Set five years after the events of 'Daughter of Darkness', the ruling family of Regnum Infernale receive a peculiar visitation from their distant past. The visitors urge them to undergo a dangerous magical feat that could change their world forever...
NOTE: This chapter takes place from Melanie's perspective in the first person.
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2015
Oh hello, didn't see you there. How rude of me not to introduce myself. I'm Melanie DeLongpre, proud Virginian, born and bred. I was born May 2, 1982, to Steve and Eveline DeLongpre, an oncologist and a malpractice lawyer, respectively. That being said, I was raised privileged. We were well-to-do, but not millionaires. I'm thirty-three years old, but I've done so much in my life. I was an equestrian, and still am; I love horses. I was a debutante at eighteen, I studied history at Harvard University, earning both my Bachelors and Masters degrees from the institution. I currently work as a museum curator. I live comfortably on my own in a penthouse, I own a Mercedes-Benz, and I have been to Athens and Rome to study abroad.
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Sometimes, being privileged or an overachiever is difficult. Being privileged means you get to go to huge soirees, banquets, and parties, which are all nice things but not in a tight evening gown. Being an overachiever means that you are constantly defined by whatever you do or achieve. One minute they are asking how your grades are, the next they are asking what you do for a living, all while secretly evaluating you in their minds, defining your worth. What about me as a person? Sometimes I just feel so damn invisible. I appreciate the praises. I'm not being a bitch. It's just the truth, it's how I feel.
I also feel like there is someone inside me trying to claw out of the shell I call my body. I say this because since I was a child, starting at maybe nine, weird things have happened. I can, well, do things, if that makes any sense. To put it into perspective, you may consider them to be "powers" or "abilities". In fact, one of my great-great aunts was sent to a special finishing school somewhere in the south likely because she was like me. The first thing I experienced was being able to know what was on someone's mind at any given time – this got me into trouble a few times as a child, because I would say it out loud as though the person was actually speaking to me, even though it was their thoughts I was hearing. The last time I said something aloud was the time I discovered my father was having an affair with the help. He smacked me across the face and told me to keep my mouth shut or I'd be severely punished. Whatever that meant. It happens quite often, even as an adult. I'll be at work, and I'll keep whatever I hear or sense to myself, but it'll usually be men gawking at our female tour guides. Men are vile pigs. I'm sure there are a few out there who are actually nice and respect women, but the ones I come across? Nope. It's probably why I don't have a family of my own yet. Though I do have dreams of this mysterious, but handsome man with dark hair and the most intense, piercing blue eyes I've ever seen. I am usually sitting, and he is at my feet, kissing them like I'm some goddess or something. I won't sugar-coat it, it is quite sweet. I don't know how I'd feel about that in real life, though.
I am also able to find things with ease if they are lost, and I have this inner knowing. I can formulate images in my mind about places faraway or even the room next to me and what it is happening in them. I am also very good at getting people to do things for me; for example, there is one superior of mine at work who asks me to review any new acquisitions, but I turn it around somehow, so she is the one doing it. The next thing is really weird, ready? I have found myself in different rooms in the house when I was younger. At night, I would want to go in the kitchen for a midnight snack and I would just appear there, and my father, who was taking his medications, would turn around and get startled, saying, "oh, Mel, I didn't see you there!" Now, I appear in different places at will as long as it is close enough.
