Page 4 of Queen Takes Knights
Holding my gaze, Alrik took another step closer, ignoring the salt that had kept the monsters out. That put him close enough to touch. “I only thought to be polite.”
I don’t know why I did it. I’ve never been comfortable touching people. I don’t hug. I’ve never had sex. Never felt any kind of attraction to anyone to even try. But I reached out and dragged my index finger through the blood on his side. Even though I had an open knife in my hand, he didn’t back away.
His blood was hot, tingling on my skin. The insane urge to step closer and press my mouth to that wound came over me and I shuddered, involuntarily taking a step back.
But he snagged my elbow, gently tugging me back to him.
“Take what you want from me, my queen.”
I should have jabbed the pocketknife up into his ribs, but the simple touch of his fingers on my elbow stalled my brain. It was like my entire system overloaded in a flash and broke down. Shock, I told myself, but I wasn’t cold or shivering or sweating or even scared. Not any longer. He cupped the back of my head, his fingers tangling in my hair, and my fight or flight instincts still didn’t kick in. That, more than anything, scared me. I’d always been able to count on my instincts to keep me alive.
“If you feed her for the first time here, you might not be able to stop.” The other man spoke for the first time, and I could hear the amusement in his voice.
I pulled back, and Alrik let me go, though he did make a low sound that almost sounded like a groan. Surely a huge tough guy like him wouldn’t make a sound like that.
I glanced at the other man and the smirk on his face told me I hadn’t been mistaken.
“Who are you again?” My voice rang with confusion, accusation, a thousand questions I didn’t even know how to voice.
“Alrik and Daire,” the one with the smirk said. “Your Blood, if you’ll take us. You can think of us as… knights. Though we don’t wear shining armor.”
Slightly different wording, take versus have. The way he said it, he’d meant it as a playful dare. So his name fit his personality perfectly. He stepped closer, ignoring my line of salt too. His fingers closed around my makeshift nail club and gently took it from me. He examined it in the light and whistled softly.
“Crude, but effective. Well done, my queen.”
My knife was next. He arched a brow at me, as if to say surely I could do better, but then he wiped it clean on his pants and offered the closed pocketknife back to me.
As I slipped it back into my pocket, I had to admit, I wanted a pair of those hand blades he used, though I wasn’t sure how I’d get through security with those in my pack. “Why do you call me that? I have no idea what’s going on here.”
“Give us your name and we’ll call you that instead of queen, if you like.”
I couldn’t see any harm in giving these strangers my name. They had helped me, after all. “Shara.”
“And your family?”
They both stared at me intently, a strange urgency growing in their eyes. Why would they need to know my last name? “My father’s name—”
“No,” Alrik broke in. “Your mother’s.”
“Selena.” I didn’t immediately offer her last name. Mom had told me it was a secret. That it wasn’t safe. I should always use Dad’s surname, Dalton, even though she hadn’t married him. Her surname was her last gift to me. I didn’t know how, I just knew, now, that my life depended on giving them that same gift. “Isador.”
If anything, their intensity ratcheted up another notch, though I had no idea why. I hated not knowing what was going on. Why my name might be important, or why these two strangers might recognize my mother’s name.
The one with the smirk pressed the pad of his thumb to one of the rusty old nails on my club. His blood welled, and as before, I found myself unable to look away. He slowly lifted his bleeding thumb toward my face, giving me every opportunity to flinch away. Flee. Stab him with my knife. But I stood there, shaking, fighting my own urge.
I wanted to launch myself against the big one and lick his wound. And then turn and suck the blood from his friend’s thumb.
What the hell is wrong with me?
Daire smoothed his bleeding thumb across my bottom lip.
Fire exploded on me. At least that’s what it felt like. Flames licking my skin, a poisonous, addictive drug suddenly hitting my veins when I reflexively licked my lips. My eyelids fluttered. My pulse pounded in my skull so hard I thought it might shatter. My knees quivered. One big arm slid around my back, catching me, pulling me up against a sheer wall of muscle.
My body jolted against his, shocked at the contact. And Daire took the opportunity to slide his thumb into my mouth.
His blood, hot on my tongue. My jaws clamped down on him, trapping his thumb in my teeth, but he didn’t complain. He only made a low, rumbly sound of pleasure.
“So you can feed her, but I can’t, dickhead?”
