The Reign of Queens: A Kingdom of Diamond Antlers Novel

by Zachary James

  “It’s something in your gut that feels like a swift kick. It pulls the air from your lungs. The moment you connect eyes with your mate, the gods make sure you know. And if it doesn’t happen instantly it will happen within hours of meeting them.” Rasgard explains.

  Theon jumps in. “Once you both know, there is this undeniable feeling that you will shatter worlds to keep them safe and for you two to be together.” I certainly have never felt that way for Jax. Not while I was Fae anyway.

  “I’ve been with Jax for months…”

  “He isn’t your mate, Milady. Unless it works differently since you were born of the Tree of Light.” I nod in agreement and wipe away the tears from my eyes. I couldn’t imagine my life without Jax and if he isn’t my mate…then who is? “Let’s get your dress fitted.” Theon whispers grabbing my hand and pulling the red cloak from my shoulders.

  The words keep clanging through my brain.

  He isn’t your mate.

  He isn’t your mate.

  He isn’t your mate.

  Then who is?

  Chapter Eight

  ~Fayla~

  After my scolding from Acacius, I was sent to my chambers for bed. Of course I’m not tired, but since it will be daylight soon and I’m a Vampyre I will become weak if I don’t rest. It’s stupid and pointless, being a Vampyre. I spent years in a dark cellar never seeing the light of day and now I still can’t. I just want to feel the suns warmth, or does it even have warmth anymore? Well, I wouldn’t know unless I went outside! I’m sick of being property and controlled. The opportunity to be free came and I took advantage of it, so now I need to escape again, I have to break out.

  On that thought, I rise from my bed and slide into the closet. Slipping on a sheer black dress adorned with crystals, I laugh as it makes me look like I’ve taken a swath of the night sky and put it on like an accessory. The clothing in the Vampyre kingdom is exquisite, I can’t deny that, but I still don’t like this place. I feel disconnected from everything. It’s as if a strange voice in my head just whispering to me saying, “you don’t belong here.” I know it isn’t Acacius because all he wants to do is sleep.

  After throwing my unbound black waves over a shoulder I tiptoe into the hall of dark paneled wood and begin my walk around my new home. Maybe not all of the Vampyre’s have to live in this damned castle. I would rather walk in the woods, or a desert, or maybe even through unyielding marshes because anywhere is better than this place. Queen Molaris is going to make my living here fucking horrible, but what can I do about that? I’m supposed to be loyal right? Well, why not make her keeping me here miserable for her?

  A girl who was walking by, human by the smell, recoils at the sight of me. I look down at my dress and touch my face, but her blue eyes flick to mine. “Why are you up Milady?”

  I just give her an adamant glare as I groan, “Well I just wanted to see my new home.” She backs away even farther and that’s when I noticed her ankles. Heavy leaden shackles against scarred and blistering skin, her wrist bare the same scars, but no shackles. I look to my own wrists on instinct and noticed the grotesque, ruined, and once blistered skin is now porcelain and smooth, but tiny white scars are barely visible against the paleness. My past is almost completely gone, but not forgotten. “You shouldn’t be walking around should you?” my growl is guttural and terror fills my nostrils. It’s a rancid, repulsive odor.

  “I…I was…I was going t-to be t-t-turned…,” The girl whispers. I just grin and my mind begins imaging the taste of her blood. I wonder if it tastes sweet and pure because of her unbitten skin. Her body would feel smooth against my lips. But the question is where to bite first. She tries to run.

  Time slows as she begins to slowly turn and her hair moves like it’s beneath water, but I am perfectly fine. I take two strides to her before grabbing her wrist and throat. I pin her against the wall and everything goes back to normal and I almost laugh as she screams. “Nobody will hear us,” I purr into her ear.

  “Please,” she begins to beg. “I just want to go home. I want to see my family.”

  “I don’t have a family.”

  She looks to the ceiling with plead. “I’m sorry about whatever happened to them.”

  “I’m not. They missed out on the real torture I fully endured. I got to spend all my Fae-,”

  Acacius grabs me and throws me to the floor. He holds the human behind him in a protective stance and I rise; my eyes saying everything I want to do to him and the girl. She silently cries behind him as he hushes her.

