Page 16 of Queen Takes Blood
I lunged toward her. Not to touch her, though I ached to cup her cheeks in my busted hands and fall into her endless eyes. I thrust myself onto the blade in her hand, taking the short knife into my body. The steel slid eagerly into my flank, as eager as I was to feel her fangs in my throat.
“My queen. Take me. I’m yours.”
* * *
Shara takes Guillaume as her Blood in Queen Takes King.
QUEEN TAKES… WU TIEN XIN
Song: Wolves by Sam Tinnesz
9
XIN
Alone wolf howled in the wintery night.
I sat on my haunches waiting to hear a reply, though I wasn’t surprised when none of my kindred answered. There were no natural wolves in Arkansas.
Just me.
I tipped my nose to the east, my destination, but the winds blew from the north. Filtering through the thousands of scents automatically, I gazed up at the crescent moon. I should not be here.
But I couldn’t find it in me to continue my journey.
New York City wasn’t so far from San Francisco that it would take me fifty years to make the journey, even on four paws. Yet the years passed one by one, and I still had not made it to House Skye. Either something held me here that I couldn’t sense—or compelled me to stay far away from New York City. My wolf knew better than to question such guidance.
If the many years of my existence had taught me anything at all, it was patience. Fifty years compared to a thousand were nothing. Nothing at all.
Besides, I was in no rush to swear my blade to a new queen. I liked the quiet. The peace. An end to the killing. These mountains weren’t the home of my birthplace, but I found solace here after the city. Pristine snow, untouched by humans. A silence so great that I could hear the gentle plops of snowflakes as they struck the ground. The only thing I missed were other wolves. Perhaps I should go north, rather than the coast. Somewhere that I could run with a pack…
My nose twitched, my focus shifting to a scent that didn’t belong in these remote mountains. Three scents, actually. Aima. Here. In the middle of the country where no court existed.
Two Blood. Another deep breath.And their queen.
Padding through snow without leaving a single track, I followed the scents. Down the mountain and through the pine to a ramshackle building. I paused in the parking lot, smelling where she had stood just hours before. Motorcycles. Two of them. Headed north. I would follow, but first…
There was something else here. Something I needed to know.
Still as my wolf, I passed into the building unseen as a human opened the entry door. The queen’s scent was thicker here in the hallway. She’d passed back and forth among these rooms several times over the past week. Maybe two. But the two Blood had only been here recently. How was that possible?
A queen… without her Blood.
Her trail led me to the end of a dark hallway. She had touched this door handle several times. I shifted to my human form so I could more easily force the door open. One hard kick placed at the handle, and the frame splintered, allowing the flimsy door to swing open.
The door was not the only thing destroyed in this room. The bed frame had been cracked in half, the mattress on the floor. Torn bedding that smelled of sex and blood, though she’d called the blood back to avoid leaving a trail for thralls or other Aima to follow.
But I wasn’t like other Aima. I had learned to track my target as a three-year-old child. Born to be Blood, I’d been honed to a viciously cold blade from an early age. Now that I had her scent…
I would find her. Anywhere. Whether she left a blood trail or not.
To what end?
I stood in the empty room, letting images fill my mind of what had happened here. A queen alone, where no queen should be, and then two Aima. She’d taken them as Blood right here in this room. Her first Blood. This wasn’t a nest. There’d been no blood circle, though it wouldn’t have been able to keep me out.
I smelled fur and iron. Something feline and… stone. I’d never encountered their lineage, so I couldn’t identify their houses. Could they have been from House Skye? Here? But why?
Something caught my gaze. One long dark strand of hair. I plucked it from the pillow, closed my eyes, and inhaled. Blood. Sex. Not surprising from the torn sheets and broken bed. Sand. Some kind of desert lineage? The delicate scent of night blooming jasmine.
