Queen Yavara Ch. 56

But a suckling piglet would be nicer. All squirming and squealing, oh yes, yes, yes, yes, yesssss. An intrusive thought blared in my mind.

"Oh no," I said, dropping the ham, "Oh dear, this is not good."

You know what would be even better than a piglet? A baby elf. So juicy... oh I could bite into them, and they'd burst like a peach!

"Nope. No, no, no; I did not just think that. La-la-la-la-la, thinking normal thoughts. The weather, the park, the garden show..."

Tearing its little arms off! Oh, they're like drumsticks!

"Ok, maybe something more titillating, hmm? Pornography, dog races, gambling..."

...sucking the marrow out! Oh, yes! Suck it dry from that little elf piglet!

"Fist-fucking my own daughter, getting anally reamed by ten hermaphroditic lesbians, getting gagged and whipped by my own fucking mother!"

Eat the liver last. It's a delicacy. Keep the child alive to preserve the flavor. The screams make it taste better.

"OK, THAT'S ENOUGH!" I stormed up the castle steps, and into the throne room. There, I saw a veritable buffet of elves, orcs and wargs. I set myself to eating just the wargs; that wasn't too bad, right? But the moment I opened up one of the hairy beasts, my nose crinkled in disgust. Only if I was starving. Orcs then. Surely, orcs would satisfy me, and these were evil creatures after all, so no one would begrudge me. I sank my veins into one orc throat, and sucked the dead blood from his heart. It was thick and bitter, and tasted much too gamey for me. Not only was I a vampire, but I was noble vampire, and my palate had been refined all my life by the finest dishes the Highlands best chefs could make me. Frankly, I was spoiled rotten, and if I was being honest with myself, I was much too entitled not to choose the best available option. Oh, I was a weak, weak woman. Temptation only had to bat her lashes at me, and I'd roll over like a dog. No wonder I'd fucked my own daughter.

"Well," I sighed, staring at the body before me, "no one will ever know." Of course I hadn't chosen some mauled and disfigured geriatric. No, if I was going to be a cannibal, I might as well treat myself. God, I was hopeless. The woman before me was barely past her teen years, with tight and youthful skin and a blush to her alabaster complexion. She had clearly taken her own life, and by hanging. What a tragedy. All the blood was still in her. Would be a shame to waste it.

"Ok," I said, clapping my hands, "here I go. I'll just take a little bite, and..." I ate her face off in one mouthful. Oh... oh it was good. I savored the subtle changes in texture, the overtones of iron, and the sweetness of the eyeballs, then sank my fangs into her throat, and drank deeply. She shriveled beneath me, and I had to stop myself lest I waste some of the meatier delights of her body. Her breasts were ample and round, and I tore them clean off in two bites. I did not chew my food, but ripped and swallowed like a cat, taking delicious mouthful after delicious mouthful of muscle, fat and flesh, stretching and ripping the tendons, savoring the way they snapped into my lips. When I was done, she was nothing but bones, and I licked those cleanly before snapping them to suck the marrow out. I patted my full distended belly, and sighed in contentment. Surely, I would need extensive therapy for this when my normal body was healed enough for me to live in it, but for now, I simply enjoyed the dead, cold silence of the night. It was strange how I had once feared it; what was there to fear? I was the only terror in the night, and the solitude was so peaceful to me.

Something moved. My head darted to the source. My eyes focused. Through the moonlit monochromatic darkness, I could see the midsection of a warg rising and falling. Living flesh. It was just too tempting. I groaned as I stood, so stuffed that I didn't need anything more, but I was a weak little glutton. I sauntered over to the animal, and knelt beside it. It was as dead as dead could be. Its belly was split wide open, and its guts were spilled out onto the floor like spaghetti. Elena had killed this beast herself. I chalked the movement up to intestinal gasses leaking, and stood up. Its belly moved again. It wasn't the belch of methane, but a writhe, like a spasm. But how could there be a spasm when its abdominal wall was dissected? Cautiously, I reached down, and peeled open the beast.

Between the folds of yellow fat and the pools of green bile, was a woman. She was wedged just below the esophagus, her head stuck in the sphincter of the stomach. Her collar bone had been crushed inward by the force of the beast's swallowing muscles, and her ribs were all shattered for the same reason. Her arms were flopped out in front of her, each one shorn right off mid-bicep, the grotesque wounds resembling teeth marks. Half her pelvis was missing, also shorn right off in a jagged pattern that could only have been a bite, and her hips had been snapped completely off. But she was alive. Horrifically alive. She stared at me with bulging white eyes, somehow still terrified of me even after all that had happened to her. Out of one predator, and into another. I guess life was cruel. Gingerly, I pulled her from the warg corpse. She was in too much agony to scream, but the look in her eyes bespoke the horrific sensations running through her. I extracted her from the stomach's sphincter, and angled her neck to the side. She stiffened in terror. I bit.

