Destined Queen

Chapter 2

3rd Pov-Louis

    Louis sighed, bored. He never really wanted to be part of the resistance. There weren’t many of them, not really. A small group of vampires that refused to drink human blood and hated the king. Not the old king, King Sinclair was perfect. King Sinclair was a great king, the first who allowed vampires to choose. The resistance, they weren’t called the resistance back then. They were simply a group of vampires that didn’t want to drink human blood. The king had a soft spot for them, mainly because, like them, he had feelings for humans as well. He cheated on his wife with a human, after all, producing the youngest daughter. Princess Thais was rarely talked about, rarely cared about, but the resistance, they knew her well. A group of humans and vampires that were treated as outcasts by the others, and often, Thais would go to them during the day when she used to live in the kingdom. To hide away from the others. Louis had been her babysitter back then. The one who had to keep up with the little dreamer Dhampir. He didn’t like the task, didn’t like the girl, didn’t like any of it. Louis was born to be in a family of outcasts, and he wanted to leave them once he was old enough. However, he ended up staying when Thais was born. Placed as her babysitter, he stayed with the outcasts to watch her grow, to follow her around. He hated every bit of it, this sassy little dreamer, and couldn’t wait until she was old enough to not need a babysitter anymore. However…the m******e came and ruined everything. 

    The outcasts were hunted down, and the already small group was almost diminished. Louis hid away with his family, or those that could escape. Now, he had no choice but to stay an outcast, part of the resistance. He was too known as an outcast. If he were to come out, to even try and plead to be allowed to join the vampires, he’d be killed. So for the past eight years, Louis stayed hidden, keeping to the tunnels during the day, sneaking around, drinking animal blood with the other resistance members, and listening. They didn’t call themselves the resistance, not at first. At first, they simply just listened. No one really knew what happened that night, in the wee hours before dawn came. Everyone knew King Sinclair was close to handing down the throne to his beloved oldest daughter, the kingdom's sweetheart, Lizabeth. Even Louis had a crush on Lizabeth, whose hair was like beautiful golden waves, and a voice like an angel. She was the kindest thing he’d ever seen, and she was the reason he had wanted out of the title of outcast, so he could court her properly. However, all of that changed when he woke up the next night, and heard the news. The servants were killed, the castle was filled with nothing but piles of dust, surrounded by the clothes of the royals who had slept in their beds moments before they had been killed. The king Sinclair and his wife, Queen Meridian were dead, and as rumors spread, the names of the daughters were announced dead as well. The kingdom wept for Lizabeth the most, the one who was to take over. The second eldest, Alana’s name, was thrown around as she was discovered dead as well, and soon after the twins, Tamora and Jessica were announced dead. Horror filled everyone in the kingdom, unsure what to do with the entire royal family killed, until the king’s uncle came forth. He held his head, a tear in his eye as he talked about how much he loved his twin brother, and how sad he was over the horrible m******e of his family. 

    Needless to say, the rumor of a human servant unlocking the gate and letting in some of the alliance spread. The cursed alliance that now includes all of the kingdoms except the vampire kingdom. It was easy to blame them, to make them the enemy, and for the longest time…everyone believed it. However…the outcasts. They remembered the youngest, the one that wasn’t named. They kept quiet, holding the knowledge close to themselves. One of the outcasts went to the bedroom of Princess Thais and noticed clothes missing, and no pile of dust. Louis went to the hill that Thais loved to drag him to when she was too young to go alone, but he never saw the dust either. They weren’t sure if anyone remembered her. Honestly, at first, they kept quiet about her because they were worried. Worried that the kingdom would blame her for the death of the others. They knew her as just the cursed Dhampir, but the outcasts helped raise her and loved her, and knew how sweet and gentle she was. So they stayed quiet, and they waited. As expected, Uncle Lionel became the king, along with his wife, Blair. They had one son, and they readied him to be the next king, saying there was no choice. They were the only ones left with royal blood. No one batted an eye, no one denied his love for his brother or his sadness. No one…except the outcasts. Thus, the reason they changed their names from the outcasts, to the rebellion. 

