The Last Queen

by Christine McKay

  It had the desired effect. At least for a moment. Then he shook his head as if a dog shedding water.

  “You are devious.” He sat carefully beside her on his bed and ran a fingertip over the tops of her exposed breasts.

  A shiver ran through her.

  “Other than to announce a council tomorrow, my brother has remained mute. I should commend you for your skill at winning his obedience.” But he didn’t look happy about her coup.

  She bit her lip. “Come closer.”

  “My lady, any closer and we will have to be naked.” His eyes glinted.

  She could have him here and now. Her nerves thrummed just from his look and touch. She sighed. Not now. Not yet. “Rest your head here and listen carefully.” She patted her belly.

  He stretched himself out beside her like a sleek panther. When he pressed his ear to her stomach, she ran her fingers through his hair.

  The treacherous little voices were quiet.

  “I hear nothing.”

  “Wait a second.” She pulled away, stood up, then jumped up and down a few times. Navarre’s eyes remained fixated on her breasts threatening to spill out of her dress.

  She hoped she wasn’t giving her babies brain damage with all the intentional jostling. She lay back down on the bed. “Now try.”

  He raised an eyebrow, but obliged. His fingers lazily trailed the length of her body. The voices were very loud, at least to her, and demanding. He clenched her upper arm. He heard them all right. When he went rigid beside her, she knew he had started counting.

  He muttered an oath in Labyrinthine. At least she understood enough of the language now to know it was a curse, and not a mild one at that.

  She didn’t want to disturb him but the underwire on her fancy bra was beginning to poke the sides of her breasts. Shifting, she pulled away from him and sat up. “Sorry.” She adjusted herself.

  He sat up, his face pale. “It is not possible.”

  “That’s what your brother said. You two worry me. Look,” she began, somewhat irritated that the shocked expression remained on his face. “You have psi talents. I have psi talents. It’s natural the babies are going to, too, isn’t it?”

  “Twenty-three.” He stopped, rubbing his brow with his fingertips.

  “Twenty-four,” she corrected. “And Altarre told me you used to have much bigger clutches.”

  “Yes, but…” He raised his head. “I worry that we will kill you. You will need to eat more.”

  “I eat plenty.” Now she was thoroughly piqued. If the Dragoon thought for one minute they were going to move from monitoring her location to charting her food intake, they were in for a rude awakening.

  He cupped her cheek. “I cannot lose you.”

  Another acid retort had been on the tip of her tongue. She bit it back. He didn’t want to lose her? Not her womb, not a chance to redeem his species or save his bloodline, but her.

  “You love me,” she said it out loud with a slow dawning realization.

  He smiled sheepishly. “Since the first time I touched your mind, I think.”

  She rocked back. He feared for her. He loved her. Her? “Tell me.”

  “Sh’niedra.”

  “I need to hear the words.”

  He tipped his head. “I love you.” The words came out quickly, almost forced. He glanced away, then back at her, and stroked her cheek. “I love you,” he said more fervently. “They are difficult words.”

  She closed her eyes and smiled. Putting her hand on her belly, she said, “I won’t lose them.” Defiant now, she met his worried gaze.

  Scooping her to him, he cradled her against him, his arms tight around her. She clung to his arms, breathing in his wild scent. His heart hammered against her backside. That scared her. “I will eat more,” she said meekly.

  “In dragon form,” he murmured in her ear. “In your human form you will not be able to consume enough, no matter how hard you try.”

  “I hope dragons are vegetarians or you’ll be doing a lot of big barbecues.”

  He chuckled. “Think it through.” Turning his head away from her, he blew a breath across the row of candles perched on his headboard. They burst into flame.

  Neat trick. She hadn’t seen that before. The puzzle pieces clicked in place. “I’m not charring some poor animal to death. Besides, I think ash is a carcinogen.”

  That earned her another laugh. She liked hearing it from him. She snuggled deeper into his embrace. “So what do we tell the council?” She wouldn’t let them decide what she could and couldn’t carry. How could anyone make a decision on who to kill off? The voices in her belly were silent.

