Page 17 of A Game of Queens
Hair.
I looked down at my hands. Not huge, beefy paws, but long, elegant fingers, nimble enough to pull a bow or play a harp.
Or braid my queen’s hair once she grew it out again.
Equally shocked, Myrk stared at me with his mouth hanging open. His eyes were a strange color. I recognized it as not-black but couldn’t identify the rich hue. Were my eyes the same? Or different?
“His eyes are amethyst, or purple.” She gave us both an amused smile as we gaped at each other. “Yours are sapphire, or blue.” With her blood on his lips, Svar groaned and opened his not-dark-alfar eyes. “Svar’s eyes are rose quartz, or pink.”
“But… how?” Myrk asked. “How is this possible? Are we no longer alfar?”
Even as he said it, I could feel my gargoyle inside me. I could also feel the slick glide of dark alfar shimmering beneath this new skin. I still possessed both forms. I could shift to either if I chose. Though in the broad daylight, I’d only turn to stone.
“When a Blood first tastes his queen’s blood, he gains new power. For you, your new power is this form. But you’re still the same as you always were.”
Were we? I looked down at my spread fingers again, unable to reconcile these pretty hands with the black rock core of my ancient existence.
She wrapped her fingers around mine, dipping her head to press a kiss to my palm. The shorn, uneven cut of her hair made my eyes fill with moisture again. She didn’t seem to mind the loss of her hair, even though now mine was much longer than hers. “You serve a queen, one who needs you during the light of dayandthe black of night, whether we live on this side of Yggdrasil or yours. Will you serve as my alpha, Dörr?”
I tightened my fingers on hers, gently so as not to harm her. I might be light alfar now, but immense strength hummed inside this new body. My mouth ached. I only identified the cause whenI pricked my own tongue on sharp fangs that had descended from the roof of my mouth.
Holding my gaze, she tipped her head to the side invitingly. I swallowed. The throb intensified, spreading through my entire body.
“Will you love me, Dörr?”
I dragged my gaze up to hers. “Always, my queen. I love you like…” In a land of infinite darkness, I had nothing to compare how much I already loved her to anything that I could voice without reminding her of the horror she’d seen in Hvergelmir.
Her lips curved, her eyes shining in the sunlight. “Infinity.”
Wordlessly, I nodded. If I tried to say anything else, I would fall to my knees and weep against her with gratitude.
She hooked her other arm around my neck and hopped up against me. “I’ll be the one to cry and thank you. Because you saved me from Jörmungandr, not once but twice.”
Her skin. So beautiful. So sweet. The scent of her filled my head. Sunlight and life. I’d never dreamed in a million years to see something so precious. Let alone touch. A fevered madness filled me. A desperation I’d never known. I wanted to feel her against me. Every inch. I wanted to crawl inside her and never leave. Even though I was the mighty dark alfar tasked with guarding her down to the last precious hair on her head.
My fangs sank into her throat. Groaning, I drank greedily from the wellspring of Yggdrasil, for all waters flowed from my queen.
Svar and Myrk pressed against me, steadying me as I started to fall. Her hunger rose, this beautiful queen of such courage and strength. Who’d survived passing through the Midgard Serpent’s belly and watered the world tree with her power. She sank her fangs into Svar, holding him close, while offering her wrist to Myrk.
We fed, the four of us. In broad daylight. I lay beneath a blue sky while my queen sank over me, taking me inside her. She flowed over me, her desire hotter than any noonday sun. I basked in her heat. Her pleasure sparkled in the air like rainbows and diamonds. So bright. So many colors. It hurt to look at her, and I never wanted to close my eyes again for fear of missing one moment of her presence.
She drew my hands to her breasts, and I marveled at such softness. That she allowed—no,invited—me to touch her. Me—a thing of darkness, no matter the form. I stroked my palms over her silken skin, watching her face. Reading her bond. I wanted to know everything that pleased her. I squeezed her nipples and her head fell back. She moved harder on me, spiraling toward release that burst over me like a glittering waterfall.
Again and again. I would never tire of her pleasure.
Panting, she paused and gave me a narrowed look that made me involuntarily grip her thighs for fear she would withdraw. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d fucked, certainly never in this strange new form. If I failed to fully satisfy her…
I gulped down my dread. “I’m out of practice, my queen.”
She swiped moisture from her forehead. The tattered ends of her hair were plastered to her face, and her cheeks were a darker pink than Svar’s eyes. She shifted back and groaned deep in her throat. “Are you doing that on purpose?”
I flicked my gaze to Myrk to see if he knew what she meant.Doing what?Goddess below, I should have spent the last millennia dreaming of all the ways I could pleasure my queen so I could do a better job. It just never occurred to me that I would be here. Lying beneath my queen. Aching to feel her pleasure rolling over me again.
But evidently notenoughpleasure.
She rose up slightly, shivering and moaning as my dick eased out of her. Leaning forward, she braced her hands on mystomach, holding her hips up off of mine. “Are you shifting to your gargoyle?”
Startled, I blinked. “No, never. Certainly not without your permission, my queen.”
