Page 1 of Queen Takes Blood
1
ALRIK
The stench of death told me that we were on the right track.
I squatted beside the remains to try and read what had happened. The gray, putrid flesh was falling off the human skeleton—though this thrall had ceased being a human long ago. Most of the rotted, jagged teeth had fallen out of the skull, leaving only the sharp incisors. A mockery of what we were.
Aima fed on blood, sure. By definition, we were vampires. Generally, we only fed on each other, unless the unthinkable happened and we lost our queen.
Though the current queen I served wasn’tmine. I hadn’t sworn my blood to her. Yet.
Every passing second, my heart hammered the beat like a sledgehammer with increasing urgency.We’re running out of time.
Correction.Iwas running out of time. If I didn’t find a way to escape House Skye, then I’d soon find myself on the queen’s menu. She particularly enjoyed young, strong alphas.The better to survive all the torture, my dear.
Slipping his phone into his jeans pocket as he neared, Daire’s usually flippant, teasing manner was somber. “Any luck?”
Bad news then. Sighing, I shook my head and pushed to my feet. “Nope. I don’t know what I’m looking for anyway. Who was it?”
“Ezra gave me a heads up that the other teams are getting called back to New York City.”
My jaw tightened. “Already? For this trip, we’re supposed to have until the New Year.”
Daire leaned against me and wrapped his arms around my waist. “Let’s just say that if Vega calls, we don’t have reception here. Which is actually true the deeper we go. I didn’t think much of these Arkansas mountains from a distance, but now that we’re here, they definitely do a good job of blocking annoying phone calls.”
Vega was the queen’s female alpha. All orders came through her.
If she called us back to New York City…
I had the distinct feeling that I wouldn’t be allowed to leave again. I’d be dead, and Daire wouldn’t have anyone to protect him from the rest of the Skye clan. Ezra would try, but he was no alpha. He and Daire had a history before he’d been sent to foster at House Skye. I didn’t mind if Daire sometimes found himself in the other man’s bed instead of mine. I had no doubts about his loyalty.
I was his alpha. As long as I didn’t get called down to the queen’s torture chamber.
“Talk to me.” Daire nuzzled my neck, trying to ease some of the worry straining in my shoulders. “Tell me your theory again. Maybe something new will come to you.”
We’d been roaming aimlessly off and on for years, but for this trip, I’d decided on a new tactic. “Queens are protected by their Blood. When the queen dies, some Blood go rogue and start feeding on humans instead of their queen.”
“Which turns the human victims into thralls like this poor bastard. But why are we here looking at another dead one?”
“What killed it?” I asked softly. “Not another Blood, because there’s no recognized queen in the entire Midwest.”
“It could have been a lone Aima passing between courts.”
I nodded, using the tip of my boot to nudge the skull away from the spine. “Maybe. But this is the fourth dead thrall we’ve found in the span of what, two months? The trail isn’t straight at all, and it sure doesn’t lead to either coast. The spine isn’t severed and the skeleton’s intact. There’s no apparent cause of death, though granted, it’s hard to tell once it’s been picked at by scavengers.”
“So you don’t think a Blood or warrior is doing the killing.”
“Exactly. And there’s no known court in this area, so what are the thralls even after? Why are they here? What do thralls—” Chills crept down my spine and my nerves tingled throughout my body, lighting up like a Christmas tree. “No. What does the thralls’masterwant above all?”
“To be Blood again,” Daire replied immediately.
“Thralls where no queens are known to live. Following some trail that only they can sense. They’re leading us somewhere.” I closed my eyes, letting my head fall back. I took a deep breath, ignoring the stench of the rotting thrall, and let it out slowly, relaxing my body as my senses stretched outward. Searching for a clue, a hint of a direction, no matter how elusive.
There was no X to mark the spot. No subtle tug deep in my gut, drawing me onward toward the one thing I wanted above all.
A queen.Myqueen. A queen in need of an alpha and his teasing sidekick.
There was a vague sense of purpose in the meandering path. As if the thralls’ target didn’t have a specific place in mind—but instinctively avoided larger cities. The last dead thrall had been to east and north in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, but nothing near St. Louis, Nashville, or Little Rock. Too big. Too many people.
