Chapter 37

Four Years Later

There was a rolled newspaper sitting on his desk when Eric retired to his office for a little peace and quiet. While he loved Fangtasia, the sounds could draw on even his nerves. He simply wanted to be alone for a little while.

When he took his seat, he reached for the paper with every intention of reading the Financial Section. There was something oddly satisfying about holding it in his hands while he watched the stock of New Blood rise and rise. But he hadn't made it that far into the folds of it. His attention was diverted sharply to the front page. It was a picture of Maria, of all people, standing on the steps of a building not truly visible, surrounded by a ridiculous number of people. The title was intriguing: Monarchy Returns to Russia?

His brows pulled together. It wasn't a front page story beyond the photo and the title, but the story wasn't far within. For whatever reason, Eric sought it out.

Monarchy Returns to Russia?

By now, everyone has heard of the Romanov family, either through the tragic ends they met, or the story of the fabled Anastasia possibly surviving her family's assassination. As it turns out, middle daughter of the late Nicholas II, the Last Tsar of Russia, survived and not only survived, but seems to have decided to return home after a century gone.

Multiple tests, genetic and otherwise, have been both scheduled and conducted thus far to prove her identity and as of now, they seem to be coming up positive. Current Russian leaders were reluctant to accept Maria Romanova in any capacity because, unlike most countries, Russia does not recognize vampires as individuals capable of owning property, but to add another surprise twist to this story, Miss Romanov is not a vampire. While she has remained unchanged over the previous century, the identity of whatever supernatural creature the Grand Duchess is has not been made public as of yet.

Sources close to the monarch have stated that she has desires to improve her home country, to bring it back to its former glory. Whether or not she will succeed in any capacity remains unclear, but it is the hope of many that she does.

Eric stared at the article for some time, reading it over and over as though it would give him the slightest indication as to what the young woman was up to since he'd last seen her, but it didn't. Why would it?

No longer in the mood to look over the state of his holdings, Eric tossed the paper onto his desk and leaned back into his seat. His gaze drifted to the picture of Maria as he propped his elbow on the arm of the chair. He ran his fingers across his cold lips. It looked as though she was staring right at him through the pale black and white paper, but she wasn't. He hadn't seen her in a long while, and he missed her.

More than once, Maria would cross his mind. He'd wonder how she was doing, what she was doing, and when she would come back to him, but she never did. He had often thought about going after her again, but that decision died almost immediately each and every time it crossed his mind. He'd gone after her once and she rebuffed him. Once was more than enough. Eric still had his pride.

One Year Later

New Blood had been a publicly traded company for little more than a year now and the millions were rolling in. Genuinely, Eric had everything he could possibly want. He had his businesses, he had his Progeny, he had more money than he could think to spend in a thousand lifetimes, and he had however many women and men he wanted to spend his time with, but he didn't have happiness. He was content, yes, but not happy.

Fangtasia was closed at the moment and Eric had a dozen things on his mind while he sat in his throne. Ginger was scampering about cleaning or doing whatever she did. Pam was sitting at a table going through the books because she had a keen eye for it, always had, and in the background he vaguely heard a TV replaying the news. He hated when it was on, but Ginger didn't do well in silence and truthfully, Eric hated hearing her swooning at him. It was a recent habit after they'd slept together. Apparently, nearly six years after the fact wasn't enough to cool her appetites.

Six years… it was like a year per second.

While the stock report crawled across the bottom of the screen, a news reporter said something that brought Eric out of his thoughts. In fact, it seemed to draw the attention of the entire room.

"And with the recent upset in Russia, what are we looking at here?"

The mention of the country drew Eric's gaze. The little TV was sitting on the bar at an angle, but he could just make out the screen.

"Well," A male voice said. Eric saw an older man with white, thinning hair, and a smug expression was the one to speak. Eric didn't like him for some reason. "It's clear that the people have decided they're desperate for a change. Living under a communistic regime has served very few over the last few decades. Apparently, they're willing to go back to the monarchy."

It was the word monarchy that caused Pam to lift her head. Her brows furrowed curiously before she cast him a glance. An unspoken understanding moved between them.

"Ginger," Pam said smoothly. The blonde human perked. "Turn that up, will ya?"

"Sure," She beamed.

Ginger stepped toward the television and shifted it a bit on the bar so both Pam and Eric could see it, and turned up the volume a little. The screen was split into three panels with the host in the middle, the white-haired man to the left, and a younger, angrier man to the right.

"Is nobody going to talk about the fact that she's clearly not human?" the angrier man snapped. "Assuming she's actually the Grand Duchess, she's clearly not human! She's over a hundred years old. Am I the only one who's worried about there being another one of those supernatural abominations in a place of power? Russia still has nuclear weapons. Do we really want a freak like that with her hand on the button?"

Eric scowled. There was always a bigot somewhere.

"With all due respect, Mr. Graves," the woman in the middle, the host, said calmly. "Given the human leadership Russia's had over the last few decades, I fail to see how Miss Romanov can do any worse."

