Butterflies and Vampires

PROLOGUE: CASTLE

After my mother's death, I grew up in my bedchamber in the tower. This cold place, like the cocoon of a butterfly, shields me away from the outside light so my beauty, they said, could be even more radiant like a pearl. However, it's not. It's a cell. Not for me, though, but the men they send to me.

When they send men to me, I drink their blood. The moment they enter the tower, they are doomed, they have arrived in Bluebeard's secret room, they have been sentenced to execution, hurled to the dungeons. Only they don't know. They are told they'd be meeting a pure-blooded vampire of the highest degree. In curiosity, they always ask to see me, and meet their fate.

Is it my fault, then, to eat the chickens that run to me?

***

It was September but already cold then, I remember, when Sabine came into my room. Her dress's blue folds hugged her body and when she walked, her hips moved beautifully. I held out an arm and she walked closer to me until I held her waist. 

"Margery," she said, "are you hungry?"

It had been some months since our last visitor, and although I had been eating some normal meals, I couldn't quite get rid of that particular hunger, so I nodded.

Sabine carefully sat on the bed where I rested, and then swallowed.

"Do you want it?" she asked, voice low. I looked at her, and sure enough, she was serious, her eyes on mine, chin tucked down, waiting for a response.

"Agnes would get mad," I whispered.

Agnes was the matriarch of our clan. The oldest of the Eldest, of the Seventh Generation. There was nothing she hated more than what Sabine did. We had been caught many times, each time ending with me being thrown in the cellar and Sabine in her room. For a month we would be locked inside without anything, blood nor meals.

One would think that would teach us, but it didn't. It couldn't. Each time Sabine entered my room, soft cornflower-yellow tendrils on her neck, emitting the sweet smell of chamomile and sage, unlike the smell of blood that heavily lingered about my other sisters and the elders, I couldn't help it.

"You haven't drank in months," Sabine continued. "And I made sure Agnes and Rowena have left today. Only Selma is keeping watch."

Her voice was soft, motherly. I felt myself waver as I always did, then she finally leaned in towards me.
"Don't worry, Margery. I will protect you."

Without realizing it, my fingertips rose to trace her neck, and then it trailed down to her shoulder blades. I peeled away the fabric covering her shoulder and then brought my nose to it. She was cold, but she smelled so different from everyone. I closed my eyes and relished in the smell.

"Thank you, Sabine."

I raised my mouth and then touched my lips to her neck.

Cold. So cold.

Then I opened my mouth and bit into her flesh.

Immediately the blood flushed into my mouth, and trickled down my chin.

Her hand was on mine, and she squeezed mine tightly.