My Vampire Queen

Something cold was under my feet, cold and soft. Shifting my feet the ground shifts with me, little gritty grains moving between my toes.

Fine sand that almost felt like silk at my feet, above me the black sky was lit with thousands of twinkling stars, the moon casting a bright glow on everything. The moon is full, and bigger than I had ever seen, with no cloud in the sky to hide it or the stars. The rolling hills of sand and the sky behind it is so beautiful. Turning slowly I see a large pyramid rather far, the moonlight hitting it just right, making the top twinkle like a star.

Someone is walking to me, closer to me than the pyramid. As the figure gets closer I see it’s a woman, tall and willowy, the opposite of me. Her face comes into view and I have to stop my jaw from dropping to the floor. Tan skin with long silky black hair, her face is heart-shaped, nose long and upturned at the tip, top lip shapely, not too full, bottom lip fuller. Even her eyes were wide and lined with thick lashes.

She looks just like me, just with higher cheekbones and not as full cheeks. She looks as if I had tanned quite a bit, somehow making it look natural and lost weight in my face. It’s freaky because even my mom and my sisters don’t look this much like me.

“Luna.” The woman’s voice is breathy as she gets to me, longing in her eyes as she looks me over. Her white dress is blowing in the small amount of wind there is my hands clutch fabric that’s some of the softest I’ve ever felt. I would bet that I’m wearing the same thing as her.

“Luna?” I question her.

“Luna is the name I gave you, Emma is the name Marie gave you.” This makes me stare at her, Marie is my mother, but this woman... “My name is Sandra, your birth mother.”

I unintentionally jerk my head back at that. My mom always said she was my mom, said my dad was my dad... but then there was only one picture of me as a baby, none of my mom or dad in the hospital. Her hand goes to my face, the back of her hand softly brushing against my cheek. The gasp that comes from my throat is almost a sob. The smell of a strong floral scent hit me and I knew. This woman was my mother, deep in my soul I knew who she was. I have to grip her hand in both of mine to hold it to my face. How much different would my life have been with my real mother? Why did she leave?

“I died.” Her voice is sad, her slender fingers wrap around one of my hands. “I died shortly after giving birth to you, Marie is a close friend I trusted, she had raised daughters and yearned for more even though her body betrayed her.”

“You gave me to your friend?” I asked her, if she was dying, that made sense. I wasn’t going to touch on the fact that I was supposedly talking to a dead woman.

“You will soon find out about my world, our world. Marie was a out, a way for you to grow up without the pressure and threats that would have come from you growing up in a Queen’s nest.” None of what she said made sense, and she knows it, with a small knowing smile she gives me. “Trust what you feel is right, find Tabitha, and listen to the gift your father is sending you. They will help you, and explain things to you. I don’t have time to speak to you even though I really wish to. Our Goddess waits.”

“Goddess?” My voice is shaking and squeaky. I went from dying in my bed to in the sands of Egypt at least that’s what it looks like, but the pyramid is fully intact like it was built within the last year.

“Our Goddess, Isis.” Sandra takes my hands in hers and half turns, starting to lead me to the pyramid. “She is our beginning, the Goddess of our line, we are descendants of her.”

“Descendants of Isis,” I whisper more to myself than speaking to my mother. The idea whirls around in my head and it doesn’t belong, it’s too crazy of a thought to sink in. “I don’t look Egyptian.”

“You get your coloring from your father, someone you will learn about soon enough.” As we step the pyramid gets closer, as if each step pushes us a few yards closer instead of just a few feet. “We are Queens Luna, Amina Queens, though the popular name for Amina now is vampire.”

“Vampire? I’m a vampire?” I could feel the time was shortening with her, the closer we got to the pyramid. I need information now, so I can freak out later. “I’ve never drank blood, or wanted to.”

