The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

I run through the wood, looking for Layla. If I could get to the thunderstruck tree, all would be well, but the forest seems alien. This is taking far longer than it should. Though I know the correct path, it is as if something forces me to take wrong turns. To make up time, I run so fast my lungs burn.

Finally, I burst into the clearing and there is Layla, with Summer kneeling before her. Both bear the mark of Dahlk. Seeing their black robes, I realise I have forgotten mine. Summer fumes at me.

“Where have you been?” she spits. “The ceremony is nigh.”

“I was lost. It was not my fault,” I protest, panting for air.

“What are you wearing?” she continues venting, ignoring my distress. I look down at robes of blue and silver. “Those colours are forbidden here. And where is your mark? You will not ruin our dedication, sister.”

I feel my forehead, covered only in sweat, and turn to Layla for help.

“Please. You must bless me,” I beg, pulling my robes off and casting them aside, leaving me as naked as the night.

“Must I?” Layla asks. “What will you give me for your mark?”

“Anything,” I answer desperately.

“Good pet,” Layla responds. She places her hand on my brow, then pushes my head to one side to bite deep into my neck. I gasp over and over as she drinks from me while my hair turns white.

I woke with at start to early morning’s light. I had imagined we were up all night, but it had been fully dark when returned, so perhaps I was wrong. I felt the most refreshed I had in days, which was a relief, but my dreams left me conflicted.

I supposed it was inevitable my vampire fixation would eventually incorporate Layla into my fantasies. It seemed wrong that my dreams had got there first, leaving me both aroused and ashamed. Was Layla not lovely enough already? Was she insufficiently magical? Not dominant enough? Why did I have to cloak everything in my obsession?

We had a little time to ourselves as we fetched water before breakfast. Just as it was clear to me that Summer was in a good mood, it was obvious to her that I was perturbed.

“Did you dream of ‘you know’ again?” I did not want to say our beloved’s name anywhere it would be possible for Mother’s keen ears to catch. Summer nodded slowly and deliberately.

“We fucked and she bit me,” she whispered. “It was so hot.” An amalgam of emotions tumbled through me: annoyance that our dreams were not identical; disappointment mine comprised no explicit sex; gratification we had shared the biting element; and shame my self-consciousness denied me the courage to tell her what that meant to me.

“Where did she bite you?” I asked as innocently as I could manage.

“On the neck. It was intense,” Summer replied, more lost in her memory than attentive to my bashfulness. Without expectation, I reflexively glanced at her neck for teeth marks but found none.

“She bit me in my dream too,” I shared. “There was another ritual, but you were angry with me. I hate that.”

Summer pulled a frown of sad sympathy and drew me into a hug. Though rare, we shared the same distaste for dreams where we quarrelled.

Time was not on our side though, so we had to suspend our conversation for breakfast. With our chores keeping one of both of us close to Mother, it was not until after lunch, with the afternoon free, that we had the opportunity to resume our discussion.

We put some distance between us and the cabin and found ourselves drifting to the thunderstruck tree, lying on its side, lonely in the clearing. It had been some time since we had seen it in daylight and now it was a place of much greater significance, sacred to us. With reverence, we touched the spot on the fallen trunk where Layla would wait for us.

“I want her here now,” Summer reflected.

“Of course. I wish we lived together,” I mused.

“Soon, I hope. We should address that with Layla. As marvellous as everything has been, we want more, yes? We want to be with her for always,” Summer had a pleasing way of asking for my agreement without dictating our opinions unilaterally. She was better at that than me. In this instance, we were in complete accord.

“Very much so. Thought next year was the plan, we cannot expect Layla to wait that long, yet we cannot ask for Mother and Father’s blessing while the pact demands our silence. We may be of age, but parting without their blessing would feel awful. Unless we did not mention Layla at all but that seems madness. I love how the pact binds us, with all my heart, but something must change if we are to truly begin our lives with her. I want them to know how happy we are. I want to tell them we have a girlfriend. But we cannot,” I said, punctuating my frustrations with a huff.

