Queen Takes King

by Joely Sue Burkhart

  His tone told me he knew, but he was looking for confirmation. I lifted my face from his arm and looked across the couch at Xin. He didn’t move or say anything, but the intensity of his eyes seared me. Wolf eyes. Hungry. So hungry. The better to eat you with, my dear.

  And yeah, I knew Rik had done this on purpose. He’d reminded me of the other Blood, who sat so silent and still that it was easy to forget him. Even me, his new queen. I only now realized the other two Blood had left the room too. Again, probably deliberately. Though I didn’t know if I wanted to have sex on the couch.

  Xin’s eyes flickered a moment, a sheet of silver flashing through the darkness of his eyes like lightning.

  “Xin?” I asked softly, my attention locked on him. “Do you know who my father is?”

  He swallowed so hard I heard it. “Typhon. Father of monsters. Ancient god of Greece I believe. My queen.”

  Rik carefully pulled my hair to one side, baring the curve of my neck. He brushed his mouth against my skin, ever so softly. I trembled. My fangs distended so fast and hard that I made a sound of shocked discomfort. Blood dripped down my chin.

  Staring at me, Xin didn’t move other than a fine shimmy of his powerful, lean body. He wouldn’t make a move toward me. None of them would while I was with my alpha. Not until invited.

  His gaze followed the thin trail of blood that dripped down my chin and splashed another stain on the sweater. I didn’t have to use our bond to know that he was imagining what my blood would look like trailing down my breasts. If I’d allow him to lick it off my skin.

  “Yes,” I said simply.

  And he was there, eager, his mouth on my chin. Rik tugged my sweater over my head. I hadn’t bothered with a bra. My lip wasn’t bleeding enough to drip that much, so I gouged myself again.

  Xin didn’t plant his mouth over the small wounds. He only licked my chin, my throat, following the thin trails of blood.

  :Give him more.: I said to Rik through our bond.

  He sank his fangs into the top of my shoulder. I felt his hunger, the surge of power that hit him at the first swallow. Then he lifted his mouth and allowed my blood to flow down my breast before closing his mouth back over the wound.

  Xin lapped my breast in slow, sinuous strokes that melted my bones. His fangs scraped gently, and I shuddered at the thought of him sinking them deep. I didn’t know how much blood he’d get if he bit me on the breast, but I was willing. His tongue slid under my nipple, lifting it into the heat of his mouth.

  The tip of fang scratched across my nipple and I moaned. Such a small thing, but it sent chills down my spine. Good chills. Chills that made me think about the delicate sharpness biting elsewhere. He flashed his eyes up at me, all wolf. All predator.

  I ran my hands through his short, choppy hair and stroked the planes of his face. I wanted to shake his silence. Find what made him crack open and bare his soul to me. I wanted to know him, inside and out. I wanted to hear him come. Not softly, quietly, but a loud roar of release.

  I wanted him to come apart at the seams.

  20

  Shara

  I stood and unbuttoned my jeans. Xin made a low, strangled sound and I looked up at his face, surprised I’d already broken his silence. I hadn’t even done anything to tease him yet.

  His eyes were locked on my crotch even though my jeans were still very much up. Then I remembered my period. I must have fucking ruined another pair of jeans.

  “You’re breeding. So young. Alpha, forgive me, I had no idea.”

  “It’s just my period. We’re pretty sure I’m not breeding.”

  “There’s nothing to forgive,” Rik added. “I’m driven hard by my instincts, yes, but as she says, we don’t know that she’s breeding. She needs all her Blood now and she doesn’t want just me. I wouldn’t try and drive any of you away, even if she was fertile.”

  I appreciated that he said try to drive any of my Blood away. Because yeah, if he tried to send Xin or Guillaume or Daire away when I wanted them, he’d have a fight on his hands. I loved that he was alpha and the biggest, baddest Blood, but now that I’d had a taste of several men, at once and separately, I wanted them all. I wanted more.

  “And you shall have more, my queen.” His voice rumbled deeper. “All the Blood you can call. We’re yours.”

  My stomach rumbled but I didn’t want food. I wanted blood. I wanted Blood. “Does it bother you?” I asked Xin as I shoved my jeans down my thighs.

