The Queen

by Cole Denton

  “Most places here in Dreyle use forest chips—”

  “Except for Drishane. The Royal Darick is used and it holds the most value in neighboring countries, which is where the vampires of Carpe Noctem obtain their goods.”

  “If all they wanted was currency, why not just take it and leave?”

  “Klyn, they are monsters. They leave destruction in its path.”

  “They wiped out an entire town!” Klyn coughed again. “Did they want to take over Drishane?”

  “Potentially. Most important was the currency. Which, is all in a chamber at the Darick castle.”

  “So they have raided it and wiped out a town,” Klyn’s voice dripped with anger.

  “No. They did not raid the castle,” Tiara said confidently.

  “How are you so sure?”

  “She is alive.”

  “Octavia?” Klyn whispered though I could hear him perfectly.

  “For centuries, Dreyle has been run by vampires, while witches and warlocks roam about. But, the Kingdom of Darick is not without its own special power,” Tiara spoke as I fought to stay alert and listen. “The Halo of Darick has been around as long as the family. It is a spell that protects the castle from vampires. No vampire can cross the threshold of Darick Castle without being invited by a member of the royal family.”

  “Does the Carpe Noctem know that?” Klyn asked.

  “Doubtful and they will probably make multiple attempts to overtake the castle. But, while Octavia is alive, the Halo of Darick cannot be broken. They have no way in.”

  Good, I thought to myself.

  “As long as Octavia survives the next few days while the aethereal blood from the Carpe Noctem passes through her system, she will be immortal.”

  “Tiara,” Klyn coughed hard again, “She is nineteen—”

  “Spawn of the Carpe Noctem, though extremely rare, will age until they reach full maturity. There is a good chance Octavia will continue to age until her late twenties or early thirties.”

  “Will she be able to get into the castle?”

  “She is still a Darick. She will get in.”

  “Tiara, you must look after her.”

  “I will, my brother,” Tiara said.

  I woke up to Klyn continuously coughing. As I tried to sit up, I noticed my skin felt like it had been stretched and hardened. I had little energy but Klyn seemed so ill. Tiara was fussing with him and tried to get him to drink something.

  “Klyn, you will succumb to this if you do not drink,” Tiara urged.

  He was dying. My eyes welled up with tears and I forced myself upright. From where I sat, I could see Klyn’s chest rise and fall rapidly. He was in pain and my heart was breaking. Tiara sat beside him and pressed a damp cloth to his forehead. As I slowly made my way to his bedside, Tiara held a charger to his lips. He tried drinking, but within moments of swallowing the fluid, it all came back up.

  Gingerly, I sat down beside his cot and took hold of his hand. Klyn had always been by my side and I was overwhelmed with the thought of being alone.

  “Octavia,” he mumbled. His head rolled to the side to look at me. His eyes watered and ran down his cheeks. “Why are you out of bed?” he asked.

  I looked at him incredulously.

  “You are not well, Klyn. I want to be beside you.”

  Klyn’s eyes had closed and he had not responded to my voice or me shaking his arm. I looked up at Tiara.

  “Is he gone?” I carefully asked as Tiara felt his wrist.

  “No, not yet. He still has a heartbeat. He is passed out.”

  “Why is he not getting better? I am doing better from that drink. How come he is not getting better? It has been days.”

  “You were able to keep the concoction down, dear. Klyn has not been able to keep anything in his stomach,” Tiara said.

  “So, what do we do? Just wait for him to die?” I cried.

  “There is nothing else that I can do for him, my Queen,” Tiara gently said.

  Queen?

  That was right; everyone one was gone. I was now the Queen of the Darick Kingdom of Drishane. I eyed Klyn’s wrist, then tugged his arm toward me.

  “Queen Octavia,” Tiara whispered as she looked across Klyn’s body at me. Her eyes were a glossy black and I knew time was limited. She knew what I had been thinking, I was certain. “I cannot ask you to do this. You must be certain of the choice you are about to make. Your parents—”

  “My parents are dead, Tiara. Klyn is all that I have. If I can save him, I will. He saved me and brought me to you,” I cried.

