Blood queen, p.1
Blood Queen, page 1
Copyright © 2023 by Caitlin Denman
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permission requests, contact caitlindenmanbooks@gmail.com.
The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.
Edited by Belle Manuel
Book Cover by AC Graphics
Illustrations by AC Graphics
First printing 2023
ISBN: 979-8-9888992-0-4 (Paperback)
Contents
1. Prologue
2. Chapter One
3. Chapter Two
4. Chapter Three
5. Chapter Four
6. Chapter Five
7. Chapter Six
8. Chapter Seven
9. Chapter Eight
10. Chapter Nine
11. Chapter Ten
12. Chapter Eleven
13. Chapter Twelve
14. Chapter Thirteen
15. Chapter Fourteen
16. Chapter Fifteen
17. Chapter Sixteen
18. Chapter Seventeen
19. Chapter Eighteen
20. Chapter Nineteen
21. Chapter Twenty
22. Chapter Twenty-One
23. Chapter Twenty-Two
24. Chapter Twenty-Three
25. Chapter Twenty-Four
26. Chapter Twenty-Five
27. Chapter Twenty-Six
28. Chapter Twenty-Seven
29. Chapter Twenty-Eight
30. Chapter Twenty-Nine
31. Chapter Thirty
32. Chapter Thirty-One
33. Chapter Thirty-Two
Prologue
The sun glistened off of every petal of every flower I passed. They sat tucked in the window boxes hanging off of my people’s homes lining the main road of Cascal, the closest town to my parent’s castle.
My castle.
My heart sank. After what I’d been through the past week, I wasn’t sure how the sun was still shining. How did people go on with their lives after my parents, their king and queen, had been brutally murdered not even a week ago?
I shook myself. I had to remember all they owned was now mine. They weren’t here anymore. There would be no more quiet dinners, no more late night sparring, no more laughter.
Above me a crow cawed, my crow. In my head, I heard his thoughts. Should you really be walking in town without a guard after what happened to Derek and Mari?
My parents' names jerked me to a halt. I stared up into the afternoon sky. The sun burned my eyes. At least that was what I would tell everyone if anyone asked why I had tears pouring down my cheeks.
Before I could answer the bird, a scream pulled my attention to the middle of town, closer to a bar called The Weary Traveler. My citizens passed me. It didn’t seem like they’d even heard the yell. All their attention was on me.
It wasn’t normal for royals to stroll streets unaccompanied. I was the last royal left in my country. I probably should have brought at least one guard with me, but my castle, where all my protection sat idly by, was far behind me and whoever screamed was up ahead.
I took off at a run. People mumbled, “My queen,” and bowed their heads as I darted past, but I ignored them. Was I simply delirious or did that sound like a child’s scream?
Searching the area as I ran, I glanced down an alley to see a man looming over a young girl. She was a petite brunette with stunning gray eyes, probably in her early teens, with a knife held to her stomach. Skittering to a stop, my feet slid along the hard pressed dirt street.
By now, a small crowd was hanging around, watching to see what the rogue royal would do.
“Hey!” I screamed, drawing the man’s attention to me.
His face dropped in horror. I imagined what the man must be thinking, taking in my rumpled black tunic with blood red pants. After my parent’s death, I hadn’t really had it in me to get out of bed, let alone change. This morning I’d woken up and felt the urge to walk my streets and mingle with my people, but I hadn’t cared about my appearance.
Now, I wished I’d changed.
The girl shook as the man dug his knife into her side deeper. “Papa!” she shrieked, and my heart ripped in two. I used to call my father the same thing, and now he was gone. This man was lucky enough to have his daughter in his life, and this was how he treated her?
It was inexcusable.
My vision went red as I dove toward the man, not giving him a chance to explain himself. The man’s gray hair flipped as he turned, his beige silk tunic moving with his motion.
Fear and recognition flashed in his bloodshot eyes as he jabbed the knife in my direction. Everyone knew who their new queen was. He knew exactly who he was dealing with.
My vision blurred as I took a step back out into the main street, trying to draw him away from his daughter. People mumbled around me as the man stalked forward. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I would bet they were as shocked as I was that someone was openly attacking their queen.
“Please don’t do this. We can fix this.” I lifted my hands, showing him I had no ill will against him.
He must have seen through my act, though, and he jerked toward me again. “No one can fix this. Daughter won’t help.”
I opened my mouth to ask him what the hell he was babbling about, but he let out a scream and lunged for me again. My vision zeroed in and out, and the next thing I knew, the man was on the ground in a puddle of blood.
In my hand was the man’s knife. A red line streaked across his neck, and his mouth opened and closed like he was trying to say something. An iron tang filled the air, and I glanced down to see blood coating my rumpled clothes.
What the fuck?
Around me I heard a few of my citizens whisper the name Blood Queen. I hoped the nickname wouldn’t stick.
It wasn’t the first time I’d seen death, but it was the first time I was the one to have caused it. I became lightheaded and my vision began to spin.
