The sudden quiet tapping at the library door swept the nebulous concupiscence from Emma's head. She ripped her eyes from the fuscous, obliterating depths of his — wherein she had nearly drowned.

Then, from without, her sister's voice was heard, soft and uncertain as Milli called her name. Emma knew she ought to have felt the crimson blast of shame at her cheeks, but, strangely, no compunctions were forthcoming; not even the while Markus leaned motionless atop her, his hand still splayed at her naked thigh.

Her fateful answer now given, she turned a deaf ear to the protestations still raging within. Moreover, there was no use in denying such a one as he — a veritable god amongst men. But, truly, vampyre or no, she wanted this creature as she had wanted nothing before. And though she might not scruple at the imminent loss of her virtue, it did not follow that she should mortify or scandalize her dear sister. To be discovered in such shameless dishabille was not to be borne!

She raised a pert brow at her would-be lover. "Are you going to let me up?"

"I had not intended to."

With a roll of her eyes she made to push him off her, but he proved himself perversely incommodious. Her brow furrowed briefly when he remained as he was — fixed as a monticule. But thus he stayed only a moment, and merely to tease her abominably. But he finally removed himself, his lips curling deviously, and effortlessly pulled her up with him before he strode to the door. It was late in the afternoon, nearly the dinner hour, and Milli had evidently slept the better part of the day away. Was likely already dressed for the evening meal.

Only once Emma's pins had been hurriedly rescued from the rug, her hair somewhat smoothed out, and her skirts straightened — with very little help from a grinning Winterly who stood nonchalantly at the library door, hand poised at the handle — was Milli, at long last, admitted entry.

The younger Miss Lucas glided shyly past his Lordship, who now stood impenetrably grave, her eyes darting askance between her sister and the stately man in whose company Emma had allowed herself to be secluded.

Perhaps the sight of her sister's knowing looks might finally have elicited a blush from Emma, but, as Milli drew nearer she felt, instead, her skin grow cold with dread. Where usually there were deep pink roses in Milli's young cheeks, today there were none. Her countenance was in fact decidedly waxen, and the flesh beneath her eyes an awful grey that was better suited to a corpse than a woman supposedly in her blush of youth!

"Good Lord, Milli!" Emma instantly rushed forward, taking her little sister's clammy hands and folding them in hers. They were as ice to touch. "You are ill!"

The younger girl gave a dismissive wave of a delicate hand. "Don't fuss, Em" — she sank wearily into the master's armchair — "I am only a little exhausted from the ball."

"The devil you are!" Emma then whirled on the silent vampyre who had not moved from the open door. "Explain to me, sir," said she with deadly calm, "why my sister appears bloodless this morning."

He said nothing at first, but his face was like marble as he closed the door and, with animalistic fluidity, betook himself directly to where she stood glaring at him. When he halted before her — closer than any gentleman would have dared — he spoke at last. "Why would I explain a thing to you already known."

Emma gasped, outraged, and, without thinking the better of it, struck him. Hard. Had he been of mortal flesh and bone he might have given some indication that he'd felt the blow, but, as it was, he maintained his unnatural immutability.

"Emma!" Milli threw her hands up to her mouth, horrified. "No!"

She hardly noticed her sister's shocked outcry, her fulmination too focused on another. In Winterly's obsidian eyes there lurked an ominous glint that warned her not to strike him again; but she, perforce, disregarded it and pulled her hand back to plant another at his jaw. He, however, caught her wrist ere her smarting palm contacted his granite flesh a second time.

"The first I allow, but do not press your luck, Emma."

The sibilance with which he spoke her name could do nothing to breach the haze of fury she had lost herself in. "How dare you!" she cried. "Were we admitted into your home only to be molested?! You fiend!"

"I have molested no one, least of all your sister."

Ignoring Milli's continued extortions that she becalm herself, Emma struggled in vain to remove her wrist from his iron grasp. "Do you tell me you then consider bloodsucking a form of hospitality!"

"Madam, you are distressing your sister," he said through gritted fangs. "Compose yourself at once."

"Or what?" she retorted. "You'll drain me?"

But finally Milli's sobs dispelled her wrath some small degree and she, with a bitter tear-stained glare, flew to her sister's side. "Up now, Milli, we're leaving!" She then yanked her sister up from the chair with all the strength her ire supplied, but poor Milli, white as a sheet, instantly sank to the floor in a dead faint, the scant blood having emptied straight from her head.

"Look what you've done!" Emma keened, dropping to her knees to pat desperately at her sister's bloodless cheeks, urging her to wake so that they might flee this vampiric hell. She also thought to check the girl's pallid neck for bites. Seeing none, however, she took up her wild shaking again. "Get up, Milli, I beg you!"

When the devil himself leaned down beside her she shrieked and would not let him near her sister, but Winterly, forbearing her slaps with unexpected chivalry, and lordly patience, all things considered, inspected the unconscious girl with taciturn efficiency. Then he did something utterly unforeseen and horrific. He lifted the inside of his wrist to his waiting fangs — which had grown impossibly long and hideous — and punctured his own flesh so that the blood welled instantly at the wound, the flecks at his white cuff almost black in the shadowed room.

"Are you mad?!" Emma whispered, appalled. She gaped as he lowered his open wrist to Milli's mouth. "No!" She forestalled him by digging her claws into his forearm. "What are you—?"

"Do you want me to help her or not?" he replied impassively, eyes lowering pointedly to her hands.

