No need not to wear the usual Queen trappings… at first, that is. We'd see about later, after they'd gotten more used to me. They, being my new constituents, the local Monère. And not just in New Orleans. New Orleans, it turns out, is just the seat of my throne. My new province expands far beyond the French Quarter, beyond the bayous with their dark waters of chocolat. Its tentacles of reach sprawled outward like an octopus throughout the entire state of Louisiana and a little beyond.

I looked to the front of the airplane where the rest of my people sat, to what I had thought would be the entirety of people I would rule until Gryphon had corrected my misconception. My eyes softened as they landed upon Thaddeus's dark straight hair, so like mine. Thaddeus, my brother by true blood.

Jamie and Tersa's red hair gleamed like ruby exclamation marks beside Thaddeus; they were the brother and sister of my heart. All three are Mixed Bloods like me—rare, few, and unwanted. Jamie and Tersa's mother, Rosemary, a Full Blood Monère, sat alone in the row behind them. She was a gifted cook who had left her coveted position at High Court to follow me blindly to whatever territory I was assigned. I had been the only one to step in to save her daughter, Tersa, when she was being raped by a Monère warrior. No one else had interfered because it's not against Monère law to rape, kill or do anything your little black heart desired against Mixed Bloods. In fact, their laws were skewed against Mixed Bloods. We couldn't kill Full Bloods.

Yeah, their law sucks. Luckily it had been amended once I became a Queen. I, the sole Mixed Blood exception, could kill a Full Blood. In self-defense, that is. A cold smile touched my lips. Any killing I did would be made to look like self-defense, of course, whether it was or not. Because, no question about it, if I killed them, it would be because they richly deserved to die.

Rosemary had followed me because she believed I would protect her Mixed Blood children, being a Mixed Blood myself.