  “Saving you was part of my duty, dear. Your father had been kind to allow me into the town and live my life as I chose to. The Darick Kingdom will go on. You will rebuild it and the town,” Klyn whispered as he groggily drifted in and out.

  “I will rebuild,” I confirmed. “I will get revenge for what the Carpe Noctem took. And Klyn will be by my side,” I stated and looked up at Tiara.

  When Tiara nodded, I knew that she supported this and would help nurse Klyn back to health. Just as I had brought Klyn’s wrist to my mouth, Tiara interjected.

  “My Queen, might I recommend the neck? Your venom will get into his system faster.” I nodded.

  “How will I know when to stop?” I asked.

  “The stories that I have heard all say that one will know when they have had their fill,” Tiara explained.

  My heart pounded as I moved toward Klyn’s neck. I tasted the salt from his cool flesh the moment my lips touched his skin. He smelled just like I remembered. As a girl, if I fell and hurt myself, Klyn would pick me up and hold me until I stopped crying. I would bury my face against his neck, just like I was now. I closed my eyes and followed the advice of Tiara and did not let up until I felt it was time. Klyn’s body writhed on the cot as I pierced his flesh. It was as though his blood energized me. I instantly felt better and released him from the clutches of my teeth when I felt completely refreshed.

  I sat still and watched Klyn’s body react as Tiara helped him sit up part way.

  “Fetch me a full charger, dear,” Tiara asked me.

  I hurried to the kettle Tiara had propped up over warm lumps of coal. Using the long ladle, I filled a charger full and hurried back to Klyn’s side. Tiara guided the charger to his mouth and he swallowed all of the warm fluid.

  Maybe he would wake and feel better since the drink got into his system quicker. I had no idea how long I had been lying in the woods before Klyn found me. And I had no idea how long it took for him to carry me to Tiara’s. I imagined a lot of time had elapsed before I drank this healing drink. Klyn only had my venom in him for a few moments before he was able to drink.

  And now we wait.

  “I will keep watch over him, dear. You go back and rest now,” Tiara instructed.

  I did feel better, but the moment I laid down, weakness had taken over and I drifted off to sleep.

  “Remember, you know how to find me if you need me. I will be watching over you. As a way to say thank you for saving my brother’s life, I have cast a protective spell over Drishane. The town will seem to have disappeared to any vampires. It will remain dark and hidden to any witch or warlock that might be helping Lochlaan Mortas,” Tiara said before we left her place.

  “How come you always called my father King Quintas instead of Quintas?” I asked Klyn quietly as we walked back to Drishane’s Town Square. Even though I had not felt safe being in the forest, I felt safe with Klyn.

  “It was out of respect. Calling him anything but King Quintas was unacceptable to me,” Klyn responded.

  We talked the entire way about Carpe Noctem and its leader, Lochlann Mortas. Tiara told us that from what she had heard, Lochlann’s family, all had a family mark, or something similar to a birth mark. She had warned us not to be alarmed if we suddenly noticed the mark of Lochlann appear somewhere on our bodies.

  “What was the description of the mark Tiara told us about?” I asked Klyn.

  “Three diamonds of
some sort,” he said. “I will inform you if I spot it.”

  “I will do the same, Klyn.”

  The sound of a crow startled me and I grabbed Klyn’s arm.

  “Relax, it is just a crow.”

  “Sorry. I am a bit jumpy.”

  “I understand. It will be alright. Lochlann will not be lurking in the forest,” Klyn reassured me. “Remember, Tiara said she cast a protective spell over Drishane.”

  I nodded, and we walked in silence for a few minutes. We each covered our noses and mouths the closer we got to Town Square; the stench of the dead becoming too much to bear. The sound of buzzards and flies intensified, and for a moment I thought that it may have been part of the effects of being bitten. But then I realized that was not the case. Klyn and I stopped walking and stared at perhaps a hundred bodies that had been strung up in the trees.

  “Oh, God,” Klyn murmured.