Later, after everything had been sorted out, and I brought the girl to my castle to live, I’d found out the girl’s father was trying to sell her body to pay off his gambling debts. How could any father be so desperate to use their child like that?
Little did I know that would be the day I earned the title which would strike fear into my enemies.
From then on, I was known as the Blood Queen.
Chapter One
Five years later
Warm blood oozed down my hand. The coppery scent danced in the air around me, the grip on my dagger almost slipping. A too loud grunt escaped from the man’s slit throat. It didn’t matter how many people I killed, the little sigh they gave out when they realized they were dying always shocked me. I quickly moved my hand to his mouth, trying to staunch the noise. I couldn’t let another sound slip past his lips. My people would never understand the things I did for them under the blanket of darkness.
The man never saw me coming.
They never did.
Yanking out the dagger I’d shoved deep into the spy’s neck, blood splashed over me like a warm blanket. It was a comforting feeling, knowing my people were safe tonight because of me and my blade.
They called me the Blood Queen. I was known as the most ruthless, bloodthirsty queen in all of Esfer, but that wasn’t because of my actions tonight. My people didn’t know the Blood Queen was responsible for the deaths in their city. They thought there was a killer on the loose. I could never let them find out the truth. They wouldn’t understand the reasons behind it, how I was protecting them.
I hated being known as Blood Queen. I lost my temper once, and was labeled bloodthirsty. With everything in me, I wanted to set the record straight, show my people the real me, but my most trusted advisor, Brandt, said it would be easier this way. To let the people be wary of me. I never wanted to be feared, but I trusted him to tell me what was best for me and my kingdom.
Above me, Keir cawed, but I didn’t waste my time searching the darkened skies for my midnight friend. He would check in with me later. The man’s body went limp in my arms. I quickly shifted my grasp from his mouth to under his arms, letting him noiselessly sag to the ground. I’d followed the man for the last forty-eight hours and had seen enough to know he couldn’t leave my country alive.
The man had started visiting my castle a couple of weeks ago, posing as an emissary for the Kingdom of Garo. But Brandt, so much more than a mere advisor to me, had quickly seen through his lies and decided he must have been a spy. I wasn’t convinced he was even from Garo, but a spy from any country was not welcome in Kusmal.
I honestly didn’t know what I would do without Brandt. He kept me sane after my parent’s deaths, half a decade ago, and had guided me into being the most powerful queen in Kusmal’s history.
When the man was on the ground, forever silent, I ransacked his pockets, leaving the jewels and gold there he’d stolen from my treasury. Instead, I pulled out a single golden ring, embossed with a B for Bathory—my father’s ring.
My ancestors had passed the ring down through the centuries from one king to their heir and so on and so forth. When surnames changed over the years, the ring was melted down and a new letter wa
When I’d realized this man had somehow managed to find his way into my treasury and siphoned some of my riches, he’d signed his own death warrant. I didn’t care about the gold or gems, those were replaceable. This was not. The golden ring glittered under the moonlight. Behind me, a high-pitched woman’s screech rang out, breaking the silence of the night.
Time for me to go.
I lifted the black cloth I always used to cover my face and took off down the alley, away from the scene. I had to get far enough away to not raise suspicion. My fitted black clothing would hide the blood soaking them well. It was part of the reason I’d chosen them for these little outings. The stretchy material of my long-sleeved shirt and pants hugged my body in all the right ways. Besides not having to worry about the fabric getting caught on anything, it accentuated my hourglass form and I didn’t care who you were, the right clothes could give you a boost of confidence.
As I ran, I shoved the ring in one of the deep pockets covering my pants. Knowing it would be back in my treasury tonight relieved me. This ring didn’t look like much, but it meant more to me and my kingdom than anything else in the land.
This was not merely some trinket my father left behind.
It was the key to the Kusmal throne.
To the outside world, I was already a queen, but it was a façade. Not until I put this ring on would I fully become queen of Kusmal. Some silly tradition from centuries ago, but a tradition my father put his faith in. It was supposed to be handed down to me in some big ceremony; the entire country would turn out and watch as the last regent placed their successor’s ring on the new regent’s hand. But, that plan had gone out the window when my parents had been murdered in their sleep five years ago. Leaving a hole in my heart, and my kingdom, I’d yet to be able to fill.
The ring was supposed to immediately transfer to me, the heir to my father’s throne. But, since his and my mother’s passing, I hadn’t been able to bring myself to wear it. Wearing the ring felt like the final nail in my parent’s coffin, the signal to the world they were really gone. I knew it was silly; my parent’s bodies had been buried and rotting for half a decade—but still, something in me warred with the idea of fully taking the throne.
Something was missing; I just didn’t know what. Maybe when I found their killers I would feel differently, but until I figured that out, the ring would stay in my treasury.
