And where was my Demon Prince? Presiding over his people in that other distant realm, Hell, while I presided over mine here in the living realm. I was missing the festivities of Aequus Nox, one of the big demon holidays. At least that was how it sounded to me when Halcyon had explained it. Were it not the full moon, the time when we Basked, I would be down there with Halcyon, mixing and mingling and being introduced to his people. A daunting thought because his people had fangs and drank blood — my blood if they had the chance. But then, so did I. Have fangs and drink blood, that is.

I was a human-Monère Mixed Blood Queen with demon dead essence residing in my living being. Quite a tongue twister and mind bender. The poetic term for my condition was Damanten, demon living. A rare state of being because most of my kind had been slaughtered as soon as they were made, usually by the demons whom those very unwise Monères had blood raped because, alas, that was what sparked our living dead state. Why would they do that, you might ask — drink a demon's blood? Because it gained them a demon's strength, which was even greater than a Full Blood Monère's. But, shhh, don't tell anyone that, it's a secret. A secret that demons would kill — and have killed — to protect.

The downside, and there's always one, was the physical manifestations that occurred along with that stolen power. It was pretty hard to hide what you had done — what you had become — when you started sprouting fangs. Now don't get me wrong. Fangs are no stranger to the Monère. Lots of us had them. But only in our animal-shifted forms. Not in our human forms. Of course, my fang flashing happened only when the niggling presence of another demon triggered the demon essence in me.