Queen Thorn (complete)

Chapter 13

"Did you turn voluntarily or were you turned by force? If they answer that they were turned by force, then they are restored. If they answer that they turned voluntarily then they are staked and then their bodies are burned to ashes."

"How do you know if they lie?"

I laughed. "Well, as I said, by the time the question is asked most of them have the good sense not to lie. Those that do lie, and say that they were forced to turn but were in fact not are dealt with swiftly and with finality."

"How?"

"After they are restored, my cousin Adrian, myself and Sonya Tanner re-question them. Once they are restored their auras return with their souls, and using those aura's we can tell whether or not they are lying. If they lied, and turned voluntarily then they are put in front of a firing squad after which their bodies are also burned to ashes. If they told the truth and were really turned by force, which is what happened in most cases. At least to the dhampir. They receive intensive therapy, until they and their therapist agrees that it would be beneficial for them to join a team or do whatever else they please with their lives. They are not forced to join us, although they all have. They are always more than free to do with their lives as they wish, whatever that might be.

"Would it not be a better choice to make them rejoin the ranks even if they turned by choice?"

"Would you want a guardian who voluntarily chose to become strigoi? And could do so again, even willingly sacrificing their charge to do so."

"No." Vibrated through the room.

I nodded in agreement. "Nor would I."

"Will the other restored rejoin the ranks?"

"That is their choice. Dhampir are not slaves, they are people just like the moroi."

"What about 'they come first' meaning we moroi?" Asked some snobby ass royal, with his nose in the air, that I didn't know.

Taking a deep breath trying to keep calm I answered. "The guardians that wish to live up to that mantra, may do so. Those who do not, don't have to. How would you like to be forced to give up everything, even your own life, for someone who mistreats you and does not appreciate the sacrifices that you make day in and day out? I mean do you really think that you would be any safer to try and force someone, who does not wish to, to protect you?"

Again, I received a resounding, "No." To my second question. After all, the first one had been rhetorical. 

I nodded.

"In the near future, I am going to be expanding the reach of my teams. The countries that still have a strong strigoi presence will receive an influx of teams to wipe them out. Soon there will be no more strigoi and then everyone will be safe."

"What makes you, a filthy dhampir blood whore, worthy of being our queen?" Asked a sneering voice. A voice that I knew all to well and hated with a passion.

When the question was asked, the entire room gasped at the audacity of asking it so publicly and in front of me. Most of them may have been thinking it, but they had enough sense not to ask it in this setting or in front of me. But I just smiled because I knew that she was trying to ruffle me and I wasn't going to allow her to do that. I had changed a lot in the last two almost three years, and she was about to find out just exactly how much I had changed.

"Well, Lady Ozera, and I use that term very loosely. Just like your lack of morals." 

There were lots of quiet laughter throughout the entire room when I said that. "Who do you think is more worthy? You?" I laughed as though she was definitely unworthy, which she is.