“Agreed. We will discuss it with her tonight… if we can keep our hands off her for long enough,” she laughed.

“Or stay off our knees,” I giggled.

“Or out from between her thighs,” Summer joked, rolling her eyes in mock ecstasy.

“Or out of our collars. Nnn!” the memory of silver pressed about my throat was as vivid as it was tantalising. “How does she do that? Make us so obsessed? Besides being the kindest, most beautiful, loving person in the world.”

“I think you have answered your own question, but I had a thought about that,” Summer replied. “Our dreams were not the same but similar, correct?” I nodded. “In mine, she was initiating me into the mysteries of Dahlk, demanding I make sacrifice. Then she bit me. On the neck. It sort of hurt, but not really. Then I felt her drinking my blood. That was so hot I think I raptured in my sleep.”

My heart jumped about my chest. Summer enjoyed a dream of being bitten. It was as clear in her gestures as it was in her words. Though I had not considered it before, the idea of Layla biting my sister was extraordinarily stimulating. Perhaps Summer liked vampires the way I did. Her confession gave me hope. “She bit my neck too. In the dream…” I committed to the thought. “I thought it was sexy. I think vampires are… hot.”

“You do?” Layla asked. There was suspicion in her tone that left me feeling very exposed. What if she thought my fantasies foolish? What is she disapproved? What if she was angry I had kept secrets from her. Time to find out. I nodded.

“Thank the gods it is not just me,” Summer revealed, her face an expression of relief after discarding a long-worn mask. “Truly?”

“Yes. For years,” I confessed.

“Whoa, little sister is all grown up,” Summer teased. “You used to be terrified of vampires. Remember when we ran home from the pool because it was getting dark, and you thought they were going to get us?”

I rolled my eyes. “Thanks for the reminder, ‘big sis’. Of course, I remember but we were six,” I sarcastically spat back and stuck my tongue out, like I was a child again. “Anyway, how long have you liked the idea of them?”

“Not sure…” Summer pondered, searching her memory. “A long time, I think, but I do not remember when I started finding them so… intriguing. What they can do is attractive in a twisted kind of way. They can rob you of your will. Make you do their bidding. I like that sort of thing. You know. If the right vampire came along.”

Her tone trod the borderline of sincerity, but I had to laugh. In reprisal, she gave me a half-hearted push. “I am sharing my deepest desires, here, Win. Do not mock.”

“So was I,” I said. “But you chose to remind me of my childhood trauma.” That gave us both the giggles.

“Look, I do not recall exactly when I changed my mind about vampires either. But the things the legends say they can do; I like that too. Truly,” I confessed.

“Which? The blood drinking or the beguiling?” Summer asked.

“Both?” I said shyly. “I mean, it would be terrifying to actually meet one but since that is not likely to happen here in the valley of nowhere, I see no harm in, well, the idea of one.”

“I know. I feel it too,” Summer confessed. “Enough teasing, just truth. I… I fantasise about being bitten by one. I do it a lot.”

“When we rapture?” I pressured. She nodded. Now she looked vulnerable, I had the urge to protect her.

“Just truth. I do too. Almost all the time,” I added. We looked at each other to gauge the seriousness of our revelations and instantly knew neither of us jested. “Why did you not tell me?” I asked before she turned that query on me.

“You used to be so afraid of them. I was scared you might think I was weird or something. So, I did not say. I should have,” Summer explained.

“I should have too. I am sorry. No more secrets between us,” I held my arms out to her. She hesitated for a moment before stepping into my embrace.

As we held each other tightly she whispered into my ear, “No more secrets.” The warmth of our sororal bond made the afternoon sun’s relentless sultry haze seem insignificant until we peeled apart.

Summer switched from looking at the ground, to straight in my eyes and back again, as she confessed, “Since we discovered the sort of things we like, with Layla, the idea a vampire could just crush my will by looking at me. It makes my quim melt. I would love to know what that felt like. Just for a moment, to have someone in total control of me. That seems just really, really… alluring. I do not know why, but it… gets me going.”

