This is a short work of erotic fiction containing furry, or anthropomorphic, characters, which are animals that either demonstrate human intelligence or walk on two legs, for the purposes of these tales. It is a thriving and growing fandom in which creators are prevalent in art and writing especially.
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White Vampire
Chapter One
Jacob set his jaw as he left the inn, pack slung over his shoulder and guns holstered at his hip within easy reach. The chestnut stallion travelled lightly, his black mane braided tightly along the line of his neck so as not to get in the way of his 'hunting', although that was a loose term at best for his line of work. More of a bounty hunter and hired, deadly hand for those who had the coin to spend on his services, Jacob Colton was an equine who skulked through the shadows of life, making few connections with anyone, although he had lived and worked out of the Ruby Tout inn for several months at that point. He would be sorry to leave it behind.
But he had something to take care of first: one last job from the king himself. King Leovold was far too important a figure to be seen in such parts but a letter bearing the king's seal handed over by Alfred the barkeep was not to be ignored. It was even less to be ignored when it came with a pouch of gold and a mission to top all missions secluded away in the letter. For the letter bid him to take care of a canine who was suspected of feasting on citizens and, considering her history, it was hardly a great stretch of the imagination with the evidence laid out before them.
After all, everyone knew of Marchesa, the vampire of the castle. Her family had once been held in high esteem but, tragically, she had fallen prey to the bite of a vampire in her youth. Although life itself had not been taken from her and, truly, she had fought back like a demon, but the bite had sunk deep and there had been nothing to stop her progression into becoming a vampire, the fangs growing in a matter of weeks. There had been no hiding it but anyone shunning the family had met a swift demise, chased from what she considered to be her land (beyond the scope of her family property) with bloodied fangs and claws flashing in the cold of the night. Now, she treated others as beneath her and herself as something of a queen, though there was only one king and queen in the land and she held no true power other than the fear she commanded.
Little did she know that there was fresh strife on the horizon: as if her poor family had not suffered enough. And perhaps Jacob should have turned back as he stood before the castle, the mansion looming with a tower framing each end. There were no lanterns lit at the front of it and the stallion had been admittedly surprised too to find that there was no manner of guard at the gate, which swung open with an obnoxious, eerie creak, allowing him entry into the grounds. The graves too had held no ill-will and no lost souls rose from the dirt to claim him for their own, although he kept a wary eye on them all the same. He wouldn't have wanted to fall prey to a ghoul before he even reached his true target. And he was rather surprised and suitably cautioned that his target seemed completely unaware or unconcerned on his approach.
The double mahogany doors groaned as he pushed them open but he was not striving for quiet, assuming (wrongly) that he would draw her out into the grounds or at least the entrance hall for their battle. For it was coming, undoubtedly so, and he knew it would not be the easiest of battles to win, regardless of the multitude of weapons he had secluded away on the arsenal that was his body.
He was ready. But how 'ready' was Marchesa?
Jacob set his jaw and paced through the halls with the easy, wary gait of a hunter, ears flicking one way and then the other as he remained completely on his guard, unwilling to give even an inch of releasing any iota of tension. He could relax but that would only render him more vulnerable and, well, he thought he had rather a few more years ahead of him, not wanting to fall before one of his opponents just yet. Jacob grimaced. Although, it was rather common in his line of work and he could not forget the danger he was in above all else.
Today was not his day to die.
It was easy to find the ballroom, the grand hall where he warranted he'd find her, the vampire 'queen' of the castle. Every corridor swept in towards it, although it took Jacob longer than most to make his way through the halls, checking behind each and every tapestry and eyeing the plinths, which may have once held statues or flowers, with due trepidation. Everything was a danger.
But the ballroom... He took a deep, steadying breath, although his nerve held as well as it always did. The door lay ajar and the lanterns within her lit, deliberately so.
It was time.
He needed no grand entrance to approach her and there was no note of respect in the tilt of his head or the speed of his stride as he took in the grand hall, the high ceiling begging the eye. He only let his eye rake it once and then a second time, just to be sure, to check for foes higher than he would have otherwise thought to attack, but there was no one at all in the oversized room, a depiction of wealth, besides the white canine on the throne she'd claimed for her very own.