"Am I the only one here who thinks this is absolutely irresponsible?" The angry man was beginning to turn red in the face and when Eric noticed his title, he saw why. He was Thomas Graves, a televangelist from South Carolina. "The world's governments can't allow this- this- this creature to take power."

He was getting so mad that he was beginning to sputter. Eric wondered if a blood vessel would burst in his brain.

The argument continued on for a little while until Eric tuned it out once more. Apparently, Maria was making quite the splash.

May 26th, 2021

Eight Months Later

The world news was dominated by one thing and one thing only: the crowning of the Empress of Russia.

The world's leaders were in attendance to see the coronation of the first monarch in Russia in over a century.

It had been a major upset when the "democratic" government of the nation rolled over to allow such a dramatic change, but they had no choice when the vast majority of the Russian people voted for her. Whether it was a fanciful and romantic view of kings and queens or the fact that the people were tired of the same oppression that had been weighing them down for generations, the world news debated continuously, but the result was the same: Maria Nikolaevna Romanova, the former Grand Duchess of Russia was now Maria Romanova, Empress of the Russian Empire.

She was crowned one-hundred and twenty-five years to the day after her father.

That was the news that greeted him when he woke up that evening. It was hard to miss, really. The event was plastered over every possible source of media there was.

Eric was in his office. He was leaning back in his chair staring at his computer screen. It was a news article that had popped up on his web browser's homepage. There was no need to seek it out. It was already there alongside a few others. He did click on it, however, but that was unimportant.

It was a picture of Maria in a beautiful ivory gown. The fabric shined which led him to believe it was likely silk, adorned with flourishes be they lace, or patterns of different sorts of fabric. The gown was beautiful with a sloping neckline and small cap sleeves. She had a pair of long white gloves on that shielded the majority of her arms.

She was sitting on a throne with a long black and white cape draped to the side and down the dais. In one hand she held a gilded scepter, in the other an equally elaborate orb, and atop her head rested a crown. If it weren't for the obvious modernity of the whole situation, he could have easily seen the photograph being a century or more old.

Maria stared straight into the camera without emotion, her bright green eyes shining like emerald fire, and he met her gaze unblinkingly. It wasn't as though she could see him through the screen, but he still eyed her like she could for whatever reason.

She looked beautiful.

Pam's heels narrated her arrival before she slinked into his office. He heard her clearly, just didn't bother to move anything more than his eyes to look at her. The moment she was in his office, she paused and her brows furrowed at the sight of him.

"What?" he asked, hopefully without tone.

"What's with you?" She asked as she crossed her arms over her chest and adjusted her weight to one leg.

"Nothing," Eric sat up. He gripped the monitor and spun it to show Pam what he'd been reading.

Her perfectly sculpted brow rose quickly and her flamingo-pink lips curled into a smirk.

"Well, well, well," She practically cooed the words. "Looks like she's doing well for herself."

"M-hm," he muttered as he turned his computer screen back around. He minimized the window, just so he didn't have to look at Maria anymore. "What is it?"

"We need to give Miss Newlan a break." She said with a level of distain that didn't surprise him. Not only did Pam hate Sarah Newlan like most of the world, but there was clear agitation with the fact that the human's body was so weak that she couldn't cope with being fed on almost nightly. "What do you want me to do with her?"

"Send her to Ginger's for a couple of days." He replied.

Pam nodded and left. They'd done it before. Sarah was glamoured to stay close to them, to not run away no matter what they do with her and since Ginger was so loyal on her own, it was the perfect arrangement.

Left alone once more, Eric's mind drifted. He leaned forward and opened the window once again with Maria's photo, and returned to staring at her wondering how the hell everything went so sideways.

Saint Petersburg, Russia

Maria was in her bedchamber. The entire palace had gone silent since the Coronation Ceremony ended hours ago, but she wasn't asleep. She had no intentions of falling asleep any time soon.

Sitting at a writing desk in the corner of the room, reading over the papers lit by a small, antique lamp, Maria read numerous reports and statistics. Her country had been in a sharp downturn ever since the Bolshevik Revolution. Communism had taken hold and never let go, and as a result, people were poor, hungry, and struggling to simply survive.

Russia was home to nearly 150 million people. Out of that incredible number, less than ten percent had what most people would call a "decent" life, and roughly two percent of that number were living comfortably. It was unacceptable to her, especially when so many of the problems were easy to fix.

Theoretically.

Maria knew that coming in from the outside with an array of ideas was one thing. It was easy to say, "raise minimum wage" and "invest in tourism and renewable energy", but it was something else entirely to get the funds to do it. The fact was, Russia was a poor country in many respects. It was riddled with crime and substance abuse because the people weren't given a chance to actually live a life.

Major exports were minerals, natural gas, and oil. They were lucrative because Russia and its vast body could produce a fair amount of all three. The problem was the equipment was imported and the people were paid shit. Not only were they paid shit, but their healthcare was even worse, so if someone was injured or sick, they had no choice but to continue. That, in turn, brought down productivity and risked the employee's health.

Unacceptable.

