The Vampire Queen's Resurrection

PROLOGUE: RISE FROM THE DEAD

**** AUTHOR'S NOTE: Please note that this is the second installment of the Mystic Shadows series. MS1 = "King Alpha Gone Rogue" & MS2 = "The Vampire's Resurrection". The story is about the Vampire Queen Aaliyah Stoneheart which has been mentioned in the first book. It is not required of you to read the first installment to understand the story. Brief snippets would be introduced in this book to maintain coherence and consistency of the second story. Happy reading... ****

She blinked against the brightness, her eyes paining with her pupils caught on the light. How long had she been sleeping for exactly?! It felt like forever. Wait a second. Wait a damn second.

Was that a coffin underneath her? Was she the kind of person who would sleep on the ground? Was she? She squinted her mind to search for memories, but nothing came up. Her mind drew a blank. Hell, she wasn’t even able to tell if she liked French fries or not.

As her sight adjusted to her surroundings, she was surprised to note that the room was in fact dim. How could she find a dark room too brightly lit? Her instincts screamed of some kind of danger, but her brain was slow on the uptake.

What on earth was happening to her? Eyes finally able to focus, she glanced at the four figures looming over her horizontal body, staring down at her with each wearing the same terrified expression.

Three handsome men, and one pretty girl. Looking at her with such stupefaction that one would think she had just arisen from the dead. What the f*ck! Coffin? That surely rang a bell, but no it wasn’t possible, was it? Was it?

Flustered, she abruptly got to her feet, and immediately coughed when dust fell from her dress. What on earth was she wearing? An apron? One glance around made her freeze completely. They were in a crypt, and she emerged from an open coffin right to her side. Oh f*ck…!

No! Impossible! She stared at the four persons hovering over her like they would pounce on her any moment. “W…w…,” her voice sounded rusty like it hadn’t been used in a while.

Stop it! she scolded herself. You’re spooking me!

“W…who am I,” she tried again, and was proud when she managed a sentence. Judging by the gloomy stares being thrown her way, she felt self-conscious. There was no response from either of them. A pair of light olive-green eyes, the most unusual teal eyes, weird light green specters, and beautiful honeyed topaz stared down at her with a stricken expression.

“Did I just wake up from the coffin?” she tried to joke when she got no answer.

Alright, she would definitely love French fries. And chocolate. What kind of a person didn’t like candies or fast food anyway? How come she was able to remember mundane things about food and stuff, but nothing about her own past? Nervously, she tried to smile at them to break the tangible tension in the underground which was starting to make her feel uncomfortable.

“That’s enough!” she called out imperially and the three jumped at her tone. “Why don’t you speak up? Who am I and what’s going on?”

The one with topaz honey eyes went on his knees in front of her, and she watched in awe as he performed a courtesy. “Welcome back, Queen Aaliyah,” he greeted with a mixture of respect and reverence in his voice.

She was a queen? That was so much better than a French Fries lover!

“Right,” she drawled confidently. “What exactly am I queen to?” she asked stealthily,

“You’re the queen of the accursed,” the man told her proudly, and she nearly swooned in disbelief. Couldn’t she have been the queen of Spain? Or the queen of England? Why on earth was she the queen of the ..wait what did that even mean?

“I beg your pardon?” she replied feebly. “What exactly does that mean?”

Her heart nearly jumped out of her chest when the man who had replied hissed savagely to show pointed fangs coming out of his teeth. She cackled into a hysterical laughter. Were they having a joke at her expense? They all looked her age, so most probably they were her friends who were pulling a bad prank on her.

“Listen,” she tried chuckling at their silliness, eyes fluttering from the cosmetic disguise. “I can’t remember a damn thing. I must have hit my head during lying down inside the coffin. Do you think you can enlighten me please?”

“You are Aaliyah Stoneheart, the queen of the accursed,” the annoying man repeated vehemently, his topaz eyes gleaming with determination.

She was starting to lose the funny side of the joke. Even the name didn’t sound any more familiar to her than the faces. She scanned the pretty girl’s small face, with her golden mane pinned at the top of her head in a bun. The man at her side was muscular and well-built, but he seemed on edge.

Her eyes wandered to the other one who was still knelt in front of her, and her breath lingered involuntarily on the most beautiful pair of eyes she’d ever seen. They were so light brown that glowed like honey despite the dark. For a brief moment, she tried to guess her own eyes’ color but could not remember anything.

The man looked at her with respect something unfurled in her chest as the awareness caught her off-kilter. Really? Was that the time for her female radars to be on?

Sighing, she finally turned towards the most handsome man who stood in a dark corner wearing a morose nasty look. While the others had looked at her in awe but impersonally, his had been slightly reproachful. That guy’s yellowish green balls were sending daggers her way, like he despised the mere sight of her.

“Who are you?” she found herself asking, as a flash of memory flitted through her brain, so brief that she couldn’t make any sense out of it.

“Well, mother. You seem to have indeed lost your memory,” he drawled in an insolent voice, but her hand went to her throat as she registered the way he’d addressed her. Mother? She was mother to that handsome man who looked almost the same age as her?

Now, she was sure they were pranking her and not appreciating the prolonged joke. Frowning fiercely, she raised a hand to give them a piece of her mind but shrieked out in fear as she lost her balance.

Two of them had sprouted their vampire fangs at her, while the other two had transformed into werewolves. It was too much to take in. Aaliyah - or whoever she was welcomed the dark abyss capturing her mind as her eyelids drooped drowsily. The shock was unsustainable.