  “Is a cherry blossom bothered when it blooms in the spring?”

  I took that as a hell no, it didn’t bother him, though he continued to sit there without moving. “You’re not getting undressed.”

  He looked at Rik, as if asking permission, and that irritated me. “Don’t look at him. Look at me. I decide who’s putting their dick in me. Not him.”

  “Patience,” Rik whispered, reaching up to snag my hand. “You’re asking us to overcome millennia of Blood hierarchy in a moment. It’s courteous for a Blood to confirm with the alpha before touching the queen, even if she’s making the order.”

  My fangs throbbed. My pussy ached to be filled. I didn’t have much patience remaining.

  Xin stripped in record time, but remained standing, waiting my next order. I pushed him down on the couch and planted my knees on either side of his hips so I straddled his lap, but I didn’t take him yet. His manner… unnerved me. The hesitation, and sideways glances at Rik, even after I told him I was making the decisions, made me doubt myself. I’d feel like shit if I did something to him that he regretted later, because I was too fucking eager to taste him again and didn’t make sure he was willing.

  “I’m willing.” His voice cracked like ice giving way beneath a heavy load. “More than willing. Though I’ve never put my dick in a queen.”

  I’m pretty sure I gaped at him. “Never? You’ve had sex before though, right?”

  “Some. Not often. But my previous queen was not like you.”

  I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. I started to turn to Rik, doing myself what I’d just been irritated by with Xin, but I wanted my alpha’s steady acceptance. Maybe even confirmation. I didn’t want to be a terrible queen. I didn’t want to mistreat them. Or force them. Or use them…

  “Use me,” Xin ground out. “Please.”

  I looked back into his eyes and touched his bond, but as before, his core was too deep. I could find him, sure, if I wanted to leap off the mental skyscraper again.

  “My last queen was cold, calculating, and hungry for power. She didn’t want bodies for pleasure. She wanted blood for power, and my blades to further her position. She had no other use for me. Forgive me if I seem shocked or dismayed by your passion, because I’m not, at all. I’m merely overwhelmed by my sudden good fortune to find myself here with you. That you hunger for my body and my blood is truly a miracle to me. One that I’m eager to embrace.” His eyes crackled with ice and lightning and he finally touched me. He smoothed his palms down my back and shuddered like he’d never touched anything so exquisite before. “May I ask one boon, my queen?”

  “Shara,” I whispered, letting my eyes drift shut as he stroked me. “Yes.”

  “May I taste your blood, Shara, my queen?”

  I opened my eyes, sliding back toward confused. He’d had my blood. He’d just licked blood from my breasts.

  Standing behind me, Rik pressed against my back and reached around to cup my pussy. He stroked his fingers deep, making my head fall back on a moan. He pushed two fingers into me, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted so much more. “He means this blood, my queen.”

  Oh. My cheeks heated. I still couldn’t quite wrap my brain around their eagerness for all my blood. “Okay.”

  They lifted me up so quickly I squeaked out loud. I’d expected him to touch me like Rik, or even taste my blood from his fingers. Not hold me high in the air so Xin could bury his face between my thighs. But that’s exactly what he did. Rik supported my weight and Xin drew my knees up on his shou
lders so my thighs hugged his head.

  He let out a rumbling growl, his shoulders bunching beneath me as if his wolf was trying to tear out of his skin. He clamped onto my clit and growled again, using that vibration to make me writhe in his grip. His fangs scraped tender flesh—not puncturing deep, but scratching, like he’d done to my nipple, and I twitched harder against his mouth. As if my body wanted his fangs. Even there. Climax roared through me and my fangs pulsed, making my whole face ache with need. I needed to bite. I needed his dick. Rik’s. Someone’s. I couldn’t bear this emptiness tearing me apart.

