price she would have to abide by in exchange for her heart’s desire. In truth, Myanna knew that the devil’s bargain was the most viable option because it was what Kaethe had decided the cuirizu was solely capable of. Of course, Myanna could have been won over in other ways. Still, things had escalated to such a point that she had to secure not just a deal for the information but a settlement for the animosity and hostility that could arise in the aftermath.

“Not my first child,” Kaethe said without looking at Myanna, “I want my first to go to my queen.”

Myanna’s brows went up. How was that going to work for the Queen of the Vampires to have a mortal heir? One to mortal holdings and titles? It went against the policies of the obsidian court. But Myanna supposed that it wasn’t precisely her concern. It was much further into the politics of others than she wished to venture. So long as she and hers would not be hunted down over the wounds of the war, she was satisfied.

“Your second child, then,” Myanna replied, “Will be mine.”

Kaethe’s lip quivered a bit as she met Myanna’s gaze again, who managed to look unmoved by her anguish, “Fine.”

Myanna gestured toward the projection of Gwendolyn, “Release her.”

“I don’t think that’s a wise course of action,” Gwendolyn countered, “Now that she knows of my existence---“

“It will be fine,” Myanna assured her, “We’ve come to an agreement.”

Gwendolyn made a sound of frustration as Myanna extended her hand to the vampire, who reached out from the mirror and took it slowly. As the vampire stepped through the glass, the throne room of Willowridge fell away into the darkness, replaced by the glowing blue of the Grotto. There was no sign of a fight between them as they stood nude near the rocks in the pool’s shallow end.

“Now then,” Myanna said as she tilted Kaethe’s head upward to meet her gaze, “Are you ready?”

Kaethe nodded shortly. Myanna leaned forward, turning her head to one side to expose her neck. She felt the hesitation in Kaethe now that she had what she wanted right in front of her. She was considering the cost, weighing it against what she would gain. After a moment’s consideration, she brought her mouth to Myanna’s neck and sank her fangs into her. Myanna felt a jolt of pain run through her that almost immediately gave way to a sense of euphoria. Vampire bites seldom had prolonged pain unless the vampire was either unskilled or particularly spiteful. The euphoric charge that came with the delivery of the bite could immobilize most people, functioning as a paralytic so that a vampire could take its fill uninterrupted by its victim.

Myanna gasped as she felt something within her drawn forth, a sort of warmth that was released not unlike an orgasm. Kaethe moaned as she took it in, swallowing the cuirizu’s blood before drawing out more. She had said a significant amount of time needed to be covered, so Myanna assumed it wasn’t just a single drink that would do the job. Their bodies crushed together as Kaethe pulled Myanna close, moaning with pleasure as she drew more from the taller, darker woman. The cuirizu remained motionless as Kaethe drank. The vampire’s hands wandered down to the soft, supple roundness of Myanna’s ass and gripped it tightly.

Kaethe broke contact and gasped, her ample chest heaving with delight. Then, before Myanna could ask if she had got what she needed, the vampire bit down into the muscle of her trapezius. Once more, the sharp pain of the bite gave way to a euphoric rush, and Myanna felt a little more at ease with the sensation.

“Ohhh,” Myanna’s moan echoed off the cavern walls, joining the distant rush of the waves that had returned upon their arrival.

Kaethe’s hand was on her breast now, thumbing and pinching at her nipple hungrily. It was a turn that Myanna had not expected but welcomed all the same. The sensation joined with the warm euphoria of the bite that radiated throughout her as the vampire fed upon her, and she welcomed it. Then, to Kaethe’s surprise, Myanna lifted a hand between the vampire’s legs and began to run her fingers gently along the silk of her wet slit.

“Feeding upon me has you awfully worked up, doesn’t it?” Myanna asked as Kaethe moaned with urgent desire into her flesh. Though the pleasure of a vampire’s bite was paralyzing to most, it was not the same for a creature such as a cuirizu. Nor, Myanna suspected, was the blood. Nourishment was the primary purpose of a vampire’s bite, but as Kaethe had said, this was more symbolic than anything. Taking parts of Myanna in meant that she took in aspects of her nature and her being, not just her memories. It was other extant parts of her that went along as well.