Marchesa looked over her challenger, if he could even be called that. The white canine's fur slicked down smoothly over her body, finely groomed and seeming to glitter with an unearthly light beneath the lit chandelier. Her servants had scaled the walls using a system of pulleys to reach the high, high ceiling of her reception room, which could be repurposed into a ballroom in her castle if she so chose. It had been a long, long time since her family had held a ball or event on such a grand scale, however, and, due to a rather unpopular opinion on her feeding habits, it was unlikely that it would be possible any time soon.
That said, it was not that she did not look like a queen or royalty of olden times in a corset that accentuated rather than concealed her figure, the long, flowing skirt begging the question of just what lay beneath. But Jacob was not a horse that could allow himself the luxury of ogling anyone, much less what he sought to extinguish from the face of the earth, and ostentatiously avoided looking down at her body, although the cold gleam of her eyes was particularly disconcerting. But it allowed him to steady himself, ears pinned flat back against his skull.
One more hunt to be completed. It was the same as any other.
"I have been expecting you, Colton."
His hooves clip-clopped noisily over the wooden floor as he paced, heat seeping through from the fires lit below: a form of under floor heating that was becoming increasingly common in large estates - not that he usually was found to be the sort of horse welcomed into such grand homes. No, Jacob was far more used to his little tent in the woods or simply moving from inn to inn as the work came and went, travels always a heartbeat from his hooves.
"And just why have you been expecting me?" He said, voice rising calmly and levelly, though he was aware that he didn't need to be too loud in order for her to hear him. "I don't generally make a habit of announcing my arrival."
The canine smiled eerily, pulling her lips back from her teeth as if she was trying to show off her fangs. Her eyes shimmered in the dark, pools of yearning that that seemed to want to draw him in, but they were swirling eddies that one could not afford to lose themselves in.
"One like you approaches every few moons and each and every last one of you thinks you may best me."
"I pretend no superiority," Jacob offered, spreading his paws out, though his fingers automatically twitched towards his weapons. "But I am afraid that we simply cannot allow you to continue on with your despicable acts for a single day longer. It is not right, what you do. You could find alternative ways to feed and yet you choose the one that claims the greatest number of lives."
"Oh, the false king. Another message from him?" She wrinkled her nose prettily. "Well, I suppose one cannot be all that surprised that he is still attempting to overthrow me. Yet he is such a coward that he will not come himself and face me, nor send an army."
Throwing her head back, she laughed cruelly, the sound echoing eerily around the ballroom. He pressed his lips together and rocked back on his hooves, waiting for her to be done. He knew how to be patient: he could wait.
"Do you think he believes that even an army will not be able to cast me out? That he has to send colts and pups that skulk in the dark of the night, stealing into my home in futile, worthless attempts? Every last one of you is the same!"
With that, she leapt from her throne, jaws agape to show a flash of fangs, gleaming with saliva in the flickering light from the chandelier, shadows dancing madly across the far walls. He took a step back, setting his stance, and drew a pistol, something that was of better use at close range. It wasn't as if he would have expected to ever be far enough away from her, once the fight had begun, to use the musket or shotgun. And, if she got too close, he would be right down to his hooves and blades, cutting through her just the same as she'd torn down her prey.
It would be a merciful death all the same.
She did not lunge for him immediately, however, the leap perhaps merely a show of strength through which she could intimidate him, although he had seen far worse than a femme fatale vampire before. Her words rolled over him like water over a weathered, worn rock and he set himself up to fight, legs apart for balance even as she stalked him, the she-wolf seeking out her prey. But he was no lamb to be taken to slaughter and it was about time she knew that.
That lesson, however, was about to be sharply learned and not quite for the intended party. Rumbling a deathly sort of chuckle that echoed eerily through the too-still room, brimming over with the memory of life, Marchesa fixed him in her sights, pulling her lips back from her teeth for a cruel hiss that was more akin to a death rattle scraping through lungs that were not of true furry-kind.
