Last Blood Queen: Pampered By All

She is running through a hall that has no end. Gold light drips from the ceiling like rain, pooling across a floor she doesn't remember stepping onto. A throne sits empty ahead of her, and somehow that's worse than if someone were sitting in it. A voice calls her name like she's something to be worshipped and feared. She couldn't remember why she was running either or why her heart was hammering hard against her chest. Another voice echoed behind her, telling her not to look back. She looks back anyway. There's a third voice waiting in the dark with soft laughter, murmuring words that slip away the second she tries to make sense of them. Then the floor opens beneath her. She falls, shrieking in horror. There's a blade before the ground, and she always expected the pain to follow right after as well as her own blood. A man's hands catches her too late, always too late, saying something that matters more than anything else in this dream or any dream but… She never hears it. ________________________ "I don't think this is something medication can fix." Dr. Foster had said, the last time she paid him. Her tenth visit in two weeks. "I've run every test I know how to run. Whatever this is, Monique... it isn't medical. You may need to look somewhere else for answers." At the time, Monique had laughed at that. Somewhere else. As if there were a shop somewhere that sold answers for nightmares that were so vivid it was practically ruining her reality. She wasn't laughing anymore. Because two days after that appointment, a letter had arrived in the mail. It had no stamp, no return address. It carried just her name, written in ink so dark it looked wet. Beneath it: Ravenhale Academy — Full Scholarship Enrollment. And one line at the very bottom had kept her awake longer than any nightmare ever had. ~ I know about your nightmares. I can fix it. ~ Monique read the last line over and over again as she stood in front of iron gates taller than any building she'd ever lived in. Her duffel bag dug into her shoulder as she stared at the building in front of her. She pulled out her phone, dialled a number and pressed it to her ear, listening to it ring. "Mum, it's me." Her voice came out smaller than she wanted. "I know you said not to call, but I just…I need you to know I'm about to do something. I got into a school. It's called Ravenhale. I…I got a scholarship too. I don't mean to bother you but I just wanted someone to know where I'll be, in case.." "Why are you calling me?" Monique opened her mouth, not sure what to say at first. "Because you're the only family I have." Her grip tightened on the phone. She called her because she was scared and wasn't sure if she was doing the right thing… "I thought maybe you'd care where your daughter's going." Silence stretched long enough that she thought the call had dropped. "Don't call this number again," her mother finally said, and the line went dead. Monique stood there a moment before letting an exhale escape her lips. She stared at the gates, at the letter crumpled slightly in her other hand, at the life she was about to leave behind without a single person left to miss her in it. She had nothing left to lose. That, at least, made walking through the gates easy. She'd read once in some late-night internet rabbit hole she'd told herself was harmless curiosity, that the supernatural and human worlds had signed a treaty centuries ago. It was an agreement to live apart; humans in their cities and something else entirely behind walls like these. Walking through Ravenhale's gates, she understood, all at once, that they were very much real. The buildings inside rose like something out of a different century, spires disappearing into fog that shouldn't have existed on a clear afternoon. Statues lined the path, and more than one of them turned its head slightly as she passed. She kept walking. If she stopped, she wasn't sure she'd start again. Her scholarship letter had said someone would meet her at the gates but she didn't see anyone at the gates. That unsettled her more than the statues did. How did anyone here know about her nightmares in the first place? She hadn't told a soul except Dr. Foster and her mother whom she knew didn't give a damn. Somebody at this school knew things about her that no one should have known. She was still turning that thought over when the sound of an engine roared behind her. She turned just in time to see a black card with no visible driver, driving straight down the path toward her recklessly. She froze. Her body simply refused to move, the same way it never moved fast enough in the dreams. A hand closed around her wrist and yanked her sideways, hard and off her feet entirely. The world spun. The car screamed past exactly where she'd been standing, close enough that she felt the wind of it against her skin. And then it was gone, swallowed around a bend in the path as if it had never existed at all. "Hmm." The stranger watched it disappear. "They're getting worse at parking.” Monique's heart hammered so violently she thought it might actually break through her ribs this time, dream or no dream. She looked up. Crimson eyes stared down at her, faintly amused. His face was framed by dark hair that fell carelessly over his forehead. He hadn't let go of her wrist yet. His grip was cold, like his skin didn't hold heat the way hers did but careful, like he'd calculated exactly how hard to pull without breaking anything. For a long moment neither of them moved. He stared at her in complete disbelief, mischievous eyes narrowed on her as though she was a puzzle that needed solving. “I'm so sorry.” She managed. Why does it feel like he's staring right into her soul? “Well,” he said, a smirk curling on his lips as his deep voice washed over her. His crimson eyes lingered on her. “...aren't you quite interesting, kitten?”