As always, Punkt was the refuge of bored souls from work, wives, or wars. Hungry growls permeated the drunken din, Chlloe devoured the potato and rabbit stew, while Carmilla tried to chew on the potatoes that, to her, barely tasted.

Eating human food didn't afflict her body like so many other unlucky of the same anemic nature. It was difficult to eat; it was difficult to maintain the strength that, for a long time, did not correspond to a vampire of her age, even so young. The discouragement had swallowed her joy, but the low mood wasn't for a bad stew.

"Not good?" Asked Chlloe beside her at the counter. "Thinking about her, right?" She smirked, gnawing on her thigh bone in the bowl.

"Eat and be quiet!" said Carmilla, turning away.

"But I'm finished," she showed the empty bowl, with that hungry dog face.

"Have mine!" She pushed her portion of stew and grain bread.

The good girl didn't refuse food, even tastier like this. She lamented the uncomfortable clothes for lack of habit, but bravely fought the naked desire, because with the clothes she could eat more than leftovers and crumbs on the floor.

Carmilla rested her head on her hand, one foot propped up on the chair, the other bouncing loose without support, while thoughts sparked, recalling the events, and by the seven hells! A month had passed since the return to town. The deplorable encounter with Pinky and the Brain added to the guilt of Laura's condition.

The journalist was the major subject in vampire nerves. A long monologue about what had happened to them, what the choker had done and each of the ex's uprisings, a hell of an unauthorized biography recommended for people over eighteen, Mircalla Karnstein's red trail of conquests.

Each night of these bloody stories, victimized her with a hug, followed by a calm kiss at first, but desperate at the end, with both of them panting. It was desperate, sickly needy. They felt the same. Carmilla desperate and thirstier than ever for the contact with the young woman to make her sick of love.

"Fuck!" She was clutching her head in her hands, her forehead on the glass of greenish gin served by the bartender. "I want you too!" She remembered the kisses, the trail of fire left by her lips, her breath burning with each drag of the moment. "Damn Laura! I want you, I want to get laid!" The last part jumped highlighting of her thoughts. Everyone was staring at her answering in unison:

"ME TOO!" They lifted the glasses and bottles.

"I knew it! You're thinking about her!" Chlloe celebrated, hitting a small bone in the neck of the almost red-haired brunette so red.

"Oh! Shut up!" said Carmilla, her face boiling, not of rage. In a desperate escape from the blunder, Carmilla threw a bottle in any direction, and at the sound of the tinkling of the shards there was the stampede. Tables, chairs, bottles, glasses, fat and thin, everything went up in the air with the flow of alcohol.

The benches at the counter were empty, the two occupants of these were wrestling on the floor.

"What? Am I lying? Are you thinking about the ex?" said Chlloe, putting her tongue out, blowing the air, imitating a snake.

"I kill you!" said Carm. Only an instant after the death threat and the shapeshifter broke free, taking the form of a little puppy. "Come back here!" She chased the happy barks snaking the confusion. "Damn Chlloe." cursed the brunette leaning on the sidewalk window.

The shapeshifter licked the pink and new panty, rounded like a water balloon, a happy puppy, but keeping that shape was problematic with her stomach so full, then took on her strong adult form.

Carmilla watched her faithful friend, her shape a little smaller than that used in the Alps, her tail longer, her muscles less developed, proof of tranquility, with no apparent unbridled threat. She took a few more steps and sat down on the curb beside the furry one, nuzzling her behind her ears.

"It's been hard not to think about her," she took a deep breath, releasing clouds in the cold air. "But it doesn't work, you know, together. Not the way I wanted." The vampire looked sadly at the ground between her feet.

Chlloe sat down and left the paw on the owner's knee. In recent months her job had been to protect Carmilla and Laura, both under the guard of her fur, although the vampire insisted on defending only the blonde. On the frigid, endless nights with wounds to lick and burn, the two grew much closer, sharing their stories. Eighteenth-century Mircalla and the stray dog of Roman dumps. One of those nights she told of Mina Halker's scam and her fear of red.

When least expected, Carmilla was hugging the dog, who was licking her face. How funny their relationship was. A clan of two! Without warning, a black jeep stop in front of the vampire, who fell backwards. The furry went ahead, ready to bite any threat to her owner, but relaxed when she saw Thalia in the backseat.

"Mircalla!" she called excited, jumping to the sidewalk. "Mircalla, guys; guys, Mircalla," she introduced the others in the jeep.

