Page 7 of Queen Takes Darkness: Helayna
I felt like a freaking child in his arms. I’d never met someone so large. Like a mountain. Maybe a giant?
With wings?
And blood that tasted like molten honey?
I licked the punctures and slowly lifted my mouth from his wrist. I stared up where I thought his face must be, but I couldn’t see anything identifiable. “Thank you. I hope I didn’t drain you too severely.”
One of the other shapes laughed. At least, I thought the groaning sound of the earth splitting open was supposed to be laughter. “Drain Dörr of the Black Mountain? I’d like to see where you’d put that much of his essence.”
Essence was a strange word for blood. “Thank you just the same, Dörr. Thank you for saving me, of course, but you’ve also healed me.”
“I live to serve, my queen. Though I hope my essence doesn’t cause you any negative side effects.”
My forehead creased, but I tried to keep the frown from my lips. “Why would your blood harm me? Are you poisonous somehow?”
The three dark shapes seemed to be looking at each other, though I couldn’t see their expressions in the darkness. Maybe they were daring each other to see who’d be the one to tell me.
I felt much better, so I wasn’t truly worried. Or maybe that was simply how wonderful it felt not to be in terrible pain inside the giant serpent. The warm, thick honey spread through my body, pumping me with more energy than I’d felt in… ages. Maybe ever.
Dörr carefully set me on my feet and then I sensed him dropping down before me, bending low. He still gripped my shoulders, his giant fingers tenderly making sure I kept my feet. “Forgive me, my queen. I couldn’t think how else to save you.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Touch me and you’ll know.”
Hesitantly, I stretched out my hand toward the dark bulk before me. I laid my fingers on the shadowed shape. I thought it was his bowed head, but I didn’t feel any hair. Only a faint warmth from his slick skin. I’d thought he was warm before, but now that I’d fed, I realized I was much warmer than he was. That wasn’t necessarily concerning, though the oily stuff on my fingers was definitely different.
“You’re an Aima queen, descended from a goddess. From your name, and where we found you…” He tipped his head back and the inky depths of his eyes glittered like black diamonds. “I would hazard to guess you’re descended from Hel.”
His words resonated within me. “That seems familiar… but I don’t honestly remember.”
“I smelled Loki,” one of the other shapes said. “He was the father of Hel, Fenrir, and Jörmungandr.”
I shuddered, remembering the parental way he’d treated me—while leaving me to suffer and die inside one of his children. “What are your names?”
“I’m Svar of the Endless Slough.”
“Mryk of the Bottomless Pit.”
Their names were certainly unusual. But at least theyknewtheir names. I only had Loki’s word to go on that mine was even Helayna. Though it felt right once I heard it.
I trailed my fingers down Dörr’s head to his shoulder. It wasn’t just his head that was slick. It felt like he’d crawled out of an oil pit. The stuff coated my fingers and started to warm on my skin, but not in a bad way.
In fact, it felt good enough that I shivered. The rest of me was so fucking cold that I was tempted to rub against him like a cat and smear the warming oil all over my body.
“You don’t know,” he whispered roughly. “You don’t know what we are.”
“No…?”
“When you called us, we had been sleeping as gargoyles for at least three thousand years.”
Well. That explained the wings, and why they’d felt like stone against me. They really had been living statues.
“They can’t transform as quickly as I can. I’m a few hundred years older, give or take. That makes me stronger.”
“Okay.”
His fingers tightened on my shoulders and I felt the searing intensity of his stare, though I could barely make out his glittering eyes in the darkness. He braced me, as if he feared he would need to catch me. “We’re dark alfar, my queen.”
