THE LAST VAMPIRE QUEEN
Chapter One — The Worst Welcome in History
The rain started approximately four minutes after Esther arrived in the forest.
Of course it did.
She stood among the unfamiliar trees with water running down her platinum hair and her black lace lingerie — she had, unfortunately, not been given the courtesy of being transported in appropriate attire — and took a very long breath through her nose.
Three thousand years on a throne. Absolute ruler of an entire race. The most powerful vampire in existence.
Standing in a foreign forest. In the rain. In her underwear.
A strange luminous window flickered open in front of her, glowing with an almost cheerful light that felt deeply inappropriate given the circumstances.
Welcome, said a voice — bright, informational, and entirely too composed for Esther's current mood — to a world where all species coexist. I am your host and guide. My purpose is to assist you in establishing the one race that does not currently exist in this world — vampires.
Esther stared at the window.
"How," she said, with great restraint, "did I end up in the middle of a forest while it's pouring down with rain?" She gestured broadly at the trees, at the sky, at the general catastrophe of her situation. "Could no one have at least had the decency to teleport me somewhere with a roof?"
The window flickered, utterly unbothered. Lilith, Goddess of the Underworld, sent you here. She and the Goddess of Light, Arianna, have been at war. When Arianna began destroying the underworld, Lilith was forced to act quickly. She did not have time to explain.
"What?" Esther's pink eyes went very still. "What do you mean she didn't have time to explain? Something significant was about to happen to my entire world and she—"
That is why I am here, the system said smoothly. To relay her message.
Esther pressed her lips together and said nothing. The rain continued falling. She absorbed this information with the rigid composure of someone exercising considerable self control.
"Fine," she said at last. "Relay it."
Lilith sacrificed your world to save you — the last of the vampire race. Your goal in this world is to establish your existence, build relationships, and find mates. You have been sent with your full power intact, along with several new abilities. Among them — the ability to walk freely in sunlight, so that you may pursue your goal at any hour.
"Why," Esther said slowly, "is Lilith so focused on me finding mates? I could simply demonstrate my strength and establish my position in this world through power alone."
So that you can reproduce, the system said. And rebuild your numbers.
Esther gave the window a very flat look. "You are aware that vampires are not reproduced through — that isn't the only method. Venom can turn others. There are other ways to build a bloodline besides—"
If you do not find mates, the system interrupted, with the energy of something that had been briefed on exactly this argument and prepared accordingly, Lilith will erase your existence entirely.
A beat of silence.
"Is she threatening me," Esther said, "or you?"
Steam — actual, visible steam — began rising from the edges of the luminous window. Please. Stop making this difficult. I have explained your situation. Do you accept the objective or not?
Esther sighed. The rain had soaked through her hair entirely. She was standing in a foreign world in her underwear having an argument with a glowing window about whether she was going to build a harem.
"Build a harem," she repeated. "That's my divine mission."
...Yes.
"And if I don't, a goddess erases me."
Correct.
"Fine." She waved a hand. "I accept. On that note — where exactly am I? I can use my hearing to track what's nearby but since you're here I'm putting you to work."
The steam dissipated. The window seemed to settle slightly. You are on the outskirts of the Raleigh Empire. The nearest location is Moonstone Village, approximately half a day's travel through the forest. It is known primarily for its wolf folk.
Esther went very still.
"Werewolves," she said flatly.
They are quite—
"You do understand that vampires and werewolves are natural enemies. You want me to go introduce myself to a village full of werewolves. For mating purposes."
In this world all species coexist peacefully. The werewolves will not be hostile.
"You just told me to go make children with wet dogs." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Is there truly no other settlement within reach?"
The nearest city is thirteen days travel on foot.
The silence that followed was the particular silence of someone accepting the completely unacceptable.
"Fine," Esther said, for the third time, in a tone that suggested the word was doing a great deal of heavy lifting. She looked down — and paused.
She was still in her black lace lingerie. The pieces that covered, generously speaking, the minimum.
"I'm going to need clothes," she said. "Do I have any currency in this world?"
You have been granted an affinity dimension space containing everything you have ever owned.
As if on cue, a black garter materialized around her thigh, a small magical bag attached, humming with contained spatial energy. Esther reached in without ceremony, produced a black sundress and boots, and changed with the brisk efficiency of someone who had not been remotely embarrassed by anything in several centuries.
She looked at the glowing window one last time.
"Try to be useful," she said, and set off into the rain.
She walked through the forest until daybreak.
The rain had stopped somewhere around midnight, which she chose to interpret as the universe offering a belated apology. By the time pale light began filtering through the canopy the forest had settled into something almost pleasant — damp earth, birdsong she didn't recognize, the sound of water moving somewhere nearby.
She heard the fight before she saw it.
A crash. A yelp — sharp and pained, animal in register. Then the heavy rhythmic sound of something large moving with violent purpose.
Esther changed direction without breaking stride.
She found them in a clearing: a giant orc swinging a metal ball on a chain with the particular enthusiasm of something that knew it had already won, and a large dark gray wolf on the ground — collapsed from what looked like a vicious hit across the back, sides heaving, still conscious but barely. As she watched the orc raised its arm again, weapon aimed at the wolf that could no longer move to avoid it.
Esther assessed the situation in approximately one second.
Getting in with the wolves would be considerably easier if she arrived having already saved one of them.
She moved.
She was in the trees before the thought had finished forming — climbing without sound, kicking off branches, crossing the distance above the orc's head with the silent speed of something that had spent three thousand years making sure nothing heard it coming. She dropped from above. Her nails — razor sharp, harder than they looked — found the orc's neck before it registered her presence. One clean motion. The head hit the ground a full second before the body did.