Myanna’s rubbed the vampire’s clit, which had swollen with arousal, before sliding two fingers inside of her. The cuirizu curled her fingers, pressing against a particularly sensitive bundle of nerves within and then released before repeating it more firmly. Kaethe’s mouth popped free of Myanna’s flesh, and her head fell back as she let out a long whorish moan. Myanna eased the woman back onto the wet stone next to the pool and moved her wrist and arm in tandem, giving a smooth but firm rhythm with her fingers in the vampire’s pussy. She was sure to press firmly against her eager clit with her palm with each stroke of the fingers into the vampire’s warm slick depths.

“Oh gods,” Kaethe gasped, roughly pulling at the ring through Myanna’s nipple, “What are ye doing to me?”

“Nothing that isn’t in my nature,” Myanna replied with a whisper against Kaethe’s neck. Kaethe’s legs spread a little wider, beckoning for more from the cuirizu, whose fingers continued to pump inside her.

“I...I’m not done,” Kaethe protested, “I still need more of ye.”

“You want more of me?” Myanna’s eyes gleamed wickedly as the cock began to form between her legs, just as it had earlier. It sprung to life fully erect, throbbing with a lustful hunger. Myanna pulled her fingers from the vampire, positioned herself between her legs, and cleaned her hand of Kaethe’s lust with her tongue.

The vampire shook her head quickly as she felt the swollen head of the cuirizu’s cock against her hot, slick pussy, “That’s not what I meant.”

Myanna licked the last remnants of the vampire’s pussy from her fingers, her gaze fixed on Kaethe’s almost helpless expression in this state. The vampire had been overcome with the lust that cuirizu experienced nearly at all times, “I think you did.”

Kaethe’s chest heaved as she brought her hands to Myanna’s hips, where they rested momentarily before easing her forward, the tip of the cuirizu’s dark cock penetrating the delicate pink of her cunt. Myanna pushed forward, sinking every last inch of her length into the woman in a long blissful stroke. She felt the warmth of the vampire close down around her, embracing her from within.

“Fuck me,” the redhead breathed as the overwhelming lust filled every aspect of herself as she surrendered.

Myanna did nothing to second guess the demand, withdrawing her hips and pumping forward with a surge of inhuman strength. The two joined together again and again. Kaethe writhed beneath the dominating presence of the cuirizu as the pace and power of the fiend grew. The cuirizu groaned and gasped as the scent of their lust mingled with the salt air, filling her senses with the blissful sounds of Kaethe’s moans and that of the distant waves.

“Harder,” Kaethe demanded, wrapping her creamy legs around the cuirizu, “Give it to me harder, demon!”

Myanna relished a challenge and was always pleased when a woman wanted to take advantage of her superhuman strength, “Very well,” she replied with satisfaction.

The movement of the cuirizu quickened, adding power to each thrust of her hips. Her cock plunged deeper into the vampire, burying itself to the hilt with every stroke. The slapping sound of their flesh mingled with the chorus of sound the pair had already established. The slick, stronger velvet of the vampire’s insides clenched around Myanna’s hungry she-cock. She may have seemed to be in a passive role, but the expertise with which she milked the entire shaft buried inside her said otherwise.

“Aye fuck that pussy,” Kaethe growled, “Show me how ye’ll impregnate me in the waking world. I wanna feel it.”

“You’ll make a fine vessel for my spawn,” Myanna growled as the desperation within her grew as well. Through the act of feeding on Myanna, Kaethe had unwittingly managed to transform the nature of the aggression between them.

“Do it!” Kaethe cried, her legs wrapped around Myanna as her insides clenched in perfect unison with each of Myanna’s powerful motions, “Shoot it inside me. Fill me up!”

Kaethe’s breasts bounced beautifully with every heavy stroke as she surrendered herself to the lust of the demon savagely rutting inside her, swept up in the ecstasy as if in the turbulent surf of the ocean itself. Kaethe’s fingers dug down into Myanna’s hips. The vampire was only moments from orgasm.

