Elaina pushed herself back against the wardrobe in a desperate attempt to escape Robin, but there was nowhere to go. She was pinned. Robin’s eyes gleamed with predatory satisfaction as a smile curled at the edge of her lips, offering a glimpse of the fangs hidden behind them.

“Don’t worry. I won’t bite.” Robin assured her, “I’ve other things in mind for you and my mouth. Would you like to see?”

Robin’s hand closed down around the throbbing shaft beneath Elaina’s nightgown, causing her to jump slightly. However, it was nothing compared to the intense leap deep inside her. She was beginning to lose focus on what she had been doing before or where she was. All Elaina wanted to do was succumb to the lust that had been foisted upon her so suddenly. The vampire’s grip on her was tight and warm, but not like the warmth one got from the living. Instead, the heat seemed to be coming entirely from her and retained by the undead palm wrapped around her throbbing erection.

“I don’t think we should be doing this,” Elaina protested weakly.

“Why not? Isn’t this what you’ve always dreamed of?” Robin purred against the redhead’s lips.

Elaina felt a cool breeze move through her mind, riding on the back of the word dream. She recalled what she had been dreaming about before she woke up. The dream itself had been of a dream. The man, whose name she had somehow forgotten, had told her something about dreams. It had been something about reading and writing. But, as important as the information felt, it was slipping away from her again as Robin’s hand continued to caress the rock-hard cock with what felt like a practiced hand.

“Well... yes, but that’s normally something you discourage,” Elaina countered.

“Mmm, true. But you’ve been working so hard lately, and it’s not skiving off if the tutor is doing it with you, hm?” Robin leaned close, kissing gently up her jawline to whisper in her ear, “You think me too posh to fancy a shag with you?”

Robin didn’t often use slang unless she was in a particular mood. She could be known to get vulgar if pressed or angry, but Elaina had never experienced the vampire in a state of arousal. Something about it was even more arousing for her. It reminded her of someone else, but she wasn’t sure where she could have possibly heard this sort of thing before. She felt Robin’s lips curl into a smile against her cheek.

“You like that, don’t you?” Robin licked gently at her ear, the vampire’s hand beginning to work her more firmly, “Let’s be done with all this faffing about and get that cock inside me, hm?”

Elaina’s head nodded without her even thinking about it. She was having trouble thinking about anything. She must have zoned out entirely for a moment because before she knew it, she was being pushed back onto the bed, with the vampire hungrily sliding the gown up her torso to reveal the erection standing tall and proud.

“Oh my, this is quite the treat, isn’t it?” Robin’s eyes gleamed with excitement as she began to pull her blouse open, recklessly bursting a few of the buttons in the process. The lacey brassiere underneath barely contained the great swells of pale soft flesh, nor did it hide the slight pink of her erect nipples.

A pounding at the door caused Elaina to jump, reflexively pushing the gown back down. Robin didn’t seem nearly as startled but looked confused and suspicious as her eyes turned toward the door.

“Uh, who is it?” Elaina called, her eyes flicking between the door and Robin.

It hadn’t been a polite knock in the slightest, and it came again with even more force. Robin’s brows furrowed as she eased away from the bed and began slowly approaching the door. Elaina sat up, feeling the mental fog of her arousal retreating quickly as if being burned off by the rising sun. Generally, it was much harder to get her back to a normal state of mind once she got going.

“Who’s there?” Robin called a bit louder, a hand held at her side, ready to work a spell if needed, “Identify yourself!”

Elaina’s head whipped around, trying to find her sword so she could stand with her teacher against whatever was on the other side of the door. Strangely, it was nowhere to be seen. She usually kept it next to her bed, leaning it against the nightstand where she kept some of the books she had been reading as part of her lessons. She threw herself across the bed to look down at the floor to see if perhaps it had fallen when she’d been pushed backward by Robin. Nothing. She glanced up to look behind the nightstand when her eyes fell on the books, and she froze.

The words inscribed along the spines of the books were complete gibberish, along with whatever was splashed across the front of the book on the top of the stack. Nevertheless, it held her attention, even as another round of banging came from the door, and Robin began to reach out toward the latch. With one finger, she lifted the book’s cover and the first few pages to see more nonsensical script filling the pages within. Then, behind her, Robin’s palm began to crackle with crimson electricity as she channeled lightning through her blood magic.

Elaina remembered what she’d been told about reading and writing in dreams. She remembered who had told her and why it had been relevant. She leaped off the bed, quickly turning to the door, “Resius! I’m in here!”

Robin’s eyes flashed with rage as she now leveled her gaze on Elaina. “What?!”

“She’s right behind the door!” Elaina yelled, ignoring Robin entirely.

The area around the door’s latch exploded violently inward, leaving a melon-sized hole where it had been just a moment before. The bright flash and thunderous sound caused Elaina to avert her eyes, but whatever it was had struck Robin right in the hip, tearing a chunk out of her flesh and peppering her abdomen with large slivers of wood. The wound on her hip sizzled and crackled as if she had been burned, and the areas around the slivers began to ooze with dark red.

