The Revenant Queen (wlw)

Chapter Twenty- Four

Startled by the force that barged into her office unannounced, Adira was seconds away from spewing her displeasure and in the most disrespectful way when she looked up from behind the pages she was reading, locking eyes with a dishevelled girl who was pale as if she'd seen a ghost. A smile floats across her face at the sight of the girl, Colette had defied her expectations. She knew there was a possibility that she would be back but the woman did not expect the girl to come back on the same day. She was ecstatic, however, upon a closer look at the sweet face, she frowned.

Colette was shaking, her cheeks were florid but not in the way she'd be when trying to hide her embarrassment, it was visible that she was spooked.

Standing up abruptly, Adira goes around the desk, her heels clicked softly as she walked over to the girl. She didn't touch her because she had no idea what sort of mood the Colette was in nor did she want to incite her to think that she had the right to touch her without consent. Despite wanting too she repressed the need and thrust her hands into her pockets.

"What's wrong, why are you crying?"

"I-" the girl tried to explain. Colette's trembling, slender hand found it's way to her throat and she traced over the visible mark around her neck. The sight of it triggered something feral in the woman; it was almost like she knew without actually knowing. All the senses in her body tingled while she regarded the girl.

Taking her time to breathe, trying not to hyperventilate, Colette peered up at the woman, her body still shaking from the fear of her encounter with the malicious vampire.

"I was on my way here when she attacked me," she whispered.

"Who attacked you?" Adira questioned, her darkened gaze frightening the girl. She could see the colour change in the woman's orbs, her usual honey coloured eyes were black as coals. The girl felt like she shouldn't share the information but she was already there and keeping it might birth more problems than she could handle.

"It was Petra, she attacked me. She came out of nowhere and started spewing this nonsense about me taking you away from her and when I told her I didn't she persisted and choked me. She was going to hurt me, luckily,"  Colette sniffed, wiping her nose with the back of her hand while her tears fell in giant beads.

"Sam came out of nowhere and started beating the dog shit out of her," she chuckled nervously. It wasn't funny but she was so hysterical all she wanted to do was laugh in the face of her problems.

Hands out of her pockets in an instant, her majesty loomed over the girl. Her stark face contorts with more anger Colette saw her trying to conceal.

"Are you badly hurt?"

"No, she just grabbed my throat and squeezed me. Before she could've done anything drastic, Sam got her off of me,"

Storming out of the room in a whirlwind, Colette hadn't much time to register that the woman was gone. She needed to sprint after those long legs that made it easier for her to take big strides. She stopped abruptly when Adira started yelling orders. In no time, several revenants assembled in the hall, listening to their queen shout at them. And for the first time in her entire life, the young girl saw how a supposedly human woman transformed into the thing she'd unintentionally seen one morning.

The temperature in the air shifted, leaving it humid and palpable. It happened in a matter of seconds too but seconds that seemed to extend into minutes. The first thing that Colette noticed was queen Adira's stature. It was leaner and muscular with the obscure writings appearing on her body in many places at once. Then that crown made out of spiralled horns protruded the top of her head. She screamed at her subjects in her deep, guttural voice, never once turning to face her Colette thought.