Page 22 of Queen Takes Blood
Her eyes narrowed, her mouth clamped shut tightly. No matter.
There were two ways this could go. I had fun either way.
I ran my tongue over the dripping wounds in her throat. Probing the slashes. Making the blood run faster. She whimpered, evidently not a fan of the sandpaper roughness of my tongue. Not that I gave a fuck. I didn’t need her pain to enjoy the feast, though she certainly would scream. Eventually.
“I’ll bond you.” She tried to make it a threat, but her voice trembled with unease. “You’re mine now. You’ve had my blood.”
I tightened my claws and gave her a rough shake that jolted her teeth together so hard that she slashed up her lips on her fangs. “You’re not fucking strong enough to bond me.”
“But a queen’s blood…” Her heart pitter-pattered frantically, a tiny, pitiful creature desperate to escape its cage. “You’re mine now.”
I lifted my head, running my tongue over my jaws luxuriously. “Do you think so? Delve into my head, if you dare. I’ll allow it.” I tipped my head to the side so I could glare at her with one massive eye. “Try to command me, oh great one.”
To her credit, she did attempt to push her psyche into mine. I felt the gnat of her presence tickle in my head. A tiny firefly against the darkness of my rage. A spark that immediately sputtered and died.
She fucking wept at that small touch. “Mother, help me.”
Me too. Madness spreads throughout me now.
“There’s no help here. Not for you, and certainly not for me.”
“Please,” she whimpered, staring up at me with huge eyes shimmering with tears. “Let me go. I’ll find someone stronger who can free you. I swear it.”
I pretended to consider her offer. I even sat back on my haunches—though I didn’t release her neck. “Who?”
“K—Keisha Skye, the queen of New York City. She’s the strongest queen in America.”
“She’s the one who gave you the necklace, huh?”
Her eyes flared wide, and she shook her head. “No, not at all. I got that from… uh… an obscure house in Tuscany. A solar house. Marne Ceresa had them eliminated.”
I still didn’t believe her but ultimately it didn’t matter. “Do you have any idea where that kind of magic comes from? Perhaps if you knew, you’d have hesitated to use a tool created by the God of Light to render Aima queens powerless so he can add you to his torture harem.”
She still had a little bite in her. She shot a narrowed look up at me. “How would you know that if you’ve been trapped here for millennia?”
“There are some benefits to being trapped beyond the veil. It’s amazing how much information has flowed to me over the years. I see everything from up here. Down here. However you want to think of it. And I have nothing else to do but watch, listen, and learn from all the lives that play out like stories all around me. For instance…” I closed my eyes for a moment, savoring her blood on my tongue. “I taste Arthurian literature in your power. Distant—and weak—enough to tell me that you’re not descended from the White Enchantress. I’m guessing you’re one of Ygraine’s grand or great-grand daughters.”
Still with my eyes closed, I lowered my snout and sniffed at her chest. Listened to the throb of her heart, surging to an all-out gallop. “A hint of dragon does still burn in you. You’re one of Arthur’s spawn. Perhaps House Pendragon has claimed you.”
“I’m Clarrisant of House Avalon,” she spat back at me as if I’d insulted her. Perhaps I had. I might be an asshole but I wasn’t the king who’d locked his beloved queen in a tower and burned her alive to keep her from her lover.
All I did was murder my mother and her entire house, and I’m not sorry. Not at all.
“That’s the reason I’m here,” she said, drawing me back from my unsavory childhood. “I want an Avalon heir, of course, but one with Leviathan’s power. A dragon heir strong enough to defeat Arthur once and for all.”
“That fucking idiot is still alive?” I blew out a grunt of disgust. “You do realize that family trees are supposed to have more than one branch, right? He’s been trying to sire dragon queens for a thousand years with his own damned daughters in a futile attempt to bring back his beloved white dragon.”
“I can—”
I snapped my jaws in a clanging crash a hair’s breadth from her face. “You’re nothing. There’s not enough dragon in you for even Arthur to fuck. Let alone me.”
Staring down into her eyes swimming with tears, I watched the flurry of emotions flickering through her. Plan A to Plan B to Plan Z and still no way out. She had nothing to offer me for her freedom. She’d come in search of power and fame, hoping to be the queen who’d finally freed the King of the Depths—so she could bind me to her will.
She’d have used me to breed her dragon daughters and kept me chained at her feet like a fucking lap dog.
Only now did she finally realize that she was nothing but meat.
That I will devour.
