Page 91 of Queen Takes Triune
The tentacle slipped around my throat, pressing suckers to my skin to vacuum up the blood. It wasn’t completely unpleasant, though having multiple little mouths working on me at the same time was—
Daire snickered and opened his mouth.
Guillaume cuffed him in the back of the head before he could say something entirely inappropriate. I wouldn’t mind if we were alone, but I didn’t care to make jokes with sexual innuendo in front of the queen of Rome.
More confident, the kraken slid closer, curling another tentacle around my leg beneath the ruined silk of my gown. Ugh. After my trip through the pond, my gorgeous dress was streaked with baby-poop brown, and I might have a piece of moss or something slick very near my unmentionables.
Ah. No. That was just another of the kraken’s tentacles tickling my thigh.
As most of my Blood when they’d first come to me, he wanted simple touch as much as he wanted my blood. Though so many tentacles touching me at once was interesting, to say the least.
I arched a brow at Marne. “I’ve done as you asked. I’ve taken a Blood.”
She laughed and waved a hand at us dismissively. “He’s notmyBlood, so he doesn’t count.”
I smiled. “Gina?”
She flipped back several pages in her notebook and read back our conversation. “Shara Isador said, ‘I’ll accept one Bloodfrom inside your house.’ Marne Ceresa replied, ‘Perfect. I’m so glad we could come to a reasonable arrangement.’”
“I know what I said,” Marne retorted. “I specifically said one ofmyBlood.”
“In your first statement, yes. But that statement was modified by Shara, which you then accepted. Triune Articles Section 101.88.13 specifies that a compromising agreement is made between two queens when the queen requesting the concession indicates that an agreement has been successful and accepts the consenting queen’s alternative offer. Shall I read the entire section again, Your Majesty? Or do you remember saying that a reasonable agreement had been reached?”
Marne stared at me, her face as still and cold as the marble statue we’d seen at the edge of her nest.
For the first time since entering Rome, I seriously thought she might try to kill me. She glared at me like an offensive creature who’d just tracked filth all over her perfectly spotless house.
I nestled back against Rik’s chest. My new Blood slowly shifted to his human form. Shoulder-length black hair and neatly trimmed beard. Blue-green eyes the same color as his beast’s bioluminescence. And as fine a physique as any of my Blood, bare and naked as a jaybird after shifting, though he did have some interesting-looking tattoos on his arms that I wanted to investigate further.
Oh, and of course, he was very, very happy to see me.
Without looking away from her face, I slid my right arm around the new Blood’s neck. “What’s your name, my Blood, and how long has she kept you there in that cave?”
“Okeanos Ketea, my queen.” His voice was surprisingly melodic, much like his kraken song, though less shrill and desperate now that I had found and freed him. “I’ve been imprisoned by Her Majesty Marne Ceresa for one hundred years.”
“That’s why Undina agreed to act as witness to my birth,” I whispered, nodding to myself. “She must have made a bargain with my mother to win your freedom.”
“Undina is my mother, the High Queen of the Skolos Triune. She was forced to surrender me to Rome, but I don’t know why.”
I searched Marne’s face, trying to read the millions of secrets in her eyes. How many other hostages did she have stashed around her nest or the world? “Why would a Skolos queen make such a bargain with the queen of Rome?”
Marne made a low sound of disgust, though I detected a glint in her eye. Amusement, perhaps. Or…
Maybe a tiny spark of…
Dare I say respect?
Goddess, it was about fucking time.
“He’s a fucking king.” Mehen’s dragon roughened his voice. “In most courts, that’s plenty to earn you a death sentence.”
In the bond, I grasped Leviathan’s scaly snout in my hands and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Not in my court.”
“Enough,” Marne said, her voice as sharp as a whip. “Rise. All of you. So I can deal with you once and for all.”
I held my hand up and Tlacel assisted me to my feet. I grabbed the crown before I dropped it, but I didn’t try to put it back on my head. Not until I could fix the tangled mess of my hair. He stood strategically in front of Okeanos, blocking the other queen’s view, though he remained plastered against my side. Rik enfolded me in his arms before him. Itztli pressed close on my other side.
Not to be left out, Daire dropped down low in front of me and entwined himself around my legs like the giant cat he was.