“It’s never enough for you, is it, you slut?” Myanna taunted as she slowed her pace momentarily to ease the vampire up off the edge of orgasm. Kaethe’s gaze snapped to Myanna, demanding why she had pulled back. The cuirizu lifted her up as she moved back into a kneeling position with the vampire on her lap.

Kaethe’s arms draped over Myanna’s shoulder as the cock inside her shifted and reached a new depth and angle within. Their lips met for a moment, tongues curling and wrestling for supremacy before Myanna lifted Kaethe with her impressive strength and drove her back down onto her throbbing she-cock. Kaethe’s back arched once more as she leaned back, holding onto Myanna in blissful desperation as the cuirizu impaled her again and again.

The two of them were without words as the beating of their bodies against one another grew to a feverish pace. Both of them hung at the edge of their climax, not wanting it to end, futilely waiting to see which one would surrender to orgasm first. Kaethe stared hopelessly into the focused eyes of the fiend, deliciously destroying her quivering cunt, her breasts swinging lewdly in time with the erotic bouncing of Myanna’s. Finally, the sound of the grotto fell away, and the blue surrendered to a blinding white as Kaethe’s senses fell away into the singular, decisive moment of release. Myanna did not outlast her for more than a second as the vampire’s hot, powerful insides clutched down around her, milking her of her orgasm with her own.

Kaethe’s mouth fell open in a silent scream, her senses shattered by the quaking rapture of orgasm that ran through her. Myanna’s cock pulsed and throbbed as it loosed her fiendish seed, erupting with thick ropes of cum into the depths of the vampire’s waiting cunt. Myanna’s body did not freeze immediately. Instead, she gave a few more powerful strokes of her hips inside the redhead to churn her seed inside her. But eventually, even she surrendered to the electric paralysis of her climax, simply emptying herself with surge after surge of thick viscous cum.

The moment stretched on and on inside the span of just a few seconds before abruptly crashing back into ordinary time, both of their chests heaving with delight as they stared at one another to see what the other’s next move would be.

“Well,” Kaethe rasped, “That was more than I expected.”

Myanna nodded a little in agreement, “And me as well,” she admitted as she slowly began to pull herself from the vampire’s quivering slit.

Kaethe’s hand snatched out to hold Myanna’s hips, and Myanna stopped.

“I thought that would be all that you needed,” Myanna said, her breathing beginning to return to normal, “You require more?”

Kaethe bit her lip, her eyes fixed on the point where their two bodies were joined for several moments, “No,” she answered, “But I told ye I have a weakness for strong women.”

Myanna said nothing as Kaethe eased back down onto the cuirizu’s still-hard cock, a little sigh escaping her as she did, “There was a portion of this that was meant to be fun for the both of us, ye know.”

The cuirizu nodded as Kaethe swiveled her hips a little, savoring the fullness she felt within her, “Perhaps it still can be, hm?”

Myanna tilted her head to one side, lips pursed, “A peace offering then?”

Kaethe crept forward, settling snugly into Myanna’s lap as the cuirizu leaned back to gradually surrender more control to the vampire, “Something like that,” Kaethe answered as Myanna laid back. “Reconciling differences, I suppose.”

Myanna’s hands crept up the front of the vampire, savoring the softness of her breasts as she took hold of them and pinched down a little on both nipples, “I might be open to such a gesture,” Myanna said with a note of satisfaction in her voice.

“Would ye?” Kaethe said, rocking her hips forward as she straddled the cuirizu, her gaze locked on Myanna’s. “I would be most appreciative.”

Myanna’s eyes gleamed with a lustful hunger once more as she felt herself stirring up their blended lust within the vampire. Now that they had set everything aside, they could enjoy their time together in the dreamscape. Myanna, though not pleased with how everything had started and how the vampire had invaded her on an intimate level, could not bring herself to hold it over her for long. Myanna had done much worse in her time to many more people and for much less worthy motivations than what Kaethe had done. The vampire had been defeated, and Myanna had shown mercy, causing Kaethe to desire the opportunity to make amends. The cuirizu would be pleased to make amends with her repeatedly, for as long as she could.

Myanna nodded, taking hold of Kaethe’s hips as she pushed her hips upward into her eliciting a pillowy clench from within the vampire, “I’d say you’ve earned at least that much.”