I took her hand. For my whole life she had been my best and only friend, so it seemed madness that we had not discussed this before. I had been embarrassed to mention it, perhaps she had been too, but it felt liberating to get it out of the open.

“I would really love that too. It has something, an appeal to it. The idea one could bite me once and make me their slave. Like last night, being pets. I did not want that to end. Maybe, it’s my vampire thing or maybe it’s just Layla’s magnificence, but if she was a vampire… I would let her bite me. She would never hurt us. I trust her with my life. Now we have accepted Dahlk’s worship, I think I trust her with my soul too,” I admitted, looking Summer in the eye all the while. Everything I said was reflected in her face.

“No, she would never hurt us. I know that just as truly as I know I will always love her. I trust her too, completely, even if she was a vampire. I want to be with her forever,” Summer said with conviction. “And I loved the pet thing too. I do not fully understand it, but that was powerful for me. I think last night was just the tip of the spear, though. I want to explore that more; find out what it means to us. Layla made it feel safe. There is so much more to learn from her, so long as we do it together.”

We fell silent. Summer ran her hand over Layla’s spot on the old fallen tree. Her spot. It belonged to her now. Like us.

Summer broke the silence by asking, “Do you think Layla is a vampire? Really?”

We fell silent again in contemplation. As the idea twisted and turned in our minds it did not seem as outrageous as I might have imagined.

“We only ever meet at night, we always part before sunrise, she’s very pale, her skin is always cold, even her quim, and she is absurdly beguiling,” I listed the evidence.

“She can shape-change, possesses magic and we are obsessed with her. All that is true,” Summer added. “But she has not drunk our blood in spite of five nights when she has had ample chance to do so.”

“What about the first night? She pierced our ears with her teeth, did she not? How was that even possible? I suppose she could have drunk our blood then,” it sounded flimsy even as I said it.

“Our ears? A pinprick. Barely a drop. Hardly a feast for a blood-drinker,” Summer pointed out, fairly.

“It does seem unlikely. She has not used her magic on us except to change our hair…” I said trailing off into pleasurable memories of our locks being white and bound.

“And to place the mark of Dahlk on us. I think Mother once warned us about Dahlk, but that might just be part of the Luna creed, so she would say that of an enemy. I cannot credit someone as kind as Layla following an evil goddess. It makes no sense. Sorry, Mother, I believe Layla. Hmm. I suppose Layla could have put us under a spell. Perhaps when she marked us?” Summer wondered.

“No. Her magic has nothing to do with the way we feel about her,” I said with stubborn certainty and Summer casually nodded her agreement.

“So, it does not seem very likely. But if she was…” she added a little sheepishly, “that would be incredibly hot.”

“If she turns you a vampire you must promise to make me one too,” I joked. “Always as one, Sum.”

“I swear I will come for your blood, sister,” Summer said, mimicking Layla’s wolfish grin and adopting a predatory look. Making a game if it, she grabbed my arms and pushed me against the fallen tree, with a wild look in her eyes. “I want your blood, sister! Give it to me and join me in undeath!”

“Oh no, sister,” I feigned exaggerated dismay, embracing the game. “Not my blood!”

Summer pounced on my neck. Though it was all in play, the press of her body on mine and the scrape of teeth against my throat sparked the kindling of my obsession. My heart leapt and, for a flashing moment, it was no game.

Summer pulled back at once, her face a mask of shock and uncertainty. We stared at each other in perfect confusion, her face inches from mine. For an instant, we had both felt a pulse of something and the problem was not that it was unpleasant. It felt good, too good, and that shamed us both. A momentary paralysis held us and the longer it went on the stranger the moment seemed. Summer, as ever, took charge and broke the awkwardness.

“I am so sorry, Winter. I went too far and made that weird,” she apologised and stepped back.

