It is not the place of a woman to go against the actions of a man. Growing up, I was taught this by not only my parents, but by every authority figure around. I was a woman and therefore lesser than a man.
This fact shaped many events of my life.

It shaped the role I played in my family as the youngest daughter of three children. My brother always being worth the most to my parents, my sister being above me for simply having been born earlier. And when the Devil's dark hand crept over our country to take my mother and father by the plague, my life was shaped again by my womanhood. My brother inherited our lands and found a hasty marriage for my sister. For me, a woman with no station, no inheritance, nothing to bring into a marriage, he found a affluent land lord to take me as a chambermaid.

My master was a flamboyant and sociable man. He treated his servants well so long as we performed our duties with the utmost care. I was able to breathe easy knowing that I would have food in my belly, a roof over my head and no switch upon my back so long as I behaved myself proper.

It was because of my master's lurid tastes that my life was shaped for the third and final time. Because he was such a sociable man, he often held events and parties and I would service these alongside the many other retainers of the house. At one such party, a foreigner and stranger to our small town, appeared and made such a show of his wealth, worldliness and physical beauty that he became quite the bell of the ball.

"Miss, would you mind bringing me a glass of that?" This stranger asked me in the most succulent voice I never could have imagined.

I couldn't fathom any words lovely enough to form a response and so I tilted into an ungainly curtsy before scurrying away to collect a glass for the man's wine. When I returned to search him out, he had abandoned his post in the center of all conversation to retreat to the portico. I followed his figure into the damp night air.

"This country has such wonderful views." He said by way of greeting as I approached.
I found something of my voice and croaked, "Yes, sir. It is even better by daylight."
He laughed; such a terribly charming sound. "Yes, so I've heard." He stared at me and for a moment I wondered if his dark eyes could swallow me whole. "What is your name?"

I gawked, speechless once again, and fumbled for any sort of reason such a well-to-do and fascinating man might have interest in me. The man stared at me all the while, still as a statue and as fearsome as a wolf. In the moonlight we stood and he smirked a wicked smirk.

"Forgive me, it isn't proper, is it? A man should introduce himself before asking the name of another." He cooed sweetly, forgiving my discourtesy. With a click of his cane on the rough stone floor and a deep bow, he proclaimed the name I had heard repeated throughout the hall throughout the night. "I am Guiomar Azarola."
I made sure not to insult him with hesitation. "Lorna O'Rinn, sir."
"Ah." He said with a distinct note of recognition. "From Ireland."
"My father's people were, but I've never left England." I explained quickly.

After a moment of quiet I considered leaving this eccentric visitor to attend the other guests, but I truly did not want to lose the feeling he gave me. I wanted to indulge myself in this man, this dreamlike creature. When he smiled at me and told me that I was as lovely as the land of my ancestors, I lost any will, any hope of returning to my life serving and prostrating myself beneath others. The two of us left behind my carafe of wine and his untouched glass behind to walk down the winding dirt roads into the scant woods around my master's estate.

As we sauntered deeper into the night, my companion spun tantalizing tales about his travels and I listened with eager, spellbound ears.

"Well, my dear, I must say you have been the most darling measure of my stay here. I hardly wish for this evening to end." Guiomar said.
I blushed. "Thank you, sir, but I should think you'd have much better enjoyed the company of those closer to your station."

He leaned in close to me and I wasn't sure when he had left my side to stand in front of me. I stood stock still as Guiomar traced his fingers across the line of my cheekbone. My scrambled thoughts reached out for anything real and circled the coldness in his touch. I hadn't thought it was so bitter, but we were out in the midst of autumn.

Guiomar's lips slipped from their perfect curve of a smile to silhouette the first words lost on me since our meeting and the last thing I remembered before my world became entirely enveloped in pain.

At some point, I heard the barking of dogs and my scrambled mind reattached itself to a new reality as I realized that my master and his guests must have begun a hunt to conclude the festivities. I spent what felt like an eternity doused in that one night and the pain which filled me. Certainly, I was on my journey out of this world, I thought. Certainly it would end and I would be saved.

But when I opened my eyes again, having waited until long after my agony receded, I was not met with the holy gates to paradise or the fires of hell. I was lying dirtied and starving in the same woods where I had wandered with that most alluring stranger. I realized then that it was well into the afternoon and I must have been missing all of the morning. Fearing my master's wrath, I clamored to my feet, astonished at the complete lack of pain in the motion, and dashed through the trees and shrubs back to my master's house.

As soon as I reached the grounds and spotted another servant, a woman who ranked above me by the name of Rada, I called out and began rattling off my apologies. Rada stared at me with a bizarre mixture of wonderment and repulsion in her expression and did not utter a word. As I ran closer and closer to her, my head began to swim with the strength of a scent more alien and more delicious than any I had ever found before. I felt my body tensing, readying itself for something I had not even known of let alone commanded. As I came into range of Rada I found myself almost instantaneously upon her.
The poor woman hadn't even a moment to scream.

The page that had been washing the windows nearby did, though. The older man cried out in a terrified, unintelligible voice before running away and calling for help. He screamed that there was a demon here. I hadn't any more control of myself when I leapt up from Rada's body, ran to the page, threw him into stone wall of my master's home. He fought futilely beneath my hands and then against my teeth.

In this way I killed seventeen of the servants I had worked alongside in that estate before my hunger was sated enough that I regained my senses. Finding the strength to control my own body and knowing the horror I had created, I fled from the estate and from England entirely.

I've decided to add notes to explain certain historical references I use. I figure it might help anyone who is interested in knowing, but hasn't heard of them as well as clearing things up for an history buffs.

The plague mentioned here is the Great Plague which swept through London in 1665 and was one of the final appearances of the bubonic plague.
Miles were first used by the Romans (who brought the measurement to England when they invaded), but have referred to a multitude of actual lengths. Even today the mile used in certain parts of rural Ireland is over 6,700 feet compared to the usual 5,280.