Page 12 of Queen Takes Knights
Alrik swept me up against him and took me down to my bed. Startling hot skin pressed against mine and I wanted to stretch out between them and just soak them in, front to back. My skin felt starved for contact, as if it’d withered and died for this, never knowing this was exactly what I needed so desperately.
I forced my eyes open and lifted my head enough to see Daire. I drank in the powerful lines of his body. He wasn’t as bulky and ripped as Alrik, his muscles more sleek and lithe yet still promising danger and strength. He shucked his pants and then planted a knee on the mattress to join us. The bed frame creaked and he shot a worried look at Alrik. “This rickety bed might not hold us all.”
Alrik brushed his mouth against mine, drawing my attention to him, even as Daire kissed my calf. “We must provide our queen with a better, hardier bed.”
I tried to picture a dozen men like him all standing around, either watching or joining or… I had no idea, not really. But it made my mouth quirk against his. “Big enough for a dozen Blood?”
“Yes, if that’s what you want.”
Daire made a slow path up my legs, lingering on my knees, his fingers gliding up and down my calves, massaging my muscles. Rubbing the arches of my feet. Then back up above my knee, loosening my quadriceps. The strength in his hands made me melt with pleasure. Years of fighting, running, struggling to survive relaxed inch by inch as he made his way up my body.
“Let us take care of you,” Alrik whispered against my mouth. His fingers trailed across my collarbone and down my arm, bringing my skin to life. “Let us love you.”
I think he meant make lovetoyou, not love you, but right now, luxuriating in their gentle, slow touch, it felt one and the same to me.
Their hands. Their mouths. So soft and tender and gentle. They didn’t rush or push me along, but lingered on every hollow as if determined to taste and stroke every inch of me from the curve of my ear to the smallest toe and find the spots that pleased me the most.
When Daire finally stroked his tongue across my pussy delicately, it made me shudder with need. I opened my legs more, pulling my knees up to open for him as much as possible. He nibbled with his lips, gently sucking on my folds. His tongue traced around my clit, sending ripples through my body. Pressure built and I could almost feel their blood rushing inside me, a hot bubbling pool of lava. I pushed up against his mouth, asking for more, and he obliged, flattening his tongue more firmly against me. Alrik sucked my nipple into the heat of his mouth, while he gently pinched the other, and suddenly the dam inside me broke. I quivered beneath them, trying not to cry out too loudly for the hotel rooms were paper thin. My mouth throbbed again and I ran my tongue around the roof of my mouth, but no fangs. Just a rising hunger.
:Again?:Daire asked, though whether he meant the question for me or for Alrik I wasn’t sure. That single word vibrated with tension, raw with desperate hunger. He still touched me gently, slowly, though his own need pounded like a jackhammer in his skull. Need for my body. Need for my blood. I wasn’t sure which he wanted the most.
I tightened my arm around Alrik’s neck and felt for his emotions. He was more closed and contained, like a warrior who’d locked his emotions down deeply during a time of war. But he must have felt me reaching for him mentally as well as physically. He threw open that door, welcoming me in. His emotions poured through me: vicious hunger, pounding need, the same as Daire. But also protectiveness. Like a sworn knight of old, he had a stoic, almost fatalistic determination to stand guard at the door. I felt years of history and waiting in those emotions. He’d been waiting for this, waiting for me, his entire life. An agony of waiting, so many years I couldn’t begin to count them. Watching others have love, watching others have their queen, sharing her blood, confidence, and trust, while he had none. For him, it was more than blood and sex. He wanted to be theone. The one to trust, the one to lead, my closest confidante, the one I needed the most.
I ran my hand down the planes of his back and looked into his eyes. “I need you.”
He quivered against me. “Then you shall have me.”