  We walked slowly past the first tree that had people dangling from branches. Crows had pecked at their eyes and faces. Some had an eye, or both eyes, that had dislodged from the eye socket and hung against their blood streaked faces. Trails of dried blood from behind their rope bound necks disappeared into their best dresses and shirts.

  “All of these people could not have been ones that snuck off to the forest that night,” I said to Klyn.

  “You are most likely correct, Queen.”

  “Stop that!” I demanded and turned to face Klyn. “Stop calling me Queen!”

  “It is what you are, my dear.”

  “No, Klyn! My mother was the Queen. I am not! I am just a princess!” I exclaimed and realized that I had been crying as I tried to fend off my mother’s title.

  I allowed Klyn to wrap me up in his arms as I cried.

  “You cannot be a princess forever, Octavia,” Klyn consoled. “I know this is not easy and you were not ready for it, but you are the Queen of Drishane.”

  “I was not ready. I never expected this so soon. I knew that in time, I would take my parents place, but not so soon.”

  “I know, Octavia. I will be by your side as Drishane is rebuilt, and the Kingdom of Darick carries on,” Klyn said.

  “What will we do with all of the bodies, Klyn? We cannot just leave them. They deserve better than that. They all came out in their best attire to spend a night with my family.”

  “We must cut them down for certain, but I think we need to burn the bodies to prevent the spread of disease—”

  “Burn them?” I interrupted. “Klyn—”

  “Octavia, I know that does not sound appealing to you, but we cannot afford any errors.”

  “They deserve better!”

  “We will make a memorial for them. Perhaps a flower garden,” Klyn suggested.

  The more he spoke, the more his idea sounded the most realistic. It would take the two of us so long to bury all of these bodies. I nodded and agreed to go along with his idea.

  “But Klyn, what about my parents?”

  My family, dating way back, had a section reserved for them in the Drishane cemetery. I cannot imagine them not take their place with the family.

  “We will give your parents a proper burial.”

  Together, we walked between the trees and looked for my parents. It was clear that Carpe Noctem brought outside all of the townspeople that had been inside the Town Square dining hall. I knew that my parents were dead, and that we would find them hanging from a tree branch. Even though I knew they were dead, when we finally came upon their bodies I fell to my knees and sobbed. As my stomach convulsed, Klyn knelt beside me.

  My mother’s crown was still on her head, but all of the jewels had been pried from the gold metal. The ruby necklace that my mother always wore and had promised would be mine one day; gone. Her fingers were bare, and had been stripped of pieces that had been passed down generations.

  My father’s crown was on the ground a yard from where his feet dangled. His neck had been snapped and hung down slightly to the side, like all of the others. His eyes had been removed, perhaps by the vile Carpe Noctem, or crows. I could not stomach the sight of the bloody sockets that remained.

  “Octavia, we need to go back to the castle. I will come back in the morning with a carriage for your parents.”

  I nodded and allowed Klyn to help me to my feet. As we walked away, something caught my eye and I stepped closer to my father. Every jewel had been removed from his crown, and any rings he had worn that night had also been removed. All but one. Still firmly in place was the silver dragon sheath ring; the Darick Family ring.

  “What is it, Octavia?” Klyn asked as he jostled my arm.

  “They left our family ring on him. They did not take it!”

  I reached out to pull the ring off, but Klyn quickly took hold of my father’s hand and tried to remove the ring. After a few attempts, Klyn announced that it was stuck and would not budge. He said that tomorrow when he came back that he would get the ring off. I nodded but reached out to tug on the ring and it slid right off. Klyn and I stared at the ring with wide eyes.

  “You saw me pull on it,” Klyn said.

  “I know, it was stuck,” I agreed with him.

  I stared at the eyes of the dragon ring and was surprised that both of the onyx eyes had still be intact.

  “There must be a spell on the ring,” Klyn suggested. “Perhaps something about how the only ones who can remove the ring are family members.”