  “Do not worry.” He nibbled on the nape of her neck, his hand cupping her belly protectively. “We will protect them all.”

  Then his hand dropped from her stomach to her thigh. He began stroking the inside of her legs deliberately. She twisted in his grasp, seized his face with both hands and kissed him thoroughly. He put a hand back for balance.

  When she opened her eyes, she found him watching her through half-hooded eyes, green fires glinting. The lights in the room dimmed. The flicker of candlelight accented the red glints in his hair.

  “Isn’t it a bit early to go to bed?” Her pulse hammered.

  Like a panther eying its prey, he took his time answering. Dropping his hand, he seized her around the waist and pulled her down on top of him. “I do not intend to sleep.”

  “Aren’t you worried about the babies?”

  “Are you?”

  “Yes. No. I can’t think straight when you look at me like that.”

  “Like what?” he asked blandly. The green fire in his eyes danced, promising more if only she acquiesced.

  “You’re a beast.” She grabbed his face again and kissed him. Her teeth snagged his lower lip, her tongue fought for entry. She was a woman possessed by needs.

  He tried to roll her off him, but she fought back, pinning his clever hands. She held his wrists in each hand and stared down at him, panting from wrestling.

  He continued to watch her through half-closed eyes, seemingly relaxed, but she could see the way his chest rose and fell and felt his own pulse increase beneath her thumbs pressed on his wrists.

  “Tell me I shouldn’t do this. Tell me it’s bad for the babies. Tell me I should dress and behave like a proper Queen.” Rules, rules, rules. She didn’t know half of them and yet they bound her. “Tell me I’m confined to this ship now that I’m pregnant. Tell me I should be very afraid.”

  Navarre moistened his lips. “As you wish,” he breathed.

  She fell on him. Her teeth scraped his neck and jaw. Her hands fumbled for his tunic. She wished it were buttoned so she could tear it off his body. They wrangled with it, his arms tangled in the fabric. She left him like that, his hands “bound” above his head.

  Her teeth roved over his chest, pinching his nipples until his breath hissed through his teeth. She sat back, straddling his waist, hair draped over her face. She pushed back her hair, tucking it behind her ears.

  His eyes were dark and wide.

  “Did I hurt you?” She knew she did. His throat was red where she marked him. A bruise was forming on the edge of his jaw.

  His eyes flashed fire, but he remained mute. Speaking of fire… She reached for one of the wax candles perched on the headboard. How far could she push him before he revolted?

  His eyes followed her movement. Still he remained beneath her.

  She tipped the fat candle slightly, letting the wax dribble down the edge and land in a single creamy splat on his bare stomach. His stomach muscles tensed.

  Pausing, she asked, “Does it hurt?”

  He shook his head. “I have not seen this side of you. Continue.” The last was a command.

  She flicked the cold wax dot off his taut muscles with a fingernail. His bronzed skin was unmarred beneath it. Of course, they couldn’t burn. Tilting the candle again, she ran the wax from his belly button to his chest, letting it puddle in the hol
low between his pectorals. Every muscle flexed but he remained mute. She’d worry later about this unknown sadistic side of her. Right now, her need was like a lit oil fire. It needed to be burned out before she felt purged.

  If there was a knock, she never heard it. One moment she was perched above Navarre, candle in hand, the next, she found herself flipped off the bed to the floor, Navarre crouched over her protectively. He held a wicked-looking knife between his teeth.

  Quince stood in the doorway.

  Navarre dropped the blade and growled low in his throat. She sighed and sat up, pushing the hair out of her face.

  Quince didn’t bother to apologize. “The Hunter has Nikki,” he said simply, then collapsed to the floor.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Blood. Like Rorschach ink blots, it decorated the floor in skewed patterns.

  There was blood everywhere. And it all spilled out of Quince’s inert form. Adrianne supported Quince’s head in her lap. Navarre tore strips from his tunic and pressed them to the worst of Quince’s wounds. Blood trickled out of the corner of Quince’s mouth. His body was so cold, so very still.