“All is well, Summer, all is well. I love you. No harm is done. We have been having a lot of strange experiences with Layla, and I do mean a lot. Plus, we are getting precious little sleep. It is bound to leave us a little confused. Here,” I held out my arms for another cuddle and she accepted at once. It was comforting, sisterly, pure, just as always. Yet, in my heart I had not found that uncomfortable moment weird at all. It had felt passionate and real, but I was not ready for it, nor was she.

“Thanks, Win. That wasn’t just me though, was it? You felt that too?” Summer asked.

“I did. But what it was, I could not say. Perhaps it was Dahlk’s blessing, perhaps we were both thinking of Layla. In fact, now I say it, I am quite sure that was it. She is just so desirable, so beautiful, so perfect. We cannot stop thinking about her. What you just did reminded me of her, or my dream version of her, I mean,” I reasoned precariously.

Summer gave a big nod. “Oh yes. I would fuck her any place, any time. That must be it. Let us not worry about it overmuch. Come. We should get back,” Summer said helping us both move on from the strangeness of the moment. “Just to be clear, if we meet a real vampire, we both run screaming, right?”

“Absolutely,” I assured her. I may have a thing for vampires, but I was not insane.

Having had more sleep than recently, we were motivated to be extra helpful at home, preparing dinner and washing up after. Father remarked on our happy mood, and he was right. We were buoyed by the prospect of soon being with our true love. The momentary sadness that we could not tell our parents why we were so ebullient was soon forgotten. Of course, our ulterior motive was to get them off to bed as soon as we could, and it worked.

We had already prepared for our excursion, having earlier left a wood-chopping block outside our window to facilitate an easier and quieter egress. We plaited each other’s hair, leaving two large strands dangling from either temple, which we thought fetching, then checked our attire to make sure we looked as identical as possible. When the time came, we stole into the night.

This time, no doubts about Layla’s attendance harried us and our confidence was rewarded by the sight of her, waiting where we had been that afternoon. A vision dressed in red, milky hair in a plait fancier than ours, pulled back from her brow to proudly display the inky black mark of Dahlk, a scarlet scarf trailing from her wrist completed her look.

Our greetings were imbued with a satisfying sense of completion, a realisation that none of us was fully themselves unless we were together. The rising desire to submit to our beloved was already strong though not yet irresistible. That felt a little odd, to be so prominent so quickly, but it was a pleasure to reconnect all the same. First, we had business to discuss.

“Beloved, we wanted to talk about our plans,” Summer began.

“By all means, please do,” Layla welcomed our conversation.

“We love you. You know this,” Summer stated, drawing a happy grin from Layla.

“I had my suspicions,” Layla replied, clearly in playful mood.

“We have never loved anyone as we love you now, so perhaps we are rushing in more swiftly than is wise, but we want to spend the rest of our lives with you. We have absolutely no doubts that you love us. We trust you speak truly when you say you find us special and will never let us go, so then let us start our lives together as soon as we may,” Summer proposed.

Taking over, I added, “We have told you our plans to see the world, to write our own story. You have graciously offered to be our guide and we are thrilled at the opportunity. More than the prospect of travel, we want to be with you. We are bound to our pact and will never be foresworn, but by the code of our silence we cannot begin to make arrangements to leave without jeopardising the pact. Do you see the problem?”

“I do,” Layla grasped our point immediately, unsurprisingly. “May I offer my perspective?”

“Please,” we said as one.

“We have known each other less than a week. Wiser heads than ours would decree that is an impossible length of time to truly know someone. But, as we have discovered, it is plenty of time to fall deeply, truly in love. The question remains, is it long enough to know we will be compatible for the rest of our lives? I think we all believe that it is.

“I have been in love before. This is real. I would regret it to the end of my days if I did not commit, with every fibre of my being, to making this incredible troika of ours permanent. I promise you that I am going nowhere. I will wait for you as long as it takes for us all to be sure this is what you want. When you are all certain, I will take you away and never leave your side. Trust my hard-won experience when I say that as convinced as you feel now, you can achieve absolute certainty,” Layla said then paused.

“Oh, but we are certain, beloved,” Summer said.