"Carmilla." said the brunette, for the fortieth time. She got up with Chlloe's help, "Sup,"

"See, I told she's real. Picoli let go of that map!" she asked for Bourbon.

"What map? I'm studying."

"But you've studied the entire week. Take a break!"

"My test will be soon, a pain in the ass!" Cursed the young woman in the sweatshirt, complained of so many parchments and books lining the floor under the feet of the passenger seat.

"But we go on vacation! I came to say goodbye before you go for another hundred years." Smile at the eighteenth-century vampire.

"Babe, come back here!" She called Sophia in the backseat.

"Babe?" Chlloe took the human form.

"Hi handsome." Sophia blinked at the shapeshifter's breasts.

"It's cold, you nuts asparagus!" Carmilla threw her coat over the naked girl with green hair. "Sophia, what are you doing?!"

"I'm going on vacation with my babe." answered the scaly one, jumping out of the car and hugging the astronomer from behind. "We're gonna have a lot of fun! Even if we don't even sleep." She kissed the girl's neck.

Chlloe and Carmilla shared the same face of WTF?! Out of nowhere, the fur of a dark creature brushed the brunette's shoulder. Chlloe pulled the owner to free her from danger, but the wing of a giant bat pushed them.

"Calm down people. This one is our friend. Girl takes off that face, what an awful way to say hello." Thalia asked.

Then the hairs shrank, the wing frames turned to fingers, the bat's ears hid in human ears that were barely pointy yet.

"My bad, I just wanted to show Mircalla what I can do." Said a girl with a maximum of sixteen years old, but Carmilla knew she wasn't human. "Give me an autograph? But a kiss will do, too."

"What the hell is this?" The brunette stood up with Chlloe's help.

"Hell?" she whimpered. "But you change like me. I wanted to become a gorgeous albino peacock, but it's a family thing turn to bat." said sad, disgusted by the family line.

"This is Nicolly Abaron." featured Thalia.

"Abaron?" Carmilla remembered the families.

"Concentrated blood!" shouted the scholar in the car.

The vampires from Munich to southern Germany. A branch away from the mixed and diluted stems of vampire blood, they were one of the six guardians of the pure bloodline.

"It's not every day you find your idol out there in the snow." Said Abaron.

"You said I change too, bat cub."

"Yeah, you smell like a shift. Like me! Okay, not quite equal but, almost. You know? It's cold, right?" She mumbled the clumsiness.

"It will freeze, for those who go around naked!" shouted the girl with the scrolls in the car, throwing a blouse. "Guys, let's go! I still have to pick up Vi at the Russian border!"

"Shit, that's right!" Nicolly ran to the steering wheel, zipping up her black pants.

"So, see ya one day, Carmilla." said the Bourbon.

"See you around," she replied.

"SO BEAUTIFUL!" said the scandalous snake.

"Thalia, you know the size of the snake, right? Just checking." Asked Carmilla.

"I know, she took care of me after the bar." The astronomer blushed, rubbing her neck.

They had started the car engine.

"I am gonna puke." Chlloe made a disgusted face.

"No ressentiments, you did me a big favor leaving me Chlloe. I got to meet the love of my life!" said the redhead, squeezing the girl with purple hair.

"Hey jump on, or we'll leave you two there!" shouted the driver.

"Before I go. Listen, it's going to be all okay with Laura, and don't care about those stupid Vordenbergs." She grabs hands with the older vampire.

The hunters passed across the street, facing the vampire Mircalla Karnstein. They didn't care about the other girls in the car; they were brooding only on the creature of the middle ages. The two of them were sneering at her, hands on the weapons on their belts, as four pairs of hands with the middle finger raised inside a jeep passed them in slow-motion.

***

A few more streets after the jeep left, Carmilla and Chlloe were laughing at the comic scene.

"Vordenberg's face with that bunch of girls telling him fuck yourself," laughed Chlloe.

"I think the best part was tripping over each other. Like they've never seen so many fingers at once!" laughed Carmilla.

Finally, letting go.

Carmilla could laugh and have fun while she couldn't remember Raphael's little jokes. The asshole didn't miss his chance! Just seeing or mentioning Laura and the torrent of sexual teasing and innuendo began.

Perry had disowned the baron, depriving him of the inn, along with Guto and his violet eyes to repel the experienced hunter. Unfortunately, not everything in life is cookies, and Carmilla it had forced her to put up with Raphael as one of the annual guests, staying a few months after Laura's disappearance.

Thank goodness Guto turned into a pit bull if Raphael got too close to the blonde.

