Page 72 of Queen Takes Rook
Not that I gave a fuck about any of them.
The cold chill of the grave filled me. I remembered going to Isis’s pyramid the first time, when she’d given me Her power. All Her powers, because I was Her last daughter. Keisha’s mind flickered like a candle almost blown out. Its wick burned to nothing. I felt the choice. I could release her. Let her live. I could pull her back from the grave, like I’d done for Rik before.
But I chose death. I chose retribution.
The goddess’s cold, hard smile confirmed Her acceptance of my choice.
30
Shara
Iraced down the darkened hallway to the room where Tanza held my alpha. He was still alive, but his body blazed like she’d tossed him in a pool of boiling acid. I could taste her blood in his mouth.
She’d forced her blood into him. Contaminated him. The same as Ezra.
I gripped Rik’s weakened, stretched bond in my mind and prayed I wasn’t too late.
Breathing hard, I stopped and made sure I found the edge of her blood circle. Now that I knew what to look for, I could feel the emptiness, the absence of warmth and life that marked the edge of her circle. If Ra was the god of light, which gave all things life, she was the opposite. The anti-life. The complete and utter blackness.
In some ways, we were very much the same. I had been conceived and born in absolute darkness. But the light of love still glowed within me.
She knew nothing but her hunger for pain.
He lay on the floor, his head in the child’s lap. It could have been sweet and innocent, if he wasn’t writhing with pain while she laughed, a sweet, high-pitched sound of pure enjoyment so evil that my stomach heaved. I almost vomited all of Keisha’s blood on the floor.
He turned his head and met my gaze. Black blood dribbled from his lips, but he still managed to smile.:Shara. You did it. My queen. So fucking proud.:
His voice came from a million miles away, but I could still hear him.
Closing my eyes, I sank into our bond. I didn’t dare force my will too fast and hard down the fragile bond tying us together, for fear it would dissolve into nothing. His pain washed over me. Stronger. I breathed through it, letting it flow through me. Tears trickled down my face. I shredded my lips, fighting the need to scream. He didn’t scream, so I wouldn’t, either.
I sank further into him. My rock, unshakeable. The low rumble of an earthquake. His extreme gentleness, utter loyalty, and selfless love. My alpha would lay down his life for mine in a heartbeat.
And I would pull him back from death’s door to keep him with me.
For all his strength and alpha will, he surrendered to me. He had from the first moment I’d met him. I remembered the gentle way he’d pressed his forehead to mine. His big hands so careful when he held me. A man of his size and strength could take anything he wanted from a woman, but he’d never do such a thing. My pleasure and enjoyment had been his number one priority from the first moment we met.
If that meant rolling over on his back and letting me have my wicked way with him, he’d be there for that, all night and all day, every day.
It was easy for him to let me in, all the way, without hesitation. He held nothing back. He opened up his heart, mind, and body to me. His soul brushed mine. I was inside him. I was him. I looked through his eyes and saw myself looking back.
Slowly, I rolled my head back to look up into Tanza’s face. Her eyes glittered like black mirrors. Her blood seeped through my body like poison. A dark bond that I could trace back to its source. Her blood circle flowed around us like a black hole sucking up all the light of the universe.
Rik’s eyelids fluttered. His body started to fail. But I didn’t need his eyes to see any longer. I gathered my will and focused on Tanza’s bond taking root inside him. I tapped my blood, both my period blood and the blood trickling down my chin. I focused it like a laser beam and pushed a searing hot flame through her bond.
I burned into Tanza. All my power, blasting into her with the heat of the earth’s molten core. Her eyes flared, flicking with flames. My flames, burning inside her. She opened her mouth and screeched, a sound meant to deafen and maim. Rik jerked and spasmed on her lap, his body already punished with that sound while I’d finished Keisha. I felt the echo of pain and thrashing in my body, but it was distant, removed from Rik. I was inside Rik. I was in the circle with him. And he was dying.
I stoked the flames inside her, pushing harder. The blood circle wavered, straining beneath the force of power I pumped through him into her. So much power. Enough to blast the earth into dust. To tear the universe apart.
Or implode a black hole.
The blood circle popped, and the floor lurched beneath us. I slammed back into my body. On my hands and knees. Bleeding. I crawled toward Rik. Tanza lay on her back, thrashing and screaming as my flames boiled inside her. But she wouldn’t fucking die.
My Blood raced ahead of me. Daire grabbed Rik’s arm in his jaws and dragged him away from Tanza. Itztli and Tlacel grabbed her legs, pinning her lower body. Nevarre and Xin grabbed her arms.
She wailed louder and bloody marks tore open on my Blood. A slash across Xin’s face. Deep, bleeding scratches on my black dog’s flank. Invisible whips that tore at their flesh. But they kept her pinned, waiting for me to reach them.
I wasn’t sure what to do. How did one kill a demon?