  “You don’t touch her,” he threatens.

  But I am hungry, I say in the silence of my skull.

  I am too. We will talk about this later. Just follow my lead, he answers and my interest perks. Instead of fighting him like I usually would, I nod in understanding. He turns to the human and grips her shoulders, promptly acquiring her interest. “You trust me right?” He whispers. A gulp resounds in my ears from her bobbing throat and she nods. “Follow me than.” And with that he grabs me and the girl by the wrist and sprints down the corridor towards the main stairwell that accesses the throne room. Although the human girl moves in slow motion, we run at an average pace. I guess that explains how fast the Vampyres are. Time slows for everyone else while we move with great speed.

  In seconds we are in the entry hall and Acacius stops running. He drags the girl to the front of the castle and I scream out in terror when he throws open the doors and tosses the girl onto the cobblestone path. Bright golden rays glisten down upon his pale skin and I immediately feel the heat of them, although the sun isn’t on my own skin. I feel the connection between us that he spoke of earlier. I wait for a second and he doesn’t burst into flames or vanish into ashes. I always assumed Vampyres died in the sunlight, but my assumptions were juvenile.

  The girl looks to Acacius with watering eyes, “Thank you. I appreciate you so, so, so-,”

  I hiss at her and she scurries away on uneasy feet. Her pounding steps resound into my ears and I stare at the dark evergreen pines bordering the castle and a very large lake to the right. To the left seems to just walk off into the horizon like the ground cuts straight into the clear sky. I gawk at the light and sun. The open blue expanse is full of large plush clouds.

  “May I?” I ask to nobody in particular. I’ve wanted to be out in the sun for years and now… I might be able to. The inkling of urges is too much for me to listen to if he says no.

  “Of course…” Acacius places a firm hand on my lower back guiding me through the doors and onto the cobblestone, smoothed by years of feet passing over them. When the sun touches my skin I gasp. It’s like the feeling of being alive again. No longer do I feel covered in death’s cold grip, now I am in life’s warm coiling heat that enthralls my bones and skin. I instinctively squint from the bright light of fire in the sky and the burn from behind my eyes. “You can look around you know,” He adds.

  I leave Acacius’ side and wander towards the place where the ground cuts right into the horizon. As I approach the edge I notice that it’s a cliff that stands before me and at the bottom is a large amount of open water. Crashing waves slam against jagged rocks at the bottom and roiling foam swirls through the unyielding ocean of the deepest hues of blues. Tears spill down my cheeks at the sheer beauty of this place. The girl is long gone and no longer am I hungry for blood. I’m in awe. I’m in love with the sheer beauty the world has to offer and I realize how much I have been sheltered from and haven’t seen.

  I look to Acacius who smiles and saunters toward me with his hands in his slacks. “It’s beautiful isn’t it?” I look back to the looming ocean.

  “How?”

  “How what?”

  “How is it possible that we can walk in the daylight?” I blurt out and he just shakes his head with a chuckle. I don’t think I’ve seen him smile or laugh once, and I know for certain he hasn’t seen me like this. There’s a first for everything.

  “I knew you were going to ask me about this once yo
u wandered beyond the castle doors.” I just wait for the explanation. Slow, never-ending minutes pass and he finally starts to answer my question. “I am. We are not only Vampyres, we are also partly Fae. Never has there been a hybrid since you and me, so we are the first of our kind. We are both life, death, day and night, light and dark, and even heads or tails.”

  “Why hasn’t there ever been a Fae and Vampyre hybrid until now?”

  “Well Vampyres came from the Fae.” Shock rattles through my bones. “After the Mortal and Immortal wars, a treaty was created and this was written in the form of a book. The Book of Ash. And the contents of the book consisted of the laws, created by both man and faerie, that they need to abide by. The most important one was ‘None, thy Male or Fae, shall breach beyond the bounds of mortal or immortal.’ These laws were written in both mortal and immortal blood forever binding them to the Tree of Light.”

