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The dark courtiers turn to look as the double doors of the great hall burst open.

A pair of stone gargoyles, flanked by six or seven others, drag a re-purposed fishing net across the floor, and deposit it at the feet of the queen.

These animated servants would not normally dare disturb one of the queen's extravagant feasts. But they know that they have brought a prize she will appreciate, and they wait, silent and still, for her praise.

"What have you brought to me, my darlings?"

The queen leans forward eagerly, her high cheekbones and arched eyebrows flashing in the light of the dusty chandeliers.

"Aaah," she breathes. "A pretty little spy."

In the net is an angel, a spy and a soldier from the Republic of Heaven, standing upright with her chin raised. Her skin is the color of cream, her long hair a dark blond. Her wings are folded neatly behind her in military form, and her bright brown eyes are defiant.

"This is an excellent prize, my darlings. You shall taste wine tonight. Go, and wait along the walls. I may have more uses for you tonight."

The gargoyles obey, after one has laid at the queen's feet the angel's bow, and another her quiver of arrows.

"A brave little creature," the queen says, smiling slowly down at the captive. "To have come so far, alone, into the Underworld. I suspect that she will not give us much information. If, indeed, she speaks our language at all."

Judging by the girl's blank, defiant stare, she does not understand a word the queen is saying. And the queen laughs a little, and addresses her courtiers. "What shall we do, then? Shall we serve her up for desert?"

The demons and vampires, finely dressed gentlemen and ladies, seated at long tables around the edges of the room, chortle a little at this half-joke.

"No," the queen says thoughtfully. "There really isn't enough to go around."

She turns her head to look at the two beautiful young women, seated in lower thrones on either side of her on the dias.

"What do my darling daughters think? Matske? Carmilla?"

The elder princess smiles, a smile almost as playful and as dangerous as her mother's.

But the younger princess does not smile. Her dark eyes are on the captive angel, and her brow is furrowed with something almost like concern.

"I am sure you will think of something fitting, Mama," the elder princess purrs.

The queen laughs lightly. "Perhaps another pet for you, my crown princess Matske? Are you responsible enough to keep a pet alive now, Matske? Or will you eat this one too?"

The courtiers chortle again, and Matske blushes prettily and looks down.

Enslaved faerie servants are emerging from the wings of the ballroom, bearing the third course of the feast,and the queen turns back to her prisoner as they set the steaming trays onto the tables.

"Well, we have plenty of time to think," she says. "But while we all ruminate on it a little, darling, won't you give us a dance?"

She flicks one bejewled finger, and the net around the angel vanishes. She flicks another, and the girl's arms lift, as though she is being controlled by invisible puppet strings.

"Mother," the younger princess protests quietly, but her mother only strokes her cheek tenderly, before sending the angel spinning through the ballroom, her dark magic completely in control of the girl's innocent body.

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The courtiers have seen the queen enchant captured girls before, and they all lean forward a little in anticipation of the show. Her majesty keeps a harem of girls; humans, faeries, nymphs, and the occasional angel, specifically for the entertainment of her court.

She makes timid, modest girls dance like whores, on the tables and in the laps of the noblemen. She makes them suck honey from men's fingers, pour water and wine down their own dresses, whisper filthy things into the ladies' ears.

She enjoys feeling them fight against her magic, and she enjoys even more how easily she can best them.

Sometimes, as a special treat for her courtiers, the queen makes a girl go wild with lust by sending irresistibly titillating high frequency magic to buzz between her legs. The court remembers these occasions fondly and vividly; the first was a human girl. The queen, having buzzed her desperately, helplessly aroused, had compelled her to strip for the ballroom. She had then had her coat her naked body in the fatty butter for the goose, and rub her fingers in her own pussy in the center of the room, the pig's apple in her mouth, her cheeks burning red with pleasure and humiliation.

Later, the queen had started releasing her control of girl's bodies when she had them aroused; a girl could not escape when she could barely stand for lust. The court had watched as a desperate nyad hoisted up her skirts and rubbed her pussy hard against the corner of a feast table until she came.