A second later, the door swung open, kicked from the other side, and nearly clipped the Vampire. She fell backward from it, the spell flickering in her hand as her concentration faltered. Resius, the man she had somehow forgotten, stepped through the doorway holding what looked like some modified firearm. She didn’t recognize the make of it; she’d not spent much time studying them. Elaina didn’t care much for firearms, and she’d always been thankful they weren’t common outside Zelmescan soldiers. Right now was not one of those times, however.

“Sorry, luv. Just had to get me key,” the man quipped, running the palm of his hand down the side of the weapon, causing inscriptions in the wood and metal to begin glowing. He leveled the gun at Robin before noticing the state of her shirt. Quickly he glanced over at Elaina in her gown and smirked, “Should I come back?”

“Little late for that!” Elaina snapped as Robin raised her hand to aim the spell, “She’s going to-!”

Resius pulled the trigger on his weapon. A luminous flash of light erupted from the end of the strange weapon, blowing a hole right through the Vampire’s chest. Burnt sizzling gore splattered against the wall behind her as she staggered backward, her face frozen in a look of shock. The spell fizzled and failed as she hit the floor. Though Elaina knew it wasn’t Robin who had just been shot, the emotional reaction was still intense as it was sudden. Hot stinging tears began to roll down her cheeks.

“It’s not her, whoever she is,” Resius assured her without taking his eyes off the Vampire on the floor. Elaina averted her eyes but could still hear the grisly sizzling of flesh around the gaping wound the man had just inflicted.

“I know, it’s just... it seems so real. It’s much more real than the last one.”

“Aye, that it is. It must be this place. Deeper connection to it, somehow. Perhaps you knew this one longer?”

Elaina nodded without looking back at Robin as she went to the door, “Yeah. That must be it.”

It made sense to Elaina in a way. It wasn’t just the room that she had stayed in longer to make it feel more natural. She had known Robin much longer than she had either Azade or Anisha. Robin had been her tutor almost every day for quite some time, so their interactions had been more varied and involved. She had also spent a lot of time fantasizing about her sexually in this very room after the day’s lessons were done, and she retired for the evening.

“You hurt?” he asked without looking at her.

Elaina shook her head briefly before whispering, “No, I’m alright. What are we still doing here?”

“Dunno, luv,” Resius replied as he lowered his weapon, apparently satisfied that the vampire wasn’t getting back up any time soon.

Elaina stepped out into the hallway with a huff, “Don’t call me that. I’m not your love.”

“That’s not what-“ Resius began but cut off as Elaina shot him a withering scowl. The man threw up his hands, “Fine. Which way?”

Elaina looked briefly up and down the hallway before picking the direction to lead them to the main staircase. The hallway was constructed of pure stone, the walls adorned with various decorative paintings and tapestries, while the floor had a long plush red carpet with gold trim, “This way.”

Resius followed her, glancing at the tapestries as they passed them, “Interesting.”

“Why?” Elaina snorted, looking over at him.

“It’s very detailed,” he said, motioning with one hand at one of the paintings they passed.

“You act as if you’ve never seen a professional painting before,” Elaina scoffed.

“Oh, I have,” Resius said with a smirk, “Just not usually in dreams. Remember, these aren’t really the paintings. They’re your mind’s recollection and projection of ‘em.”

Elaina paused for a moment, almost forgetting that they were in a dream. Her dream, specifically.

“Why is it places from my memories and not...I don’t know, something else? Somewhere else?”

“Memories are easier to work from,” Resius replied, motioning to their surroundings, “The less someone else invents, the more likely you are to buy it. So they bum off your memory.”

That made sense to Elaina, in a way. What didn’t make sense was why this was happening and who was doing it. Moreover, why was it continuing this way? She continued as she mulled it over, making her way to the stairs within moments. She stepped onto the first of the stairs, only to find nothing under her foot when it came down.

“Sh-Shit!” she yelled, falling forward into a dark featureless void. An explosion of terror erupted from within her as she went into free fall, and the sound of a voice calling from behind her vanished into the distance.

What she expected to be a long drop wasn’t long at all. Instead, she collided face-down with the cold hard stone of the floor beneath her, feeling like she’d fallen a great distance and just a few feet simultaneously. She let out a sharp breath, dirt and dust scattering from her nose and mouth as she did.

The wind had been briefly knocked out of her, so it took a moment for her to get up onto her hands and knees and see where it was she had landed. The familiarity of her surroundings gave way to an immediate wave of dread as the whole bottom went out of her world. It wasn’t a tiny room by any stretch, but being larger only contributed to its emptiness. There was a fireplace that had gone cold, a threadbare rug, a rough wooden chair, and the bed she had fallen from. Calling it a bed was charitable. It was essentially a wood box on legs and a pile of straw draped with a couple of blankets.

