The Vampire Queen's Resurrection

CHAPTER TWO: UNWANTED

She was married? What the hell? Wasn’t she too young to get married? If she judged her age by her looks, she wouldn’t be older than twenty. Who the hell got married at such a young age in the contemporary era?

Then, Aaliyah remembered that she was supposed to be three hundred years old. The idea was so laughable that she controlled the hysterical fits with great difficulty. The mirth spilled anyway, like bubbles of champagne which couldn’t be stopped.

“Right,” she said with the most serious face after recovering from her solitary outburst. Both Arella and Emir were looking at her like she’d lost her mind, which she feared was the case. “What now?”

“I need to go back,” Emir said in a rough voice. “There’s been sign of a revolution and I cannot linger with them,” he nodded towards the werewolf girl, making his animosity pretty evident.

Arella frowned back at him with displeasure. “What do you mean? You’re the one who requested for her resurrection. She’s your responsibility now.”

Damn, it felt so great to be unwanted. Aaliyah watched the interaction between the two, it was clear that they were both reigning in their nature to act decently. From what she knew, werewolves and vampires were sworn enemies. It would have been great fun had it not been about her.

Before Emir could answer, the six-packed werewolf barged inside, bearing his teeth like he was suffering from toothache. No, make that severe toothache. “We’re on our way to our honeymoon, and anyone coming in between us will die a sorry death,” he threatened in a dangerous which made Emir growl in rage. Ezekiel who had followed Samael only snickered like he was having great fun at their expense.

“Wait!” Aaliyah protested vehemently. “Do you want to tell me that I’m unwanted? That you revive me from the dead only to cast me aside like a piece of trash? I never believed I would say that, but I would rather you left me dead in that case.”

The four looked at her in stunned disbelief. Ezekiel was the one to break the silence.

“Mom, I have to admit that you’re waaaay more fun as a human,” he drawled sarcastically. “But I’m afraid we cannot endure each other’s company for long as I’m sure this is just one of your elaborate acts. I’m out of here,” he said and there was a gust of wind. When Aaliyah blinked, he was long gone.

“Right,” she said crossly, crossing her arms over her chest determinedly. It was a good thing to get rid of those creatures. She would go on her own after getting rid of them anyway.

“Right,” the one named Samael repeated affirmatively. “We’re on our way too. We have a ticket booked to the Maldives which I’m afraid cannot wait.” He grabbed his newly acquired wife, who still wore her stupidly apologetic smile as they whooshed out of sight.

She was left alone with Emir who looked like he’d just swallowed a bitter pill. Which pissed her even more. “I thought you wanted me alive?” she asked grimly. “To fight against your evil vampires?”

He responded with a perfunctory nod. “I wanted the Queen of the accursed back. Not a normal girl whose only priority is French fries,” he muttered disgustedly.

She gasped in pure delight. “How on earth do you know that? I haven’t spoken about my craving, have I?” She frowned to remember. “You can read minds? Can you teach me how to?” she was practically bouncing on her feet like a schoolgirl.

“Will you stop acting like a child, Al?” he scolded nastily. “God knows you’re three hundred years too old to behave like one.”

Properly chastised, she reigned in her enthusiasm with a puerile pout. “You’re no fun. How long have we been married?”

There was no response from him as he peeked around the castle windows and let out an irritated cry. “They took my Bugatti! I’m going to enjoy killing them,” he vowed angrily, and flashed his topaz eyes towards her.

“Listen,” she said rationally when his ire was still evident from the dangerous glint in his beautiful eyes. From what Arella had said, Aaliyah figured that Emir was pissed because she’d been born without powers. Tough luck! “I can manage on my own. I’m a normal human being and have been given a second chance to live.”

His eyes narrowed in dangerous slits towards her. “I’ll try to find my way around. I mean, it’s not that hard. You need not be bothered about me.”

The feeling of being undesired was unsettling enough, and the last thing she wanted was to be a burden to him, to anyone. He was not even trying to hide the fact that he resented her presence. Had she been that bad in her previous life?

She guessed that the title of the Queen of the Accursed was not something given lightly. She must have earned it via vile means.

“Of course I cannot leave you here alone. If our enemies get to know that you’re alive, they will hunt you down like an animal. I am not even sure it you’re being truthful right now. Let’s go!”

Aaliyah wasn’t sure she appreciated his autocratic tone, and she maintained her position with a resolute expression to give him the message. She was not a doormat who would follow him blindly. “I can take care of myself. You need not bother yourself with me.”

Emir placed a hand over his face in a tired gesture. “No. You’re no bother. It’s just that we’ve been…. it’s not an easy situation for me.”

He’d been on the verge of saying something else but had minced his words at the last minute. What was he hiding from her? Her curiosity was piqued despite herself, and she relaxed her shoulders to cut him some slack. But she wasn’t about to follow him blindly without a proper apology. And French fries. Lots of them.