They had watched as a nymph rubbed between her legs and pleaded with the queen to give her more, to let her fuck someone, something, anything. The queen had bargained with her; crawl under the tablecloth and suck the cock of every nobleman seated in this room. Then you can have more.

When the nymph had done it, the queen directed one of the stone gargoyles to the center of the hall. She let the thing put its huge stone cock into the nymph's pussy, and the nymph yelled and twisted, cumming over and over again as it fucked her.

Once, the queen had even put an angel on her own lap on the throne, facing the court and holding the girl's legs open for everyone to see as she fingered her.The angel had cum many times under the vampire queen's capable fingers, her head rolling back against the queen's shoulder, while the crowd clapped and whooped.

And so the court waits with baited breath to see what the queen will do with this pretty little angel spy. Beweled chests, doughy breasts rise and fall with excited anticipation as the fourth course of the feast emerges and the queen dances the girl's body back to the base of the throne.

She compels the girl to kneel at her feet, and leans down toward her, smiling her slow, almost catlike smile.

But before the queen can speak, her eyes widen with shock. She feels a jerk, like a rope being ripped from her hands, as the angel finds the strength to defy her dark magic, and throws it off like a heavy stocks.

The angel leaps forward, and the court barely has time to gasp before she has seized her bow and quiver from the floor, and fired a silver arrow straight for the queen's heart.

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The queen raises her palm.

There is a ripple of pressure, like an earthquake in the air, and the angel's arrow warps and strikes with a clang against the stone wall behind the queen.

A moment later the angel herself is lifted into the air, her arms pinned to her sides by an invisible force.

"Another cocky harbinger of the light," the queen says with a smile. "Thinking her little toys can hurt the darkness." The courtiers chortle, relieved.

The queen's momentary dismay is gone. She has regained her control over the girl, holding her more tightly this time in her power. "There was darkness in this world before there was anything else," she says, shaking the girl a little in her grip, "and there will still be darkness when all else has perished. You would be wise to submit to it now, little one, and not to waste yourself in fighting."

The angel does not understand the queen's words, but she seems to guess at their gist, because she fixes the queen with a defiant glare and raises her chin.

Princess Carmilla's eyes widen. She looks stricken as she stares at the angel's face, as though she has been blind all her life, and only just now learned what it is to see.

The queen does not notice. Her eyes are scanning over the angel's body. She is testing something with her magic, scrying in the open air, and a moment later her face splits into a satisfied smile.

"My friends!" She clasps her hands together. "I know exactly what we are to do with this prize."

Silence falls in the hall.

Those who know the queen well can tell that whatever plan she is about to propose, she has already had it in mind since she first saw the angel. She was only pretending to deliberate on the girl's fate for the entertainment of the court.

But her eyes are still bright and greedy with her idea. "Our researchers have uncovered the blueprint of a weapon. A weapon from a realm deeper and more ancient even than our own. It has the power to topple entire cities with only a breath of wind. Its creation is within our grasp. We have the ingredients. All of them, except for the lifeblood of a virgin."

All eyes move back to the angel, suspended in the air with her arms pinned to her sides. Every face in the hall is greedy, excited, except for two. The angel glares down at the queen with her jaw locked, and Princess Carmilla stares at the floor, shifting uncomfortably in her throne.

"This girl will do very well," the queen continues. '"A virgin, never so much as kissed. Indeed she has never felt any sort of sexual pleasure in her life. And to top it off, her spirit is strong. You all saw how she managed to defy my magic. Her blood will create...an invincible weapon. We will make preparations for the ceremony tomorrow, and when night falls, we will slit that pretty little throat!"

An electric murmur of excitement ripples through the hall.

But the queen is not finished speaking, and on her next words, her voice is sweet and low, like molasses.

