Priti used the back of her hand to lift away the dangling undercarriage as she nuzzled in to suckle at the open femoral artery. She felt the familiar fizz as the last of the warm and bubbling blood flowed over her tongue and began coating the sides of her throat. She’d been told of the rejuvenating properties of angry male blood by a Greek man at a garden party, and now she was Commander of the Island there was always a plentiful supply.

Stepping back, she wiped her mouth and nodded to the two soldiers holding the now drained and perished body. Without hesitation, they lifted and tossed the meat into the firepit where it began to crackle and roast almost immediately. In the corner of the Great Hall, there was a minor kerfuffle as the next sacrifice was brought in and held ready to be cut.

The revolution, as it turned out, had been easy. The men simply hadn’t seen in coming. Which was absurd considering the number of wildly waving flags that had been raised over the years before. Then again, they never were much good at taking the hint. Once power had been seized it was only a matter of altering the law with a few swiftly passed bills and being male became no different to being cattle, albeit a cattle rife with impotent rage.

The next step had proved much tricker, whether fraternal or sororal, relationships with the continent were not exactly at their peak, so Priti needed to bide her time before moving to expand.

A cough in the corner signalled it was time. Priti moved to the mirror and straightened out her skirt suit, checking for any flecks of stray blood which might alarm her visitor. The eighty-year-old Supreme Commander smiled at her thirty-something reflection as she licked drops of the renewing red liquid from her teeth.

‘Are you sure we aren’t ready to move?’ she asked once more of her chief military advisor.

‘Not with certainty, ma’am,’ the uniformed woman answered as though she hadn’t already said it a dozen times that week. ‘Our reports suggest we need another twelve months if we are to have sufficient resources to take and hold both France and Belgium for long enough to allow the women of Spain to overthrow their own men and join us.’

Priti sighed, she already knew that was the answer, but she really was tired of making nice with the oaf currently at the top of the French pile.

‘Fine,’ she said, and placed the scalpel she’d had secreted up her sleeve on the table at her side. ‘Let’s do this once more.’

With that she strode to the archway which led to the formal reception room, giving her hair a curt flick as two guards swung the double doors open allowing her to pass through.

‘Monsieur!’ the gathered court heard her yell warmly as she disappeared from the room. ‘How excellent to see you again. Mwah! Mwah!’