Page 56 of Queen Takes Checkmate
This time, she’d had no one. And for one long, desperate moment, I’d feared that she might not let us all back in.
I couldn’t blame her for wanting some peace and quiet in her head after taking so many siblings at once. Most queen siblings were added over generations, but in the span of twenty-four hours, Shara had taken nine.
Ten queens had sworn their lives to her. Gina said that accounted for nearly seven hundred former Skye siblings.
No wonder Shara had been able to lay a blood circle without tracing out its pattern. She’d already been formidable. Now, she had to be nearly unstoppable. Though that didn’t mean I relished this trip to Heliopolis. At all.
Just thinking about it made me send a hard glare at Vivian through the bond. It wasn’t her fault that our queen had decided to act sooner than later. Shara Isador would never stand aside and wait for someone else to help or protect another. That was only one of many reasons that I loved her.
Yet I still feared for her too. And I’d be a selfish asshole if I didn’t admit that I was terrified I might be the one called to sacrifice his life for the red serpent.
I would do it. I wouldn’t waver in my love and duty for my queen. Though I might wish such a terrible duty would fall to another, it was truly the alpha’s place to make such a sacrifice for his queen.
She lifted her head, her eyes glittering dangerously. “Don’t even think about it.”
I kept my body easy and relaxed beneath hers, even though I wanted to clutch her desperately to my heart and beg her not to risk her life for any of us. “The goddess will choose. It’s out of your hands.”
Her head tipped slightly, her eyes taking on a knowing, all-powerful look of a goddess who couldn’t be stopped. Surely very much like Isis must have looked while roaming ancient Egypt. Though She’d been searching for Osiris’s chopped-up body so She could resurrect him. “We’ll see.”
“What does that mean? You can’t go against a goddess, my queen. Not even you.”
One corner of her lips quirked briefly. “I know. But I feel a plan coming together. I don’t know the details yet, but it’s… building. The pieces are on the table in my mind and I’m sorting them. I’m constantly rearranging them. I almost see the picture.”
I cupped her cheek and she rubbed her face deeper into the caress, making my heart crumble into a thousand pieces. “We’re your pieces on the board, my queen. Move us to the position you need to ensure your victory.”
She leaned down and brushed her lips against mine. “Checkmate.”
“Yes,” I breathed out, relishing every touch of her skin against mine. Goddess forbid that my days be numbered. That I might lose this. My queen, in my arms, looking at me like I was the northern star to guide the way, when she shone like the full moon and blotted out even the brightest star.
“I’m surprised you’re not trying to talk me out of going to Heliopolis.”
I huffed out a low growl, vibrating my chest against the softness of her breasts. “As if that would do me an ounce of good. My queen will do as she wishes. So it’s been since the beginning.”
“I can’t stand by and wait, not when I know he’s torturing women. I can’t.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to.”
She sighed, rubbing her cheek against my palm. “It’s selfish of me. I don’t want to hurt any of you. But sometimes, I miss the first days when you and Daire found me. When I didn’t know about Ra and the Triune. When I didn’t have so many people depending on me to make a plan and keep us all alive. The hardest thing I had to worry about was staying one step ahead of the thralls and wondering what kind of crap I’d have to clean up.”
“That’s not selfishness. I wish you could have the simpler life without danger.” I glared at her, letting another growl rumble my chest. “Though my queen doesn’t clean a fucking thing.”
“I want that again. Just for tonight. I want it to be you and me and Daire, like it was in the beginning. In case…”
She couldn’t finish that sentence, because I sealed my mouth over hers. I swallowed her words, as if I could erase her fears with a kiss. I didn’t want her to be hurt or sad or grieve for any of us. Though I knew that was inevitable. The goddess had decreed it so.
Jerking her mouth free, she glared down at me. “Nothing is inevitable.”
She sat up, straddling my hips. My cock was always at half-staff around her, and rock-hard every moment of the day or night when she was bleeding. But she didn’t take me inside her. “I love you all, but tonight, I need to keep it simple. Everybody out except Daire.”
“Lucky bastard,” Ezra grumbled as he walked past, but everyone else did as she ordered without a word of complaint.
Daire rose to his knees, his palms loose on his thighs. He stared at Shara, and though I couldn’t see his eyes, I felt his emotion in our bond. Aching need. Tremulous and open and so damned needy. He wanted her to fuck him, sure. But more, he wanted her to lay claim to him. Take him. Use him. Make him hers for all time.
Yet our queen was always so careful to be sure of our wants and desires before she took us. She threaded her fingers in his hair. “What do you want?”
His purr dropped another octave, a rumbling bass that made my balls ache even more. “I want to feel those silver tips buried as deeply in me as Rik will be in you. I want you to hurt me, Shara. Hurt me until I forget that one of us is going to die.”
She jerked his head back hard, twisting her hand deeper in his hair. Her voice quivered with fury. “No one’s going to die. Not one of us.”
