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The fine china sounded a pure, clear chime as it betrayed the trembling of Lainie's hands on the tray she lifted. Pulse racing, she looked down. The milk jug must have rattled against the teapot; mercifully neither had spilled.
"Head up, neck straight, Lainie." Ilia's voice was stern, but not unkind. Posture had been a constant issue during Lainie's training.
Lainie wished she could hide her face as the senior maid turned to look at her. Her complexion was too pale to hide her shame even slightly.
"You have not fed yet today, have you?" The question - a little more pointed this time, and Lainie forced her back straight even as she shrank internally - was rhetorical. Ilia could not have forgotten if Lainie had bitten her, and Lainie fed on no-one else.
Still, the steady pressure of the senior maid's gaze as she loosened her collar demanded an answer. Fighting to meet those unyielding eyes, Lainie managed to mumble "No, ma'am."
"Put the tray down. You cannot deliver proper service if your hands are not steady." The light from the kitchen window was a high-angled, harsh shaft carving Ilia out from the gloom. The perfect exponential line of her neck and shoulder bathed marble in that light.
It was a good job Lainie's training required her to be able to set a tray down neatly without looking, because her senior's skin held her full attention. Her gut fluttered, which did nothing to help the heat in her cheeks, now spreading around to her neck and upper back. Ilia watched impassively as Lainie rounded the worktop and approached her.
Standing before her senior, Lainie waited, a gnawing sensation building under her diaphragm. She was not an animal, a monster, a vampire . She would be disciplined, and await permission.
Ilia said, "Why do you insist on starving yourself?"
This time, the question did not seem rhetorical. Lainie started to answer and stopped, folding her hands in front of her as a maid should, except that her fingers fretted automatically at one another.
Finally, mindful of the imperative to always speak clearly, she said, "I don't wish to be a burden to you, ma'am. I shouldn't… after all you've done for me, to feed on you… it feels. Um. Selfish."
"Do you believe I find this unpleasant, Lainie?" Ilia's tone stayed sharp. Her hand came up to take Lainie's chin between her thumb and forefinger. "A 'burden'?"
"It hurts you, doesn't it, ma'am?" Lainie couldn't bow her head or look away. Ilia's slender appearance, she knew, was deceptive. The senior maid was extremely strong. "I wish… I wish there was some other way."
"Another way?" Slowly, the line of Ilia's lips narrowed and stretched sideways into a lopsided, cruel smile. Somewhere deep down in Lainie, something shivered. Ilia's pinch tightened on her chin. "Tell me, how much do you remember of Lady Euphilia and I saving your life, that night in the garden?"
Feeling like her face was too close to a roaring fire, Lainie muttered, "I remember."
Incoherent pain. Tightness across the hole in her chest as if someone was using her skin for a tug-o-war rope. Air rasping in her throat like a sawblade. Then the press of Ilia's lips on hers, the startling copper spurt of blood, the relief, the release, one kind of heat for another.
"Speak up, girl."
"I remember," Lainie said.
"I could have given you my blood any number of ways." Ilia's speech had slowed, and her voice deepened slightly. "I chose what I chose. Would that provide you with a satisfactory alternative ?"
Lainie finally managed to break eye contact, but Ilia kept hold of her chin. The senior maid dragged Lainie’s attention back with a slight jerk of her grip. Her face seemed closer now. Her lips were very red. Hunger and something else writhed inside Lainie's abdomen.
Ilia's kiss was hard and dry, pressing in like the ponderous swing of a ballroom door, but her lips were soft. Lainie yielded as the senior maid's free arm snaked around to the small of her back. She allowed her lips to part before Ilia's onslaught, but this time there was no blood, not right away.
After a moment, Ilia whispered into Lainie's teeth, "Go on. Bite."
Lainie kissed back, trying to figure out how, until somehow Ilia's lower lip was between her teeth and reflex took over. She felt Ilia's skin break, and at the same time a hand cup the back of her head and hold tight, and Ilia's breath carried a soft, hot murmur of pleasure. Then, there , the first taste of copper.