Page 5 of Queen Takes Rook
Gasping, I raised my head, hoping that if I stopped tasting her blood that the pleasure would crest and ebb a bit. Her head lolled on the pillow, her eyes heavy and dazed, but I hadn’t taken enough to make her pass out. Rik flexed against me, nudging a little deeper, and my back bowed, my head falling back helplessly like Mayte’s.
Something surged inside me. Something large.
Bones cracked inside me.
Rik paused, his hands tensing on my hips. “Shara…”
But I didn’t want him to stop. I pushed back onto my knees, leaning into him, and he automatically wrapped his arms around me.
Giving me something to bite.
I sank my fangs into his forearm, and he heaved up into me, lifting my knees off the mattress. Climax shook his big body as he emptied into me. I could feel the hot flood of his semen filling me, dripping down my thighs. A growl trickled through my lips.
I don’t think I’d ever made that sound before. It almost sounded…
Mayte stretched out her hand toward me, calling something inside of me.
Two eyes glowed like lamps in the darkness of my mind.
She cupped my head in both her hands and pulled me down toward her, her thighs slipping around me. “Yes, my beast. Come to my call. Let me give our queen this gift.”
Power surged upward like a geyser, pulling the dark, massive shape through me, shifting bones out of its way. My skin slipped away to something else with fur. And feathers. And claws.
Afraid I’d accidentally hurt her, I tried to move away, but she held my head in her hands. Her power sang to mine, and the goddess’s gifts inside me reveled in that call.
I stared down at her and saw through new eyes. Eyes that could trace the smallest capillary beneath her skin. My heart pounded frantically. I didn’t want to kill her like I’d killed Rik, when I’d shifted into the cobra queen.
But I didn’t feel that same detachment this time. Even though I’d been dreaming when I hurt Rik, I still remembered the horrible realization that I was hurting him… and I hadn’t cared. This form didn’t have that same emotionless detachment. I still felt very much like myself, aware and wholly present in whatever creature I’d shifted into. Something large. The bed frame creaked beneath our combined weight. I was afraid to move, for fear I’d turn it into kindling. Another bed destroyed, like the one when Rik had made love to me in that very first time.
I laughed, but it wasn’t a human sound. It came out of my throat more like a coughing growl.
“Oh,” Mayte whispered, her eyes shining with excitement and pleasure. “You’re beautiful, Shara. Look what our goddesses have given you.”
Something fluttered in my peripheral vision. I turned my head and couldn’t comprehend what I saw. Wings? But I didn’t feel like a bird or even the wyvern.
She called jaguars.
Jaguars didn’t have wings.
:What am I?:I asked them both.
“I don’t think you have a specific name,” Rik said, his voice soft with reverence. “You’re a winged cat. More specifically, a black jaguar with blue-black wings.” He stroked his hand down my rear haunch, his fingers pushing deep into my fur.
Fuckingfur. Every single hair quivered with the sensation of his fingers gliding through them.
Mayte stroked her fingers over my jaws, despite the sharp teeth I felt against my tongue. “Your head looks more lion to me, almost like the sphinx.”
I loved that they both touched me without fear or hesitation. I didn’t think she’d be looking at me with that soft light in her eyes if I’d shifted into the cobra again. Though Rik hadn’t scrambled out of the bed when I’d unknowingly shifted into a massive snake.
“I think you’re a hybrid,” she continued. “Lion and jaguar. Jaglioness, maybe? You have the jaguar rosettes, but the shape of your head is definitely lioness. And these wings… Some kind of eagle, maybe?”
I couldn’t even find the words. Why now? Why this shape?
“Do you remember the shapes on the jars in the legacy?” Rik asked. “Wasn’t one of them a cat head?”
Yeah, I was pretty sure one had been some kind of cat, and another a cobra. If I’d had human skin, goosebumps would have raced down my arms. I’d needed the cobra to save Mehen. What would I need this shape to accomplish? More, what if I’d sent Mayte back to her own bed? Would I have still been able to shift to this winged cat form? Or was it a gift that only fully materialized when I took advantage of the chance to make love to her?
My head ached, even if I had fuzzy ears.