“I cannot imagine how one could be more convinced,” I added.

“My point precisely. You cannot imagine because all that we now rejoice in is new to you. I assure you; I want you bound to me forever, but I am your first. You cannot know with the same degree as I, despite the enormity of what you feel. Please believe I doubt not an iota of your love, yet it has nothing to compare itself to.

“Infatuation is a great and giddy thing, but it is not the same as the all-consuming bond of true love. Most people live their whole lives, fall in and out of love a handful of times and never once experience what I have been blessed to know three times. I have every hope that is what you are feeling right now, but I want you to be positve,” Layla expressed her reservations with such clarity that we could not resent them, even as it impeded the progress of our much-wished-for future.

“You are as wise as you are loving, Layla,” Summer said. “And if we need to convince you that our love is true, we shall. Set us any task, put us to any test and we will prove it.”

“Even if I demand you wait?” Layla countered. She was a clever one, though it occurred to me that she might appear so because of the limits of our education. Mother was well read and highly talented and Father was very skilled in the ways of the land. They had taught us well all our lives, but we had no other teachers.

“Even that,” I said. “But you hold such knowledge, can you not tell us what we are missing, what we are not seeing, that our love blinds us to?”

“Good question,” Summer said, which made me feel clever.

Layla paced for a moment. “Yes, it is a good question,” she admitted. “Here is the nub of it. Our evenings have been filled with delight, desire, conversation and stimulation, but, and this is my fault, you do not know me.”

“We know your heart,” Summer pointed out.

“We know your love,” I said with absolute certainty.

“True, but I have not been as open about myself as you have. I have secrets. Their exposure runs great risks for me. I fear that if you knew the full truth of me it could taint the perfection of your love, that you might turn from me. There have been times in the past five nights when I felt I would rather perish than risk damaging this flawless jewel we have created within the confines of our secret bond,” as she spoke Layla’s brow furrowed in deepening distress.

“What are you afraid of? Is it your past? If there was a scandal it means nothing to us. If you have committed a crime we do not care, no matter the severity,” I said.

“If it is your nature, I assure you, we have made many guesses at it and concluded we do not care if you be woman, devil or monster, we know your heart and the love it holds. That is all that matters to us. That is what we love,” Summer said. I was proud of my sister’s clarity.

Layla bit her lip, looked to the ground, and turned away. With a quiver in her voice, face hidden, she said, “Oh my beloved twins, you command my heart with such mighty authority. Summer speaks true. It is my nature.”

We knew it. I waited for Summer to press the subject but for once her audacity eluded her.

I cast my intuition upon the air to see what it might catch. “Are you a vampire?”

Layla’s hands spasmed briefly while the rest of her remained as still as stone. Silence descended upon the clearing, stilling all life from even the insects’ hums and chirps. We waited. The longer the silence endured the more hopeful and fearful I grew. If I was wrong a denial might have come sooner.

At last, Layla turned back to us, raised her head and looked straight at me.

“How could you know?”

“Because we truly love you,” Summer interjected. “We spend all our time thinking about you, trying to know everything there is of you, to learn what you need and what you want. It is our hearts’ desire to see you happy. With you, we have rejoiced in the greatest night of our lives, every single night.”

“There were numerous clues. But first, answer in truth, and please believe that no answer could ever drive us from you. I swear that our bond is unbreakable and only grows stronger with every moment we spend in your company. Are you a vampire?” I asked again. This time, there was no pause in her response.

“So, I have been named. I drink blood to survive. I am… a monster,” Layla dragged her secret into the moonlight and our passed it into our care.

“I was made as I am by the one I loved and lost. I have wandered this world every night since that parting. Every step since, I carried that loss in search for anything that might justify my continued existence. Now, finally, I have two reasons,” Layla gestured to us, such weight in her voice.

We had not heard her speak this way before. Normally so commanding, now she was a portrait of dignified vulnerability. My suspicions of her noble birth were etched in the way she carried the pain of her confession. I imagined her high born, a baroness, duchess or queen. My only certainty rested in that she was our sovereign.

