I was meant to rule them – my people. I was born and raised for the sole purpose of wearing a crown, of being a queen they all feared.

It usually took my kind centuries to acquire a physical body – centuries of slowly sucking the life of innocents, but I had to wait for a millennium, maybe more in my golden cage. I learned patience. All I did was watch in delight as my magic covered my limbs in flesh, fed by the lifeforce of every young man who lost his life to my gentle touch. 

Every noble family in our lands thought of me as their worst nightmare, for they were compelled to make offering of their eldest son to me once he is off age. Their children, in the prime of their life, were devoured by a demon they were not allowed to see. Not yet, while my form was still incomplete, my skin and flesh and bone like a sheer curtain – one could not see clearly through me, but I was not solid, not entirely tangible yet either.

I sensed him before I heard his footsteps, his heartbeat almost as loud as them as he walked down the forgotten hallway to my chambers. Others preferred to forget that all my visitors were not to come back. The hinges of the heavy door squeaked after so many years of disuse as a young fae male entered the room. Werewolves were lively, and vampires fed on blood – the embodiment of mortal souls, but none of them ever satiated my hunger for lifeforce like fae did. With their inability to lie, the natural grace with which they moved their tall bodies - they were just so delightful, especially so early in their immortal lives a male like the one in front of me could make me forget about hunger for a decade.

His long, ash brown hair was neatly combed, a few stray strands falling in front of his pointed ears. I approached him slowly and met his wide eyes with a gentle smile as the ghost form of my fingers grazed his cheek.

‘What’s your name?’ I asked, a predator toying with its pray. 

‘Maxon, milady. Maxon Greenbriar.’ he answered, following my hand as it slid down his bicep.

‘Are you afraid, Maxon?’

‘No, milady.’ he said. Foolish boy.

I felt the corner of my mouth lift as I tiptoed and took his bottom lip between mine, sucking on it gently, grazing it with my tongue. I don’t know how much of it he felt, how much of me, but I hoped he did – all of it. A fine male like him deserved to at least enjoy his death.

‘You should be.’ I answered as I pulled away just an inch, feeling his raspy breath against my cheek.

His face was now pale, but his deep blue ey

Soon enough, he couldn’t even stay straight as I liked a stripe up his navel to his bare chest – my tongue was now warm as I fed on his very essence. His strong thigh was stiff beneath my fingers long before his last breath left his lips, intertwined with a soft moan.

And just like that, the unnerving transparency of my limbs was gone. My magic had turned fragile lifeforce into flesh so my brow could hold a crown. I glanced at the lifeless body on my sheets one last time, his hair dishevelled, lips parted.

My people… They can see me now.