All Souls' Night - Renee Rose Page 0,62

business. We are here to do our duty to our Queen and the queendom,” Fay says.

I’m still gazing out the window, so Fay doesn’t see my eye roll. She’s old school, as in five hundred years old. This place, these people, their innovations, are insignificant in her mind. It all was dust when she was reborn, and it will be but dust again when she takes her last breath. If it’s not gold or the Egyptian engineering of her pharaonic ancestors, Fayola pays it little mind.

“The Queen Mother is here for diplomatic relations with King Lucius,” Fay continues.

“Really?” I turn from the awakening nightlife out the window with a grin. “Because I hear that there is a party going on at his club for the next two nights.”

“That is not our way; mixing with males, and humans.”

By males, Fay means any males, be they vampire or, worse, human. There are very few males inside the queendom of Orun. Any who enter the palace are required to leave their most treasured appendage behind. Only eunuchs live and work in Queen Malika’s sanctuary.

The queendom of Orun is comprised of the Queen Mother and her three princesses. Princess Fayola, a descendant of Princess Hatshepsut who became King of Egypt. Princess Eshe, a descendant of the Warrior Queen Njinga of the southern African nation of what is present-day Angola. And me, a descendant of Queen Amina in what is known in the present day as Nigeria.

The people of our nation came from the East when the Arabs raided villages as far back as the seventh century, as well as from the West when Europeans landed on our shores centuries later. Queen Malika slew all the slave traders she could get her claws on. She freed as many of the captured as she could. Now, she provides a safe harbor in Orun to any woman and child. Men she looks on with utter suspicion, unless they are willing to pay her the ultimate tribute.

“Fornication and coitus are for animals and humans,” Fay continues.

I’ve seen that for myself. Animals spend all day rutting in the fields. Humans make a lot of films and videos that feature screwing. They make as many home improvement videos featuring nails and hammers as they make of people getting nailed and hammered.

“We are called for a higher purpose in this life.”

I know she’s right. But sometimes, I simply want to get in touch with my lower, base needs. Like, perhaps see a male vampire for the first time. See a real, live penis. Not a human one, of course. I’d never lower myself to sleep with one of those hairless apes.

But a virile, male vampire? With a throbbing cock? And a live vein that I could tap? Just the thought makes both my fangs and my loins ache.

“I’m off for my dinner,” says Fay. “Are you joining me?”

“I’m not hungry,” I say as I lick my fangs.

Fay heads out to slake her thirst. My stomach waits until she’s gone before it growls with need. I’m not hungry for any of the limp dick eunuchs we brought along on this transcontinental journey. They avert their gazes when I feed from them, even when I wear low tops and my breasts swell over the fabric. They have no zest for life, and so they taste bland. For the first time in my life, I want to know what a real man tastes like.

If I can just find a way to get to Lucius Frangelico’s party, I could find a thriving vampire male to slake my lust and maybe even my thirst with. But first, I’d need to find a way to slip past goody-two-shoes Fay’s notice. And I’d also have to get past the queen, who notices everything.

As if she heard my thoughts, the doors to my suite open. I turn to see the queen entering with two of her attendants, young males who are large, with muscles. Their eyes are glazed over as most males who have had their manhood taken are.

“Sanai, hartlam, you should be resting.”

Unlike Fayola, Queen Malika doesn’t glide. She stalks into any space she occupies, like a lioness looking down on the bounty of animals she’s considering taking a bite out of. She calls her three daughters hartlams, an amalgamation of heart and lamb. We were each given to her by our families, lambs to the slaughter, to whom she fed her heart’s blood to turn us into vampire princesses to rule at her feet.

I bow my head