"Now then. I need hardly remind you all that we are at war. I know that some of you normally like to play with our prisoners. But if either man or beast tampers with this girl's virginity tonight, he will be considered a traitor to the war effort, and he will spend eternity in unbearable agony. Is that understood?"

There is a quiet murmur of ascent.

The queen nods, satisfied, and raises a hand to the level of her mouth. She fixes her eyes on the angel above her and blows across her palm.

A stream of bright, golden glitter flows from the queen's breath toward the angel, who is still suspended in the air. The stream of glitter wraps once, twice around the girl's body, and then it disappears as it seems to sink into her between her legs.

The angel gasps, and her cheeks suddenly flush rouge. Her expression changes from defiance to shock. She is aroused, perhaps for the first time in her life, by the queen's magic.

The queen watches appraisingly for a moment as the angel presses her thighs together and flushes hot, her breath coming in short gasps of surprise and wanting as she hangs suspended and helpless in the air.

Then the queen says, "that spell will be our security. If any man takes her virginity tonight, that glitter will be there on his manhood in the morning. It will show him for the traitor he is. Of course--" she throws an amused glance at the flushed angel-- "it does have the side effect of making our little girl desperate to lose her virginity. But perhaps there will be time for that after she is dead!"

A raucous cheer from the tables.

The queen drops the prisoner to the floor, and around her there appears a cage with iron bars, rounded at the top like a bird cage.

Princess Carmilla's fingers dig into the armrests of her throne, hard enough to warp the tarnished bronze. But no one takes any note of this, or of the grim expression on the princess's face, as the fifth course of the feast emerges from the kitchens.

Later that night, Carmilla slips into her mother's bedchamber, and slides a small iron key off of the bedside table. She slips it down the bodice of her gown and leaves the room again, quieter than a gentle wind in a willow tree.

Carmilla is a master of stealth, capable of moving like black smoke through the darkness. On her way down to the great hall, she passes pairs of demons, and vampires entwined in dark corners, taking pleasure, or pain, or blood from each other, and moaning quietly with all of it.

She passes by an open window, where a naked countess lies on her back on the eaves of the roof. Her legs are wrapped around the neck of a gargoyle, its ugly face buried in her pussy.

No one and nothing takes any notice of Carmilla. And when she slips into the great hall, at first, the captive angel takes no notice of her either.

The girl is sitting on the floor of her cage in a far corner of the room. Her hands are tied behind her back, fastened to one of the bars. Her wings are cramped uncomfortably behind her, and she is still squirming her thighs together, desperate for some stimulation on her enchanted pussy. She bites her lip, her brow furrowed with the effort of pleasuring herself with only her thighs. But when Carmilla lights one of the torches on the wall beside the cage, the angel jerks in surprise.

She looks up, into Carmilla's eyes.

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There is something about this girl: those bold brown eyes, the way she holds up her head, the fearlessness of her movements. Carmilla likes her better than she has ever liked another creature, living or dead.

Carmilla has had lovers before: human girls that her mother would always “put to use” eventually. She would kill them for their blood, or bones, and leave their bodies to the whims of her insatiable gargoyle servants. She cared nothing for Carmilla’s anguish and rage.

“Moody,” she called Carmilla.

But Carmilla will not see it happen again. Not even to a stranger.

Not to this one.

The angel’s cheeks flush with embarrassment when she meets Carmilla’s gaze. She is not afraid of Carmilla, that is plain. Carmilla doubts whether this creature is truly afraid of anything. But she is embarrassed by the desperation that is making her squirm where she sits, pressing her thighs together to get friction on herself. Her wings beat a little against the bars behind her as she moves.

Carmilla knows what it is like in that dark magic; like a thick, sweet fog in the brain. Irresistible.

An enchantment this strong could take days to wear off, especially with the girl unable to sate herself. Her hands are tied behind her back, her wrists bound together around one of the bars of her cage. Her thighs, as Carmilla has already noted, are chained together.

Her arousal will be torture, and her squirming attempts at friction can only be making it worse.

