Twenty-two year old Mia Sheppard pushed at her octopus-like date's chest. "I said 'no,' Dieter. I happen to know you understand that much English," she scoffed.

How dare this little American bitch refuse him? His family owned the area. Their fathers were partners. Mia had been fairly promised to him since he was a young teenager. The prettiness of her childhood had blossomed into the beauty she was now. He vowed this summer he would have her! He had wined and dined and romanced her – and she was unmoved by his generous efforts!

"Quit playing your coy games with me," Dieter growled.

"Games? I'm not playing anything. I want nothing of you."

"I have decided it no longer matters."

"You have decided," Mia laughed. "You? And just who do you think you are?"

"I am tired of your little American virgin act." He lunged toward her, shoving her down on the car seat, holding her down with his weight.

"I said no, damn you!"

When Dieter's handsome face came down to force a kiss on her lips, Mia clawed at him.

"Bitch!" He backhanded her.

For a moment, she was too stunned to react. He took full advantage, tearing at her dress buttons until she found the presence of mind to fight. She employed any means available to her. Scratching, biting, squirming – suddenly, she freed one leg enough to knee his most vulnerable area.

Dieter roared in agony as he jerked back from her.

She scrambled from the car, but he caught the hem of her dress. Yanking with all her might, she heard a tear, then tumbled backwards. Her head hit something unyielding, something of stone.

Lilith had watched the scene unfold, wondering why the boy had brought his girl to this abandoned graveyard. When the girl resisted, Lilith waited. She had a patented dislike for males as a whole. She certainly would not allow the little beauty to be raped by a hormonal boy! When the girl fell against the headstone, she sprang into action.

Where had she come from? Dieter wondered. Suddenly, a tall, blonde woman dressed in black stood between him and the fallen girl. The Amazon was a good two inches taller than he was and devastatingly beautiful.

"Be gone, little worm," Lilith commanded in a voice that sounded strangely like an angry cat's yowl.

"What happens between Mia and I is none of your concern," he stated arrogantly.

Lilith hissed and bared her fangs.

In terror, Dieter ran to the car and left Mia behind.

Bending over the unconscious girl, Lilith lifted her seemingly fragile weight. In the night her eyes were keener, the child was beautiful in her innocent way. Something tugged deep inside where her heart had once dwelled so many hundreds of years ago. Truly innocent and truly beautiful. She had been alone a long time... Perhaps, she should take this one as a consort for a time...

Mia's head lolled to her right, leaving her tempting neck bared to Lilith.

It was then the blonde saw the mark – the rose with two blood drops. Almost like the girl had been tattooed at birth – which she had. She was a royal consort – the bride Prince Adrian had sought!

Regaining consciousness, Mia found herself in a large canopy bed. She sat up. The last thing she remembered was Dieter....

"I see you are finally awake," came a gentle female voice.

Mia whipped around to see who spoke only to drop back to the pillow. The pain forced her eyes closed.

"Careful, little one," Lilith warned. She went to her tenderly stroking her hair. "You are safe from that boy. Gravestones are harder than your head."

"Gra—gravestones?" Mia inquired shakily.

"Yes, your Romeo was going to rape you in the old cemetery. Lucky for you I came by."

"Th—thank you." The woman's touch was soothing and some how disturbing at the same time.

"You rest as long as you need to, Mia. You have had a rough night."

The woman called her by name...Had Dieter told her? Why was she being so kind and gentle? Before she drifted into oblivion, Mia could have sworn she felt a brief kiss on her lips...

Waking next, Mia was unsure how much time had passed. The room remained cloaked in darkness. The only light in the room was cast by the most meager of lamps on the table in the middle of the room. Where was she? She remembered fighting of Dieter. The tall, exquisitely beautiful blonde woman...Had that been a dream? She had such gentleness...

"Good morning, little one!" Lilith entered carrying a tray. "Ready for breakfast?" She wore a black peignoir set of lace and silk.

Suddenly, Mia as famished. "Yes."

"Good! You were out for too long. I was beginning to worry." The woman placed the tray on the bedside table. Assisting Mia in sitting up, she adjusted the pillows so the girl could hold the tray. "I had cook prepare eggs Benedict for you." Lilith smiled as Mia ate with gusto.

"My favorite."

"I know."

How did she know? "Might I have some more light?"

"The doctor advised against it for today. Between being knocked about by Dieter and hitting your head, the light might bother you."

Lilith couldn't resist the urge to touch the girl. She stroked the dark hair so different from her own. Caressed the slight shoulder – once again unlike her well-muscled body. It galled her she would be forced to surrender the child to Adrian. He would not treasure her. He would take her without a thought. He would drain her, then discard her. Perhaps, Lilith could persuade him to let his lieutenant keep the girl...

The woman's touch unnerved her. Mia felt something emanating from her. It as not a motherly sort of feeling – more like a lover... "I should like to go back to my parents," Mia announced.

"I'm afraid not, Mia. Your future is no longer with them." With that, Lilith whirled and left the room.