  No, no, no. Not Quince. Please God, not Quince. She could barely feel his breath against her cheek. She instinctively reached for his mind and held it, teetering on the edge of the black maw that waited for Quince to slip, for her strength to give out and let him slide over the brink. She would not let him go!

  This was Death. Not a pleasant passing from one life to the next, hand held by a guardian angel as Adrianne had been taught. No, Death opened its maw and inhaled. Like a black hole, none could avoid its grasp. But she was determined it would not have Quince.

  Tears pricked her eyes. “Stay with us,” she begged, then demanded, stroking his face. She bent over him, trying to block out the sight of all that blood.

  The tide of psi strength she’d never feel comfortable with swelled within her. Quince’s mind was silent. What remained of him he’d walled away from the pain. The power poured through her hands. Her tears fell to his cheek, bitterly hot, and left red welts on his paling skin. She pressed her hands over the worst of the wounds, too near his heart.

  “What do you do?” Navarre whispered harshly.

  She couldn’t speak or she’d break her concentration. Quince’s blood slipped through her fingers, cooling. No! The black maw laughed soundlessly. She shuddered.

  “He’s gone,” she dimly heard Navarre say.

  She clung to Quince, his head pressed to her abdomen, her cheek laid against the ragged hole in his chest. A flash of white fire burst from her own hands, blinding her. The power within her leaped from those hands she’d never claim as her own again to Quince’s chest. Quince gasped and tried to bolt upright but her hunched body prevented him. His head collapsed back into her lap. But the fire still burned. She felt rather than saw Quince’s heart take a staggering half beat, saw the ragged muscle tissue knit together beneath her fingers. Another faint beat, then another. The heartbeats were erratic but at least his heart beat.

  Altarre burst into the room, followed by the others. Someone tried to pull her away. She fought them, flailing, her touch scalding, and they backed away.

  Then it wasn’t just she holding Quince from slipping over the precipice, but Navarre, Altarre and Benito. Wherever they could, they touched him. She felt Altarre take over, guiding her fire with his deft mental touch. The wound pressed to her check fused shut. Quince’s heartbeat steadied.

  She lifted her head and felt Quince’s breath against her cheek.

  They took several steps back from the precipice together. A sliver of what once was Quince emerged from his protective cocoon.

  Though it’d cost them both strength, she asked, Nikki?

  Quince’s mental touch was as light as a lover’s eyelashes against one’s cheek.

  Quince. Quince, she repeated. Names had power. That had been her first lesson with Navarre. Quince! His mental touch remained ever so faint. Where did he take her?

  I do not know, came the reply and then his tenuous touch faded, even though his heart continued to beat.

  When someone tried to pull her away again, she let them. She was sticky, covered in Quince’s blood and beyond exhausted. Her muscles threatened to mutiny.

  “My babies,” she whispered. At her touch, they stirred within her. They were still safe. Thank the Gods.

  Face haggard, Altarre looked his age while he fed blood into Quince through an IV directly from the other members of the Dragoon. Benito tended to Navarre who looked like he felt the same way she did. Adonthe pressed a wet washcloth to her face.

  “Is he going to live?” She didn’t recognize her own voice.

  “Aye.” Adonthe eased her back another pace, propping her against the foot end of Navarre’s bed. It was the last thing she heard before she passed out.

  * * * * *

  “Nikki!” Adrianne bolted upright. She glanced around wildly, not recognizing where she was. She didn’t remember what she was dreaming about, only that Nikki was in terrible trouble. Beside her, Navarre stirred. She reached to shake him, then paused. A smattering of gray hairs flecked his hair just around the edges of his ears. She knew they hadn’t been there before. There was a weariness to his face she’d never seen before.

  She turned. Quince lay in a bed on their left. Clean white sheets hid him from waist down, his chest bare. A variety of equipment was hooked to him, but his chest rose and fell regularly on its own. He was too pale, too still. She remembered the black edge they dragged him back from and shivered.

