The Vampire Queen's Resurrection

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: TAKE THINGS IN STRIDE

“What’s wrong?” Emir asked when Aaliyah’s breath caught in her throat as her mind returned to the present. She’d stopped returning his hot kisses as the past was catching up with her once again. It was traumatizing to think that she’d been selfish enough to endanger his life.

From what she’d perceived in that flash of memory, vampires killed humans for their daily diet, and falling in love with one was out of question. It not only endangered their existence, but it was a recipe for disaster. What if she’d been unable to reign in her hunger for one moment of insanity?

Was it any wonder that her father had tried to kill the love of her life? How horrible a person was she to fail her duty as the queen of the accursed and fall in love with a victim? The more she discovered about herself, the less she liked that old Aaliyah.

Her eyelids fluttered shut as she tried to remember the rest of the story, but her mind only came up with a blank. She frowned in displeasure, but the positive part was that she no longer had any headaches when she stretched her mind. It was hard to figure out how Emir had ended up renouncing his mortality only to be with her.

A bout of nausea engulfed inside her as her mind swayed back to the present, the effort causing her to nearly faint. It was hard, and her hand flew to cover her mouth as the sick feeling wouldn’t fade. The urge to retch was so strong that she gagged a few times before she fled to the bathroom.

It was embarrassing enough to have stopped right in the middle of lovemaking, but puking was certainly not the correct protocol to follow right after a kiss. That was all she cared about as she emptied the content of her stomach in the toilet vase. When she could focus again, she realized that she was sitting on the floor and Emir was holding back her hair. Ugghh!

“Aaliyah, are you alright?” Emir asked with a concerned frown.

Her nod was very avid in attempt to reassure him and hide her mortification. “Yes, yes. I’m fine. Must be something that I’ve eaten in the morning. Maybe the salmon which made me…aww,” she gurgled as another bout hit her.

“Alright, that’s it! You look green. I’m calling the doctor,” Emir said resolutely, standing up.

Aaliyah had to trample down the stomachache, but the profuse sweating would not stop. She only wished she would convince Emir that she didn’t need a doctor. She must have come down with a typical flu.

“No need for a doctor. I’ll have some meds and lie down for a while. I’m sure it’s nothing. I’m already feeling better, see?” she stood up so quickly that her head swam for a while, and she had to cling to the wash basin to hide it from him. It appeared that she wasn’t doing a great job because he frowned down at her in deep concern.

“Alright,” he conceded after a long reflection. “Come,” he commanded and opened the medicine cabinet and took out some pills. “Have these. No, wait. Let me check for expiry date. I haven’t replenished the medical supply for a long time since we both don’t actually need them. Here, have this painkiller.”

Without even looking at them, she thrust them in her mouth and swallowed them with a glass of water. “Already feeling better,” she replied brightly but Emir only bent to pick her up.

“Emiirrr, what are you doing? Please put me down!” she cried out self-consciously, although she had to admit that a feminine part of her loved the attention he was showering on her.

Flashes of the night they’d spent the together inadvertently invaded her mind and she blushed at the prospect of another session coming. However, she was sorely mistaken when he placed her gently on the bed and dropped a kiss on her forehead.

“Rest now. I’ll come check on you later.”

Easier said than done, Aaliyah reflected when left alone in the room. The bout of sickness came back right after he went, and she clutched her belly in the hope that the feeling would disappear soon. With the help of the painkiller, she was hallucinating because she found herself in Boston hundred years ago.

“What?” Aaliyah exclaimed in genuine shock as she heard Emir’s thoughts, right after her father had tried to kill him! Right after Emir had discovered that she was a vampire. “What feelings? How can you have feelings for me after all this?” She was livid with rage, more directed at herself then him.

He gasped accordingly. “How do you know about my feelings? Wait a second. You can read my mind?” he asked outrageously.

“Uhuh,” she replied skeptically, unable to gauge his reaction. Would he freak out? Why was he still here by the way? He should have run for miles upon discovering her true identity, or after seeing her fangs.

“Awwww, that’s one power I wouldn’t mind having,” he reflected after a moment in his usual mocking manner. “How about drinking blood and stuff? I thought vampires did that. Do you?”

She almost smiled at his innocently put comment. She knew how humans viewed vampires – they thought that vampires were some cool creatures with powers, some enigmatic immortals with their sexy expression. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

“It’s not ‘cool’ as you’re making it sound,” she reprimanded in an exasperated voice with her hands on her hips. “You know that my father would have snapped you dead before you could even have said Ohio?”

His eyebrows raised at her comical comment, but he didn’t react accordingly which was to flee in the opposite direction as fast as his long sexy legs could carry him. “That was your father? I thought it was a jilter lover full of resentment.”