Daire didn’t need an order to back up and let Alrik slide between my thighs. I was afraid for a moment that I’d upset him, made him jealous, and he’d leave, but he came up beside us, basically taking Alrik’s place at my side so I could kiss and touch them both. Alrik was so big, so heavy, so strong. I thought I might panic. Maybe I should have, given my lack of experience. But his manner was so controlled, entirely focused on me and my pleasure, that I wasn’t afraid. Even though I knew how much he wanted me, he didn’t rush or force his way into my body. He stroked his dick against me, letting me feel his size, but using that size purely to make me feel good. And it did—he rubbed himself on my clit, a back and forth glide that made me arch beneath him, begging for more. Only then did he slowly ease inside me.
I’d always thought it would hurt, but with Daire kissing me, and Alrik moving so slowly, I didn’t feel pain at all. Maybe a bit of a burn, some pressure, but it only added to the need building inside me. It felt like it took an eternity for him to slide all the way inside me, for him to lower his body down on his elbows above me. He didn’t thrust at all, not yet. He just looked at me, and a faint shudder rocked his body. As if he couldn’t believe he was here with me, either.
Daire stroked my cheek, turning my attention to him. “My queen, I will leave you now, but only to stand guard over you while you’re both at risk. On my very life, no thrall will get past my blades tonight while you take your first Blood.”
“You can’t both drink from me at the same time?”
He made a low, vicious sound beneath his breath that made my inner muscles clench hard enough on Alrik that he grunted and shifted inside me. “Not until you have other Blood to stand guard over us, or you have a nest established that we know is safe. The master thrall is still out there to the north.”
I’d forgotten about the watcher on the hill. The monster who’d taken my mother from me. I didn’t want to feel that evil taint in my mind, the tendrils of fear that always crawled through my head when I felt that stain in the night. Especially this night.
Just thinking about that monster was enough for my subconscious to pinpoint where he was, even though I had terrible direction sense. I had no idea where “north” was, but I could feel the taint off to my left. I pushed that thought away, determined to ignore him. I threaded my fingers in Alrik’s hair and focused on him.
Only then did he grind deeper against me, slowly at first, testing my tolerance. My response. His big hand slid down my hip, shifting me slightly, tipping me up against him. My breath caught in my throat. That pressure sent a throb through my core. My inner muscles clenched on that hard dick inside me and I couldn’t help but shudder.
He made a low, hungry noise and slowly pulled out of me. Stars above, so slowly, I swear he felt a mile long. I grabbed at his back, trying to pull him closer, to stop that inexorably torturous glide. Just as slowly, he pushed back in to the hilt, pausing to grind his pelvis against my clit.
My heart felt like it was going to explode out of my chest. I couldn’t stop tugging on him, clawing at his back, his hair, trying to pull him down to me. His mouth. I wanted his mouth. On my skin, my throat, and then it dawned on me.
I wanted his teeth.
“Please,” I whispered against his lips.
His gentle control cracked. A sliver at first, with a harder, quicker thrust. Again. It was natural to arch my back, my throat, turning my head aside in invitation. He slid his palm around my nape, supporting my head, and sank his fangs into me. I gasped, shocked at the sudden white flash of pain, riding the line of pleasure that hurt so good it was almost agony. He was inside me, dick and teeth and blood. And now my blood was inside him.
He growled out a deep, vicious cry against my throat, his body plunging harder. I could feel climax building again, but this wasn’t going to be gentle, swirling pleasure, but an earthquake of clenching muscle and straining flesh. I convulsed, everything inside me detonating with the force of a nuclear explosion. I forgot about trying to keep quiet so I didn’t disturb the handful of guests. I even forgot about the watcher. Alrik’s shoulders heaved beneath my hands, his muscles straining. I felt his climax, a flood of warmth at my core. But the pressure filling me didn’t end. It was like a black hurricane filled me, swirling waters that continued to fill me, rushing in from all directions. I saw Daire, standing to my right, his eyes glowing oddly. Like the gleam of a large animal caught watching from the woods. But then even he was gone.
Shadowed winds swirled inside me, spiraling higher. I could taste Alrik’s blood on my tongue again, the memory of that rich, warm blood in my mouth. I smelled sand, dry, baked earth heated for centuries by merciless suns.
“Shara.”