Life was cruel, but I was not. I poured my venom into her from one fang as Elena had done to me, and she relaxed in my arms. I set her down, and let her transformation take hold. Her bones snapped into place, her legs grew from her remade pelvis, and her arms snaked from the stumps until they were as muscular and beautiful as the rest of her. She leapt up with a snarl, saw that I was not food, then looked upon the field of corpses surrounding her. I sat back, and silently judged her table manners as she devoured elf after elf. She wasn't satiated until she'd gone through seven of them, and when her mind finally returned to her, she looked upon her blood-stained marble body with horror, fell to her knees, and wailed.

"It's alright!" I said hurriedly, and rushed to her side, "It's not permanent! You can change back, but you shouldn't, or you'll die."

"W-w-w-what?" she blubbered.

"I only bit you with one fang." I pointed to my teeth, "See? So it's, you know, like half-and-half."

She blinked away her tears. "Half-and-half?"

"Like coffee and cream."

"Like Adrianna." She whispered. She took a deep, shuddering breath, and hissed, "She is your blood-mother then, is she not?"

"Grandmother, actually."

"And where is Adrianna?"

"You uh... you ate her." I pointed to the corpse beside her, so mauled that it resembled a cherry pastry more than a woman, but the dark tattooed skin was unmistakable. My blood-daughter stared at the corpse for a long time. She giggled, then laughed, then burst into such uproarious mirth that I was sure she'd lost her mind. She fell into my arms, and howled to the ceiling until her voice broke, and the moonlight glinted off her tear-stained cheeks.

When she was done, she croaked, "And who are you then?"

"Lydia Straltaira, at your service," I said, and extended my hand.

She cocked her head, examining my outstretched hand, then me. "The noblewoman?" She asked.

"The very same." I leaned in, and winked, "Though I'd appreciate it if you kept that a secret."

She cautiously took my hand, and shook it. "Esmerelda Giana."

"The rebel leader?!"

"The very same," she smirked, "though I'd appreciate it if you kept that a secret."

"Well, isn't this a strange set of circumstances, hmm?" I mused, and pet her hair dotingly, "For a radical socialist, you sure were greedy with all my corpses, you know."

"I nationalized them. You damn nobles just horde all the wealth and never use it anyway."

"Oh, I like you."

"I like you too," she smiled up at me. There were a thousand scars behind that smile, and I could see them all so plainly. This woman had been through more hell than I could ever imagine, and she'd made it through all of that to end up here. I couldn't blame her for what Adrianna had done, but others would.

"Esmerelda, things are going to change around here, you know. My daughter is the rightful heir to the throne, and if god willing, she makes it back alive, the Highlands are going to become a very different place. That said, it would be best if everyone thought you were dead."

"Sounds wonderful," she sighed, and relaxed into my lap.

"Such devotion you have to your own cause."

"I never wanted to lead a rebellion; I just wanted vengeance. I wanted to find the man who had taken me, and make him feel all the pain I felt."

"Did you?"

"No, I never saw him again," she snuggled into my embrace, "and I'm OK with that now. Now, I can just... disappear. Esmerelda Giana is dead."

"What will you do?"

"I don't know. I'm rather dependent on you, aren't I? I can't just go to the local apothecary to heal what's left of my other body; I'll need royal mages for that."

"You're a noblewoman then. A lesser known one, say... Hannah Xantian. No one remembers her. I think she died of the pox two years ago."

"So now I'm two dead women." She giggled.

I laughed with her, and brushed her black hair behind her ear. I didn't realize how intimate the touch was until I looked back at Esmerelda, and the smile had vanished from her blood-red lips.

"I'm sorry." I muttered.

"You should be."

I swallowed. "I'll just... I'll just leave you alone then, I guess."

"Don't," she said softly, and took my hand in hers. She brought it back behind her ear, and stared expectantly up at me. Her reptilian pupils were dilated and large in her crimson eyes, and though they signaled her comfort with me, they also bespoke her innocence.

"Have you ever done anything like this before?" I asked, grazing my nails gently down her throat.

She shuddered pleasurably, and whispered, "I consider myself a virgin."

"So why now? Why with me?"

She opened her eyes, and smiled. "I'm alive, my belly is full, and I'm in the arms of a beautiful woman. Why not?" She reached out, and curiously ran her thumbs over my lips, "Besides, we'll be hiding out in this castle until your daughter gets here. Who knows how long that will take? We'll need something to do to pass the time."

I laughed, and lowered my face to hers, "That's as good a reason as any, I guess."

We kissed in the center of the throne room, and made beasts of each other throughout the night, our pale bodies writhing in the cold lunar light.

End of Part Sixteen.