Summer and I looked to each other, then stepped to our friend. We truly did not care if she was a vampire, undead, monstrous. She was the woman we loved, and she was in pain. Holding herself stiffly, we reached our arms around to pull her close. She crumpled in our embrace, standing but broken.

“We thank you for your admission, beloved. We appreciate it is a secret that can only be shared with those you trust. We swear we shall always keep that trust. For what it is worth, we trust you completely,” I declared.

“We do not fear you, my love,” Summer said. “No matter the truth of your nature, we will always love you. This alters nothing for the worse. It will only make our bond stronger. To think someone such as you would look with favour and affection upon two peasant girls does us great honour. We are privileged to be your lovers. We are blessed to be your friends.”

Layla lifted her head, no tears but eyes slightly bloodshot. “You are not peasants. You are angels, perfect in every way, and all my years of wandering and loneliness are redeemed in your grace. I am forever in your debt, no matter what you choose to do with the burden of my secret.”

“My love,” I suddenly saw the truth of the situation. “We will wait for you for as long as you need. It is not the two of us that need time to believe that our troika, as you call it, is true. Your fear that we might flee is perfectly understandable. But you hold no terrors for us, beloved. We know you would never hurt us. We have seen the content of your heart, perhaps clearer than you. You are a good person, loving, kind.”

Layla considered our words, then spoke, “My loves, your purity bestows wisdom. It is hard to admit my fears, but I am afraid your hearts will turn from me, afraid I shall be alone once more. That is a gruelling path when one has known the intricate connections of love. But you give me faith. I already know I am entirely yours, and I am sure you will make me believe you think and feel as I do. Bless you both.” She kissed us once each, delicately on the lips.

“It explains why our pact binds us to secrecy, does it not?” I queried. “How could you trust anyone who could not prove their discretion? It must be your greatest protection.”

“To our secret pact I pledge myself,” Summer and I spoke, instinctively, which drew a half-smile from our lover.

“Is it arduous, maintaining a veil over your true nature, beloved?” Summer asked.

“I am aware I carry myself with a certain nonchalance, yet despite my demeanour, unease is a constant companion. The exposure of my first love’s true nature led to her death at the hands of those who called her a monster. Since then, I travel perpetually, primarily through fear that my… needs… will bring such a doom to me. Oftentimes, I have had to resort to unsavoury and demeaning methods to secure a meal and I do my best to move on before anyone notices the patterns of my predations. I must say the magnitude of my relief and stress at sharing my secret is more considerable than I had imagined. I must sit,” Layla declared.

Though my inclination was to hold on to Layla until her pain passed, we let her go at once and she sat upon one of the few branches of the fallen tree and gathered herself. We arranged ourselves sitting on the ground close enough to touch, but not wanting to crowd our lover. The urge to kneel before her was strong but not inexorable, so we simply swept our legs to the side and made ourselves comfortable.

“Is that better?” Summer asked.

“Yes, thank you,” Layla said, concern still written across her face. “Forgive me. I cannot but help imagine what you must be thinking of me, of my deceptions. I am used to people judging and fearing my kind.”

“We think you are our friend, Layla,” I made clear. “If you had wished to take our blood you could have done so a hundred times these past nights. Yet instead, you have seduced us with supreme pleasures. You have awoken needs and desires within us we did not know we had until there was you. We love you. A thousand times, we love you. That love will endure.”

Layla’s warm smile returned at last, to our relief. “I am not entirely helpless before my thirst. Though it is never far from my thoughts, the pleasures we share have far outweighed my need to feed. Does it disgust you to know I have coveted your blood?”

“No, beloved,” Summer was quick to respond. “Quite the reverse, if anything.” Layla looked puzzled. It was both a rarity and a delight to see her wrong-footed by her adoring pets.

“We do not find the idea… unappealing,” I cautiously added.

“Truly?” Layla pressed.

