Page 3 of Queen Takes Queen
In my mind, I fled to an abandoned temple at the top of the mountain near my birthplace, wrapped in fog and lost in time. I went there as a child, my safe and secret place that no one knew of but me. I ran up the treacherous slopes, my lungs burning, thighs aching, and pushed open the tattered woven mat that served as adoor.
And found Shara lying on silken cushions, pulling me to her like a ceaselesstide.
“I want your emotion,” she whispered against my mouth. Licking my lips. Demanding I give her the blood she must have smelled, even though I carefully kept any from dripping on her. “I want you open to me. Not locked away, lost in silent fog. I want you here, eye to eye, even if it’s raw and ugly. Share your mind and heart withme.”
“I cannot,” I whispered, my voice breaking with the overwhelming failure. I would give her anything. My life. My blood. But I couldn’t give her my emotions. I didn’t know how. And even if I did figure out how to unlock that door aftercenturies…
I feared it would leave me broken. Unusable. Could her best blade serve as a killer if I became crippled withemotion?
I couldn’t think. Not with her muscles tightening on my dick. Her mouth on mine, teasing my lips apart so she could taste myblood.
“Show me,” she whispered, her words a caress that my starved body soaked up like a sponge. “Show me everything. I want it. I need it. I want to know you, Xin. I want toseeyou. All ofyou.”
Seeme.
See me huddled in the corner of my hiding place, hugging my knees to my chest with arms too scrawny, legs like sticks, my back a mass of welts. I learned early not to cry or protest or react in any way. A Blood never asked for mercy or complained at cruelty, and I was born to be Blood. While human children would have been learning to read and write, I killed my first thrall. When other human boys my age would have been thinking about girls, I was tested by the best and most powerful alphas within a week’s ride of my homecourt.
They’d sniffed me. Bit me. Tasted my blood. Watched me fight against the other potential Bloodcandidates.
But Wu Tien’s alpha woke me in the dead of night and took me through the court to stand outside a darkhouse.
“A threat to my queen sleeps within. She wants this threat dead but no one must see or hear you. If you’re successful, she’ll call you asBlood.”
Most people probably would have asked how many were inside and which one was the target. Which one I shouldkill.
But notme.
The alpha had chosen his words carefully. If no one must see or hearme…
They would not live to tell thetale.
I had done my duty. Beautifully quick, silent and deadly. Though I had cried without sound when I killed the youngest. A girl, younger than me. Her eyes had opened a moment before my steel bit into her throat, pupils flaring with terror though she didn’t cry out. I had felt something in her. Something that called to what I wasbecoming.
A fledgling queen. Calling a fledgling Blood. Callingme.
I had always wondered what would have become of me if I’d refused Wu Tien’s order that night. If I had answered the still, quiet call I felt in that child. Before I slit her throat as my new queen ordered. Though I killed many queens through the centuries, I never felt that callagain.
Until Shara Isador pulled me to her side in Kansas City, Missouri only days ago. Would I have killed her on Wu Tien’s command? Would I have been able to look down at her sleeping beside Rik and slit herthroat?
My gift would have made it possible. Rik would never have seen me. While his queen died in his arms.Ourqueen.Mine.
Her eyes swam with tears. “How many did you kill thatnight?”
Ice spread through my veins, freezing my marrow, slowing my heartbeat to a ponderous, uneven gait. I couldn’t have moved a finger to defend her or myself. “Five. The target was Wu Tien’s eight-year-old niece who would be queen oneday.”
“How old wereyou?”
“Twelve.”
Her eyes flared, her emotions slicing me like the knight’s deadly blades. Surprise. Horror. Shock. “You killed at twelve yearsold?”
“No. I killed much earlier. But I was Blooded that very night. All the Wu queens took Blood early in life. It made us easier to train how best toserve.”
“My father was killed when I was six years old. If I had the knowledge of how to kill the monsters, I would have slaughtered them all that night. Withouthesitation.”
Ice spread through my body, brutal cold that cut through my lungs and encased my heart. It didn’t matter. I didn’t need to breathe. “If I had known of your need, I would have killed them for you. Your parents would still be here with youtoday.”
“I have a need now,” she whispered against mylips.
