Page 55 of Queen Takes Checkmate
I closed my eyes a moment to be sure. The deep, red glow of my blood circle pulsed around the building, even up this high. Quirking my lips, I opened my eyes. “I laid a blood circle around Isador Tower.”
Carys gasped. “No. That’s not possible.”
Gwen closed her eyes, and I felt her white light brush my power humming around the building. “She did. Goddess. I didn’t know that was possible.”
Rik stroked my cheek, his bond rumbling with worry. “You’re hemorrhaging, my queen.”
I didn’t have to sit up and look to know a huge pool of blood was spreading around me. Grimacing, I rested back into his hands. “Brace yourselves.”
I took a deep breath and released it, slowly, mentally preparing myself. Then I called my blood to me.
Super-charged period blood slammed into me, making me convulse. I felt the surge of release in each of my Blood, driven to climax by the feel of my blood sliding back into my power grid. All their pleasure simmered inside me, mixing and flowing with energy until my head wanted to float away.
I must have faded into la la land for a while. I opened my eyes and Rik was carrying me.
“Get the car ready,” he ordered.
My eyes were heavy and sleep sang a sweet lullaby to me, but I wasn’t wiped out like before. Tired, yes. Exhausted into a coma, no. Just high on pleasure and blood. The thought made me giggle. I had to concentrate fiercely to speak out loud. “Gina.”
She stepped closer, her brow creased with concern as she looked down at me. “Yes, my queen?”
“Two. Things.” I had to rest a moment, gathering my will. It was so hard to concentrate when I just wanted to drift away on piles of hard, sweaty muscle. “Ask Frank. Legacy.”
Her eyebrows arched. “You want me to ask Frank to bring the legacy from your nest?”
I nodded jerkily, my head way too heavy to manage it gracefully. “I need it.”
“At once, my queen. What else?”
I tugged on Vivian’s bond. She stepped closer and touched my arm, her palm scalding hot on my skin.:Tell her where we need to go to find Heliopolis.:
Vivian gasped. “She says we need to go to Heliopolis. Surely you want to wait as long as possible, my queen? It’s not a place that you can simply walk into and take what you want.”
I might be bone tired and high on my Blood’s pleasure, but my voice echoed with steel. “Indeed I will.”
“Where?” Gina whispered, her voice shaking.
“Egypt, of course,” Vivian breathed out. “Cairo. I can open the gateway there.”
“When, Shara?”
I took a deep breath, trying to oxygenate my brain enough for clock math. I needed to rest. I needed to feed deeply. Frank needed time to fly here, though Gina probably already had him on a plane headed this way. And I had one important ritual to complete. I could only hope to find the clues I needed in the Isador grimoire. “Forty-eight hours, give or take.”
“So soon,” Rik said, his tone heavy with concern. He wasn’t questioning me, not exactly. Just… worried.
“I must strike before he does.”
He nodded, but his bond still weighed like tons of granite in my head. “What else, my queen?”
My eyelids fluttered, my words slurring. Hopefully they understood. “I need. To wake. Huitzilopochtli.”
20
Rik
My queen slept on top of me like I was the most comfortable, airy mattress, rather than granite boulders. I kept a steady awareness on her bond, even though she slept deeply.
Those few moments where her bond had gone silent were the worst of my life. Worse than when she’d stepped into the Zaniyah nest and battled Keisha Skye’s geas, while I was forced to stand outside. She’d at least had her other Blood with her, then. She’d had bonds to call upon.
