My Vampire Queen
Chapter Twenty-Two

Walking through a dark hallway I immediately know I’m in a dream, I had always been able to know when I’m dreaming. This is different, everything is so realistic, but there’s a gray blur around the edge of my vision and I feel almost weightless as I move down the hall. There’s an open doorway to the left, a soft yellow light coming out of it. I turn to peak in, finding a very tiny room with not much more than a twin-sized bed in the corner and an old dresser next to it with an old desk lamp on top. Movement in the bed catches my eye as a girl no older than twelve moves to sit up quickly.

She can clearly see me and wasn’t happy about me being here. She has her thin cream-colored blanket pulled up to her chest. The girl looks very thin, with black hair that looks dull, and skin that should be a beautiful deep tan is a muted color. She needed some healthy meals and time in the sun.

“Who are you?” Her voice is strong, but a whisper.

“Who are you?” I ask back looking to the other side of the small room. Nothing there but I notice the edge of my vision looks a lot like when I go into that other state of seeing.

“I asked first.” She says with a little attitude in her voice that makes me smile. Got to love teenagers.

“I’m Luna, and sorry I don’t know what’s going on.”

“YOU don’t know what’s going on?” She said, I look back at her and her hard stare. Like what I said was an insult. “You want me to believe you just showed up in my room on accident? And you don’t know what you’re doing?”

Hmmm, I’m beginning to think that this isn’t a dream. Or a realistic one and my brain is really trying to fuck with me. Either way, I’d take it seriously until I could figure out what was happening. I give her a shrug and step just inside the door, stepping to the side away from her. She might act tough but I could see the scared look she keeps trying to hide. “I’m new to this, are you not human?”

That confuses her more. “Human? You look like a ghost you should know if I’m human or not.”

“I’m not a ghost but I’m not human.” I mean, what’s the worst that could happen? If this was me spiriting out to some random girl I might just give her nightmares.

“Comforting.” She mumbles tucking herself farther into the corner. “I’m a shifter.”

I wanted to prod for more, like what kind of shifter. I never got around to asking the boys what kind of shifters there are. Instead, I look around the room again, noting the lack of.. anything. There are no photos, no stuffed animals, and no posters on the wall. “Is this your bedroom?”

She doesn’t answer me so I look over to her. She’s really trying to keep a blank look on her face, failing horribly. Maybe Vinny should give her lessons. But I did feel bad from the look on her face. I heave out a sigh. “Look, I don’t know why I’m here or how I got here to begin with. One minute I’m going to sleep the next I’m walking down the hallway.”

“Then we’re both really confused about why you’re here.” There’s a little bit of snark in her voice that makes me smile again.

“I only found out I wasn’t human a few days ago, this has been a very weird learning experience,” I admit to her, I feel like being truthful would get me a lot farther than skirting around the truth. I feel something touch my shoulder and look over to see nothing. “That’s weird.”

“What is?” She asks.

“Luna?” It’s Bjorn’s voice and the girl’s face screws up in confusion.

“Who was that?” She asks me.

“My Alpha,” I answer her, I feel a grip on my shoulder. Closing my eyes I will myself back to my body. It ends up feeling like when you’re on an elevator and you have those few seconds of weightlessness and your stomach drops. Only it lasts for a whole half a minute.I woke when I felt that something was off. It took me a second to see my Queens spirit stretched thin, so thin I was worried her soul would leave her body. I didn’t want to startle her but I wanted her to come back to her body because she is too inexperienced to know her limits with something as fickle as spirit walking. “Luna.”

Vinny turns on the other side of the bed to face us, Nathan had slept and gone by now. Sitting up I grab her shoulder, her face is peaceful like she’s sleeping. If I hadn’t been able to see the spirit I wouldn’t have known what was happening with her. A few seconds go by and I see it thicken before it snaps back into her. I’d have to teach her how to do it more gently.

Luna shoots up with wide eyes. “I’ma puke.”

I moved quickly out of bed, making way for Luna to stumble out and into the bathroom. Following her when she goes down I grab hold of her hair to keep it from getting in the way. I crouch down and rub her back as she gags into the toilet and I wait it out.

With an empty stomach, she moves to the sink to brush her teeth and rinses her mouth out multiple times with mouthwash. When she is finished scrubbing out her mouth I move her back to the bed, where she leans back against the headboard. I make my way up onto the bed next to her and she leans into me. Putting my arm around her shoulders I have to ask. “Where were you?”

“I wasn’t sure if I had gone somewhere or if it was a dream, but I think you just answered that question.” She remarks and shakes her head. “I don’t know where I went, I just kinda woke up there. It wasn’t like when I look for Blood though, I could see colors, just a hue of gray around my vision.”

That was... different. But then. “I think the Tyet line was able to sleepwalk, Caine might know.”

“Sleepwalk?” She asks.

“It’s like spirit walking, but it happens when you sleep. I’m not completely sure how it works.” And that pisses me off. I feel like I’m failing my Queen by not being able to explain everything. I needed more knowledge on how to help her, and the only person I could think of that might be able to help is fucking stuck on my Queen’s arm.

Luna places a hand on my chest, I then realize I had let my face slip into a pissed-off frown. Her hand brushes over my shoulder like she’s trying to soothe me, I want to haul her up into my arms but restrain myself.. for now. Because she starts explaining what happened when she sleepwalked, about the shifter girl and neither of them knew why she was there. There wasn’t much to it to be quite honest, the fact that it was a young shifter girl though...

“It’s taboo for Amina Queens to be around young shifter girls,” I said and she stops to look before she can ask I just answer her. “A long time ago when Queens first noticed the rate of births declining, some did things most of us frown upon now.”

“Like what?” She asks.

And I hated this part of our history, even though I hadn’t been alive during this time. “Queens would sacrifice things, or try feeding off things. Humans and shifters breed easily, Queens cannot feed on humans, it makes them sick, so they sacrificed them. Queens can feed from shifters, though our bite is very painful for them.” I tried to find a way to say this easier. It can’t though, some of the things they did were horrible. “They would steal young shifter girls to feed from them, and at some points sacrifice.”

“Some Gods and Goddess were known for sacrifices but the people who were sacrificed in their name knew, consented, and were praised for their sacrifice.” I shake my head at that. Everyone in a meaningful sacrifice needed to believe in their God or Goddess to make it worth the life that was given. What the Queens did with some of those girls was unhinged.

“There must be a reason I went to her like that though.”

“Your Goddess might have sent you there, and yes for a reason. What would that reason be for though?” Too bad we couldn’t just ask her Goddess, they rarely ever just gave you a straight answer to the problem.

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