Page 23 of Queen Takes Knights
“Is Shara with you? Is she all right?”
“I’m here,” I raised my voice to be sure it carried through the intercom. “Who are you?”
“Blessed be! Stay there, please, Your Majesty. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
Crap. I guess she knew a thing or two after all. “I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to anyone calling me that.”
Fifteen minutes. Guess that was long enough to face my fears. I looked at Daire and he immediately came closer and took my hand, helping me step off Alrik’s motorcycle. He kept my hand, and Alrik took my other. They knew without asking what I wanted to do.
I led them down to the shadowed dead-end cul-de-sac. Massive trees blocked the sun and the wind. Old wet leaves made a thick carpet on the concrete. But as we neared the end of the road, I could feel a spot that didn’t feel right. Old pain lingered here. Death.
I dragged my gaze to the trees, refusing to look down, afraid to see my mother’s murder play out again. The footpath through to the park was overgrown, but still there as I remembered. “We cut through there to get to the park, rather than walking down the street to the front entrance. Dad called it our secret gate. They killed him, right here, and then they killed Mom too.” I looked back up at the house. The iron fence wrapped around the back of the property.“Always use iron,”she’d said. I still remembered her sprinkling salt around the fence too, every single month.
My two men enfolded me between them. I breathed in their scents, soaked in their heat, rested on their strength. I felt their steady touch in my mind, our bond forged by blood and trust. While they held me, I stretched out my hand toward the spot where my parents had died, and let them see what had happened.
I pressed against the tiny, dirty basement window, desperate to see what was happening. My hands ached from pounding on the door, but the heavy oak hadn’t even cracked. I could bust out the glass… but the window was too small for me to get through. It was barely more than a peephole. But I saw everything.
Mom walked down the path from our backyard to the iron gate. Head high, shoulders back, she didn’t rush or tremble with fear, despite the shrieks and howls from the monsters waiting in the trees. A huge yard light illuminated the gate—our weak spot in our defenses. Dad had joked that we could get suntans at night if we sat under the light for too long. The monsters certainly didn’t like it.
“Bring her to me, my love, and I’ll let the human live.” Even safe in the house, the creature’s voice made goose bumps race down my arms. I shuddered, clutching my hands over my ears. His voice had an agonizing quality, like fingernails on a chalkboard.
Mom’s hand rose to the heavy lock and chain keeping the monster at bay, and I howled as loudly as the monsters, shouting at her to stay. She heard me, and even looked back at me. She mouthed something to me, but I couldn’t hear or understand what she said. Then she stepped outside the iron fence.
The monsters didn’t fall on her all at once. She stopped, still in the circle of light, and waited for him to come to her. I saw his long shining hair the color of moonlight and his blood-red eyes. Now that I knew what we were, it made sense that the monster struck at her throat. He was feeding from her. And she let him—because she knew him.
I blinked the vision away. “I never realized that she knew him. Why did he kill her? She let him feed.”
“He was Greyson Isador,” Alrik said softly.
“Her brother?”
He shook his head. “Her Blood. We take our queen’s house name. I don’t know what accommodations she made for her Blood when she left the nest, but he went rogue and became a thrall. I don’t think he meant to kill her at all. He was just desperate to feed from his queen, who unfortunately, was no longer queen and had no power to share.”
I looked up at him. “So you’re Alrik and Daire Isador now?”
“Yes.” Pride surged through the bond from both of them. Pride at belonging to me.
A silver sedan drove down the road and parked next to their motorcycles. Evidently it was time to meet Ms. Talbott. I don’t know why I was so nervous, but I had to scrub my sweaty palms on my jeans as we walked back. I reached for Alrik’s hand, but noticed something odd. Now that someone else was here, Daire walked in front of me, and Alrik walked slightly behind. He did take my hand, but stayed behind me, rather than walking alongside as he’d done before.
:Protection,:he murmured through the bond. :I have your back. Daire has your front. None shall threaten you, my queen. Not even your consiliarius, if that’s who she is.:
Ms. Talbott was an ageless, elegant beauty with gleaming ebony skin. I had no idea of her exact age, but she had the impact and weight of a mature woman used to kicking ass and taking names. She wore eggplant-colored trousers and a tweedy long jacket with a belt that made me think British, though I had no idea, really. She hadn’t sounded British on the phone. As we neared, she fucking curtsied, right there in the street, and kept her head bowed.
“Forgive me, Your Majesty. I failed you, and I failed your dear mother.”
“Please, don’t. It’s not your fault Mom was killed.” It made me uncomfortable to see her bowing like that, begging for forgiveness. I didn’t even know the woman. But I could tell through the bond that her apology made Alrik look more favorably on her. Maybe this was all for show, just to convince him that she could be trusted.
“But it is my fault that you were lost for so long.” Straightening, she looked at me, her eyes swimming with tears. “How have you survived?”
I shrugged, not willing to go into details with someone I didn’t know. “Luck, mostly.”
“I have a feeling it was quite a bit more than luck, Your Majesty. But let’s get you safely inside. I have much to share with you.” She unlocked the truck of her car. A white blanket embroidered with gold and silver covered something rectangular. She lifted the whole thing, leaving the blanket on, and offered it to me. “If one of the Blood can carry the legacy, I’ll open the gate and unlock the house.”
This was what all the fuss was about? Something small enough that she could easily lift it? The cloth-draped box was only two-foot long and only a foot or so deep. I gave a little mental signal to Daire and he took the item from her arms, holding it as reverently as if it was a newborn infant.
Ms. Talbott unlocked the gate and we walked up the sidewalk to the grand entry. “The estate has been kept exactly as your mother ordered, ready for the moment I could locate you. Water, electricity, everything is on and ready for your use. A housekeeper comes in once a week and keeps the refrigerator and pantry stocked.”
She pushed the heavy door open and stepped back, waiting for me to pass through. I stared up at the stained glass transom above the old oak door, remembering. I used to sit on the floor in the entryway, covered in prisms and drops of colored light from the window. I thought that window was magical, even though it was only bevels and colored bits of glass. I glanced down and a clean line of salt had been poured across the doorway. The same as Mom had taught me from the beginning.
