Page 58 of Queen Takes Triune
Atree. My queen was going to grow another tree.
Great Mother, I beg to be her sacrifice once again.
Rik broke us up into teams, one to go ahead and my group to follow after in the small service elevator. This was her tower, but he’d never take her safety for granted, especially with several hundred siblings living here.
My brother talked with the other queen’s Blood as we took the elevator down. I didn’t pay attention to their conversation, even though Tlacel seemed animated and talked at length. He was normally the quiet, soft-spoken one, so it was unusual for him to connect with a stranger so easily.
I couldn’t focus on what they said. All I could think about was the thick limbs shooting up out of the ground, binding me for her willing sacrifice.
My heart pumping in her hand.
Dark need rose from the depths where I kept it chained and hidden from everyone except my queen. If she didn’t need me for this tree, then I could only pray that she’d be able to send the monster back into the basement prison of my soul.
Sweat trickled down my chest and my nostrils flared with each heavy breath. Eager to draw in the scent of my queen. My prey—who, in turn, made me her conquest with a simple look. The thick, unrelenting darkness of the subterranean levels only heightened the monster’s senses. I could smell the lingering stench of fear and pain in this place. The many lives that had been lost to the demon child who’d been hidden here.
Pain. Torture. Death.
My domain.
Another of Gwen’s Blood came to stand by me. I hadn’t caught his name, only that he wasn’t her alpha. We were the last group of Blood to arrive, so the others already stood circled around the queens. Every muscle in my body demanded that I shove my way through the Blood between us so I could fall at my queen’s feet. But she hadn’t called me. She hadn’t indicated that she even needed such a sacrifice this time.
“I sense the hunger for pain in you,” the other Blood said in a low voice pitched only for my ears.
I didn’t try to hide it. “Yes.”
“The same need lives in me.”
I glanced at his face, trying to remember his name. He had a thick scar across his forehead and from the tats on his hands, I assumed his arms and chest were likely covered in ink too.
The same as me.
I liked the pain of a needle or thin blade sinking into my flesh, though it was only an appetizer. It kept the edge off, though a simple tattoo couldn’t satisfy the Flayed One’s need for pain.
“Which of your brethren satisfy the darkness for you so that you can touch your queen without violence?”
“None,” I answered slowly. “She—”
“Itztli,” Shara called softly.
My name rang like a gong, echoing with the might of a cannon blast. My black dog bayed with a booming voice, announcing the coming hunt. I smiled so widely that my face hurt, but I didn’t give a damn what the man thought of me. “Yes, my queen.”
The other Blood made way for me so I could step closer to her. A small ball of fire hung above her head, slowly spinning as it cast sparkling rubies over her face. Thick shadows clung to her gown, swirling and writhing with ecstasy at her presence. She was Typhon’s daughter, the god of monsters and all things of darkness.
Here, where the sun never shone, things of the dark reveled that their mistress had come.
Unsheathing my obsidian blade, I dropped to my knees and bent low, laying the knife at her feet. “Use me as you see fit, my queen.”
Her fingers stroked over my hair and across my cheek to my chin, tipping my face up to hers. So tender and gentle—a heart-rending pain to bear. I didn’t want her to have to hurt me, or worse, to allow me to hurt her. But staring into her shining eyes, I couldn’t hide the monster inside me.
She gripped my chin firmer, letting the tips of her nails dig into my skin. “Do you feel it?” Her voice a soft, husky whisper, she let her head fall back a moment, her body swaying slightly. “The darkness plays a midnight sonata for us. There’s something inside you that calls to the shadows here. Something new.”
I was already a huge black dog with a taste for pain. I shuddered to think about what new thing might crawl out of me, especially here, in the demon child’s deadly playground.
She released my face, making me jerk my attention back to her. “I don’t think we need your heart this time, or your pain. We need mine.”
I swallowed hard. My nape prickled and I didn’t have to turn around to know that Rik was staring hard at me. I could feel his grim gaze like a jackhammer thumping my shoulders. Alpha would skin me alive if I harmed one hair on her head. Sadly, there was a large part of the monster that wanted to do exactly that, just to feel the overwhelming bliss of so much pain shredding my nerves like razor blades.
Ignoring her alpha’s silent warning, she stepped closer to the fresh hole in the ground. I smelled her blood first. The incredible instant blast of a million complex scents all hitting my nose at the same time. Desert sands, cool water, night blooming flowers. A summer evening, the air warm and thick and lush with the scent of her need, as if she’d parted her thighs and allowed her desire to flavor the night. All laced with the rich, spicy scent of copper.