    “I know it’s the dragons, it’s always the dragons!” King Lionel shouted, making Louis sit up straight with a sigh. He frowned, running his fingers through his feathered light brown hair, before sliding the fringe back over to the right. He had been sitting behind the wall in the servants' entrance for so long now he felt like his butt was growing numb. He was hungry, and the smell of the sweet blood radiating from the sitting room wasn’t helping. Curse it all, Louis thought, frowning. After everything, he didn’t even like human blood anymore. He’d lived so long on drinking animal blood that when he did get the chance to drink some human blood it was too rich for him. Like a human eating chocolate, animal blood was like milk chocolate, while human blood was dark chocolate. Too rich, too thick, and made his stomach ache. Because of his diet of animal blood, as with the rest of the resistance, his eyes were ringed by a honey color around his pupils, accenting his green eyes beautifully. It was the easiest way to see who was a rebellion member and who wasn’t, by looking at their eyes. Those who drank animal blood had a soft honey color around their pupils, while those who drank human blood had a dark brown color, almost black in certain lights, making them look scarier and deadlier. 

    Queen Blair sighed, and Louis shifted in his seat to see her as well. The holes in the wall were old and deliberately made by him over the years. Small, like pins, hard to see if one didn’t know they were there. He was careful, making the holes in between the boards of wood, making sure they were set in the dark creases. Louis could see the king and the queen, along with their son, Chester. A dull man, and definitely not one Louis could ever see himself liking in any way. Unlike Lizabeth, who he fancied growing up and would have longed to court, he never saw himself feeling anything for Chester. Despite having an attraction to both genders, Chester was never Louis’s type, and gave him no motivation to try and leave his rebellious stature anymore. Despite everything, Louis accepted he was a rebel, and accepted his position as a watcher and reporter to the others. Louis stood, doing a little dance shimmy to get the blood flowing back through the rest of his body as he looked through another hole. He blinked, surprised to see a human he recognized there. It was rare, the humans that weren’t part of the rebellion. They had been King Sinclair’s personal humans, and Louis thought they were all killed. This one, however, must have slipped out of the kingdom in time. I made a mental note to find her and question her later, to see if she remembered anything about that night. She had a vacant look on her face as she held up the tray of crystal glasses filled with blood and Louis cringed. Even as a vampire, he felt like that was too much. Drinking blood out of glasses. There was nothing more annoying to Louis than those who pretended to be human. They were vampires, there was nothing wrong with carrying your food around with you and sinking your teeth into it without care. Even Louis had a chicken he carried with him through the tunnels, his teeth sunk into its feathered body as he drank its blood on the way to the castle. “How do you know it’s them? It could very well be the werewolves. King Tyler is just as much a wuss as the dragons are now that his father was killed.” Queen Blair muttered. 

    King Lionel nodded, sighing. “You’re absolutely right. To be honest, I only believe it to be the dragons because of that queen. She’s so sure of herself, such a spitfire creature. To think my brother considered talking to me about having Chester take her hand back when she was still unwed.” He said, shuddering in disgust. 

    “Honestly, I wouldn’t have minded, father. A strange child that would have made. Dragon, witch, shifter, and vampire blood. An interesting combination that would have created.” Chester said, his voice filled with the monotone that made Louis instantly feel like falling to sleep. Louis found himself lifting his hand in the air and moving like a mouth, pretending it was Chester speaking in his boring state. 

    King Lionel picked up his glass of blood and drank it eloquently, making Louis roll his eyes at the attempt. He wanted to shout out at him to quit acting silly and just drink it, but he remained silent. He knew his position, and he knew if he was discovered he’d immediately be killed. That, or he’d be tortured for the location of the other Rebels. His parents were fairly old, or old for vampires, that is. They had been wounded in the war against the werewolves long ago, and lost a few limbs. Hence why Louis was mostly the one who did the errands. He didn’t want his parents to be discovered, where they’d surely be killed. “Don’t be disgusting. Only the best for you, Chester. I have your bride ready, rest assured,” King Lionel said. Yes, the pompous duchess Annabelle. She was surely the best choice, if one wanted to listen to a queen who laughed like a hyena. Annabelle had been best friends with Princess Lizabeth, and Louis remembered her well, with no fond memories of the sort. Finally, King Lionel sighed, chugging the rest of his drink and earning a silent applause from Louis at the act. “It doesn’t matter, in the end. With the four kingdoms in an alliance, that means if we go to war, we’d have to fight all of them anyway. So, in the end, it didn’t matter which ones were the ones taking the humans from the nearby towns, trying to starve us to sign the treaty. They were all at fault. Surely that’s how their little alliance works. They must come to a decision before making a large move like this.” He said, frowning. 

    “They know that Prince Chester is soon to be on the throne. They want to strike while we’re in the middle of celebrations. My love, I see this happening. We would be blinded to their attack. With their dragons having firepower again, we’d be at a disadvantage to airborne attacks. Everyone would be in the square,” Queen Blair muttered, sighing. “There’s no one else to rule the throne, my love. They know this. The crown is going to Chester, it’s been talked about for eight years, since your brother.” She said. 