“Here,” Carmilla says quietly, and sets her candlestick on the floor. She kneels behind the girl and reaches up to unfasten her hands.

The angel jerks and twists around, attempting to see what she is doing. Of course. Why would she ever guess that Carmilla was here to free her?

“I’m sorry.” Carmilla holds up her hands quickly, palms open. She leans around so that the girl does not have to strain to see her. “I’m Carmilla.” She points at herself. “Carmilla.”

The girl nods, looking at her with curiosity underneath the shame and arousal. “Laura,” she says. Her voice is like honey, warm and clean.

Laura. Carmilla’s heart takes an uncomfortable little leap.

She does not show it on her face. She just points at Laura’s wrists and mimes untying the bond, and Laura nods. The knots are tight, and the angel is unable to hold completely still as Carmilla coaxes them. Still she squirms in place a little, and her wings jerk against the bars in Carmilla’s face. But after a few minutes, Laura’s hands are free, and she presses instantly at the skirt of golden chains wrapped around her thighs, trying to press the trap down over her knees.

It is wound tightly, and it does not budge. If anything, the chains appear to tighten, pulling her legs together more firmly.

“Hold on,” Carmilla says. She reaches for the handle of her knife, and slides it out of the boning of her corset. She crawls around the side of the cage a little to get a better angle, and reaches in through the bars.

Trusting now, Laura does not flinch at the sight of the knife. Instead, as Carmilla crouches in front of her, her eyes drop conspicuously to the hem of Carmilla’s gown.

Carmilla glances down too; the candlelight casts deep shadows that are emphasizing her breasts. She tries, in vain, to pull up her corset and cover herself a little. This poor creature does not need to become any more aroused than she already is.

But. Carmilla can’t deny. Laura’s gaze on her does set her own heart beating very, very quickly.

“Alright, I’m going to get these bonds off of you,” she says calmly, gesturing at the golden chain with the knife, in the hopes that some of her meaning might translate. “And then I’ll let you out and we’ll see if you can fly.”

Laura does not seem to understand or care much what Carmilla is saying. Her eyes are rather wide; scanning Carmilla’s throat, the way that her gown leaves her shoulders bare, the pale curves of her breasts. She is still fidgeting, the flush of embarrassment still there in her cheeks.

“Hold still, if you can.” Carmilla leans in slowly. She presses the knife against the thin chain, between Laura’s knees.

They make a strange picture, their shadows dancing against the stone wall of the court room: the winged girl in the cage, and the other kneeling beside her, leaning in through the bars and reaching for her.

It takes only the slightest pressure from Carmilla’s enchanted knife, and the fragile chain snaps. But with the snap, Carmilla feels a jolt of energy pulse through the knife. She quickly tosses it outside of the cage, all-too-wary of the queen’s protective curses.

But she realizes quickly that it is not the knife she needs to worry about.

As the chain begins to slacken and slip from Laura’s thighs, it changes shape. It arches back up, as if raising its head, to look at Carmilla, and it begins to thicken. It draws its coils tighter around Laura’s thighs as it morphs into the form of a slender golden snake.

Carmilla recognizes it by the black stripe around its neck. Its venom causes flame-like pain and renders the victim helplessly weak for several hours. It is one of her mother’s useful little inventions to prevent prisoners—and in this case, would-be rescuers—from escaping.

It holds itself perfectly still. It watches Carmilla with cold reptilian eyes, ready to strike if she moves a breath closer.

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Damn.

Laura shifts back, eyes wide. The snake is wrapped around her thighs and knees, its head raised.

Carmilla and the snake stare at each other, unblinking.

Carmilla wracks her brain: a spell for this. "Fugam," she breathes. "tacebitis." Retreat and be still.

The snake blinks. Then, very slowly, it begins to move, loosening its coils on Laura's thighs. Its raised head drifts to the right, and it begins to shift, wrapping its head around one of the bars. Carmilla watches hopefully. But its tail end twists, smoothly, around Laura's wrist, and pulls her hand against the bar. It throws Carmilla what might almost pass as a defiant look, and flicks its tongue once, before twisting fluidly up the bar, dragging Laura's wrist along with it. Its stength tugs Laura to her feet, and she staggers, surprised. It winds its way all the way to the top of the bar, suspending Laura on the balls of her feet.