Mia scrambled from the bed at the closing of the door. Momentarily, dizziness swept her. She checked the door – locked. The windows were covered by heavy velvet drapes – and shuttered from the outside. She was trapped. Sinking to the heavy oriental carpet at her feet, she realized what she wore. A silk gown of purest white – like a bride would wear. Whose bride? She wept. What would happen to her? Would her parents ever find her? Mia sobbed until she could do nothing more than close her eyes and release herself into oblivion.

“You need to take better care of your self,” Lilith scolded Mia as the girl’s eyes fluttered open.

Once again, Mia was on the large bed – with a difference. She was naked beneath the covers – and so was the woman! And as hard as she tried, she couldn’t seem to move – like a bird caught in a cobra’s hypnotizing gaze. Lilith’s cold blue eyes held her in thrall.

“Such a shame…” Lilith sighed, “Please know I am not willingly giving you over to the Prince, little one. If I knew of another way, I would not surrender you to his needs.” She traced the birthmark on Mia’s neck, sending a shiver of pure sexual desire through both of them – the girl felt it against her will. “You were marked at birth. He must be the one to take your virgin’s blood. I detest the very thought of him violating you.”

Mia was caught. Helpless. She knew exactly what was to be done to her – and couldn’t stop the woman. “Who—who is this prince?”

“The viper who will rape you of your innocence,” Lilith spat angrily. She leaned to place a tender kiss on the girl’s trembling lips. “But I shall give you your first pleasure, little one – And when he throws you aside, it will be me you shall come to.”

“I—I don’t even know your name.”

“Do you not?” Lilith stared into Mia’s dark confused eyes.

Everything became clear. What Lilith would do. The ritual Mia would be made to endure. The agony of Prince Adrian’s possession. A single tear slipped down her pale cheek.

“I am so sorry, my flower…”

Seemingly, Mia could ask questions but make no protest – and she wasn’t so sure if she would want to object. In all that she had seen in Lilith’s eyes, only this woman offered any solace.

“Today, I can give you the sweet comfort of my body – then we must wait.” Lilith drew Mia against her. “Your humanness will rail against this, Mia, but you must take my blood. When Adrian drains you, my blood will prevent you from becoming one of the undead. Instead you are guaranteed kindredship.” Lilith drug one sharp nail across the top on one of her breasts, leaving a gash of welling crimson. “Take, little one. Save yourself for me.” Guiding the girl’s dark head to her breast, Lilith moaned in nearly orgasmic pleasure as Mia licked and sucked at her blood. “Yes, pet! Be greedy. More!” Finally, she tore Mia’s mouth from her flesh and took it with her own.

Mia had rarely French kissed her boyfriends and hadn’t been naked with another human being since she was three – and it had been her four year old cousin Denise in the bathtub! This didn’t feel right. She’d often had flights of fancy of just what it would be like to be taken for the first time – but it had never been a woman! She knew his eyes – warm, gentle, deep blue. She had seen them many times. And his name…when she woke it had always been just on the tip of her tongue, just out of reach.

Lilith realized immediately she had made a tactical error. With her own tainted blood in Mia’s veins, the girl possessed a knowledge she hadn’t previously. Seduction would have worked before – now she would have to take the girl who had grown stiff in her embrace.

“There is nothing sweeter than a virgin’s first nectar.” Lilith pressed Mia into the mattress and moved atop her. “Once a man defiles her, it is never as sweet. You should be honored I choose you, precious.”

‘No!’ Mia screamed in her head. ‘I don’t want this! I want none of this!’

“The choice has never been yours,” Lilith stated as if she had heard the girl.

Lilith opened Mia’s mouth with her tongue, ravaging it.

The girl found her arms pinned above her head as surely as if hands actually held them in place. Tears streamed from her eyes as the stronger woman kissed, licked and sucked at her neck and then her breasts. Her fleshed heated unwillingly.

“Such pretty breasts…” Lilith murmured against the girl’s aroused flesh. “Delicate…all pink and white. You taste untouched. Has any man touched you at all?”

“N—no, not beyond kisses.”

“Perfect!” Lilith skimmed knowing fingers down the girl’s flat, pale belly, making it quiver. “Your only flaw is that mark.” She touched the rose tattoo on Mia’s neck. “Without this, you would be mine by now.”

Unseen hands shoved Mia’s trembling thighs apart and held them. Unable to move or protest, she lay under the lash of Lilith’s wicked tongue, forced to respond to the agony of pleasure she didn’t want. The only noises allowed to escape her lips were the gasps and mewling of ecstasy that drove the woman on.

Lilith raised her head momentarily. By unspoken command, she brought Mia’s gaze to hers. “You are delicious, my flower. The next time you grace my bed, you will pleasure me as well – you will take my offering.”

‘No!’ Mia longed to deny the woman’s words.

With an evil grin, the blonde went back to her torture of the Mia’s flesh. She thoroughly enjoyed the girl’s writhing, her restless hips begging for what she had never known and so much more. What a perfectly sensual creature she was. It was a crime to waste such a treasure on a thug like Adrian! When Mia climaxed the first time, Lilith drank greedily. Such was the sweet, delicate love cream of the untouched. Wanting more, she sent the girl up three more times.

