Page 26 of Queen Takes Checkmate
I closed my eyes and hung my head, letting despair overwhelm me for a moment. Of course. Her mother had seen what needed to be done from the beginning and had birthed Shara for this purpose. The mighty sun god would not die easily. Better that one of us died and allowed our queen to pick up the pieces afterwards and live happily the rest of her days, free of Ra’s dominion.
It would be me. That had to be why her mother spared me. So I could pay this price for her daughter.
:I will, gladly,:I whispered in my head, hoping my former queen would hear my acceptance.:I will love her as I did you, as long as I can. But then I will join you in the afterlife.:
:It’s not my choice to make.:My former queen whispered in my head, so faint as if thousands of years separated us. I strained toward her, trying to reach her one last time.:It’s not her choice. Only the goddess knows who will be called upon to die.:
I panted with effort, but as soon as I reached for where I thought she waited, the faint sense of her dissipated like fog. She was gone. Only a hint of her spirit remained, attached to her daughter, the last queen of Isador. The child she’d died to have.
The harsh flood of pain flowing through Shara’s bonds eased, allowing me to rock back on my heels. She still cried, but not as desperately, as if everything she loved in this world had crumbled away. “I need to bleed.”
“And you need to feed.” Rik’s voice rumbled to a bass register that rattled the floorboards. “Deeply. As deeply as you can hold.”
She sighed, relaxing into his arms. “I don’t want to deplete any of you too much.”
“Impossible.”
She held her wrist out toward the bear, who still had his face pressed to the mattress. “Ezra, let me check your health. I want to be sure we got all of Tanza’s taint out of you.”
He fisted his hands in the bedding and refused to lift his face. “I fucking failed you, my queen. It was my fault that Rik was trapped. Don’t waste a single fucking drop of your blood on healing me. Drain me dry. Use me to heal everyone else.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped with enough force that the bear flinched and lifted his face to hers. “You would cause me that much pain, just to soothe your own pride?”
Ezra lurched up enough to press his shaggy head against her stomach. “You would hurt if I died?”
She shuddered, clutching his head as desperately as he clamped his arms around her waist. “Without question. If any of you are called by the goddess…” Her voice broke and she squeezed him harder. “I would rather we all die than lose a single one of you.”
Rik leaned back and stretched out beneath her with a welcoming bump of his hips. “Let’s worry about taking care of you here and now, and leave tomorrow to the goddesses.”
Exhaling slowly, she allowed all the tension and stress to flow out of her. She even managed a small, secretive smile. The kind of smile that made every dick in the room go rock hard.
She slid backwards and lifted her hips to take Rik inside of her. Her head fell back, her hair teasing over the man’s thighs.
Need throbbed through me so viciously that I couldn’t completely smother the groan. I wanted her hair kissing my thighs. Her skin burning against mine. Her fangs. Her nails. Her blood.
“Yes, Llewellyn. Join us. I need to feed you most of all.”
Shara
I held Rik inside me, squeezing my inner muscles so tightly that he grunted softly. If only I could hold him so tightly in my arms and my magic and keep him safe. Keep them all safe.
Pressing my left wrist to Ezra’s mouth, I invited him to feed. His beard was damp with tears and his bond still weighed heavily in my mind. He blamed himself for what Rik had endured for us, but I couldn’t see how the showdown would have ended any other way. At some point, Keisha would have presented the same offer to me. Save her daughter to save my Blood, and Rik would have made the exact same choice.
:Without question.:
He didn’t move inside me but stroked his big palms over my thighs and hips, his fingers tracing my skin as if I was the most priceless object in the world.
Ezra sank his fangs into my skin ever so gently and I shuddered, unable to sit still with Rik’s cock so deeply inside me.
Llewellyn came closer on my right and knelt on the bed beside us. He made no move to touch me, but his eyes blazed with a maelstrom of red and gold flames. I offered my wrist to him, but he hesitated. “You’re weakened too, my queen. I don’t know that feeding two of us at the same time is a good idea. My thirst…” He licked his lips and dropped his gaze to my body. I could almost feel those flames in his eyes licking my skin. “I don’t know that I’ll be able to control it. Not after so long.”
“I’ll drink as I need to, but I feel fine right now. In fact—” I met Rik’s gaze and his eyebrows arched with interest. “I’d like to feed you all at the same time, or at least as many as possible. We’ve never done that before.”
I didn’t have to turn my head to note that all of my Blood now stood around the bed. Granted, it was big enough they couldn’t actually touch me, but close enough to respond between one heartbeat and the next.
“Before you get too distracted, I suggest you do whatever healing you think necessary first,” Rik said. “At the first sign of any weakness in you, I’ll offer my throat. When I fall, I expect the rest of you to feed her deeply and long until she’s done with you, or you pass out.”
“Understood, alpha,” they replied in unison.