After a cold silence she relented, lifting her hands from him in tacit assent of his continued attentions — macabre though they were — to her poor sister. He allowed just a drop from his vein to fall to Milli's wan lips. They were parted just then, her breathing unnatural, but his lifeblood left no stain as it passed cleanly to her tongue and from thence, Emma imagined, to work a morbid miracle within.

"I trusted you not to harm us," she said quietly, fearfully gnawing on her lip as she watched her sister for any sign of change. There was none as yet.

"You ought not have done so," came the terse reply. "I never sought your trust. Do recall that I warned you neither you nor your sister would leave here unscathed."

"But you did promise me that my sister's mortality would 'maintain its natural coarse' whilst Milli resides under your roof. Those were your words! Can you deny it?"

"I do not deny it, and, what's more, my vow remains unbroken. You sister is, as you see, alive," he remarked with insufferable sangfroid.

"How compendious that sounds," was her sharp reply. "But a moot point now, I think, for you have shown yourself to be without honor." Trust had never been a quality he'd inspired in her — at any point — but she had, she now realized with disgust, secretly flattered herself that she was ... somehow remarkable, to him at least. A nonpareil, as it were, above harm. He did not, by his own admission, consider her prey. She did not, therefore, wonder at her own naiveté, for it was only his carnal hunger that she thought herself in danger from. Oh, but she was the devil's own fool! "We shan't remain here a moment longer, as soon as my sister wakes we shall leave this place."

"Think you I cannot follow wheresoever you run?" He pulled his cuff peremptorily over his wrist, the flesh already knitting closed.

She made no answer, but wiped angrily at her damp cheek.

"At all events," he went on, "Victoria, as I said, desires your sister ... remain where she is. It little matters whether or not I choose to disregard your existence; she, I assure you, will not relinquish her claim on Milli's time, howsoever long that may be."

"We are not chattel to be owned or played with!"

To that he made no comment. His gaze had in fact dropped suddenly to her sister who was, mirabile dictu, already stirring to life.

Clear lazurite eyes flickered open, and then Milli, with the help of Lord Winterly, was carefully helped to standing. There were wary creases in her fine brow as she beheld the room's two other occupants who had, up till the point she'd swooned, behaved no better than hateful disputants. Presently, and under the circumstances, Emma cared nothing for Milli's sensibilities, but what she did find extraordinary was that the bloom had returned to her sister's cheeks and that unwholesome grey had, at last, vanished from underneath her eyes.

"How are you feeling, sister?"

"Perfectly well, my dear," was the hale reply.

"Then make haste, we are leaving." Emma reached out to snatch her hand. "This very moment in fact."

Milli at once protested and declared she was doing no such thing. "What madness has come over you?!"

"Mind how you speak to your sister, child." His Lordship, after receiving a chastened blush from Milli, betook himself to the fireplace as though to consider some great secret burning in the embers therein. "Consider, instead, that it might very well be in your best interest to leave now. Whilst I am of a mind to be ... generous."

Now both women stared after him bemused. It was into this tense scene that Victoria emerged, skirts bustling confidently. "Good Heavens!" she drawled, her manner all solicitude and grace. "What is all the fuss about? Mrs. Skinner and I misgave ourselves you'd discovered a rat hereabouts, Emma!" She cast her beady glance about the room with affected horror, as though to seek out the offensive brute, fictional though it was.

But Emma was not to be fooled by such devilish good artistry. Indeed, she had little doubt the two women had heard her vociferations from clear across the castle, in Victoria's boudoir, their supernatural hearing being what it was. Evidently those sensory talents were a perquisite of a daemonic nature.

"Not a rat, madam," said she coldly. "But a creature no less disgusting to me, I assure you."

"Emma!" Milli's eyes pleaded beautifully.

Emma, however, was in a marvelous temper and could spare her sister no looks of contrition. "The masquerade ended at dawn, Miss Winterly. I think it time you dispense with the facade and tell my sister what you really are. If she is to die in your custody she might as well know the architect of her demise. Unmasked, if you have the courage."

Never before had Victoria appeared so utterly consternated, and Emma briefly congratulated herself on rendering the creature, for once, at a complete loss. Victoria shifted her black gaze to meet her brother's and it was during their silent exchange that Emma's bravado faltered.

"Emma, dear, are you quite well?" Miss Winterly's composure settled swiftly back into place as her countenance became, once more, as smooth as porcelain.

"No, she is not herself, Victoria!" Milli asseverated quickly. "Forgive—"

"They are vampyres, Milli!" Emma took her sister by the shoulders and shook her pleadingly. "Do not be deceived! They've been feeding from your veins! It accounts for your anemia. You must see that? Please believe me!" Her eyes welled with dismay, for it was clear her sister was appalled not by the revelation itself, but by Emma's perceived mad raving.

"Dear God, sister, what possesses you to speak so?!"

But here, finally, Winterly interjected, his voice the very picture of boredom. "The truth, m'dear. Your sister is possessed by truth."

"Markus." Victoria drew his name out like a warning hiss.

"I don't understand." This from Milli who was now considering even her beloved Victoria with a chary eye.

But it was Winterly who answered her. "Then allow me to elaborate..." And before either of the sisters knew what he was about, there was an almighty ripping as his coat, vest and shirt were sundered, and a pair of magnificent wings shot out and unfurled behind him like great black gleaming sails. 

🌟I have the next two 'episodes' already written! So, have faith, there will be more chapters forthcoming. I won't keep you waiting for over a month again! Well, not in the foreseeable future. Question: do think Emma will overcome her disgust and keep her steamy rendezvous? She did, after all, say yes...🌟