Page 11 of Queen Takes Queen
She’d said much the same thing a few moments earlier, but more than curiosity rang in her words. She needed information and if we were under a real and presentdanger…
Rock hardened beneath my skin, turning my face to granite. “Because I would ratherforget.”
She could have sank into my bond and dragged the past out of me. She could have viewed my memories like a movie. But my queen only threaded her fingers through mine and hugged my arm to her. “If no shifter can get up through the ground, what could she send against us? What powers does shehave?”
“The bird pecked at something on the ground, so Nevarre is guessing some kind of bug.” My voice rumbled with rock troll bass, but hopefully she thought it was anger from the threat, not because my heart ached with gratitude. I knew she needed information, desperately, but she wouldn’t drag it out of me all at once. Though maybe the rip-off-the-bandage approach would be best in this case. “I wasn’t high enough in her court to know her powers, and what shedisplayed…”
She kissed my shoulder. Only then did I realize how tense I’d become. I made my muscles relax so I wasn’t a granite boulder againsther.
“There’s only two things to know about Keisha Skye.” Daire stepped into the room, his usually easygoing personality a vicious snarl, his warcat pacing back and forth in his bond. “She wants a child to replace the one she lost, and she enjoys breakingalphas.”
4
Shara
I’d knownRik and Daire had left Skye’s court in search of a lost queen, and that Skye had expected them to reel me in for her to expand her power base. But I hadn’t realized that Rik had actually been afraid ofher.
My big, bad alpha Blood.Afraid.
That told me all I needed to know about Keisha Skye. Flames licked through my veins, stoking my rage. No one would ever hurt or scare or threaten any of my Blood ever again. So help megoddess.
“You should be out searching the nest,” Rik said to Daire, but without the ring of an order behindit.
Daire gave a little toss of his head that sent the tawny fall of his hair rippling down his back. Now well past his shoulders, his hair made me want to wrap my fists in it and haul himclose.
Padding over to me, barefoot and shirtless but with jeans on, he dropped to a crouch so he could drape himself in my lap, pushing his head under Rik’s arm that I’d hugged tome.
“There’s nothing to find yet,” he replied. “Nevarre is still scouting from the air and his bird vision is way better than any ofours.”
I combed my fingers through his hair, listening to his purr. Waiting. When they were ready, one of them would tell me what Keisha Skye had done that left them both soscared.
“I can confirm some of the basic facts,” Gina said slowly, as if hesitant to speak. “Keisha Skye did have a child almost one hundred years ago. It was a big deal at the time, enough that my grandmother made a note of it in her personal records. Breeding queens are rare in this day and age, but queens able to successfully conceive and deliver a child are even rarer. No queen in several centuries had managed to have a child and she was rightfully lauded for it. Other queens were quick to ask her what she’d done to conceive, but she was very closed mouthed about it. Grandma said that could only mean one thing.” She dropped her voice even more and whispered, “darkmagic.”
For vampires that reveled in blood, I was almost afraid to ask what would make Gina whisper. “What’sthat?”
“Dark magic requires the death of something to raise thepower.”
“An unwilling sacrifice,” Rik whispered, though with his rock troll’s graveledrumble.
“She prefers women,” Daire said. “Always has. But a queen needs a male alpha to sire a child. The more powerful the alpha, the better. So she always has plenty of alphas in her stable, so to speak, and she… uh… teststhem.”
“She tortures them,” Rik growled so deep and low that my cup rattled on thetable.
“Deep down, she hates men, I think,” Daire said softly, rubbing his head on Rik’s arm to soothe him. “She takes pleasure in hurting them under the guise of testing to find the best alpha to sire a child. When she finally did conceive, she coincidentally killed the alpha in theprocess.”
My mouth fell open. “She killedhim?”
“So theysay.”
“But she lost this child?How?”
“She had a daughter, yes,” Gina answered. “Tanza, I believe, though I’d have to check our records to be sure. The whispers started right away though that the child wasn’t…right.”
“She was gone before Rik and I came to court, and Skye cast a geas to keep anyone in her court from talking about her.” Daire said. “But they still whispered about her in hushed, general references. I don’t know how many of the stories were true, but if even half of the nightmares they told us actually happened, then I can only say it’s a blessing the childdied.”
“Grandma wrote that the child was possessed,” Gina admitted, still whispering, as if we were all afraid that Keisha would somehow sense that we were talking about her. “That she carried a demon in her. The queen went a little mad when she lost her child. To my knowledge, no one outside of Skye’s court knows exactly how she died,either.”
“She went a lot fucking mad,” Daire corrected. “She’s still unstable, to be honest, but supposedly better now than she was even fifty years ago. Though she’s still obsessed with conceiving anotherchild.”
