The dark road flies beneath the sleek car as it hugs the curves of the barren country road, carrying the three hot blooded occupants ever closer to their destination. Diantha sits with her nose practically pressed against the glass, only darting glances toward the two men in the front seat from time to time. “Why exactly am I in the backseat again?” she mutters, huffing as she crosses her arms over her chest and settles back into the plush leather of her seat, “I can drive better than either of you.”
“As I have explained countless times beforehand,” her uncle answers in a bored tone, not bothering to look behind him from his seat on the passenger side of the car, “You drove because you were, for all intents and purposes, an employee of vampires who bade you to do so. And now...”
“Now you’re the most annoying demon queen in history,” her half-brother, Nathan, supplies helpfully from the driver’s seat as he meets her un-amused glare with a beaming smile in the rear-view mirror.
Reaching over, Diantha shoves her boot against his seat, smirking triumphantly as he lets out a grunt of pain. “I’m not a queen,” she murmurs into the silence as she turns her head once more, the mere word seeming like a death sentence.
“Yet,” her uncle finishes for her; and Diantha would have to be deaf to not hear the pride in the single word as it leaves his lips. For once, she doesn’t argue; knowing that even if it is not something she ever truly desired for herself, it is her birthright. She’s earned it. And now she will fight for it.
“You’re sure they’re okay?” she asks after another few moments of silence, this time meeting Nathan’s eyes in the rear view mirror, “They landed okay?”
“I saw them myself,” he repeats, though he doesn’t sound tired of having to do so, “They have not left their residence since they arrived. But I saw a human enter and then leave; so I’m almost certain they have fed.” He arches a brow as he turns along another curve in the road, speeding along. “How did you know they would be there, anyway?”
“A hunch,” Diantha murmurs, her thoughts already on the two vampires she wanted desperately to follow; although she knows they need their own time to heal, just as she needs her own time to plan. Although, it hadn’t been so much as a hunch rather than an educated guess after she had searched the available flights from the night she left them; and Greece had seemed to be almost too perfect a choice after what they had gone through. And while she had sent Nathan to ensure that they had arrived in one piece, she had ordered him not to make himself known; not to bother them in any way. “And Cassius?” she asks after a long moment, her voice hardening as she speaks the name.
“Back in New Orleans,” her uncle assures her, “He won’t be leaving anytime soon. And if he tries...it won’t end well.”
The wards that surround her mother’s property seem to beckon to Diantha as they arrive on the outskirts; and she is already shoving against the handle of the door in an attempt to let herself out. “Wait for Nathan to open the door for you,” her uncle says softly, all of them aware of the demons that still guard the property; demons that are now staring curiously at the car as it pulls to a stop, “You have a reputation to uphold now, dear one.”
“And what sort of reputation is that?” Diantha mutters, rolling her eyes as she toys with the lock even as her uncle slams it back into place, “That I can’t be trusted to open a fucking door by myself?”
Sighing, her uncle turns around in his seat; a feat made nearly impossible given his substantial girth. “You are above them now--”
“I will rule and they will listen because I am one of them,” Diantha cuts across coolly, arching a brow as she raises her chin, “And I can certainly open a car door for myself; I’ve been doing it all my life.”
Her uncle’s gaze hardens as he hisses, “Your father---”
“My father’s reputation is not my own,” Diantha hisses, her words slipping into the demonic tongue of her bloodline, “The sooner that is understood by everyone, including you, Uncle; the sooner we can get stupid shit like this out of the way.” Without another word she frees herself, stepping out of the car and rising to meet the crowd that has gathered; the demons that have done her bidding before they even knew if she would be alive to return to them.
Diantha is aware she looks nothing like a queen; looks nothing like a daughter of her father. She wears her dark jeans and heavy boots; a t-shirt that has seen better days with some band logo splashed across her chest. Her hair is a wildfire of curls; the moonlight dancing through it even now. Yet the demons that are even now still appearing after word has spread, some of them older than her uncle, are all looking at her with a reverence she thought she would never instill in anyone. She cannot help the triumphant smirk that turns up her lips, realizing belatedly that she is in fact looking at her court; her own army.
It takes her longer than she would have thought to make her way through the crowd; her uncle and brother following dutifully behind her as she speaks to nearly every demon who steps in her path. There are words of dedication, of promises; and the thrill of battle seems to be thriving in everyone’s heated blood, the chance to take back what a vampire claimed as his own. It’s only when Diantha reaches the edge of the wards, only a few steps from her mother’s house, that she turns back around to look out at the crowd once more. She knows only her brother and uncle will follow her past the wards tonight; but that eventually her childhood home will become her first court, a station to plan for their future. She grins, a true smile that seems to transform her face into something more regal than the child she still sometimes feels like. Her smile is returned tenfold, and it seems only natural to thank those gathered in what can only be described as a quiet battle-cry.
“We’ve got some fucking work to do.”
