Page 44 of Queen Takes Rook
I felt Guillaume’s rage in our bond, but he remained silent and out of sight.
I smiled. “Yes, they do. But you already know that, because I’m sure you saw footage of the Christmas Eve Miracle in Venezuela.”
She lifted one shoulder in an elegant shrug. “So they say. It was probably faked footage anyway.”
I made my eyes wider and kept my voice light and almost childlike. “Oh? That’s odd. Because I have Leviathan right here.”
Her eyes tightened slightly. “You have Leviathan, king of the depths? In your Blood?”
Leviathan lifted his head, curled his long, sinuous neck around Rik, and put his muzzle against my thigh. He let out a rumbling hiss with a plume of smoke, his eyes blazing with hatred and malice.
Staring at him, her face smoothed to a blank, unmoving mask, without even a single wrinkle about her eyes. Such a perfect visage told me more than anything that she was concealing her true reaction. She didn’t have a tell, other than a perfectly blank response.
:Tell her that Clarissant Avalon tasted delightful,:Leviathan said in my mind.:One of her closest cronies, who had designs on bringing me to heel and making me her slave. I made her last a long time while I tried to break free of my prison.:
:Did you actually eat her?:
:Damn straight. She wasn’t strong enough to free me. None of them were.:
I’d known other queens had tried to free him and failed, but the reality of how close I’d come to dying… I made myself smile slightly at the other queen as I stroked his spiny head. “I’m afraid my king was very destructive before I managed to tame him. He says that he ate Clarissant Avalon and enjoyed her very much.”
Marne met my gaze and the tiniest glimmer of emotion flickered in her blue eyes, though it was gone before I could be sure what it meant. “A headless knight who’s killed more Blood and queens than any other living Aima. A murdering dragon. A warcat. Whatever your alpha is. Given his Hyrrokkin heritage, I’m guessing some kind of giant. You have a penchant for monsters, don’t you, dear?”
She meant to insult me, but I smiled widely and nodded. “Yes, I do. I can’t seem to help myself. They’re so…” I let my eyelashes flutter down over my eyes and I bit my lip enough to hint at the size of my fangs. “Sexy.”
“Then you and Keisha Skye may get along much better than I anticipated.”
:Give her some resting bitch face,:Rik suggested.:She insulted you. Greatly. There is no comparison between you and Skye.:
I met Marne’s gaze and leaned forward slightly, letting her see the way my face hardened. The promise in my eyes. “The thought of what she would have done to my alpha if he hadn’t come to me first makes me want to order Leviathan to crunch on every single bone in her body, one by one, while she screams—exactly as she’s tortured alphas for years.”
“Decades.” Marne smiled, one delicate brow arching in a subtle reply that said, “as if anyone cares.”“What’s the difference between you and her again?”
“I gleefully fuck my monsters. I don’t torture and kill them. What I’m going to do to Keisha Skye is called retribution. Here’s my fair warning to you and the Triune: I fully intend to exact justice on Keisha Skye.”
Marne let her head fall back on a trill of laughter. “You think that you, a half-human child of an outcast queen, is going to take on the most powerful queen in the Americas and deliver retribution?”
Stroking Daire’s fur, I waited for her laughter to subside. He rumbled louder and rolled over slightly, his tail tapping back and forth along my legs. Not to be outdone, Leviathan slithered closer. He hooked his front leg over my thigh and tugged on me, trying to open my thighs wider.
Despite his care, his claws pierced my skin. Blood trickled down my thigh, which Daire was all too happy to lap up, even though the dragon snarled at him.
Marne quieted as she took in our tableau. A dragon and a warcat fighting over my blood, which I let them have without a care. When she met my gaze again, I smiled, letting the rising heat shine in my eyes as my Blood tasted me. “What makes you think my father was human? Or that my mother was Selena Isador?”
:Now,:I told Daire.:Wipe the mirror clean.:
He whipped around and lunged at the mirror, and yeah, the way she jumped back, even though he couldn’t touch her, amused me to no end. With a quick swipe of his tongue, my blood was wiped from the mirror and the clouded surface cleared to reveal my face.
“Well, fuck,” Guillaume said mildly, his blue eyes dancing with amusement. “You just kicked the lantern over in a barn full of last year’s hay.”
Closing my eyes, I lounged back in Rik’s arms and opened my thighs. :Shift back first,:I told the guys. “That was my plan. Let’s see if it works.”
18
Rik
At long last, we were able to give our queen the restorative rest that she needed so badly. As the days passed, we kept everything quiet, easy, and as low-key as possible. She slept for hours at a time, only to wake up, enjoy a good fuck and a deep feeding with whoever was in her bed, and go right back to sleep while Mehen droned on and on in French. We brought every imaginable food to her so she could feast without even getting up. As when we were in Kansas City, we had picnics in her massive bed, only instead of takeout pizzas, we devoured aged cheeses, delicate fruits from all over the world, the finest wines, fresh bread, antipasto platters, muffins, cakes, bagels…
Nevarre even made her Scottish scones with clotted cream, which she loved so much her eyes rolled back in her head and she came. Though Daire was busy between her thighs at the same time.