  I vaguely recalled my father telling me about the ring as a child. Klyn had been right; no one but a Darick could remove the ring. I slid the ring on my finger and stared at it. I held my hand out toward Klyn and asked him to try to remove the ring. Klyn pulled on the ring and he had not been able to remove it from my hand.

  I walked back to the castle with Klyn, eager to get back home. Though I vowed my revenge, I realized we were an army of two right now. We would rebuild Drishane, and then I would find Lochlann. I had all the time in the world now.

  Chapter Two

  Dreyle

  200 Years Later

  Even though I would have to come back to the castle later on to change for the pageant that night, I was eager to get into town for some of the many festivities that had been planned. I looked forward to the Annual Drishane Festival every year. While the content of the displays were far more tame during the daytime, I still enjoyed taking part. The nighttime festivities were my personal favorite though.

  I sat on the edge of my plum, silk quilt and stared out of the balcony door to Drishane below. In the distance I could hear the music and sounds from the festival already in full swing. I opened my black silk robe and rubbed my hands over my breasts. I pinched my swollen nipples as I parted my legs wider.

  Briefly, I closed my eyes to savor Roisin’s experienced tongue. At twenty-three years of age, Roisin had been a recent addition to the culinary staff at the castle. I stumbled upon her and another woman from the culinary staff inverted on a stone bench down a corridor that I do not often travel. The two women thought they had been in trouble. Rumors had made their way around the castle that I do not condone anyone stepping out of line. But, these women intrigued me. I had put my heel up on the bench, pulled up my dress, and gave them a taste. It certainly had not been the first time that I had a woman pleasure me, but after that night years ago, Roisin became my preferred woman…when I wanted one.

  There was a firm and loud knock on the door moments before it opened.

  “Just about ready, Queen Octavia?” Klyn asked as he walked through my bedroom door.

  The moment he discovered that Roisin was on her knees between my parted legs, he turned his head to focus on my obsidian satin dress for this evening.

  “Did I tell you to stop, Roisin?” She shook her head and lowered her eyes. “Just because Klyn is here now does not mean you have to stop. Keep licking, my lovely.”

  Klyn had lost his bashfulness decades ago with regards to me and my body. He had walked in on me and my toys several times.

  “That is good, my lovely
, you may stop,” I advised Roisin as I stood and crossed the room to where Klyn was standing.

  He still gazed at the dress while I looked at my tits in the mirror. Next to my bed, Roisin quickly dressed and before she left the room I asked her if she wanted a new toy from the festival today.

  “Yes, my Queen. I would love a new toy, thank you.”

  “Wonderful. I shall find a beautiful toy that is worthy of your pussy. I will bring it to your room later,” I promised.

  She thanked me and then left Klyn and I alone. I propped my bare foot on the small ornate table beside my full-length mirror and examined my swollen pussy lips and my aching, pouty clit.

  “I would have left so you could…finish,” Klyn offered up.

  “No bother. I merely wanted to be taken to the edge before I head out to the festival. Being wet and swollen makes the festival even more fun,” I admitted and then playfully slapped his arm. “You should try her out, Klyn. Big, strapping man like yourself would have a lot of fun with lithe Roisin. She has excellent oral skills.”

  I pulled on my long black skirt and my sheer black blouse while I spoke with Klyn.

  “I have tried her out,” Klyn laughed and shook his head at me. “She was a lot of fun, but I am about two-hundred and twenty-four years older than she is. It would not work out,” he joked.

  We shared some laughs as we walked to the carriage. On our way to the festival, we spoke about what each of us were looking for or wanted to do.

  “I want to get one of those sweet breads with the sugar on it,” Klyn said as he gazed out the window into the forest section just to the left of the carriage.

  “The cake does sound delightful. Aside from that, are you looking for anything else?” I asked.

  “Probably a book,” he nonchalantly added, which made me burst out laughing.

  Klyn had taken kindly to being immortal and had become quite the connoisseur of books. He never tired of books and reading, though I was not sure how he still found new books to read. One would think that after being alive for two hundred plus years that he would find a new hobby. Of course, the passing years had not diminished my sexual appetite. I would spend eternity in the prime of my sexual life.