She throws a sad smile at me over her shoulder. “Amina don’t drink just any blood, we drink blood from other Amina. As a Queen you will gain Blood, capital B, they will be your knights, your protectors. One will be your Alpha or your general, the one who keeps the lower Blood inline. You drink from them, they from you, that is the basis. There are more levels of being an Amina, you will learn about it soon.”

“From who?” I ask her, some panic rising inside of me. If it’s all true I don’t want to be running around like a chicken with its head cut off. “I don’t think I know any Amina.”

“The card will have an address, go to it, and the woman there will help you.” We stop just in front of the large stone entrance of the pyramid. Sandra turns to me, lifting my hands to under her chin and she takes a deep breath. “Trust your gut daughter, you are a Queen, you take no shit and you do what you want in life. Be smart and loving to your allies, friends, and lovers, but don’t be afraid to be ruthless. Some other Queens won’t be afraid to be.”

My jaw clenches as my mother disappears in front of me, leaving me in front of the large intimidating pyramid. I don’t have time to process my feeling or what the fuck was actually happening. Lights just inside the entrance of the pyramid light, I struggle to find the nerve to go in there. My heart is beating out of my chest as I try to grip my nerves, I had always been good at faking confidence around people, faking that I was okay. Now I seem to be cracking. Understandably.

I have to swallow the lump in my throat and move my feet slowly over the cold stone floor. Walking in I follow the tall bazaars with small fires dancing in them, to the left of the first open room. The hall shouldn’t even be called a hall, it’s too wide, too tall, the walls covered in paintings with vibrant paints of mostly blue, red, and yellow. Glancing at the paintings stirs something in me until I can read them for what they are, a story of Isis. A brief history of part of her life, how she was the Goddess of life and the grave, she is everything that is and shall be. Paintings of her and her sons and daughters, other Gods and Goddesses, also Queens-born of her. The wall I’m looking at ends there, so many paintings just to conceive such a small part of what her grand life would have been.

Taking a deep breath, I debate running, but where the fuck would I go? Into the desert sands, I know nothing about? Would I wake up? I have no idea.

Turning I try to swallow my nervousness and force myself to walk those last few steps into the large room. In seconds it’s clear it’s a throne room, a large platform in the middle of the back wall, large columns framing the edges of the platform. The floor is a gleaming sandstone, the walls match but most are covered in colorful paintings. Large bazaars light the whole chamber in an amber glow, the sandstone reflecting the light all over the room. Even though it’s brightly lit, the amber color gives a feeling of slightly dim, warm, and homey. A feat of amazing lighting.

“Come child.” The voice is deep, smooth like silk, and yet booms in my ears jerking my head to the large ornate throne in the middle of the platform. The women sitting in it is breathtaking, to say the least. Long straight silk of inky black hair is hanging around her, an oval face with large dark eyes lined in a shit ton of eyeliner. Her skin is a beautiful dark tan, it seems to have a light glow making her seem ethereal.

My feet move forward, and she shifts in her throne to lean to the side I am closer to, her sheer white dress splits allowing a long lean leg to poke through. Barefoot, with chunky gold anklets and gold armbands. Her outfit is so simple, yet so beautiful. Her hand comes up and she crooks a finger when I stop at the edge of the platform. Stepping onto it, I feel like I shouldn’t, like I’m stepping into a space I’m not supposed to. But she beckons me closer until I’m right in front of the throne.

There is a feeling I can’t explain, like pressure in my body when I’m so close to her, and also a buzzing like my body is alive with her closeness.

“Luna Morningstar Tyet, the last of my daughters.” She said the name like it has some regal meaning, then it hits me that that was the name on the card. It’s such an odd name. It sounded like someone trying to be super edgy, but it was also so very different. “Your name is as unique as you are.”

“I don’t understand what is going on,” I admit to her.

“You are my last daughter, the last Isis Queen, the only Amina Queen wrought from Anubis.” Isis grabs my hand in hers, her skin so silky soft, and cold. I feel like I’m hardly breathing as I stare into her eyes, so dark like the sky, just glimpses of stars in them. “In time you will understand more, you will trust yourself and your decisions. For now, I will answer a few questions.”