He groaned. “Alright, I’m sorry. Let’s get you those damned fries before you start realizing that it’s actually blood you’re after.”

Her eyes rounded in surprise as followed him closely outside. “Do they taste same?”

Stars floated in her head when she practically walked into a solid brick wall. A miff of expensive cologne escaped and teased her nostrils as she realized that she had bumped into his back.

The laugh which came from him was both incredulous and mean, which somehow offended her. “Are you playing me, Aaliyah? Nobody would find any similarity between French fries and blood.”

Alright, his indisposition was starting to piss her off. He looked like he was not interested in speaking to her, and she wondered whether she had hurt him in the past. That comment got her thinking. “Was I a cruel person?” she asked stealthily.

Emir stared at her in befuddlement before heaving a huge sigh. “Let’s not get into the past. It was so long ago anyway that it doesn’t matter anymore. What’s important is that now you claim to be changed, and I have many things to deal with.”

He continued walking until they reached the palatial courtyard. Once outside, he placed a pair of sunglasses over his eyes as the sun burned high in the sky. Which got her thinking. “Wait, I thought vampires weren’t supposed to wander in daylight?”

Another sigh escaped him. “This is so weird. Alright, Aaliyah, you were the one to change this. We vampires had been wandering in the dark for many decades, and you found out about the elixir.”

“Elixir?” she asked, wrinkling her nose funnily. Her past self sounded like a kickass vampire. No wonder Emir was so disappointed to find a normal human in the place of what he expected.

Aaliyah had thousands of questions for him, but he seemed unwilling to humor her. So, she kept them buried inside, pretending not to care about him or his quest. Or the fact that she’d been a queen of vampires. It was hard for her to admit that she was not part of his world – she was just a normal girl now.

“You harvested some mixture of flowers which you have been researching centuries ago. You tried it on yourself for so long that eventually the sun had no effect on you. You were the first vampire to conquer the sunlight and walk through the day. The rest followed.”

“Wow,’ she couldn’t help saying. “I sound awesome,” she complimented herself with a lack of modesty which made Emir take a double take.

“You’ve changed so much. I don’t know how you are like this,” he thrusted his hand towards her, and Aaliyah took a look at herself. She was wearing what looked like a gown which was covered with an apron, and she looked like a maid which came from the fifteenth century.

Her current attire wasn’t something she would have chosen for herself even dead, of that she was completely sure. “Changed? How so? I mean I know I was a vampire and a pretty good one. But other than that?”

Emir didn’t respond immediately, he just looked at her as they started walking into the forest as they left the castle behind. They had no means of transport, and Aaliyah figured that Emir was unable to use his powers because she had none.

She sighed. “Come on! You said you can read minds. You can surely see that I am not hiding things from you? Besides, what would I get by lying to you?”

He whirred back, his body whooshing in front of her so suddenly that she nearly lost her balance. “Because that’s what you do! Always. You manipulate everyone around you, and if someone does the mistake of falling in love with you, then you use him until he wished he would rather die than love you!”

Her heart missed a beat at the pain she could perceive in his voice. The vampire queen must have hurt him a lot in the past.

“Alright,” she sighed after a long moment of cold silence. “It’s clear that I’m not the same person that I used to be. You are clearly reproaching me things that I don’t even remember. So, I won’t even begin to give you hypothetical explanations or blind theories. It’s pointless.”

“Fine!” he agreed and grabbed her arms in one proprietorial grip. Aaliyah felt an electric current run through her as the warmth of his touch flooded towards every cell of her body. “We’ll only focus on the present from now on. I cannot leave you in the human world without knowing what chaos that would cause. You do have the tendency to destroy everything in your wake.”

Aaliyah didn’t even bother replying – it seemed like Emir Royal wasn’t done with ramifications. Besides, she was only losing her mind at his proximity, as she was close enough to smell the rich aromatic sense of his expensive cologne. A faint memory caught up with her, but it was so fleeting that she couldn’t even make head or tail of it.

“So, you’re going to stay with me for a while. Until I can figure out what to do with you.”

“What do you mean?” Aaliyah asked in an outraged voice. “Stay with you? For how long? I don’t even know where you live. And where are we exactly?” she queried as she contemplated the dark forest surroundings they had ventured into.

“The only ones who can recognize you are the ancients, and they rarely wander in the City. So, we’ll have to hide you in my Manhattan apartment. The new vampires won’t know you but still we’ll have to change your name. Aaliyah Stoneheart is famous even among kids.”

“I’ll let you choose the name,” she retorted back defiantly, but something flashed in Emir’s topaz eyes even behind the sunglasses.

“Skylar. Aaliyah’s look-alike cousin,” he clipped with a tight jaw, and before Aaliyah a.k.a Skylar could respond, she found herself being transported in a roller-coaster ride.