“We have both fantasised about it for years,” Summer said. “Being drunk from by a vampire was an idle fancy of ours long before we met you. Something about it, well, many things really, seem enticing to us. I mean, make no mistake, we have no desire to die. But the fantasy of it. Of sharp teeth, of being helpless, or being taken so completely. That is all very tantalising.”

Summer shifted a little as she spoke. I could tell she trying to mask her pleasure at confessing aloud what we both found so captivating. It stirred me as well.

Taking over, I said, “We did not know we shared this passion until this afternoon. We had our suspicions about you and, while discussing the possibility, confessed our feelings about vampires to each other for the first time. We had been embarrassed to admit it before, but we never seem to be embarrassed about anything with you. You take us seriously and never make us feel ashamed of our dreams or desires. So, here we are, telling you we have a… what should we call it… a carnal fixation with vampires? It is enough to make us believe Dahlk brought us together; it is so perfect. Would you please place the goddess’s mark upon us so we may express our gratitude?”

“Of course,” Layla said, and we shuffled into kneeling positions while she stood up. The familiar arousal began to take hold as she placed her hands on our foreheads and marked us. The chilly imprint of Layla’s magic was refreshing. I glanced at Summer to check my own appearance. The sight of the mark gave me a strange but satisfying sense of fulfilment.

“We accept your mark, Dahlk, goddess of darkness,” we said in harmony.

“We offer thanks and praise for guiding us to our beloved,” I added.

“We embrace you within our hearts and beseech you to keep and protect our secrets,” Summer added. “As we shall keep our beloved’s.”

Glancing at Summer again, I recognised the same submissive urge growing in her eyes, but this was not the right moment for selfish gratification. A silent look and a tiny nod were enough to agree our intent to take care of our friend. So, with only a little reluctance, we slid back into sitting positions.

“Thank you beloved,” Summer said and took Layla’s hand, kissed it, then let it go.

There was effort, subtle though it was, for my sister not to hold on to those lovely fingers and do something perverse with them. I did not copy the gesture because I was struggling with my own urges. Those cravings were becoming a worry. Had I become so slutty in such short a span of time? Could it really be that hard to control myself? Our beloved was clearly still vulnerable, I wanted to be a good friend, so took a deep breath and focused on her.

“It is an honour to introduce you to the Nightbringer’s worship, though I pray you never require the solace of her dominion. As the goddess of loss, I found her while grieving for my first love. I would spare you that pain if it were within my power,” Layla explained. Touched that she would share this with us, I hoped to know better this goddess who had so helped my beloved through her tribulations.

“I am glad the dark goddess brought you comfort. We are eager to learn whatever you teach us of her worship, but right now we must focus on you. You risked so much in your admission; I am sorry to put you in that position. We possess no secrets of such magnitude to share in return, so how may we help you?” I asked, placing my hand on her thigh, feeling its firmness beneath her skirt.

“You are being more kind than I deserve. This situation is of my own making. You have done no wrong, merely asked for honesty,” Layla said, covering my hand with hers in reassurance. Her praise was a warm bath for my soul. “I am sorry to be so weak. I despise unwarranted fragility in others, so I do not tolerate it in myself.”

“Nonsense,” Summer interjected. “You have shown great strength. We can do no less than honour your courage. You always do so much for us, let us take care of you. That is how love works, is it not?” Summer inflated our miniscule expertise with the emotion.

“Have you told anyone this before?” I asked.

“I have,” Layla’s eyes widened, mouth downcast, her beauty momentarily soured. “There have been a scant few I thought I could trust but it has always ended poorly. Very poorly. If you were not the pure souls you are, I would never have had the courage to tell you. Forgive me if it takes me time to fully trust you will not fly from me, or try to kill me, or scream the forest down.”

“Thereby hang a few tales,” Summer said. “I can promise there will be none of that. Instead, we had best begin our quest to prove our love and win your trust. We could spend all night telling you we do not fear your nature but those are just words. You should feed from us.”

There she goes again, I thought. ‘Summer storm’ charging in when a slower approach was warranted. Still, the suggestion had a persuasive undertow that took me along with it. Layla was less impressed than we might have hoped.