She knew the battle before her would be uphill. In fact, it'd be up-a-mountain-side-cliff-with-no-climbing-gear-and-one-broken-arm-hard just to get to some level ground. It wasn't about growth right now. It was about stabilization.

Thankfully, the only thing that wasn't tenuous was her position and power. While she'd been elected into office on the basis of her name and handed a crown, it was meant to be symbolic. She was, at first, meant to hold as much power as the English Monarchy, but that wouldn't be good enough for Miss Romanov. Oh, no. What the crooked men who'd been running the country didn't know what that amidst all of the paperwork that had to be signed and notarized and made officially legal, the dozens and dozens of pages that people never truly read, Maria added a few caveats.

Once the paperwork was signed, Maria would be the supreme ruler of Russia.

She had brought back her family's dynasty fully and completely. The branches of government who'd done nothing to help the people and only lined their pockets were no longer the highest authority. They couldn't vote her out of office, they couldn't overthrow her in a bureaucratic sense at all. If they wanted her out, they'd literally have to kill her.

And there had already been a few attempts. Six, in fact. In the last five years, ever since Maria decided that she wanted to help her people, decided that hiding was no longer an option, there had been six assassination attempts on her life. Hell, two of them had been that day. During her coronation parade, someone took a shot at her on the parade route, but the bullet simply embedded itself into the bulletproof glass of her carriage. The second attempt she assumed was the backup plan, and that took place at the Kremlin. It was sloppy. A man with a knife attempting to shove his way through the crowd was never going to work, but it was born out of desperation. Her security team did little to help, but Maria was more than capable of protecting herself, so it didn't truly matter. Thankfully, she didn't damage her dress.

Maria's vision felt like it was glazing over. She'd been staring at paperwork for hours, but she needed to read it. She needed to think.

Her country relied so heavily on import because so much of it was completely uninhabitable. It was an angry, bitterly cold environment. Why do you think so many people who tried to invade never succeeded? They couldn't survive. The only thing in the world that could survive a Russian winter was Her people.

The notebook on the corner of her writing desk had become a repository for ideas. Maria needed to find a way to become less reliant on the outside world, to bring structure and industry to her country, and there was no quicker way than to build factories. Not only would they give hundreds, if not thousands of jobs, but the companies had to pay tax to the country they were established in, and that could bring millions.

Businesses like Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and many others had already been written down as ideas, but there was one that Maria knew she could benefit from, yet wasn't entirely certain she wanted to entertain. New Blood.

She eyed the two words and knew that a few things were very, very true about the vampire-run company.

One, New Blood would create a lot of jobs, satisfy her vampire subjects, and bring in millions a year in taxes. Two, most other major companies in the world would give Russia a wide berth, unwilling to take the first step under the new regime, so a company like New Blood moving production to her country would break the ice. Three, it could go either way. Either Pam and Eric, the owners in every aspect and vampires she knew, would agree to the deal, or, because she knew them, they could refuse.

New Blood would go a long way in helping Maria get what she wanted, but it was a door she didn't want to knock on. She hadn't spoken to Eric or Pam in years. She knew how they were doing, though, knew how their collective star had catapulted them to the top, because the news wouldn't shut up about it.

They were hailed as the saviors of vampire kind! They ended the raids of Hep-V vampires, and almost ended Hep-V completely. They now owned the only source of artificial blood on the market, somehow managed to tear it away from the Japanese, and flourished. Both Pam and Eric had graced the covers of magazines, newspapers, and even appeared on talk shows. For nearly a year, they were unavoidable. Then again, Maria was sure they could say the same about her.

Ever have someone in your life who isn't anymore, but you still want to impress? It could be an ex, or an old friend who was the sort of person who always had to show off. Whoever it was, whenever your life was going well, you couldn't help but think about them in the back of your mind and say, I hope you can see how great everything is for me. It's petty and childish, but that was how Maria felt with Eric.

She knew the moment that she made her plans to reclaim the throne public that the news would spread like wildfire. It was a sensational story, so of course. She also knew that it would reach bum-fuck-nowhere parts of Louisiana like Bon Temps, and even the more bustling Shreveport. Maria wanted Eric Northman to see her moving up in life, to see her and what she was doing, and that day, during her coronation, she wanted him to know that she was the fucking empress now.

Again, it was petty, and while it wouldn't change a single thing in her mind, she still wanted him to see, and to be rolling in jealousy and regret.

But, what about New Blood?

Maria scratched the back of her head as she stared at her notebook of ideas. It still hurt a little from how tightly and how long her hair had been up throughout the day. She was getting a migraine, too.

With a sigh, Maria dropped her pen onto the table and leaned back to stretch. Her spine popped in a very satisfying way which caused her to groan. A moment later, she rose and headed for her bed.

Tomorrow would be her first day as the new ruler of a whole damn country, a job that –even if her family were still alive- wouldn't have passed to her. She was the middle child. She would have been married off to some noble from another country, but that simply wasn't how it happened. Right now, she was the Tsarina which meant she had a lot of work to do, starting with cleaning house.