  In all my years I don’t recall ever hearing of this Book of Ash, but I’m also still confused how it is connected to the Vampyres.

  He continues on. “But there is a breed of Fae called the Succumbus that can only stay youthful and immortal by drinking human blood. After the creation of the Book of Ash thousands and thousands of these Fae ran from Elkwood forest and into the mortal lands where they wreaked havoc upon Abella. About a century after all of the Succumbus established lives in the mortal lands, the Tree of Light got mad. Prometheus was upset with his creations. This is where everything gets interesting.” I giggle a little bit and he barely notices as he continues to stare at the oceans churning waves. I take a seat and he joins me. “The Tree of Light had casted a spell. The aftershock of this magic was like an atomic wave of wind booming outward across all of Abella. Immediately the Succumbus Fae in the mortal land’s skin began to boil beneath the sun and they started to catch fire. Not knowing what to do, they all ran, burning, to the Tree of Light, to Elkwood Forest. Some people even say the whole world shuttered from their pounding steps.

  “As they broke the borders of Elkwood their skin stopped burning, but they all changed. Their skin tightened and their bodies morphed into wicked beasts and monsters that will forever haunt the dreams of children both human and Fae.”

  I jump in and ask, “So the Vampyres came from the Succumbus that entered Elkwood?”

  “No,” He laughs. “There were some who saw what was happening to the Fae when they entered, so about a quarter of a hundred Succumbus stayed behind and shielded themselves from the sun. They later transformed that night, when the first moon rose, and became what we know as the Vampyres.”

  “Well what happened to the Succumbus who turned into beasts?”

  “They are known as the Forsaken now and are forever bound to Elkwood’s borders.”

  His story only clears up some of my confusions. “If Vampyres originated from Fae why can’t they go into the sunlight?”

  “Well the curse created by the Tree of Light changed all of the Succumbus Fae, so their bodies can’t withstand the sun’s rays.”

  “Okay that makes more sense. Well than why wasn’t there a Fae, Vampyre hybrid until now?”

  “The Vampyres were afraid to touch the Fae until about four centuries ago when Molaris unknowingly turned a Fae into a Vampyre. And then I created you.”

  If Acacius has been a Vampyre/ Fae hybrid for three centuries than…, “How old is Molaris?”

  “She was a Vampyre for seventeen centuries before she bit me, but I don’t know how long she was a Fae for. I’ve always asked her and she has yet to answer my question.”

  Gods above, she must be the most powerful being since Prometheus.

  “You are more powerful than her,” Acacius whispers. “You, in strange ways, are the only one who challenges her and I don’t know if it gives you some adrenaline rush, but just know she argues back because she is frightened.”

  “How could I ever be stronger than she? Molaris is over twenty centuries old, Acacius!” He sits onto his knees and grips my shoulders extremely hard. He even shakes me a little bit.

  “You are like no other Fae I have ever seen. You have abilities that are stronger than anyone’s on this earth. I feel it, deep within my veins, that you still have a beating heart. That’s what she wants most from you.”

  I look down at my palms and bright cords of electricity sparkle across my hands and Acacius’ eyes seem to glow with the blue sparks. He inhales deeply as his mouth falls open in utter surprise. He then smirks with a knowing smile before looking at me and saying, “You’re the spark that ignites a fire, Athena. You can drag fear to its knees and watch it become ashes”

  <<>><<>><<>>

  The rest of the week was thrilling because every day Acacius and I went outside. The sun kept my skin looking somewhat alive for a Vampyre. The nightly shower, which is a new luxury, has pulled all the dye from my hair revealing a soft gray with a silvery sheen. Although it’s pretty, it isn’t my snow white waves that I’m used to and I am starting to what the color back, want a life back, and Acacius is helping me do just that. Acacius showed me how to hunt outside in the wild and what animals to eat. He doesn’t want me living off of the humans that wander the halls of my new home.

