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I gasped as the implication of the ward’s removal struck me. I took another step, horrified at what I had wrought upon Laura and her family. A loud thumping noise echoed through the house then Laura stepped into view. She was dragging Adem by his collar. Blood covered her face and saturated her white burial gown and her long dark hair.

“Laura,” I cried out.

Hesitating in her step, she lifted her head and gazed at me. Calmly, she dropped Adem to the floor.

“Laura, what have you done?”

“I killed them for you. For me,” she answered calmly. “They will not hurt either one of us ever again. ”

“Are you mad?”

“No. I am what you are. A vampire,” she said.

And smiled.

Later-

It was Adem returning to consciousness that restored any sort of sanity to the situation at hand. Laura had merely rendered him unconscious when he had barged in upon her. Despite the fury in his eyes, he calmly surveyed the damage my vampire fledgling had wrought on the world.

Laura watched us both with some interest from where she sat in a chair slowly licking the blood from her fingers. She looked neither crazed nor feral. In fact, she looked very much like she did when we worked on our embroidery.

“We had best set about assuring that her new nature is not discovered. Without Enre this will be difficult. Stay with her. ” Adem shook his head with frustration and rushed back up the stairs.

I sat with Laura as I listened to Adem moving about in the upper floors. Most of the servants did not live within the house, but in another building set to one side of the estate. But I did fear that the few that did live with the family had met similar fates to Laura’s parents.

“Madam?” a voice said out of the gloom.

I stood quickly and looked around the corner to see the butler and three maids clustered together in the hallway. They could easily see me from their vantage point, but not Laura.

“What is going on?” the butler asked, his eyes as large as saucers.

“Sleep,” I ordered, my power striking all three like a thunderclap.

They collapsed at my feet.

Abruptly drained, I staggered, falling against the wall.

“What will you do with them?” Laura asked me.

“Nothing,” I answered. “And neither will you. ”

“I’m not hungry anymore. ” She smiled slightly. “I wasn’t hungry after I killed that man. I wasn’t. . . crazed anymore either. ”

I turned to regard her, my anger barely held in check. “You killed Enre. ”

“I didn’t mean to. I mean. . . ” she faltered. “I meant to kill him. But I wasn’t in my right mind. I was just so hungry. ”

“And after you were done feeding from him?”

“I wasn’t hungry anymore. Or mad. ”

“Yet, you killed your parents. ”

She smiled. “Yes. I did. ”

“Why, Laura? Why?” I stared at her incredulously. I had wanted so desperately to save her from death and give her life. I had intended to protect her from all the horrors I had experienced when Vlad had created me. I did not want her to lose her family as I had lost mine. Yet, she had butchered them as coldly as Vlad had killed mine.

Laura twisted her blood soaked hair about one finger, her eyes regarding me thoughtfully. At last, she said, “I killed them because I was never anything more to them than a key to more wealth and prestige. When I was a little girl, I always knew my brother was the important one. I was always shunted to the side once he was born. As I grew older, I heard them talking about securing a wealthy husband for me to ensure that they would remain in good standing. I was nothing more than a commodity to them. ”