Page 33 of Queen Takes King
I looked at Xin, still not sure about him. I didn’t feel anything when I looked at him. Would that change once we had a bond? Or was I just not attracted to him? I didn’t think I could bear this distance with a Blood. Not after having Daire and Rik, and now G, so tightly interwoven with me. Their hunger, their desire. Did Xin feel anything at all when he looked at me? I couldn’ttell.
But I didn’t want to ask, either, for fear that would make me look weak and desperate in his eyestoo.
He turned his head aside, offering me histhroat.
I stared at him. My hunger definitely stirred. But I’d almost tasted that human’s blood too. G had helped me understand the significance of offering throat. Xin was willing. He came of his own freewill.
Rik slid his arm around me and turned me toward him. “I’ll be the first to feel your new fangs, my queen. Then you can decide abouthim.”
I didn’t remind him that he’d already felt my cobra’s fangs. Because I’d hurt him badly. Cupping the back of my head, he drew me close, cradling me against him. His skin like hot velvet against my face. His smoke and hot iron scent twisting like a knife through my stomach. My mouth ached and I felt the fangs descending. It made me shiver, goose bumps racing down my arms. My nerves screamed with sensation. I wanted my skin against his, every inch of me tight against him. Even better if his cock was deep inside metoo.
He let out a low groan and tipped his hips more firmly against me, lifting me more fully against hiserection.
I tried to be gentle. I wanted to be tender after hurting him this morning as the cobra. But once I opened my mouth and air hit those fangs, I couldn’t wait. I slammed my fangs deep into his throat. The rush of hot, rich blood made me shudder against him, my heart exploding withadrenaline.
I was inside him. I’d finally claimed him. He was mine and mine alone. His blood poured into me, stirring my hunger. Power surged through me, coursing through our shared bonds. As alpha, he always had an extra kick that the other Blood didn’t have, but thistime…
Maybe it was the venom I’d pumped him with this morning, but I couldn’t get enough. He tasted downright decadent, and thepower…
It’d never been likethis.
The floor rattled beneath my feet. The chandelier tinkled above us. And the power surged higher with no end insight.
I stood in the center of a molten volcano. Lava pulsed and glowed all around me. Through me. Heavy, thick, sweet power. It stroked inside me, filling me impossibly full. And every swallow of Rik’s blood brought me closer toclimax.
Just fromfeeding.
I tried to pull back a little and contain the pleasure soaring through me, but my alpha would have none of that. My pleasure was in reach and he wanted it. Badly. He hauled me up harder against him, drawing my thighs around hiswaist.
With his dick pressed against my core, I couldn’t hold back my pleasure. Climax poured through me, lighting up our bonds like a fireworks factoryaccident.
Rik groaned, his big hands kneading myass.
If we didn’t have an audience, both inside and outside waiting to talk to me, I probably would have pushed him down on the couch and had my wicked way withhim.
Reluctantly, he let me slide back down to my feet.:Anytime, myqueen.:
Daire bumped my thigh with his head, but didn’t otherwise touch me. He’d gone to his knees beside Xin, who stared at me like he’d seen a ghost. At least that was my first thought. His face was pale and drawn, his hands gripping his thighs so fiercely the veins stood out in grim relief on his forearms and the backs of hishands.
Yet he saidnothing.
With power flooding my system, I focused on him and cupped his face in my hands. I couldn’t sink into him like Daire, not without a bond, but surely all this power had to be good for something. Touching him made my fangs ache. They were still distended and I didn’t know how to hold my mouth without stabbing myself. Blood dripped down my sweater since I couldn’t close my lips verywell.
Closing my eyes, I focused my other senses on him. It took me a moment to block out the roaring volcano and the rumbling, purring warcat who were so near. Again, it was almost like searching for an absence, rather than his presence. A bit like Greyson, when he’d tried to hide from me, but Xin was different. He wasn’t trying to hide. He was right here, his jaws working beneath my hand, his body shimmering with barely suppressedviolence.
Holding my breath, I let my mind touch that silent absence. It—he—resisted a moment, like a bubble that I had to push through. A shadowy fog that lingered at dawn, waiting for the sunlight to grow fierce enough to penetrate. He wasn’t actively blocking me—he just needed… It wasclose…
Falling. Like I’d thrown myself off the Empire State Building. I clutched his face harder, holding on to that physical reference. Winds rushed through me, making my eyes water. My stomach felt like it’d slipped up into my throat with the sickening drop. He wasn’t dark or tainted, though. Just so far removed from his exterior that it took leaping off the metaphorical skyscraper to findhim.
Finding his emotions was like crashing through a glass ceiling. Splinters cut through me. I read his doubt. Whether I’d be able and willing to use his thirst for deadly strategy, the quiet slice of a blade, the whisper of steel. His gift made him invisible. Literally. He’d lived unseen and unknown for centuries, slipping through Blood and guards, human and Aima, always in search of his queen’s quarry. He’d loved the hunt. He didn’t want to losethat.
Losing the hunt and thrill of the kill would be worse than dying forhim.
He’d been created for this purpose. He lived for thispurpose.
And he could only be mine if I would use him. As the goddessintended.
I waited for Her sign, that tinkling of a pure, clear bell that I’d come to associate with the truth. But this time, I felt more of a choice in my head. The delicate balance of scales. I could take him, or not. He could be mine. Or I could allow him to leave and find another queen. I might never see himagain.
