"Who the hell is Vanessa Moonblood?" Lilith asks.
"Me." Vaela proudly answers as she twirls about under the moonlight that covers her estate, singing and humming in content.
"I don't understand…" Lilith laments.
Vaela walks over to the entrance stairway of her mansion, and drops onto the marble, seating herself on the steps as she wistfully stretches herself, wiggingly her toes and fingers.
"Vanessa is an alter ego I created ages ago. She was the me that I could only ever dream of being. Rich, powerful, confident and built like a goddess."
"Ah, I see." Lilith replies. "She's just a figment of your imagination."
"Pretty much." Vaela says softly. "She was the only thing that carried me through some really dark times. When I'd go days without food… Vanessa Moonblood would have banquets thrown in her honor. When I had to sleep on the cold streets, she'd be in five star hotels… She allowed me to live when all I could do was try to survive. Even if it was all just in my head."
"Oh, my poor kitten." Lilith coos, stroking her fingers through Vaela's hair. "This world has been so cruel to you. Perhaps I should destroy it after all, start a clean slate and save your poor humans from this perpetual torture."
Vaela scoffs.
"Not if Vanessa Moonblood has any say in this." she laughs as she lifts to her feet and skips up the steps towards the entrance.
"I doubted you." Lilith admits. "A poor, beaten down, hopeless little thing like you… I didn't think you'd have it in you, honestly. But it seems, perhaps Vaela is in fact the mask you carry, and Vanessa Moonblood is the real you?"
"Perhaps…" Vaela shrugs. "We'll see. In the meantime, this Vaela wants to enjoy the fuck out of her new life. Starting with ordering some tacos. I've never had tacos!"
Lilith chuckles as she follows Vaela into the mansion. The young woman spends the rest of the evening exploring every nook and cranny of her new home. Each room she entered brings with it a gasp of wonder and excitement.
Numerous bedrooms, each intricately decorated. A gym, art gallery, sun room, indoor garden, multiple living and entertainment areas were only part of the many rooms she would explore. Pools, ponds, courts and patios littered the exterior area around and behind the mansion.
Crunching through tacos while dressed in little more than a tshirt and wooly socks, she eventually ends up in a mini-theatre, watching a giant tv screen with Lilith next to her. The two happily munch popcorn as they both cry through classic, sad movies.
The next day Vaela would barely leave the house, only answering the door to collect the many, many deliveries she would receive from the hours of online shopping she had done the previous night.
"You're gonna need help." Lilith smirks. "Running up and down this mansion is for staff, not owners."
"Oh, of course." Vaela replies. She had never even considered hiring some help. The thought of her wants and needs being managed and fulfilled by others was beyond a dream to her.
"Relax… I'll handle it." Lilith responds. "Seeing as I don't have much else to do around here with you being a secret seductress and all."
"Thanks." Vaela nods as she sticks out her tongue playfully at the red lady floating about naked, barely cloaked in puffs of smoke. "Please make sure they're all human."
The pair spend the day unpacking hundreds of deliveries and enjoying a horde of leftover tacos.
By midday, a bus full of people arrive at the estate's main gate.
Before they head out the entrance to greet the newcomers, Lilith, in a poof of crimson smoke, transforms into a small, red cat adorned with an opulent diamond necklace.
"Seeing as you're gonna have staff around, I'll be taking on this form around the estate. Allows me to keep an eye on things without raising suspicion." Lilith speaks from the small feline body. "I'm sure you can figure out a reasonable explanation for my presence."
Vaela warmly welcomes the group of humans onto her estate and introduces them to her small, red, familiar. Passed down through her family with ancient, forgotten magic. A talking cat named Lily.
The group are shown their individual rooms and Lilith, in her feline-form, leads them around the estate, explaining their various roles and tasks, much to their amazement.
A massive banquet of every kind of takeout food awaits the staff when they return to the mansion.