A grin tugged at the corner of her lips despite herself. Emir Royal was proving to be more entertaining that she’d hoped, especially after discovering the vampire thing. Frankly, she’d expected him to run like a headless chicken after unraveling the truth. Highly amused, she crossed her arms across her chest. “I don’t have jilter lovers full of resentment waiting to kill my current lover.”

“No?” he even sounded disappointed, but Aaliyah was not completely fooled, courtesy of her vampire powers. She could read how scared he’d been when Clegane had nearly sunk vampire teeth down his neck. “How come you don’t feel the need to drink my blood?”

“I do. Always. I have the strength to control my thirst unlike the others.”

“Hmmm,” he mused pensively with a nod of his head. “You’re different from the others?”

She grimaced, not wanting to go into details of her vampire history with him. For the past weeks, she’d imagined numerous scenarios of them having that very conversation, and it had been nothing like the one they were having right now. Some had been with him terrified, some horror-struck, and some with him disappearing from her life without a trace.

“I guess,” she replied her mind searching desperately for a single ounce of doubt in his. There was none. It seemed that the fact that she was a vampire didn’t change the way he felt for her. Her heart sank to the bottom of her feet.

“Listen,” she said pinching her nose to ward off the wretched sentiment which was taking over her senses. “I think you’re taking the whole thing pretty well. Pretty damn well, I might say,” she released her nose to take a breath. “But you and I both know that it’s not a light thing. At least not as petty as you’re making it seem. This is huge! This is a huge!” she repeated for good measure.

“Alright!” he replied in the same high tone. “I get it. A vampire dating a human is weird.”

She sighed defeatedly. “Not only weird, Em! It is not allowed. Talk about the fox falling for rabbit. This is not possible. Not possible. What happened earlier with my father could happen again. And this time, I might not be around to save you.”

“Problem is I cannot switch off my feelings for you. I fell in…”

“Alright stop!” she screamed before he could get to the point where neither of them would be able to come back. “Let me tell you who I really am. I’ve been a vampire for more than two hundred years, and I kill people for a living. I’ve lived for so long now that death seemed to be a better option. I don’t know for how much longer I’ll be able to bear this terrible constant pain that I’m in.” She hated the way her voice wobbled but she went on determinedly.

“I am also responsible for turning my family members and close friends into vampires like me because they begged me to do so. Just to have a taste of the powers. Now, this is something I regret more than anything because while I’m able to control my thirst, this is not something the other vampires I’ve sired can do. They create havoc wherever they go, and I have to use my magical powers to cover their track. You see, I not only have the ability to read people’s mind, but I can also make them believe whatever I want for my own convenience.”

She took in a deep breath, knowing that he was still there by his mere scent. “The only power that I don’t have is I cannot compel other vampires. Which means that I cannot control their minds and actions like I do with humans. My mother almost destroyed an entire village in her quest for acquiring more power, and I had to put a stop to that insanity. So, I became the queen and I’ve established certain laws.”

A lone tear escaped to roll on her cheek, and she brushed it off impatiently. “It’s never enough for them. The more power they have, the more they crave for enhanced capacities. I’ve stopped turning anyone into vampires because it’s too much trouble. I have forbidden them from drinking human bloods, and all vampires hate me for this because it makes them weaker.”

Once the words had started to pour, it seemed like she couldn’t stop. Words she’d never been able to speak to anyone ever since she’d returned home changed forever over one atrocious night. “So, to compensate for their lack of food, I’m trying to invent new things for them. One of them was the Sun elixir which would alter the vampire genetic constitution during daylight to allow them to walk freely under the sun.”

The stone silence which greeted her was heart-wrenching, but what could Emir possibly tell her make her feel better about her wrong choices? Nothing or nobody could ever compensate for her evil deeds.

“So, this is why I joined your lab. It was a golden opportunity for me to use the materials without being discovered.” She longed to look at him but was scared what she might find in his expression. It would be horror most likely. So, she rambled on. “There are so many things that I plan for them to give them a better life.”

Her shoulders drooped drastically. Sometimes, she felt like an over-concerned mother who cared too much for her children who in turn didn’t care much for her hard work and dedication. The vampires didn’t want her help – they only wanted freedom to create havoc over the world.

“They don’t see eye-to-eye with me over this though. I’m trying to establish a well-balanced world where every species could co-exist, while thy only want me to take over. They think that if I use my powers conveniently, vampires could take over this world and rule.”

Another lengthy silence weighed between them, and when she gathered up enough courage, she glanced in his direction to freeze on the spot as her topaz eyes clashed with his brown ones. Instead of horror and disgust, there was admiration and respect.

“I love you,” he said succinctly, and she gasped for breath, her eyes popping open as she struggled to make sense of the situation. It had been a dream, she realized as she found herself back in the present. Or had it? Was her subconscious trying to remember the past?

She tried to recollect what happened last, but the bout of nausea which gripped her quickly reminded her that she was sick. She must have caught a virus or something was the last thing she could think before she threw the rest of her stomach’s content in the toilet vase for a second time.