Damned to the Dark |18+|

Finding Me

You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.

~Pablo Neruda
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The consequences of my actions hadn't exactly hit me until I sat down at the table for dinner. Apparently Inessa and I had slept through the whole day.

A permanent blush took over my cheeks as I think back on this morning. I'm shocked I fell into her so easy. A part of me is angry at myself for letting it happen, but another part of me feels like I opened a secret door within myself. It was like my mind was a pool of putty and my body meant to be an instrument of her desires.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy every last second of it.

Whatever this is— it's only the beginning.

Inessa sat at the head of the long table in the main dining room. Only 12 of of the 18 seats were currently occupied. I sat in the chair directly to her left, members of her coven were scattered across the rest— Devron and Cage sat among their peers.

It was hard for me not to paint Devron and Cage as evil people but trusting what Inessa said as truth, then they were only doing what they were supposed to did— protect the humans.

Everyone looked so regal and deathly beautiful. Must be the side affects of being a vampire and all. I felt like such an one out as everyone kept discreetly giving me the side eye— only it wasn't so discreet because I felt the back of their retinas staring a whole through my god damn brain!

Knowing smirks were shared among them, and I felt as though they all were a part of an inside joke.

After lunch, I followed Inessa to the palace's library. On our way I couldn't resist the questions pressing to the forefront of my mind. "Can I ask my questions now?"

"If you must," Inessa replies in a flat tone.

"When you said you were queen, what exactly are you queen of?"

She turns her head towards me as we continue our leisure walk. "I suppose you are new to this whole side of the world." I really do try not to roll my eyes at this because now she's starting to sound redundant, and it's pissing me off. "I am ruler over all of North America, making me Queen. I govern all vampires in my sector of the world. My government is separate from the human government in America. In fact, my government spreads to all other continents to make things simpler save for Antarctica and Alaska just due to the fact we don't have enough vampires living there. Doubt any would want to live in such an ice cube of a place permanently. I am not the only queen though. Each continent has its own ruling family with a king or a queen on the throne, overseeing that nothing goes awry in their sector. Does that make sense?"

It's a lot to take in. I hadn't realized there was so much to being a vampire. They behaved like humans for the most part. "Yeah, I think so. How did you become queen?"

Inessa appears almost nostalgic as she reflects on the past. "Well, the vampire population hasn't always been this way. There was originally only one ruling royal family; The Abramovich bloodline. There were other vampires that are of royal blood, but there was only a need for one ruling head at the time. There was only the original vampires then which only consisted of four families, mine being the first to be created. This is why my family was chosen to rule, it was the only right choice at the time. But, like any other species, we grew with the right amount of resources. The more humans being born, the more vampires being born as well. This caused the need to spread out our influences, so my great grandfather, Václav Abramovich, who was the first ever vampire had sent his first son, Stanimir, over to be King of North America. Now I sit in his place. My father, Vladimir, took over the throne in Russia where the original royal families were created when Václav went into hibernation."