Page 6 of A Game of Queens
I blinked, but I couldn’t see more than vague shadows, slightly darker than the blackness surrounding me. I didn’t know who, or what, they were.
“Blessed be,” the closest shadow rumbled against me, so deep and bass that it sounded more like rolling thunder than words. “She lives. Take more, my queen, if it will help you.”
Something pressed to my lips, smearing more of the thick, warm honey.
I suddenly knew what I was. The roof of my mouth throbbed. Fangs descended. And I couldn’t have kept those fangs out of him if my life had depended on it. His flesh warmed against my mouth as he pumped into me. I pulled my fangs out of his wrist so I could gulp his blood as quickly as possible.
So good. I couldn’t remember ever feeding so deeply. So well. Though surely I had before. I knew what to do. I just didn’t remember actually doing it before. Feeding.
I was a queen. A vampire queen. Hadn’t the man in the snake told me so?
Mouth locked to the warm, sweet honey flooding me, I cried at the relief flowing through me. His offering swept through me, spreading heat. Straightening bones that had shattered. Popping others back into place. It hurt, yes, and I moaned against his skin. But I knew I was healing.
He had saved me. Whatever he was.
My Blood. The woman in the dream had told me they would come if I called.
“We need a place of safety,” he said to the darkness.
A large, vague shape let out a disgusted snort that sounded like a boulder crashing down the side of a mountain. “Safety? Here?”
“How about the base of Yggdrasil?” The other shape offered. “We can shelter among the roots.”
“It’s near the gates,” the other shape warned. “If Jörmungandr wakes…”
The other one shrugged, massive dark wings shifting around him. “Then we’re fucked anyway.”
Wings. Creatures darker than the endless night.
What were they? Where was I?
The names Jörmungandr and Yggdrasil were vaguely familiar. They rang with truth in the air between us, and something answered in my blood. Like an echo. A resonance, a spark of joy.
Loki. The trickster of Norse mythology. I knew that much. But I had no idea how I—or the dark shapes who’d saved me—fit into that legend.
The one I was still feeding on tucked me closer as he rose to his feet. The other two stepped closer, surrounding me in a wall of protection.
I swore they felt more like stone than anything alive. Could statues talk and walk and move?
My head swam and I felt the sensation of moving, though we didn’t take a step at all. Pressing my tongue to the punctures I’d made, I slowed the blood flow a bit. I felt so much better. I didn’t know if he could spare much more, though he didn’t seem affected by how much I’d already taken. He certainly made no move to stop me.
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.