    “Since my brother, you can say it, surely everyone in this room knows,” he said, before giving the human woman a dirty look. He rolled his eyes, shaking his head. “She’s not even there,” he muttered, waving his fingers over her face. 

    Louis frowned, tilting his head to the side. Was he right? Was she not all there now? It annoyed Louis, since that meant he wouldn’t be able to question her. However, they were wrong. The human woman blinked, a frown appearing on her face as she bit her lip, before sighing. “I know of the m******e, King Lionel. I wasn’t in the castle at the time. It’s horrible, what happened to King Sinclair, his wife, and his five daughters.” She said, sadness in her voice. 

    King Lionel nodded absently as Louis’s heart jolted at hearing her words. However, Louis wasn’t the only one who heard them. “Five…daughters?” Queen Blair asked, a frown on her face. “Was there…five? Surely there were only four,” she said. 

    King Lionel nodded, agreeing with her. “Lizabeth, Alana, Tamora, and Jessica. The four daughters of my brother,” he said. 

    The servant woman shook her head, a frown on her face, and Louis wanted nothing more than to fly through the wall and kill her then and there. “The fifth, King Lionel, her name was Thais. She was the Dhampir.” She said. 

    Suddenly, King Lionel’s hand flew out in a fit of rage as he raked his steel-like fingers through the air, slicing the woman’s head off. “The disgrace. I…I had forgotten all about the disgraced child. Surely we killed her too?” He asked, looking at his wife with wide eyes. 

    Louis took a step back, his hands pressed against his mouth with wide eyes, the shock clear on his face. Queen Blair tsked, a frown on her face. “We killed four daughters, not five. There were no others in the castle. I remember the disgrace, I just…we forgot about her.” She mumbled, frustrated. 

    “That means the little Dhampir is out there somewhere,” Chester said, in the same bored tone as he pulled the dead human’s body towards himself. He grabbed her arm, sinking his teeth into it without care. 

    King Lionel flung the glass in his hand at the fireplace, shattering the glass in anger. “We need to find her, and kill her. We’re already dealing with the Alliance trying to starve us, we can’t allow this little disgrace to come forth and try to claim the throne.” He hissed. 

    Queen Blair chuckled, but the look on her face was fear as she took a step away from her husband. “Surely you don’t think she would. She’s probably dead, my love. A disgusting little Dhampir. She was probably killed with the others when we became the king and queen. Even if she is alive somewhere, the vampires would never accept a Dhampir to rule the kingdom.” She said. 

    “She is of royal blood, of the royal line. She’ll have the tattoos.” He said, a frown on his face. Chester didn’t have the tattoos, because he wasn’t the next in line. The five girls would have had them. He always wondered why Chester never got the tattoos when the girls were killed, but it made sense. The disgusting little Dhampir, technically with all the others killed…she was the next in line. “She’s probably nothing, but she might be something if we let her live. We killed them, blamed the death on the Alliance. If she’s out there, if she knows about this, the vampires would riot. They’d follow her rule, even if she is a Dhampir, because she has the tattoos. They’d allow her to join with the Alliance. Disgusting, we can’t allow any of it. Chester will rule, not her. I want her found, and I want her killed. I won’t chance it.” He said, his eyes lowered in a glare. Queen Blair nodded. 

    “Yes, my love. I’ll call for a group to head out first thing at nightfall,” She said, before walking out of the room. 

    Louis turned around, running as silently through the servants' hall as he could. Down the stairs, down into the tunnels, back to his parents. He ran as fast as he could, making sure he wasn’t followed, still filled with shock at what he had just learned. He found his parents fairly easily, and relayed to them everything he learned. The king admitted that he was in fact the one who killed his brother that night, and they were just blaming it on the Alliance. That they found out Thais was alive, and they were going to send out a party to find her. “You know what this means then, right, Louis?” His mother asked, a stern look on her face. 

    Louis nodded, already annoyed that, once again, he’d be that brat’s babysitter. She was only ten the last time he saw her, but she would be almost eighteen now. Even still, he wasn’t looking forward to it. Despite that, he gathered his belongings, assigned another of the rebels to take his place as a watcher in the kingdom, and left. He knew he had to find her, and fast before the others did. He had to bring her safely to the Kingdom. There was no choice now that they knew about her. She didn’t have any more time to grow up, she had to be ready to lead the Kingdom. There was nothing she could do now.