Taking the hint to ask something I ask. “The only Queen from Anubis? Isn’t Anubis the god of death?”

“God’s normally never sire Queens, there have only been a handful in thousands of years. None of the Queens were sired from a god as great as Anubis.” Her eyes were twinkling, more stars. It was eerie and beautiful, something hard to look away from. “Anubis is the God of the underworld, in your time you will know him as Lucifer.”

That made everything stop in my mind, made me stop breathing entirely. I was raised by a very Christian mother and Isis herself is here saying not only am I decedent from her, but from the devil himself? Isis shakes her head slowly at me. “Not descended from Anubis, you are his direct daughter. Making you not only an Amina Queen but a demigoddess. Within time, practicing magic from me and him you will be a full Goddess.”

I almost choked on air at what she said, the only thing stopping me was the thought of coughing in the Goddess Isis’s face scared me more than the lack of oxygen in my body. There’s a pat on my cheek as there’s a knowing sympathetic look on her face. “This will be a lot to take in, surround yourself with people you can trust, people you can talk openly with. You will need them when other Queens come. Most Queens will want to kill you or absorb you when they find out who your father is, most will want to kill you out of fear, and some will come to you to serve out of fear or out of want to share in your power.”

Hearing that others would want to kill me for just being me, chases some of the fear and anxiety from my body and mind, replacing it with anger. “I don’t think I have a problem killing someone out of self-defense.”

Isis smiles, it’s just a tilt of her lips like I had said something agreeable. “The Queens will be hard to deal with, but you will find allies, I know it. The harder thing will be finding allies in the humans, they tend to switch sides much easier. You will need them though, humans outnumber anyone supernatural species, and they are getting smarter, their technology will soon expose supernaturals. You and the other Queens must be ready to work with the humans or have a war that cannot be won on your hands.”

My hands ball into fists because yeah, the fact that humans were close to finding out wouldn’t have been a surprise. I grew up with technology and how quickly it progresses. I was mad to find out about the war that might happen between humans and Amina. If I was human or a Queen I would feel the same way. If they weren’t directly hurting people they shouldn’t be seen as a threat, even if a few Amina hurt people, a few does not equal the whole. It could even be said for humans.

“There will be many obstacles ahead of you, people you have to kill, people you have to win over, people you will have to rule.” All her words swirl around me, crushing me with the thoughts of everything I would have to do, of the options I have. And yet I barely know anything about what I am, I need more information.

“I have never been in charge of someone else, I’ve never been in a fight...” I trailed off because my throat started to close with panic that tried to come out. “I don’t know anything about vampires or Gods and Goddesses, I don’t know how to keep people safe.”

I’m pulled closer by my hand until my knees brush the arm of her chair. Her hand comes up to brush the back of it on my cheek, her skin is cool and smooth, and her touch feather light on my skin. “You will learn, you will have help, trust what you feel, and trust those around you to guide you and trust them to teach you.”

That’s easy to say when she’s a Goddess and has always been a Goddess. I grew up as a nobody, just someone going through life like a mindless drone.

“Come and drink, child.” She said pulling both her hands away so she can press a nail against her wrist. The blood flows out just enough to pool in the wound, a very dark thick looking blood that glitters in the light. Her hand reaches out, and I take it like my body is moving on its own. My mouth is pressed to the small cut before I can think.

The taste of her blood blanked my mind from everything but the sensation. Isis’s blood is a whirlwind of different things, starting as a sweet and sour taste that tingled my mouth as it filled with blood. There was a sensation of euphoria, nothing I was told mattered, the only thing that mattered in that moment was the slowly taste-changing blood, the blood that heated in my mouth and then cooled to an icy sharpness. Overwhelming. Amazing. The best kind of drug.

When my Goddess spoke I could barely process the words she was saying to me. “Find your Blood, your kings, and all the others that are meant to be yours. I give you everything as my last daughter, fight for your nest, fight for Amina.”