Blood sprayed in a wide arc. Esther, already bending toward the corpse, didn't bother moving out of the way.
She fed quickly — practical, efficient, the act of someone fueling a body rather than indulging in a luxury, though the blood was fresher than anything she'd had in a long time. When she straightened up and wiped her mouth the wolf had shifted.
Where the dark gray wolf had been there was now a man.
Esther looked at him with blood still on her face and took stock. Long dark hair shot through with silver at the ends. Built like someone who had dedicated considerable time to the project of being difficult to kill, which made the current situation slightly ironic. Broad shouldered. And, she noted with mild academic interest, objectively very handsome.
She was not about to let a face like that die in a forest.
She crouched beside him, produced a recovery potion and bandages from her dimensional bag, and began working with brisk efficiency. The potion was the problem — he was too far gone to swallow it properly, the liquid simply spilling past his lips.
Esther looked at the potion. Looked at him. Made a decision.
She took the potion into her own mouth, gripped his face between her cold hands, and pressed her lips to his to transfer it directly. His throat worked as the medicine traveled down. Beneath her hands she felt the moment his body registered it — the subtle shift of something beginning to mend.
His eyes opened.
Blue. Bright, even through the pain and confusion — the kind of blue that looked like it belonged to something considerably larger than what was currently lying injured on the ground. They found her face immediately.
She sat back and waited while he coughed himself back to full consciousness, pulling the black fur blanket from her bag and dropping it over him with the practicality of someone solving a problem.
He snatched it with slightly more urgency than dignity.
"Who are you," he managed, between coughs, "and what happened to the orc?"
Esther gestured to the headless body behind her. The blood on her face did most of the explaining. "I'm the one who pulled you back from the brink of death," she said. "You're welcome."
He stared at her. Then at the orc. Then back at her.
"...Oh," he said.
She settled beside him with the unhurried ease of someone who had nowhere to be and infinite patience for useful conversations. "Why were you fighting an orc alone? Wolves travel in packs."
Something shifted in his expression — not quite shame, but close to it. "My clan leader gave me a condition. Prove myself to be at least as strong as my brother, or leave and never return."
"And you lost."
"I hadn't finished yet," he said, with a dignity that was genuinely impressive for someone wrapped in a blanket on the ground.
Esther almost smiled. "What else does your clan require of you?"
He was quiet for a moment. "I have to find a mate."
She tilted her head. "Are there no women in your clan who interest you?"
"They all have multiple husbands already." A beat. "And I'm not interested in any of them."
Esther moved slightly closer. She had spent three thousand years learning exactly how much weight a well-timed look could carry. "And what," she said, "if you were interested in someone?"
He looked at her. The blue eyes were clearer now, the potion doing its work, and they were — attentive, in a way she hadn't expected. Measuring her with more care than she'd anticipated from someone who had just been nearly killed by an orc.
"That would be a different matter entirely," he said slowly. "I won't pretend I'd love sharing. But in this world that's simply how things are for women, and I'd want whoever was mine to be happy. And protected." A pause. "Both."
Interesting.
"Your name," she said.
"Thor Grey. Moonstone Clan." His eyes didn't leave her face. "And yours?"
"Esther Scarlett Rose." She let that settle for a breath. "I am a vampire."
The silence that followed was a different quality than the ones before it.
"A vampire," he repeated carefully. "There haven't been any for thousands of years. How—"
"I am the last one." She said it simply, without grief or performance. It was simply a fact. "I don't know precisely how I came to be here. My kind has been wiped out — no survivors, no trace. I arrived in this forest alone."
Thor was quiet for a moment. When he spoke his voice had shifted — something in it that hadn't been there before, something careful and genuine. "So you're alone too."
"Yes." She considered. "It isn't unbearable. It is simply lonely."
He looked at her for a long time.
"How could I not want you as my mate," he said finally, "after meeting you?" He shook his head slightly. "I only held back because I wanted to know you first. I wouldn't spring something like that on a stranger."
"And if I had left before you had the chance to say it?"
"I would have waited." The words were simple and completely certain. "Even if I never saw you again after today, I wouldn't want anyone else."
Esther regarded him with the particular attention she reserved for things that surprised her.
"There is also the matter," she said, "of what I am. Where I come from, vampires and werewolves are mortal enemies."
"Honestly?" He almost looked embarrassed. "No one in my clan has mentioned vampires in my lifetime. I don't think anyone's thought about them in so long they've forgotten to be hostile." A beat. "I don't think I could manage hostile toward you regardless."
She looked at him for one more moment. Then she reached out and pushed the damp silver-tipped hair back from his face, the gesture unhurried and deliberate.
"Then become my mate," she said. "We go to your village. You bring back an orc's head and a mate, and your clan has nothing left to hold over you."
"You'd do that for me?" He was watching her with an expression she didn't quite have a name for. "Why? You saw what I was just barely able to do. I'm not—"
"Strong enough?" She met his eyes. "Strength is not the issue. Stay close to me and I will make you stronger than you ever thought possible." A pause. "I chose you because I like you. That is sufficient reason."
Thor Grey's heart did something complicated in his chest.
"Okay," he said quietly. "I'll be your mate."
Esther stood, produced the orc's head from her dimensional bag — she had been practical about it — and handed it to him wrapped in cloth. Then she offered her hand.
He took it.
They set off toward Moonstone Village as the sun finished rising, the vampire queen and the exiled wolf, beginning something neither of them had a name for yet.
In her head the system was quietly tracking vital signs, mapping terrain, cataloguing everything.
It didn't comment.
It was learning, already, when to be silent.