Elaina looked down at her dirty hands with dark, broken fingernails and felt panic overtake her, “No. No, no, no!”

She jumped to her feet only to feel her head start swimming and her knees weakening. Quickly she caught herself on the straw bed, looking down at her legs to see them just as thin and dirty as they had ever been. The shift she wore at once been white and had long become a dingy brown from lack of laundering. It was torn and tattered in several places despite her lack of actual physical activity in this place. She was back in the room she’d grown up in, back in the other Alkotas she’d come from. The fear was overwhelming, choking the thoughts out of her.

The sound of locks on the door sent her scrambling back along the bed toward the corner as though it would offer her any additional protection. Then, a moment later, the door came open, and Kaethe stepped in. But it wasn’t the soft and lovely Kaethe she had come to know and love, but the one who had made her life a waking hell for so many years. Her hair was a little different, ginger like her own rather than a distinct red, and tied back into a single braid rather than ones that ran along the side of her head. Her expression was also different, set into a state of disgust at all times rather than the kindliness she had come to know from the other Kaethe.

Her sister regarded her coldly as she closed the door behind her, though notably, it was not closed all the way, “The fuck are you on about?”

Elaina’s eyes darted around the room again, desperately seeking some sign that this wasn’t real. How could it be? Had she somehow fantasized about a whole other world where things weren’t as terrible as they were here? Had she fabricated a different version of her sister who cared for her, who she cared for in return?

“Don’t come near me,” Elaina warned, her fear beginning to smolder with a hint of anger.

“Excuse me?” Kaethe said, resting a hand on the dagger at her hip, “Someone’s got a wild hair across her ass, hm? I think you might want to rethink how you speak to your betters. Especially when I brought you a present.”

The embers within Elaina were doused with cold fear once again as Kaethe threatened her, “I... I’m sorry. I had a nightmare. It was terrible.”

Kaethe’s cold gaze remained on Elaina as she pursed her lips and considered the excuse and the apology for a moment. Seemingly satisfied, she nodded, “A side effect of your cursed blood, no doubt. Don’t let it happen again, or I’ll be forced to discipline you.”

The accent she had become accustomed to in the other Kaethe was absent here, replaced by something much more stark and severe. Elaina adjusted her position on the bed, trying to seem less hostile and defensive in the hopes that she would provoke another session of cutting, burning, or beating from her sadistic sister.

“You mentioned a present?” Elaina inquired, hoping to move things along from the currently tense moment.

“Ah, yes!” Kaethe responded, “Though I’m not sure that you deserve it now with how you’ve spoken to me.”

Elaina’s eyes pleaded as she scooted a little closer along the bed, trying to disarm her sister’s wrath before it was leveled on her. Sometimes Kaethe would hurt her for no reason, because she could or because it was fun for her. But most days, if she remained a certain way with her, she could keep from being brutally assaulted, “Please, sister. I am deeply sorry; I was disoriented.”

Kaethe smirked, putting a hand on Elaina’s head to run her fingers through her unkempt hair. Elaina flinched a little but then relaxed, seemingly satisfying the ego of the cruel woman. But the peace lasted for only a moment before Kaethe took a handful of Elaina’s hair and jerked her head back to look up at her.

“I love it when you grovel for me; get’s me all worked up.” She growled through her teeth as Elaina hissed with pain through her own. Kaethe’s grip tightened as she savored the look of anguish from Elaina before crushing her lips against hers in a hungry, lustful kiss. Elaina felt a wave of revulsion run through her, mixed with the involuntary physical response of her own body. It only lasted a few seconds before Kaethe jerked Elaina’s head away and turned toward the door.

“Bring it in,” she commanded. A moment later, two of her men, clad in their customary dark armor that obscured their features, dragged a beaten and bloodied woman in by her arms. They tossed her onto the shabby rug roughly. Her mostly naked body was covered in cuts and bruises from head to toe, but the color of her pale skin and the remnants of her underclothes and jewelry told her this was no commoner. Kaethe made a brief flicking motion with her fingers, dismissing the men before closing the door behind them. This time the latch of the door clicked when she did.

“What’s going on? Who is this?” Elaina asked.

“Why, your present, of course!” Kaethe exclaimed, gesturing grandly toward the heap of a woman on the carpet as she circled her.

Elaina shook her head slowly, her brows knit together, “I don’t understand.”

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t,” Kaethe scoffed as she brushed an errant strand of hair from her face. She continued to pace around the woman, the sound of her expensive leather boots being the only thing Elaina could hear besides the occasional whimper from the woman.

“This is Aoife,” Kaethe said as she slowly unlaced her own bodice, “Father’s mistress.”

Elaina’s brows went up in surprise. It wasn’t often that she was clued in on the various affairs of the family. They kept her as in the dark as they possibly could on anything. So her father having a mistress was not what was so surprising to her; it was that Kaethe was telling her about it. But why bring her here? What business was it of hers?

“She’s also the one that murdered him.”