  Pushing into me from behind, Rik offered his wrist. I sank my fangs deep, not trying to find a vein. I needed him in my mouth, like I needed his dick. Pressure on my fangs, the taste of his skin and blood in my mouth. So good. Xin sucking my clit, feeding on my blood at the same time. I gripped a handful of his hair and dug into Rik’s arm, holding on for dear life. He didn’t fuck me that hard, not with fangs so near my most vulnerable flesh. In fact, he was already coming, and with his blood on my tongue and me under Xin’s tongue, I couldn’t stop coming either. Rik’s bond sizzled with lava, and Xin’s crackled with blistering frost. The two met in me and exploded into a fire and ice showdown of cataclysmic proportions.

  My alpha roared with release and he bit my neck again. Xin turned his head and sank his fangs into my thigh. I bucked between them, unable to stop the surge of pleasure. I would have screamed but I still had Rik’s wrist in my mouth and I wasn’t letting him go. Not until I had Xin’s throat close enough to trade for.

  As if they’d worked together for years, Rik pulled out of me and let me drop down onto Xin’s waiting cock. I took him deep and lunged for his throat as soon as Rik pulled his arm aside. Fresh power soared through me. A blizzard of soft white fur and crystalized ice. The heavy thud of thick wet snow and the deafening silence of the forest just after a storm had dumped a foot or two of snow. Xin’s wolf turned at the edge of the forest, waiting for me to follow.

  I ran after him on four swift, silent feet. Nose in the wind. Millions of scents on my tongue. But it was his blood I wanted, not any deer or rabbit. And I would hunt him… until I caught him in the dark shadows of the wood.

  I came awake slowly. Aware of being carried. By someone not Rik. It took me a minute to feel skin against me rather than silvery white fur. “Xin? Where are we going?”

  “Alpha suggested a bath before dinner.”

  I closed my eyes, feeling for Rik’s presence. He was near, his bond immediately flooding my senses. :My queen?:

  I didn’t know what to say. Or what I wanted exactly. I was sated for the time being. My hunger satisfied. The blood of two fine men pumping through me. My nerves still singing with pleasure, my muscles pliant and liquid. My body felt like warm honey.

  But I didn’t feel like myself. Me.

  It’d only been a handful of days and I didn’t recognize myself. I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t scared. I sure as hell wasn’t a virgin any longer. Nor human.

  I’d done things in the last few days that would never have occurred to me in a million years. Like ordering the death of an enemy… without regret. Or having sex with two men at once. Riding one’s face while another fucked me. Where had that come from? Had that wanton creature always been caged inside me and I hadn’t known? Or was I changing at the very core of who I was? Was this me, now? Or had I lost myself?

  Xin settled us into a hot bath. I lay against his chest and breathed his scent, wishing his wolf could provide some clarity. Or at least serenity. The wolf hunted. The wolf killed. It had no remorse. It didn’t worry that it was becoming too wolf-like. It certainly didn’t worry about the deer it’d just eaten.

  It was hungry. It did what its nature drove it to do.

  Carrying a plate of steak and potatoes, Rik came into the tub too and Xin shifted me so they could both hold me between them, our legs stretched out the length of the tub, while Rik fed me small bites of food. Xin still had blood on his face. My blood. Period blood. I waited for my cheeks to fire, my stomach to clench or pitch with disgust, but I only felt… satisfaction. That was my blood on my Blood and nothing could make me happier than seeing him pumped with power because of me.

  He stroked my face, long sensitive fingers gliding like an artist chiseling a masterpiece from a chunk of marble. His eyes burned like quick silver. Hot, cold, bright, all at once. His bond a searingly cold yet eerily silent blizzard.

  “She liked it that way,” he whispered, keeping his touch light on my face. “My old queen. She didn’t want to hear us. She didn’t want to feel us. We were taught early to lock our bonds down tightly. She wanted blades. Not emotions. Not men. Not lovers. Not even protectors. She didn’t want touch or conversation or service of any kind. She had servants for that. We were only in her presence long enough to receive her orders verbally. Never in the bond, unless it came from her alpha, because she didn’t touch any part of us.”

  “Even when she fed?” I asked, reaching out to stroke his face as gently as he touched mine.

  “Even then. She used a small blade and we offered blood into a cup from which she drank.”

  In some ways, that had been my existence alone, on the run from thralls. I’d had no one. I’d talked to no one. I certainly never touched anyone or fed, because I had no idea what that was. In a matter of days, Rik and Daire had managed to make me forget those lean, lonely years.

