"The straps are too tight, Ma'am!"
"No, they are not. Just relax and enjoy."
"No...please...really! I can't feel my hands!"
"Dearest! You are not paying attention to me. Now quit complaining."
"Please..." moaning and beginning to cry. "Please...my feet...what's wrong with my feet?"
"Nothing."
Sobbing now. Then screaming. Then nothing.
As blood dripped onto the floor, she smiled, her fangs barely visible. Stripping off the long, satin opera gloves, she opened the heavy, oaken door and called for 1 and 2.
"Clean up the mess. And be sure to put away all my toys this time. The straps need oiling, and my best English cane needs to be sanded a bit." She strode out of the dim room, her chestnut hair streaming out behind her.
1, the heavier of the two wolves, growled at 2, who was smaller and somewhat timid. "We always have to clean up her mess. Why?" 1 snatched a bit of hanging thigh meat. "For this? This bit of rubbish? I am tired of playing maid to the bitch upstairs."
2 quivered a bit. "What if she hears you?" he slid up to the bloody body and tore off a bit for himself. "I mean, she takes care of us and feeds us and sometimes loves us. I think."
1 grinned, blood running through his fur. He swung his massive head towards the slightly open door. "Yes...love. Let's show her some love."
2 was appalled.
"Just what are you suggesting?" he murmured, exceptionally afraid she would overhear them. "You know tonight is the Dark of the Moon. We're human and mortal tonight. It's the only night she lets us be human, and she could do something horrible to us." he whined and backed away from the doorway.
1 grinned a shaggy grin, his ragged teeth dripping gore. "Yes, she could, but we will distract her tonight. And behave for a little while, but then..." he stared at the heavy, iron banded door, his gaze sharpening. Suddenly, he spun around and stood up on hind legs, drawing himself up to his great height of seven feet. "We will be free of this bitch tonight, Brother. I promise!"
2 busied himself with cleaning up the remains. He dared not look at 1.
*****
She sat in the Library, perhaps the very finest room in the entire house. The house, if you could call a mansion with 54 rooms something as simple as a "house", and grounds suited her, as it was an antebellum plantation home, located deep in Western Carolina at the very base of the Appalachian Mountains, far away from any neighbors. She could stand on the Widow's Walk, and gaze at the great, dark forest, or at the fine, majestic mountains in the distance. Yes, it suited her well. She was close enough to Charlotte to bring back all the willing lost boys and girls, yet far enough away for no one to bother her.
A fire was blazing in the great stone fireplace, illuminating only a few feet around it. She had only one lamp on for reading, but that was all the light in the vast, sprawling room. Books lined the walls from floor to ceiling; great leather bound editions all the way down to ragged paperbacks. Every language was found in this room; she herself spoke seven languages and could not bring herself to read Russian novels in anything but Russian. It was the elitist in her.