Guto Castille, the runny and dirty boy from the first day, now a child cop. He was playing with his older colleagues and other friends who had just arrived from the end of the war. They played at nailing the donkey's tail to the wall. Chlloe looked at Carmilla, who nodded.

The Shapeshifter took its dog form and jumped in the middle of the game, which became a tug of war with the furry tail pulling five men.

Carmilla picked up her coat from the floor, letting her gaze get lost in the lights of the inn. She was weakly feeling Laura's heartbeat -her weakened senses allowed her to feel - a month since her return, a month full of caresses, hugs, hours lying down or sleeping in each other.

But without being able to love as she would like.

Play as you like.

Kissing the way she wanted.

Take everything, like lovers do.

For a moment, everything was less than Laura. Being able to be with her, the desire to possess her, overflowed her mind with wishful images.

"Laura..." she sighed. She jumped forward, something jabbing her right glute.

"Boss?!" Guto got bitter, taking off the blindfold. "My god, I'm sorry, so, so sorry!" He was almost crying in regret.

"It's okay, was nothing." She said a little angry, but...

"Mircalla!" Raphael raised his arms up the road. Then Carmilla forgot any irritation with the boy, for one of the greatest sources of manure in society had arrived, as a man. "Those were your poorly educated friends, right? I imagined it, but that's okay. I understand you're upset about my effect on Laura. But you know, it's normal."

"I know, but no problem, we've already left a bucket by the bed, so she can vomit, every time she remembers that fermented shit face of yours."

He tried to hide his disgust.

"I'll have to remember that, when she's pregnant with my child. That will look exactly like me."

Carmilla quirked her brows. Chlloe straightened up the discussion, baring her teeth.

"Fuck off, motherfucker!" Guto shouted, kicking the oxygenated blond's shin.

"Save my words Mircalla. I swear I'm going to drive a stake through your chest before I marry Laura." The man smirked with an air of arrogance.

"If you and she get married, I'll put a stake in my chest myself."

"TOUCH THEM AND I'LL KILL YOU!" Guto roared, being taken under Carmilla's arm.

The vampire left the young man on a counter stool with his colleagues. Perry served them hot chocolate.

"Hey Carmilla." Greeted LaF drying their hair. "Laura didn't leave the room. She's okay?"

"She is," the journalist kept upright, walk, but to speak, she couldn't speak, no meager sound came from her injured throat. The memory of that night weighed down Carmilla's chest with guilt, and the despair of maybe...

Lose.

Lose her.

"We did some exercises today to strengthen her neck muscles, but she still can't speak. I examined and physically everything is fine, losing speech must be emotional." reported LaF. "Raphael talked about a lot of other causes, but don't worry, I didn't leave Laura's side. And she was more interested in your books than anything else. How you read those scribbles, teach me. She stays straight in them. Take advantage of the shower's empty. I'm going, help tidy up with Perry."

Carmilla went into a hot bath, the force of the jet against her skin massaging her barely rested muscles. The moment of supposed calm went down the drain when a sliver of Alaskan air invaded the showers, the thermal shock of the outside temperature compressing the steam in the curves of her shivering body, making her turn toward the entrance. It must have been a bad joke, as the door closed behind the bottle-blond.

"Look who's here, don't mind me." said Raphael, taking off his clothes towards the box next to hers. "Like something?" laugh. The vampire controlled her nerves. A bath by candlelight with Hitler was a better option. The proximity saturated the air with the cloying scent of the hunter. "Oh sorry, garlic soap, you know."

"Good, then eat it. Maybe help with your shit mouth. Oh, I'm so sorry, forgot that you were born with it, so die and solve the problem." Said, closing the register with the angriest look she had.

"If I die, I'll take you with me." said, leaning on the box's partition. "Not ashamed, nor afraid, either. We not gonna fuck, but right now; I wanted to fuck you so bad." He smiled with his hands steady on a shotgun, aimed behind the partition, eyes gleaming on the brunette's breasts.

Take a deep breath, count to ten... thousand was a better option.

The vampire went to the long mirror in front of the showers, processing her anger. A shiver took her back. The bleached blond was right behind. A shotgun barrel between them, facing each other like two gunmen in the wild west.

"Yeah, I want to kill you, now." said the hunter. They mirrored a mutual hatred.

"No way, me too. Here, now, no one to stop us," said Carmilla cynically.

"I imagine how she will fall into my arms crying. I will comfort her all night, how I comforted her today. Her kisses taste like honey in my mouth." They were measuring themselves, naked, equal even in marks across the body. He was quite strong, his arms streaked with teeth, his muscular chest slashed with a scar crisscrossing from his left nipple to the end of his ribs on the other side.