"This is my home." Vaela speaks as she gathers them around a large dining table. "I want this to be your home too. I know the struggle humans have to endure in Veruna just to survive. I promise, as long as you're loyal to me and Lily, you will never have to struggle again."
She reveals a stack of envelopes and passes them among the group. Gasps fill the room as the staff members each begin to open the envelopes and find $5000 waiting inside.
"Madam, is this a trick? Why would you—" one of the older men whimpers.
"No… this is my dream. I've been blessed… and I want to share that blessing with people that know the suffering I've been through. So please, enjoy this meal and enjoy my gift. I look forward to learning about each of you and making you a part of my home."
The staff all clap and cheer before eagerly digging into the feast that their new employer had prepared for them.
They all spend the rest of the day in deep conversions and discussion on their lives in Veruna. Many tears would be shed as each human present told similar stories of suffering under the oppressions of poverty, living on selling blood, their lives and sanity constantly balanced on a knife's edge.
Filled with food and emptied of all their melancholies, the group are allowed to fully indulge in the various bathing and facilities around the mansion and finish their evening with games and entertainment.
The next day they would begin their tasks in earnest with hard work, diligence and a deep sense of loyalty to Vaela, who has shown them true care and empathy.
Many of the staff help Vaela as she individually wraps and organizes hundreds of children's gifts, toys and books to be distributed to orphanages around the city.
"Quite the philanthropist." Lilith meows as she watches Vaela diligently organize the gifts. "Besides some food and clothing, you've only been spending your money on the less fortunate. No point to it if you don't have Lucien fully hooked by Sunday evening."
"I know…" Vaela frowns. "and he hasn't even tried to contact me. Do you think I might've overplayed my hand. He was pretty frustrated."
"He's clearly smitten with you. Give it some time. When men like Lucien taste something new, and they like it… they won't be easily satisfied until they've had their fill. He's definitely thinking of you."
Lilith was not wrong.
In the center of Veruna, at the Horitzberg Foundations Global Headquarters, Lucien was yelling at his personal aides and assistants as they scramble around him.
"It's been two days! How the hell have none of you been able to find out anything about Vanessa Moonblood?" He yells out as he slams on his desk, sending decorations and documents flying onto the floor.
"She doesn't exist, sir." One aide exclaims.
"There's no record on her. Nothing. She's a ghost." Another cries out.
"Someone like her doesn't just appear out of nowhere." Lucien grunts. "She's a fucking goddess. Somebody's gotta know who she is. What she wants. I need to know. Now!"
"Maybe she is one, sir?"
"What?"
"Maybe not a goddess. But, something else. She lives in Whispering Woods. Maybe she's a—"
"Say it and I rip out your tongue." Lucien hisses, baring his fangs aggressively. "She's the closest thing to an angel I've ever seen, and I want her!"
Back at Vaela's estate, she lays tanning, in a tiny bikini, between rows of flowers as she scrolls through social media posts on her phone, giggling with glee as she watches videos of her dancing at The House of Hemo and being ogled by almost every eye in the room.
Wild rumours abound about her relationship with Lucien. The images of her strutting out of the club with him tagging behind illicit crazy comments and assumptions from across the internet.
Some of which boost her ego, while others bring an unbearable cringe.
"Miss Moonblood," her personal maid beckoned. "A message for you. Delivered at the gate."
Vaela took a bright red envelope from her maid's hands. It featured a wax seal, stamped with the family crest of some ancient house.
Cracking it open, she retrieves a small white paper. Scrawled in deep crimson, she reads a message from Lucien.
"I need to see you. Please join me tonight for dinner. Name the time and place. I'll make it happen."
Beneath his message was his private phone number.
Vaela chuckles softly as she thanks the maid and sends her away.
She slumps back into her seat and stares at the envelope silently as her mind fills with wild thoughts and new possibilities.
"He's hooked…" Lilith says softly as she stretches out her feline form in the beating sun. "Now we just have to reel him in."