The snake stops at the top, and coils its body in rings around Laura's wrist and the bar, clenching her in place. It throws Carmilla another level glare, flicks its tongue, and slowly begins to change form again. The lithe body morphs into a golden chain, much thicker than before, and with a sound like the fizzing of sautered metal, it fuses with the iron roof of the cage. Laura is completely trapped in place, suspended on tip-toe up against one of the cage's thick bars.

The scent of smoking metal is thick in the air. Laura twists her wrist, staring up at it and its new chain. Then she leans her cheek against the bar in front of her and looks at Carmilla. Her lips are parted with concern. But her eyes are also glassy with arousal.

"It's alright," Carmilla says. "We're still going to get you out of here. Just... let me think for a moment."

Carmilla turns away, averting her eyes from the angel's beauty and trying to think straight. She looks out at the hall, where only hours before her mother had possessed the girl's body as a sick demonstration of her power, and pronounced her a virgin sacrifice.

That's what's at stake, here, Carmilla reminds herself grimly. They want to kill her. So don't get distracted by...by her.

Carmilla's heart is beating very quickly. She tries to think.

Perhaps a scorching spell for the snake. But how to avoid burning Laura? And once the snake was off, how to get Laura out of the hall? She could fly out through one of the narrow windows at the top of the stone walls, but in her current state? She might not even make it.

The enchantment on her would be deepening, and more-than-likely sexual pleasure was starting to seem more important than survival itself.

Carmilla hears a little gasp behind her.

She looks around, her heart in her throat. The angel is pressing herself up against the thick cage bar in front of her, her legs straddling it. The silky golden fabric of her skirt is scrunched up around the bar, and baring the tops of her thighs. Suspended on the balls of her feet by the hand chained above her head, and gripping the pole beside her with her free hand, she rubs herself clumsily against the pole, bumping it between her legs and trying to press herself against it. She manages to grind a few circles against it and gasps, tugging herself forward for more.

Her large brown eyes rise, humiliated but desperate, to Carmilla's.

She gasps something in her own language, some sort of a plea.

Carmilla's mouth has gone very dry, and her breath is thin and weak. The angel is so exquisite; Carmilla could look at her face all day, the intelligent, pretty, defiant lines. Flushed with heat, that face makes Carmilla feel so, so much more than she wants to feel right now. Then there are her bare legs, her collarbones, the tendons flexing in her neck, her nipples hardened under the silky gold fabric wrapped around her breasts. Her face...

The thought hits Carmilla from the side, and she cringes with the guilt of it. The most effective plan would be to relieve Laura of this need. Then she could concentrate on her escape...

But that would mean...Carmilla thinks of the enchanted golden powder that the queen had snugged between the girl's legs. To touch it would be...but that isn't what matters.

What matters is that it wouldn't be right. Or would it? It is impossible to know.

Carmilla takes an involuntary a step toward Laura.

To make love to her, to take her virginity...it wasn't right. The girl was helpless in the fist of a powerful enchantment. She couldn't give true consent, not like this, the way Carmilla would have wanted...if circumstances were different. It wasn't good, no, but it might be the only way that Carmilla was going to get her out of here alive...

It wasn't right, no, but was Carmilla not a dark thing of the underworld?

She takes another step forward. The two of them are looking into each others' eyes.

Carmilla reaches up, and Laura reaches out her free hand through the bars. Their fingers touch, then slide to interlock. Laura's palm is burning hot against Carmilla's cool one.

Carmilla lets out a little breath of pent-up longing as she steps in close to Laura's body, the fingers of her free hand brushing lightly over Laura's bared thigh. Laura leans around the pole, and lets her burning lips sink against Carmilla's in an open-mouthed kiss.