Lies, of course.

LaF told the truth.

He just wanted a reason to fire a loaded gun. Once again she controlled her nerves, but just hearing about Laura's kisses in his voice filled her lungs with fire, tightened her joints in fury. More he spoke, worse was; something new and mad was awakening inside her, wild and fierce, roaring. Her fingertips itching, her fangs leaping thirstily for his flesh, life, pain, suffering till death.

She endured the cold outside, not to paint the bathroom with an idiot's brain, and as much as he deserved to die, he was Laura's childhood friend. In the hallway she found Chlloe lying on the carpet in 307.

"Hey," said to the wagging-tailed dog with a piece of Raphael's pants in her mouth. "I saw a mite mark on his ass." Laugh opening the door. The furry one went straight to the blonde sitting at the desk, reading the latest volume of GOT from another world. She smiled, giving a joyful bark before leaving them alone.

Carmilla locked the door behind her, waiting for the blonde to meet her. Laura wore blue flannel pajamas over a white T-shirt, a wide ribbon adorning the collar.

"Miss me, cupcake?" said, enjoying the warm hug. "You smell so good, well you already have a good smell of cookies. Ouch!" She took a pinch on the spiky side earlier.

They turned off the lights, only the fireplace lit the sheets. The vampire removed her boots and pants, leaving only her shirt and underwear, crawled onto the bed where Laura was waiting with a book.

"You read this one, two hundred times. Really want this one to sleep?" said, and the journalist replied with a smiling nod. "Okay, lie down and I'll start reading then." She Opened to Bookmark Page, Another Winter Tale; looked at Laura, eyes closed, lying on her chest. ", then they lay down, at last together, winter and the cold breeze, intertwined their hands, ending the kiss, panting in their night of love... BUT WHAT?! NEVER READ THIS PART?!!!" said the flushed vampire of the embarrassing text, then caught the suggestive look of Laura. "Cupcake?"

The blonde's hands climbed from the waist to the ribs in the pale. It made her gasp. Laura got up, pulling the vampire's neck for a kiss. Little by little, straddling her lap, Carmilla had to push her away. The bloodlust was rising, but the urge to have Laura throbbed in her bones.

The journalist caressed the vampire's hand, taking the book and setting it aside. They fixed their gazes on the other's eyes until someone knocked on the door.

"Laura? Are you awake?" Raphael, that asshole. The blonde left the tip of her index finger on the vampire's lips, asking for silence. "Let me in. I had to talk to you about something." He wanted to die, and Carmilla felt a wave of violence flood her body, wild and ferocious, ready to burst her skin, a roar she had never heard, not until the shower today. "Laura, please, it's important."

Laura pulled the vampire out of her unwanted fixation by kissing. Every word was a trigger on the angry brunette, same on the blonde. More and more intense, her hands invading under her shirt, her lips leaving her mouth to meet her neck.

"Wait." asked the pale, almost crazy. Like the other nights, whenever they were close. "Aren't you afraid?" said, and Laura pulled the ribbon open at her pajama buttons. Laura's eyes screaming not at fear, but at what they had denied so much, at least, tried too. "Then I won't have it either." She kissed her, their tongues dancing together. The vampire kissed her neck and gradually finished opening the remaining buttons, kissing the blonde's lap. Laura tugged at the shirt, asking for her skin on hers. Carmilla squeezed her waist, changing positions, pulled the shirt over her head, gluing their bodies. Burning their skin together, finally feeling what she wanted in a passionate kiss.

The fireplace partially lit up, warming the air. The scent of the woman with her. Soon the hunter's insistent knocks were just background noise.

Distant.

The door.

The rage that flooded.

The wild roars.

All swallowed up by Laura's warmth.

She helped the blonde to sit up, to remove the top, slipping into her arms, ripping the entire shirt off in one pull. The red took on the colors, Laura closed her eyes, but without giving up on what they were doing, she kissed the vampire incessantly, squeezing her back, kissing her face, nibbling on her earlobe, further enticing the already maddened woman.

Both were panting, their breath was like fire, feeling the other's desire threw them down the slope of the abyss, between safety and complete madness. Carmilla laid her down gently. Although it was difficult to control herself, she reached out to grab the pajama ribbon, and she could feel the blonde shiver as she realized what the vampire had in mind to help in the night.

"This way, you won't see me, babe," Carmilla whispered, blindfolding her lover's eyes to fall together in this madness.

To be continued...