  No wonder his bond was so far away. So silent. He’d walled himself off hundreds of years ago.

  Staring into Xin’s eyes, I wondered how long it would take me to help him forget. To fill up all those long, lean years of emptiness.

  He leaned closer and brushed his mouth ever so softly against mine. “You already have, Shara, my queen. Thank you.”

  21

  Daire

  Shara turned the laptop around for everyone to see. “This is where we need to go.” A huge plateau rose into the clouds with sheer rocky sides dotted with waterfalls. “Roraima, Venezuela.”

  “Why there, I wonder?” Gina said. “It’s certainly out of the way and will be difficult to get to the top.”

  Shara shook her head. “He’s not at the top. He’s inside the mountain, like it’s holding him down.”

  “Let me make a few calls, including a courtesy call to the queen in Mexico City. We won’t stop over there unless you want to, but it’d be nice to let her know you’ll be in her region, even briefly. Why don’t you start going through the pictures Marissa uploaded and make notes of any repairs or modifications you’re wanting?”

  At least Gina had brought help along with dinner tonight, so we Blood could simply sit and look at our queen rather than clear the table. The food had been fantastic, but I didn’t remember what I ate. I’d been too busy watching my queen eat and talk with her consiliarius. And I’d lying if I said I wasn’t worried about the sleeping arrangements tonight.

  Rik would be true to his word. He’d refuse to allow me inside her bed. I’d be damned lucky if I was allowed to step foot in her room, even to sleep.

  I’d already learned my lesson, but that didn’t matter. The alpha’s word was law, second only to our queen’s. I couldn’t possibly ask her to overrule him, when I’d been willing to hurt her to protect him.

  I’d scoped out the other bedrooms and found a full-sized bed I thought might have been hers, or at least set up for her. She’d said she rarely slept alone, even as a baby, until she’d grown up enough to take the tower room. That room still angered me… but I’d give my right arm to be there with her tonight, rather than the pink fluffy girl’s room that didn’t fit her personality at all.

  “Marissa and Winston have already made notes about changes they recommend, especially the kitchens and bathrooms,” Gina added. Then on the phone, “Angela, let’s get the jet fueled and ready to go in the next few days.”

  Shara’s eyes widened. “I’ve never flown before. Now I’m flying on my own jet. Insane.”

  Rik squeezed her hand. “Wait until
we go shopping. Would you rather go to Abu Dhabi or LA first?”

  “Let’s start with LA. I’ve always wanted to see the ocean.”

  Fuck. There were so many things that she’d never done. Never seen. It was a good thing we Aima lived a very long time, so we could ensure she had all the opportunities she’d missed out on.

  “How many more days will you bleed, my queen?” Guillaume asked on her other side.

  “Probably two more. Three at the most.”

  Gina caught that bit and said, “Her Majesty will need the jet ready to fly to Venezuela in three or four days’ time. Also look up Mayte Zaniyah and text me her consiliarius’s phone number, please.”

  “This is really going to happen,” Shara whispered, looking at each of us.

  Rik’s eyes flared with surprise. “Of course. You need to find him. We’ll get you there.”

  “I guess…” She blew out a sigh. “I thought you’d try to prevent me from going, or try to talk me out of it.”

  “I’d love nothing better than to keep you from all harm, but a queen goes where the queen goes.”

  “We just keep you safe as you go,” Guillaume said.

  “And what about him?” She bit her lip and I’d give my left nut if every man at the table didn’t go rock hard. “I don’t know how that’s all going to work out. Only that I must free him.”

  “Then we free him,” Rik said firmly, giving her hand another squeeze. “But he will not harm you, Shara. I’ll have Xin or Guillaume kill him before I let this king harm one hair on your head.”

  Xin sat on my left, and I swear the temperature dropped a good ten degrees on our side of the table. “Leviathan was chained for a reason. Best we all remember that.”

  “I wish we knew why. Why he was chained—and why I in particular have to free him before he dies. Or even why he’s dying now rather than the hundreds of years before. Who’s been feeding him this whole time?”