“No! Never! I must not! What if I hurt you?” Layla shot to her feet, panic on her face, hands outstretched in warning.

“Beloved, beloved, be calm,” I placated. “Take control of yourself. You will not hurt us. You love us too much. We trust you.”

“Perhaps you should not,” Layla said, quickly mastering her fear but remaining guarded. “I could never risk losing you. If I drank too much, you might weaken, you may fall ill. Goddess protect you, that even worse might happen. It is not worth the gamble.”

“It is our risk to take,” Summer said, standing up to face Layla. “The problem is obvious: you are afraid of yourself. You do not trust yourself around us. But this is who you are; we accept that. This is what you need. I say we know you well enough to be sure this is what you want. There is no harm in admitting it.”

Summer’s courage astounded me sometimes. Layla said nothing but hardened her expression. Summer stared back, the two women I loved most in the world face-to-face, neither relenting.

As I observed our pale lover, a growing desire to be drunk from began to overshadow my good intentions. The vague memories of years fantasising about fangs in my neck, monsters in my mind, falling to compulsion, all crystalised in the woman before us. I justified my urge would be for the benefit of all concerned. It would show Layla that we accepted what she was and prove she could trust herself with our lives. Deep-rooted emotion trumped reason, leaving me unaware how much risk I was ignoring in my calculation.

“Summer is correct, Layla,” I announced, climbing to my feet beside them. “You want to drink from us, we can tell. If you refuse, you will be denying yourself, and distancing who you really are from us. We are already part of you, pact-sister. We want to spend our lives with you. Do you not see? You are our goal. Until we met you, all our lives we planned to explore the world to find our fate somewhere out there. Well, as it turns out, we found our fate without ever leaving home. It is you. You are more precious than any distant destination. Wherever you are is our home. You occupy our hearts; you dwell in our minds; you make sense of our lives.”

“You are inside us, beloved,” Summer took to me and I was reminded of how we united in our purpose to urge Layla to fuck us three nights prior. “We want you inside us. Do you have any idea how hard it is not to beg you? And now we know the truth of you, there is an even deeper way for you to be within us. Bite us. Penetrate us as only you can. We have dreamed of this for years. Winter is right, I now believe the goddess has brought us together. Something this perfect can only have come from the gods. Our needs, our love, our bond. Drink from me, damn you! At least admit you want to.”

Summer took a step closer, so their bodies were almost touching, daring Layla to deny us. She refused to respond, but in a brief lick her lips I saw our lover’s determination waver.

“This will bring us closer. Much closer. You know it will,” I added, gliding a little nearer to underscore the point. “If you do this it will remove all doubt that you can trust yourself with us. And what better way could there be to prove we accept your true nature? You will not harm us. Your love will not let you. We know it.”

“Just as we knew you wanted to fuck us,” Summer lewdly added, tilting her head to the side to show off her neck. “We were right then. We are right now.”

“And we are right here,” I teased. “As we offered you our bodies, as we offered you our submission, we now offer our blood.”

Layla could no longer hold Summer’s stare, turning away. I used the moment of triumph to slide one arm over Summer’s shoulder, rest my hand on the other and lean my head against hers, exposing my neck too. We were as reckless about our vampire, as we were confident of her love. Our faith in Layla’s perfection may have been absurd but we had no doubts her love was out protection.

“We want this. You want this,” we said as one. “Drink us.”

Layla glanced at us over her shoulder. Summer tucked the strand of hair from her temple behind her ear with a finger, which she ran down the exposed flesh of her neck to the top of her dress, over the fabric to her breast. She circled her nipple once and lightly flicked it. Though absolute novices, I thought Summer might have a flair for being provocative.

Layla looked over her shoulder at us from under half-open lids and whispered, “I want.”

“Then do,” I said, taking hold of Summer’s chin to tilt her head back to maximise the exposure of her throat.

“Enough. You win,” Layla conceded at last. “I shall drink from you.”