Page 38 of Queen Takes Checkmate
“Or our queen has drained us to unconsciousness,” another said.
“Or both,” one man said with a deep, rumbling purr in his voice.
No wonder the air in here was thick with the scent of sex and musk. Yet she’d still called me. A female Blood with a terrible curse that made me Ra’s most prized assassin.
Her cheeks turned a soft, delicate pink. “I called you because I need more blood. My thirst hasn’t been quenched tonight despite their best efforts.”
“I should take this new Blood outside and pound her into a bloody smear on the asphalt for what she did to you.” The alpha’s voice rumbled with fury. “The risk, Shara. We can’t lose you.”
The other woman sat heavily beside us on the mattress. She wore an old-fashioned long, white nightgown and cap. Breathing hard, she fanned her face and swayed like she was going to pass out. “I told you, Shara. I need to be close. If I’d been here, I could have told you the probabilities that you’d die if you attempted to take this Blood were beyond scary.”
Shara huffed out a laugh. “Then I’m glad you weren’t here to tell me how bad the odds were. I had no choice. Isis sent her.” Tightening her thighs around me, she gave me a sultry look of invitation. “I sprang Ra’s trap. Now I’m going to use his own weapon against him.”
Shara
My intestines felt like they’d been scorched with a blowtorch, but for her, it was worth it.
Her hair flowed down around us like a silk curtain, fragrant and almost hot to the touch, a testament to the flames burning inside her. Rik’s bond still raged like an angry forge. He wouldn’t soon forget how quickly her gift had become deadly. Her memory of charred queens flickered through my mind, but I firmly pushed them away. She had enough of my blood, now, that I could feel her sincerity. Her horror. She hadn’t been a willing party to the death of those queens.
“Why don’t you take off your weapons, at least.”
Her eyes widened but she hastened to obey, scrambling up on her knees between my thighs. I knew the picture I made for her, because I could see myself reflected in her mind. My eyes blazed with hunger, and not just for her blood. My skin gleamed like burnished metal, still lit from within by her fires that were now mine to call. They mingled with my own gift, creating a viciously combustible mix of liquid hellfire.
My fangs had receded a bit, but they were still long enough that I couldn’t shut my mouth fully. I ran my tongue over my lips, searching for any lingering blood.
Her gaze dropped down to my breasts, my stomach, and then my pussy, where she sucked in a hard breath. “Goddess! You’re fuckingbreeding? Does Ra know?”
“I hope to fuck he doesn’t,” Rik muttered darkly. “He won’t, unless you’ve warned him somehow.”
“I haven’t spoken to my sire in hundreds of years. Like I said before—”
“Fuck Ra,” Daire called from the other side of the room.
“Yeah. But shit. I mean, my queen, surely you realize how rare this is.”
I wasn’t prepared for her to slide one of the swords out of its sheath. She pointed the slim, curved blade at Rik’s throat. “You’re the biggest fucking moron of an alpha to ever answer a queen’s call, and one lucky motherfucker that she’s still alive. No nest. Out in the open in fucking New York City. Are you mad?”
I started to sit up to settle her down, but Rik gave me a smoldering look. “I’ve got this, my queen.” Then he focused on the newcomer. “I applaud your determination to protect our queen, but you’ll soon figure out that Shara fucking Isador does as she wishes. If I tried to stop her from completing her goddess’s will, she’d blast me into kingdom come, and rightfully so. No Blood commands his queen, not even her alpha. Certainly not you.”
Vivian tightened her grip on the sword, eyes narrowed. The way she held herself, and her confidence in facing off against probably the biggest and strongest Blood she’d ever seen in her life, told me she had to be very skilled with her swords. She truly thought she could beat him, or at least prove her point.
Rik laughed. “Go ahead, Red. I hope you don’t like that pretty sword much, because I’ll take it from you and break it in half like a twig. Or better yet, I’ll sit here, not lift a finger, and watch you shatter it into a thousand pieces on my rock troll’s hide.”
He shifted just enough to give her a glimpse of the massive stone gift he carried.
Grudgingly, she lowered the sword. “Like I’ve never heard that before. At least come up with a better nickname for me than the color of my hair.”
He scooted a bit further away toward the middle of my huge bed, leaving plenty of room for me and the new Blood. “If you don’t hurry up and satisfy our queen’s hunger,Smoak, I’ll take care of her myself.”
Vivian leaped into action, quickly unbuckling her harness and tossing her weapons off the side of the bed.
“This is my cue to leave,” Carys said as she pushed up her to feet. “For goddess’s sake, try not to get into any more trouble tonight, my queen.”
I grinned at her. “I’m not making any promises.”
Vivian pulled the chain-mail vest over her head and tossed it over her shoulder. It landed with a soft tinkling like chimes on the floor. Her hands stilled on the tight-fitting jacket’s zipper. “Did you want me to take everything off? Or just the weapons?”
I looked up at her, listening to her bond. She still didn’t quite believe that I’d truly called her. After centuries, she was finally Blood to a queen who fully intended to embrace all that could mean.