Mia was limp and numb when Lilith finally rose from the bed. She had never known such shame. Forbidden, illicit rapture had been forced upon her. Lilith had taken her repeatedly, seemingly insatiable. Unable to move anything save her head, she watched the woman walk to the door in all her blonde, Amazonian glory. “Lilith?” she asked weakly.

Lilith turned with a tender smile. “Yes, little one?”

“What color are Prince Adrian’s eyes?”

If she thought it a strange question, she made no comment. “Black,” Lilith answered.

“Oh…” Mia new the warm-eyed lover of her dreams would never find her now. Unable to move her limbs from exhaustion, she wept for the soul she would soon lose and the love she would never know.

She was so very weak, Mia thought as one more of the clan came forward to take from her. The only thing that kept her upright was the chain fastened to the handcuffs at her wrists. It hung from the ceiling and could be ratcheted tighter with attached pulleys.

To her thinking this was not the way new royalty should be treated. If she was to become the mate of their prince, should she not be treated with respect or deference? Why did they feel the need to fondle and grab at her so tauntingly and make rude remarks? All of them were at perfect ease reaching into her bloodstained gown to grope or pinch her breasts. Several had yanked the fabric up to put their fingers between her tender thighs. This was more about humiliation than any royal status she would attain by being joined with Prince Adrian!

Earlier, Lilith had explained the ceremony. Each clan member would come forward and take a sip of her. Mia had lost the will to count by the fifteenth assault. She began to sink and heard the woman's command that the chain's slack should be taken up.

Lilith was the last one to approach the girl. "My poor little flower has wilted from this abuse," she crooned. It had been difficult to watch Mia's pitiful struggles fade to abject surrender, but Lilith had been forced to keep up the façade of Adrian’s lieutenant. The beautiful child would have been hers to cherish if the damn mark of the accursed hadn't stamped her neck!

Mia looked at her with pleading eyes. "It is nearly done little one. The pain is soon over."

Lilith sank her fangs into Mia's slender, savaged neck to take her drink. Stepping back she said, "Take her down. I shall prepare her for our Prince."

Lilith tenderly bathed Mia, soothing her raw wounds with a special ointment. The child was limp. The morons had been greedy and took too much of her sweet, clean blood. Beasts, all of them. Not one of them had appreciated the treasure before them.

Dressing Mia in her lace-wedding gown, Lilith placed her on the wide bed to await her prince. "Mia?"

The girl responded with a mere flicker of her dark lashes.

"You won't survive for Adrian at this rate," she muttered angrily. "And I won't let you merely perish." Mounting the bed, beside the nearly unconscious girl, the woman opened her own gown and gouged a deep cut above her breast as she had before. "Take little darling. Survive."

Mia felt her awareness sharpened as she took Lilith's blood; but this time, she did not let the other know. She simply remained limp in the woman's hold.

Lilith felt Mia's pulse steady and pulled away. "Rest. The beast will be here soon."

The guard at the door was an oaf. Lilith paid no mind to him. The girl was barely alive and was little threat to flee! "Let her rest until the Prince arrives," she told him.

He merely nodded.

She didn't know how long she lay there quietly, listening to the angry beat of her heart and faint sounds of revelry. They were drunk – drunk on her blood. Hatred and bitterness so foreign to her surged through her veins along with Lilith's offering. Lilith was the only one even faintly regretful – of course that regret stemmed from having to share Mia.

Mia waited until things grew quiet below – the revelers had either left or passed out, she surmised. It was amazing how sharp and analytical her mind had become with the infusion of Lilith's blood. It was as if knowledge throughout the ages of man were in reach of her memory! She knew facts she had no reason to know. What she could become? A waster of souls - a demonic beast? No! She would never allow herself to become a creature feeding off the less powerful. She still had a soul!

She nearly toppled when she tried to stand. "Not as invincible as you thought, eh?" she murmured as she made her unsteady way to the door. Opening it she found the worthless guard away from his post. With a stealth she hadn't previously possessed, she made her way to the back stairs. The kitchen area was deserted, the back door unlocked.

Freedom was hers!

"She barely has blood in her." The doctor at the hospital commented on the girl who had been found passed out on the sidewalk early that morning. "Must be those blood-thieving vampires again." He examined the ravaged neck.

"Va-vampires?" the young nurse paled.

"Some cult of kids. They haven't been around for a few years. They exsanguinate their victims, offering them up as sacrifices. See? Wedding gown, she was going to be a 'bride' of their leader."

The young nurse shuddered.

"We can put blood back into her, but she may be too far gone."

Mia woke feeling strangely feral and strong. Seeing the intravenous drip, she realized she had been fed. The monster was sated for the moment. Then she saw the faintest tinges of the dawn at the window and panicked. She had to go to ground before the full sunrise!

Ripping the needle from her arm, she scrambled from the bed.

It was the misfortune of the young nurse to appear to check on her patient. "Miss, you must return to bed at once!" she scolded.

Mia turned copper-colored eyes to the woman. Hissing, her fangs were revealed.

The nurse dropped to the floor in a dead faint -- Quickly, Mia undressed the girl. Now, she had her escape clothes!