  They appeared to be in Altarre’s examination room, the one where he confirmed her pregnancy. Carefully, so as not to disturb Navarre, she eased herself out of the bed. She had to grab on to the edge of the bed to keep her legs from buckling. Steady now. When she regained her equilibrium, she headed for the panel. It didn’t open at her approach.

  She tried again, waving her hand in front of it, in case the ship had missed her approach. The panel remained shut.

  She needed to get out. They had to look for Nikki. She knew what the Hunter was capable of. Every precious second counted.

  She laid her palms against the door. Her mind ached too badly to even attempt trying to contact the ship. As if guessing her intentions, the panel bubbled beneath her fingertips. So the ship was paying attention to her.

  “Well then,” she said crossly. “Open up.”

  “It is locked for your safety.”

  She turned around, still leaning against the door because she needed it for support. Navarre appeared as worn as she. He didn’t even bother to prop himself up.

  “The Hunter will torture Nikki,” she said flatly. She knew his standard rebuttal. Nikki was not the Dragoon’s concern. She was.

  But he didn’t say that. “Quince would know if the Hunter harmed her. He hasn’t…yet.”

  “Yet” held too much fear for her. “He wants me.” She felt tears of frustration prick her eyes. Not now. She took a breath. Now she had to compose herself.

  “They are bound together. When Nikki dies, so will Quince,” Navarre said softly. He watched Quince’s chest rise and fall. “She lives.”

  And if she hadn’t dragged Quince back from the precipice, Nikki would have died as well. She saw the unspoken confirmation in Navarre’s eyes. What had the two of them done? “The idiots,” she muttered, but she didn’t mean it.

  “They are in love. Quince knew what he was doing.”

  “But did Nikki?” She stumbled away from the door. “What good is all the psi talent in the world, if it can’t protect us from the Hunter?”

  Navarre slid out of bed, wincing, and took her in his arms. “They both made a choice.”

  The Hunter would torture Nikki and they’d be forced to watch her anguish reflect back through Quince.

  Help me, she begged to anyone that might be listening. Hadn’t she fulfilled all they asked? Hadn’t the Hunter butchered the Dragoon’s Queens through the centuries? She reached out to Cerenth, to Mirium, to all t
he Queens she’d seen pictures of and to those she knew only by name. She had no experience with calling out to the dead, didn’t even know if it was possible, but the Dragoon had cannibalized too much of themselves to keep one of its own alive to risk sending them to fight the Hunter.

  Names had power and she intended to extort strength from whatever she could.

  “Cerenth,” she breathed again. The air around her thickened.

  “What are you conjuring?” Navarre wrapped his arms around her. “Remember the babies.” Together they sank to the floor, leaning against each other and the wall. Their minds touched and mingled. She pulled what remaining strength he had into her. He did not protest.

  Voices reached her. Not the voices of her babies, but the echoes of whispers through time. “Cerenth,” she called for a third time. A proud Queen and the grandmother of the children she now carried, certainly Cerenth had the most to gain or lose.

  Call the others, a voice commanded.

  Adrianne reached out to Altarre who spun it to Adonthe who passed it to Benito. The panel slid open. The other members of the Dragoon trickled in, kneeling beside her and Navarre.

  She was so horribly tired. She wanted nothing more than to lean back into Navarre’s arms and drift off to sleep. But the voices were growing in strength and number. They reached out, disembodied hands and flowing words.

  Some of the Dragoon spoke to the wraiths, leaning toward them with outstretched hands. She was too tired to try to translate. Benito’s face was sheer white. His lips moved rapidly, but soundlessly. Had he seen his own Queen?

  The hands reached out. She felt a whispery touch on her forehead and cheek. My daughter. The voice resonated within her, achingly familiar.

  “Mother,” she whispered, but the explicit touch was gone. To hear her voice and then be denied it once again was almost too much too bear. Tears streamed down her face. “Help us.”

  We will do what we can. And then they were gone.