Page 82 of Queen Takes Checkmate
He gleamed painfully bright. Gorgeously gold. His body was carved like the finest sculptures of the world. Perfect.
Yet he was rotten to the core and ruthlessly insane.
He might turn on anyone, even his High Priest, just because it amused him.
He leaned forward on his throne, puddles of gold pooling at his feet. He glared at my queen like the sun blasting a single snowflake that had been careless enough to fall on the brightest day of the year. “You. Smell. Like. Her.”
I loved my queen more than anything in this world, but even I was awed at the way she slowly inclined her head in a graceful move that belied the terror she must feel. The god was fully capable of rape and destruction. She’d known that, even before seeing him the flesh. If he touched her, he could melt the flesh off her bones with the heat of his golden form. How was she even supposed to survive his attentions?
Yet she showed no fear in the face of his immortal glory.
“I’m Shara Isador, last daughter of She Who is All that Hath Been and Is and Always Will Be.”
He threw his head back and laughed, showering droplets of gold up into the air that coated the sides of the pyramid in another layer of gold. “The last, huh? Then my desire has at last come to fruition.”
Shara waited for his mirth to quiet. Another few seconds for him to focus on her again. And then yet another deliberate pause to be sure she had his full attention. “I thought your desire was to sire your very own sun queen.”
He leaned back in his throne, sprawled carelessly in all his grandeur. Yet for all his casual positioning, his erection grew even larger. The tip started to whiten, as if thousands of years ago, Isis had touched that massive organ with the tip of Her finger and cursed him to always remember Her despite his roaring solar power. “I’d rather seeherline dead than sire a queen of my own.”
“As you will, my lord.” She lowered her head and said nothing else, but shifted subtly, her hand slipping gracefully down the front of her body, between her breasts, to rest low on her stomach where she’d carry a child. Drawing the god’s gaze to the darkness between her thighs. The blood that pooled between her thighs as surely as gold puddled at his feet.
“Why have you come to me?” His words sharpened, shards of glass to rip and tear at our senses. “Your kind know to fear me. Yet you allowed the Hummingbird fool to drag you here. Don’t tell me that was an accident. Surely, you aren’t that stupid.”
She kept her face down, her lustrous hair shining like black silk in the cruel light of day. “All queens are stupid. Isn’t that what you think? Where is Huitzilopochtli? What have you done with him?”
His eyes narrowed dangerously. “Why do you care?”
I knew she was deliberately tugging on his pride and ego by pretending to care about the other man, but it was like playing with matches on top of a mountain of explosives.
“If you have no interest in giving me a daughter, then perhaps he will do.”
He laughed again, but there was a darker thread running through his mirth that made the wolf’s hackles rise. “Oh yes, I remember having this conversation with another witch desperate to conceive.”
Shara didn’t lift her head but peeked up through the cascade of her hair. “I’m not desperate, my lord. I know what Keisha Skye did not.”
Ra didn’t immediately respond, but finally raised his hand and gave a careless twitch of his fingers. A molten lump of gold moved from against the sloping wall. My nose worked hard, trying to discern who or what it was, but I couldn’t smell anything beyond the metallic stench of gold. The lump seemed to stagger under its weight but finally came to stand near enough for Ra to lay his hand on it.
The gold dripped away, pouring off the shapeless lump to reveal Huitzilopochtli, his blue paint smeared and melted away. His body quaked beneath the god’s palm, but he locked his knees and stood firm despite the pain of being encased in molten gold.
“How could a lesser sun god give you a child?”
Shara blinked up at the mighty god, tilting her head quizzically. “He’s done it before. Surely he can sire another queen for me.”
34
Shara
Afresh wave of gold spilled down over Huitzilopochtli’s head, melting his face. He screamed, gurgling on liquid gold. I refused to react. I couldn’t. The game was too deep for me to show any regret or fear now.
When a queen played chess with the Lord of Sun, she couldn’t feel anything remotely like remorse. Or worse, pity.
For Ra would certainly never show pity to me.
Mentally, I counted the thousands of humans who’d been sacrificed to Huitzilopochtli. Innocents. Warriors. Women. Children. I couldn’t be sure.
The list was longer than I could imagine. Citla would have been on that list, if he hadn’t fallen in love with her. Mayte would never have been born. Neither would the princess of unicorns. House Zaniyah would have been decimated by him without regret.
Finally, he fell to his knees, and that seemed to satisfy Ra enough that he ceased the fresh flood of hot gold.
