The Queen's Flight

The Hunt Begins

It was a cool evening, with a bite of frost in the air. Every exhale suspended in the air like frozen particles. The crunch of glittering glass was underfoot. Dark eyes, with eggplant colored pupils, scanned the tree branches above. The predators velvet tongue skimmed across her pointed teeth. She could smell the waves of fear rolling off her prey and she knew that she was close. The hunt had almost begun.

"Come out, come out, where ever you are. You know better than to hide from me," her voice carried softly like a siren's song. Meant to be alluring, it was the only warning she would give. Predictably, her prey did not respond. She knew she had gone in for the bite too soon. He was not the nuzzling type. She didn't often make mistakes, but she was sure to rectify the ones she did make. She had never failed yet.

With the slightest breath of a sigh that no human ears would hear, she scraped her long fingertips through her chocolate hair pulling it into a tight ponytail atop her head. She had ironed her hair before this date and didn't want to wash it for a second time tonight. Brushing her hand along the inside pocket of her crimson pea coat she confirmed that the switchblade was still tucked inside. It was a weapon meant for distraction. In case her prey escaped he would believably recall the silver of the knife rather than the whites of her dagger teeth.

Twisting to the right she counted to ten, repeating the stretch to the left. She bent her head right and left, rolled her shoulders, dropped down to her haunches, and straitened. Now that her routine was complete. She was ready.

"Ready or not, here I come," she sang joyfully, her voice carrying across the wind like a melody.

She took three, slow, carefully measured steps. Without glancing into the branches above she pressed her weight into the hardened grass and sprang. She knew she had calculated her aim well, that she should have her arms around his torso and her legs around his waist as they plummeted from the tree back down to the ground. She knew that he would be losing life from the impact before she began draining it herself. She knew how it should go, but that was not how it went.

She landed neatly on the other side of the tree like a folded butterfly to find that someone had taken down her prey merely an instant before her. The broad shoulders bent over her prize indicated a vampire male. She smelled him immediately and placed his name on her tongue.

"What the hell do you think you're doing Jakobi!?" She hissed at her brother. All trace of the demure voice was gone, replaced with power and clarity. The figure turned to her, a wet trail of blood running out of the right side of his mouth. Without swiping it away he smiled at her with pink stained teeth and gums filled with human blood,

"Sorry sis, you were taking too long and I had no luck myself tonight. I thought I may as well take him off your hands." His walnut hair began to fall in his face as he made to turn back to his supplement.

"What are you going to do next week when I'm no longer here to feed you Jakobi? You've never been able to entice your own prey. Father will begin to notice..." Although he was 15 years her senior, he had never been good at the hunt. Satisfactory at best, he only caught prey when they were inebriated behind cognition and trying to stumble their own way home through dark streets and dimmed park fields. Drunken blood was tainted with poison and only supplied half the vitamins that an aware human's body did. He would have to hunt drunken folk constantly to maintain his pallor and health.

"I will survive little sister, as I always have. You do not need to Mother hen me. Complete your duty, so you can return and be with your mate," He spoke with his mouth still against the flesh of her prey, pulling away just enough to see his lips curve above his pointed incisors. She scoffed.

"You and I both know that he is not my true mate," She stood just behind her brother, surveying the body beneath his teeth. It would have been a hearty taste. She had made a good choice for picking a human from amongst a group of jocks. Muscled and vascular he smelled sweet like strawberries and brown sugar. Continuing to feed from the young man's jugular her brother swatted his hand at her to end the conversation. She took a step back easily, avoiding his bloody palm. He had always been a messy eater.

"I'm going home," she spoke, although more so to herself. She didn't need the substance tonight anyway. She had gone out to relieve the stress from her upcoming mission. It would be her final duty before she was to be wed and thrust into a position of great political power. A life she never wanted, but it was duty bound.

Her leather booties crushed the frosted grass to the dirt as she walked out of the wooded growth. Her breath swirled in the air. She was anticipating her future with hopeful desire that only a young 20 something could have. But she could feel something in the pit of her gut- excitement, fear, dread, forewarning, butterflies; in her naïveté she didn't know how to wade through to know the differences between them yet.

In just a few weeks time she would encounter a multitude of crossroads that would change her destiny and the fates of so many futures. She didn't know that yet, but her instincts certainly did.