Page 25 of Queen Takes King
The snap of another bone was gruesomely loud. A rib. I felt it puncture his lung. Heard the blood starting to clog his breathing. But he didn’t scream. He wouldn’t. He didn’t want to scare her, even if she was killinghim.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of my ketars against the wall. Slowly, I edged toward it, hoping Guillaume could keep her attention locked on him. But what could I do with my favorite weapon? Could I really cut her? My queen? I might as well cut out my heartinstead.
Another pop, and this time Rik couldn’t hold back the ragged gasp ofpain.
“Daire,” Guillaume said softly. “I wouldn’t do that if I wereyou.”
I looked back up at her head and the cobra’s slitted eyes were locked onto me. Watching me. She knew damned well what I was doing. Now that she had my attention, she slowly tightened her lower coil on Rik’s leg. Tighter. I felt the stretch of tendons in his knee, the joint close to tearingapart.
“Okay,” I rasped out and backed away from the weapon. I couldn’t fucking see because I was fucking crying. I hated feeling his pain. I hated feeling so helpless. But more, I hated that right now, I’d thought about slicing him free of hercoils.
I was fully prepared to hurt her in order to protect Rik. Hurt my queen. It was unthinkable. Unconscionable for a Blood to even contemplate allowing his queen to be hurt, let alone doing it himself. Yet I couldn’t let Rik suffer. I loved him too fuckingmuch.
:She can heal me.:Even his mental voice was soft but anguished.:From anything. Remember. Who sheis.:
Goddess. If I had to endure feeling him die, waiting on Shara to resurrect him, I was going to fucking lose mymind.
She struck hard and fast, sinking those long fangs into Rik’s abdomen. It happened so fast he didn’t even cry out. Maybe he couldn’t. She lifted her head, and rather than blood, something black oozed from the punctures that were almost as big as my fist. I felt tears deep inside him. Nicked organs. Torn arteries. Blood dripped from his nose and leaked from his mouth. But he still managed to fuckingsmile.
“Worth it.Fangs.”
His skin started to blacken, his body swelling. She hadn’t used those fangs to feed on his blood—but to pump him full ofvenom.
“Fuck.” I fell to my knees. “Rik.”
Guillaume dropped a hand on my shoulder and I leaned against his legs. Rik turned his head to look at us, his face pale and clammy. “G. Take care. Ofthem.”
Shaking his head, Guillaume replied, “I’m no alpha. And like you said, she can heal you of anything. Evendeath.”
“You can.” He gasped, his breath a horrible wheeze. “Just incase.”
I could feel how hard it was for him to breathe. His heart labored to pump blood that was slowly thickening in his veins into a poisonoussludge.
“It’s almost time,” Guillaume whispered. “Hang in there. It’s almostover.”
“Time for what?” I was terrified he meant time for Rik to die. “You’ve seen thisbefore?”
He hesitated a moment, his fingers digging into my shoulder. “I’ve livedit.”
Guillaume
I remembered living through this nightmare, though blanks made it difficult for me to piece it alltogether.
Blanks—that might have involved Shara’s mother who’d been wiped from living Aima memory. It made a dreadful kind of sense. She was a cobra now, and it had been a cobra queen that helped me kill Desideria despite my oath that I would never lift my hand in violence toward her in anyway.
Daire made a choked cry and I squeezed his shoulder. “I lived through it. He’ll pull through justfine.”
“Right.” Daire growled. “So says the knight who had his head choppedoff.”
A low rattling drew my attention back to the bed. It wasn’t a purr, exactly, nor a hiss, but a deep guttural vibration that rolled from her sleek body. She struck again, but not with her fangs. She latched onto the puncture wounds and started to suck, her coils sliding over him in a sinuousfeast.
“Her venom changes the blood,” I whispered, watching in a sort of grisly fascination. “If you or I were to feed on him right now, we’d die. Evenme.”
“Why is she doing it,though?”
“She’s using him to make herself, and him, and eventually us, indirectly,poisonous.”
Daire shuddered. “Will she bite ustoo?”