As I ran, I used my powers to wrap darkness around me, shielding me from my citizens passing by. They rushed in pajamas, with fussed hair and sleepy eyes, woken by the woman’s screams, coming out to see what all the noise was about. A woman hugged her crying child at the entrance to her house. I wanted to push her into the house, tell her this was no place for a baby, but I couldn’t be seen now. Tugging on my shadows to reassure myself they were still there, I made sure to not bump into any of them as I wove between them, my shadows hiding me from sight.
I found an opening and jumped into the air, pressing a booted foot to the brick wall of one of the buildings, using it to propel me onto a roof. From up here I could see the mass of people gathering where I’d killed the spy. I could hear the scared cries lifting from the ground.
Roofs were where I felt safest. I’d traversed these buildings many times over the years. Up here I could disappear. I was never freer than when I was invisibly racing from rooftop to rooftop. There was something about being this close to the sky that made me feel like I could fly if I simply spread my arms and tried.
I wished I could tell my people what was really going on, but Brandt said it was too risky to be so open and honest with my citizens. And no matter how much I wanted to tell them everything, I always listened to Brandt. He had been my parent’s advisor before me, had guided them into prosperity, so who was I to go against his word?
I raced from rooftop to rooftop, away from the scene I had created—away from the carnage. The air flying past me ripped at the hood I’d pulled over my head. I’d had this added to my clothing to hide my blood red hair. Red hair was a rarity in my kingdom. In other kingdoms, it wasn’t as rare, a testament to how prolific my ancestors had been across the world. So, if anyone had seen my crimson locks, there wouldn’t be many people to search through to find out who the killer was. My curls fought to free themselves of their confinement, but I'd had a weighted hood made to ensure they couldn’t worm their way out.
Up ahead, I saw my caliginous castle. Its spires stretching far into the night sky, like fingers trying to pluck out the stars. The inky darkness of the stones it was built with glittered, even with the absence of light. I loved this about my home; it was more beautiful under the cover of night. Most people would see it as gloomy and dreary, but being one with the shadows, I could see its true beauty.
I jumped down off of the last roof. The only thing between me and the safety of my castle now was a well-worn dirt street leading to the wall surrounding my home. There was never anyone on the road this time of night. So I crossed it without checking if there was anyone using it, while searching the window in the spire, which held my room, for Brandt’s shadowy figure. He always waited for me to return from these missions. He wanted to hear everything that happened while it was fresh in my mind to either praise me for my success, or admonish me for a slipup.
So where was he tonight?
A neigh cracked the silence, and the sound of hooves sliding on the ground brought me to a halt. I turned to see a giant, muscled white horse scrambling to get out of my way, towing a beautiful gold encrusted carriage. The carriage sparkled in the moonlight as the mare reared into the air.
Who could be in such a luxurious carriage at this time of night?
I back flipped out of the street and out of the creature’s way as she came back down, her massive hooves thundering to the ground. Barely jumping out of the way quick enough to keep myself from becoming a red splat on the ground.
Above me, I heard a crow’s caw and then Keir’s snarky voice in my head. Good one, Layla; complete the mission only to get trampled by a horse and carriage.
I scoffed and lifted my hand to the sky in an obscene gesture. I knew he saw it because I felt the brush of wings atop my head. It sounds romantic and soft to have a bird brush his wings against you—but it’s not. It was like someone smacked a branch onto your head as the hollow bone thumped onto your squishy flesh.
Cradling my head, I hissed, which made the horse in front of me bounce on its front end nervously. I had this effect on prey animals when I was cloaked in darkness. They couldn’t see me, but they could smell me. It always triggered a flighty response.
From atop the carriage, the driver stepped down on the other side of the animal and cooed, “Shhhh, Betsy, it’s all right. No one’s going to hurt you. I thought we were past this random spooking thing. What happened?”
The man’s voice was like silk on my ears. I took a step forward and ran my hand down the horse’s neck. It stiffened. Its eyes traveled back and forth between me and its master. I still couldn’t see the man, but I was more worried about the horse.
I didn’t want its master thinking it couldn’t be trusted because of me. If the horse stopped being useful because it spooked at my presence, and the man put her down, I wouldn’t forgive myself. Gently, I ran my hand down the majestic animal’s soft muzzle. Its eyes widened when it realized I smelled like a human and its body instantly relaxed. I would have Brandt check the sale barns over the next few days to make sure they didn’t dispose of the horse.
As the horse calmed, I walked to the other side of it, intending to make my way over to the castle wall, but my gaze was drawn to its stunningly handsome master. He was a young man, probably in his early twenties by the looks of him—younger than me by at least five years, maybe more. His softly curled raven hair flowed to his shoulders, but his eyes were what struck me the most. The silver pools seemed to brighten everything around them. His velvety voice crawled along my skin as he said, “Hey, you better now?”
The horse nodded and huffed out, almost in answer. Curiously, the beast’s fawn colored eyes traveled to mine, and I wondered if there wasn’t something more there behind them.
The man patted the horse’s neck and happily chirped, “Good, then let’s get to The Weary Traveler. I’ll need something to drink before we get to our destination.”
