Page 7 of Queen Takes Knights
Daire shook his head. “Fucking shit.”
She looked at him, her eyebrows rising. Drawing herself up, she looked every inch a queen. My heart swelled with pride, hope, desperate longing to formalize my service. What a queen we’d found. “You have something to say, say it.”
Daire wasn’t one to mince words. “If Selena wanted to abandon her nest and free her Blood, fine. But as soon as she conceived you, she should have immediately sent you to the nearest queen. You should never have been alone, lost, abandoned like this. This…” he waved his arms around the room. “Makes me want to paint the streets with blood.”
“Mom would never have sent me away or abandoned me. It’s not her fault that she died.”
“You’re wrong. Itisher fault. She should never have been alone.”
Maybe she was still buzzed on the first taste of our blood, but I suspected our queen naturally had a fiery temper. She strode to Daire, eyes blazing, and poked him in the chest hard enough he grunted.
She was so beautiful that I hurt, deep inside, to look at her. Sleek, dark hair, large dark eyes, high cheekbones and forehead, long elegant legs, the figure of a goddess. So fucking regal.
“She wasn’t alone. She had me.”
“A child who knew nothing about her legacy. Now a grown woman, struggling to survive alone, hunted all her days, when she could have a dozen powerful Blood at her side to satisfy her every desire.”
“A dozen?” She laughed, shaking her head. “I only see two.”
“They will come,” I whispered, torn between eagerness and dread. I was Daire’s alpha. But would an alpha come to take my place at the head of her Blood? Likely. I was young yet (for our kind, only eighty eight) and had never served a queen before. A Blood’s power came from his queen, so I had nothing to gauge my own strength against.
I wanted her well protected and powerful, and the more Blood she had, the better off we’d all be. She’d gain power from her Blood, and we would gain power from her. The more we fed from her, the more our power would cascade, ever higher. So I would relish this time as her alpha as long as possible.
“Seriously? A dozen?”
“Marne Ceresa had a hundred Blood in her prime, though now more sibs than true Blood.”
Shara shook her head slowly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Did your mother teach you nothing?”
I was glad Daire said it, though I was thinking it.
“About sibs and thralls and queens? No.” She sat on the edge of the shabby bed. “She told me some stories about growing up in London, how she met Dad, that she left her family because they didn’t approve.”
As the alpha, I felt it my duty to break the darkness of the past to her. “Selena Isador had ten Blood when she took a human thrall. The ten were fine warriors, all dedicated to her service, but she loved the human. He didn’t like the fact that she regularly fed and fucked her Blood. He didn’t understand our ways. She was also taking heat from the Triune for bringing a human so deep into her nest. She finally decided to walk away. She dissolved the Blood and abandoned the Isador nest, leaving with only her human lover. Without the Blood, she had no protection, and her power diminished greatly over time. Eventually, even the Triune could not feel her presence any longer. She’d withered too much with none of our kind’s blood to fuel her power. Then, she was gone. No one knew she had a child until you gave us your name.”
Shara gnawed on her lip, her eyes swimming with tears. “She always said she loved Dad too much. When he died, I think she lost part of herself. She was never the same.”
I squatted down before her, unable to bear her sadness without offering comfort. I took her hand in both of mine, and she leaned forward, hesitantly, as if unsure her touch would be welcome.
I wanted to haul her into my arms and rail curses on her mother for what she had done, but I only tipped my head down to hers, as Daire had done earlier. Submission, acceptance, my silent oath to serve in any way possible.
“I want to know everything.”
Daire knelt beside me and I didn’t have to look at him to know he was flashing a cocky smile. “Would you honestly rather have a history lesson now, when you could be fucking us both?”
CHAPTER FIVE
Daire
According to legend, a queen’s gifts naturally drew the Blood to her who were best suited for her strengths, needs and personality. I would always be the one to break the ice, make her laugh, or flirt and even antagonize her into furious, glorious fucking. Which both Rik and I desperately wanted.
She turned those gleaming eyes on me and I shuddered beneath her gaze. For a lost queen with no understanding of her legacy, she bore great power already. How great would she be when well fed on our blood?
There were many ways a Blood signaled submission to his queen. Kneeling before her like this, was one. Offering his throat, another.
Leaning closer to her, offering myself up, I tipped my head to the side and bared my throat.