  “Crimson Island,” Acacius says as he briefs me on the history of the Vampyre society that has been living beside the Fae and humans for the past twenty centuries. Apparently, part of being a Vampyre, is having to know everything about the history between the four kingdoms. In the North is king Tyrion of Vampyra, a past lover of Molaris. Lastly, in the south, is King Aaron of the Dead Isles. Crimson Island is where I currently am and the western kingdom is Valkyrie, ruled by the cunningly brutal Scout. Molaris is the queen of the east and rumored to be the most wicked of all four.

  Acacius went on and on about their histories and rulerships, but to none of it did I truly listen. Maybe I should’ve, but I live forever, why do I need to learn about them now? I have a lifetime to figure it all out.

  “Why do I need to know this?” I spit into the open chamber of my bedroom. “Can’t we go outside?”

  “No, Athena.” He bites back in a fearsome growl I wasn’t expecting.

  “Why not?”

  “We can’t risk anyone knowing about our kind,” He growls. His scarlet eyes dance across the room quickly and land back on me, his stare making my skin crawl. “If Molaris learns of our Fae blood, she’ll murder us before we can create more hybrids.”

  Rolling my eyes I pick at a chip in the wood table. “You said it yourself. I can defeat her. If she somehow found out, I’d kill her first.”

  As the words left my mouth the same Vampyre with white skin and ivory hair that I met on my first day busted through the door. Acacius rose into a fighting stance and I just looked back to him with a glare of adamant stone.

  “Molaris has requested your presence,” He purrs with a lovers tongue. Acacius begins to walk around the table and the man’s eyes land on me. “She wishes for Athena’s presence only.”

  Be careful, Acacius whispers into my skull like a persuading conscience. I won’t be there to protect you this time.

  I just look back at him as I exit the room I follow the tall sentinel back down the simple corridor and up the stairs into her throne room, where she lounges like a cat trying to find the sun that is sadly absent from the chamber.

  The same floating stars fill the space of the otherwise empty room and Molaris sighs to herself. I take a mental note of the absence of her sentinels that once flanked her throne. I stare at her while she plays with her manicured nails. The looming silence makes me tiresome, so I decide to talk first.

  “You wanted to see me?”

  “Yes. Athena, I fear we have started off on the wrong fang.” Oh really? “I would like to start over.”

  I pull at a loose thread on my leather tunic just to give my hands something to do even if it isn’t worth my time. When I look back to her she has risen and is looking down her nose at me. “Is that so?” I feign a chipper mood.

  Molaris answers with a
curt nod. She is acting a bit out of character, so I ask, “Why did you really call me here?”

  She laughs and the wicked sound bounces across the walls making me cringe. “I just have a few questions for you.”

  I wait.

  “Like, where did Acacius find you?”

  “The depths of an alleyway in Alpri,” I still remember the mortal city that borders the eastern cliffs. After the bite that turned me I felt my past drag away from me. When I try to remember my childhood home and what the cellar had looked like, it’s all fogged over and unclear. Almost as if I had dreamt everything.

  Molaris hisses. My body goes taut. I lose the feeling in my bones and an uncontrollable twitch takes over my skin. The blood in my veins slows and changes directions. I feel veins explode and I can’t even open my mouth to scream. What’s going on with me? Why can’t I move? Molaris laughs.

  Her iridescent eyes graze down my body and she only smirks before I feel my blood pulse and pull my stiff body into a kneel before Molaris’ dais. I scream as more veins pop, and bones crackle like logs in a hearth.

  “You have never bowed in my presence,” She sulks and just giggles. My eyes burrow holes into the floor. What is this power? I can’t move a single limb or finger and as much as I will my toes to curl, they don’t. I’m under her spell and command. “I’m sorry to be so violent with you, but your disrespect makes my temper flare.” I tasted the lie the moment it passed her lips. “Look at me.” She drawls.

  I close my eyes.

  “Look. At. Me.” She repeats. Molaris realizes I won’t oblige to her request and stretches my taut spine backward until my eyes are glued to the ceiling. My eyes begin to burn and I, for the first time feel scared. Acacius said I could bring fear to its knees, but how? I’m kneeling before the most powerful Vampyre in the world and she is making me grovel before her. Acacius thought I was powerful, but now I realize he is wrong. He is so god damn wrong and I am nothing, but the pest beneath Molaris’ shoe.