Queen Takes King

by Joely Sue Burkhart

  I wasn’t sure why she warned me.

  Until she sank her fangs high on my thigh, her face nearly in my groin.

  Climax roared through me again, a compulsion I couldn’t deny. I came so hard it hurt. My heart pounded from exertion, my head felt like it was going to explode, and I had a massive cramp in my thigh.

  I’d come when she bit me before, but I thought it was only because it’d been so long. If her bite was orgasmic, and Rik told her to bite me a dozen times…

  I groaned. And yeah, I arched up again, desperate for more.

  She drank from me endlessly. I couldn’t believe she could hold so much blood at once. Her power rose like a tsunami destined to obliterate the globe.

  Before I was imprisoned, I’d seen plenty of queens, now infamous legends on the winds of time. Lilith. Medusa. Cleopatra. So powerful they were nearly goddesses themselves.

  And young Shara Isador would rival their power.

  Feeding on a powerful, old Aima like me required more than just a cast-iron belly and an alpha built like Hercules to hold me still long enough to get her fangs in me. She needed to have the stamina and reserves of her own to utilize that much power. The foundation and relays had to be strong enough to handle the load without short circuiting.

  My queen’s magic system was powerful enough to light up this entire backwards country. And what scared the shit out of me—she was still growing.

  Every time she fed on me, she’d get even more powerful. They didn’t come much older than me anymore. More powerful. The Triune queens would shit a brick when they realized the level of Blood this young queen had called.

  She reared back, blood dripping down her chin, and I had never seen anything more beautiful. With a low moan, she climbed on top of me, straddling my groin, her desire rising to a fevered pitch.

  But I couldn’t satisfy her. Not after two climaxes minutes apart. A terrible feeling, to know her need, realize she burned, but I couldn’t do anything about it.

  :Guillaume.: she called through the bond.

  I couldn’t complain that she called another Blood, not when I’d already come twice. Though when the knight came to the edge of the bed and laughed, I’d have gleefully bitten him in half if I could have escaped our alpha.

  “Now that’s quite a predicament.”

  Guillaume

  I didn’t like Leviathan much and made no effort to conceal that fact. The man’s arrogant saunter and sardonic comments set my teeth on edge. And then there was his fucking audacity to try and kill our queen to save his own hide.

  That deplorable lack of honor I could not forgive.

  Ironic, since I’d killed my first queen. But Shara was no Desideria.

  So it was most gratifying to see the mighty dragon pinned like a bug by our alpha, and well used by our queen. Shara had already fed, so I knew full well why she’d called me. Her bond raged out of control with need. She didn’t have to tell me to strip.

  However, fully armed with my usual arsenal, it was going to take me more than a few minutes to remove all my knives.

  I unbuttoned my cuffs and rolled back the sleeves to bare the wrist sheathes on each arm. I started to remove the smallest blade on my left arm, but a surge in her bond made me look up at her.

  “Leave them. The leather straps and knives are hot.”

  I met Rik’s gaze over the dragon’s shoulder. I wouldn’t care to have so many weapons near the bastard while we were in the throes of passion with our queen, though with my blood in her veins, she’d surely be as hard to kill with steel as the headless knight.

  “Fuck, you’re both idiots,” Mehen growled out. “If I’m going to stick her with anything it’ll be my dick. Not a knife. I don’t need steel to kill her if that’s my goal.”

  I still didn’t like it, and neither did Rik.

  Shara shifted on top of Mehen’s uncooperative groin and groaned with frustration. “Please, G, I need you.”

  Fuck that shit. My queen should never have to beg. I yanked the shirt over my head without unbuttoning it and attacked my pants while toeing off my boots.

  I climbed onto the bed and Rik unlocked his ankles to make room for me on top of both of their legs. She pressed back against me, her fingers settling on my forearms, pulling me close, stroking over the leather and steel strapped to my arms. The chest harness carried my larger blade and I’m sure it had to be uncomfortable against her back, but she didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she leaned down toward Leviathan’s waiting hands and lifted that hot, sweet pussy higher for me.

  But I didn’t like the dragon’s hands rising eagerly toward her breasts. I slammed his wrists down to the mattress and leaned over her, using my weight to pin his arms flat.

  He hissed at me.

  I chuckled as I slid deep into our queen, making her moan. “How does it feel to be fucked by our alpha, while I fuck our queen on top of you?”

  “Fucking amazing,” he growled, arching up beneath her, trying to rub his belly against her breasts.

  I sank to the hilt inside her and she quivered against me. Pressing my mouth to her ear, I whispered, “I think you should bite him again.”

  “Definitely,” Rik replied, a hard glint in his eyes.

  Mehen groaned. “At least let me get inside you first.”

  In your dreams, asshole. Though I didn’t say it aloud. Instead, I shifted up to my feet to gain some leverage. Two sets of Blood thighs were too tall for me to do much thrusting from my knees. Plus, getting my weight off their legs gave Rik more leeway to push up into the dragon.

  Using our queen’s bond, it was easy to time our thrusts. Rik shoved up when I drove deep, just like the third man wasn’t even there. Exactly what we wanted him to think about. He had no part in our queen’s pleasure, other than giving her blood as often as she wanted it. He was her food. Her donor. We were her dicks. We gave her pleasure. We met her need.

  I felt her climax rising through her bond and drove deeper, harder. I knew full well what she liked now. I knew how much she could take. And I knew that she’d want my bite when her pleasure broke.

  Her breath caught and her head fell back against my shoulder, her neck curved to the side in invitation. I sank my fangs into her throat and she cried out, digging her fingers into Mehen’s chest. Her pleasure spiked through our bonds. Rik bent his knees, bracing his feet to drive up harder into the man on top of him. Mehen groaned as our alpha came inside him.

  I fought back my own release despite her blood filling my mouth. Hot, spiced silk and velvet, spun sugar and decadent wine, swirling on my tongue.

  “Give me some,” Mehen rasped, his eyes burning pits of lust. “One taste of your blood and I’ll be rock hard again. Bite me as many times as you want as long as I’m inside you.”

  Holding his gaze, I clamped my mouth tighter on her throat, refusing to let a single drop escape. It was her choice. If she told me to give him some, I would. Even if I thought he hadn’t earned the right yet.

  She leaned down toward him and I moved with her, keeping my mouth locked on her throat. Her power flowed into me, lighting up my nerves like a circuit board. Even now, she managed to heal me a little more. Soothing scars, both inside and out while hardening my gift even more. I seriously doubted if anyone would be able to injure me with steel at all now, though her fangs had no problem penetrating me.

  He leaned up since Rik had loosened his grip a bit, eyes blazing with thirst and lust both, but she ducked and sank her fangs into his pectoral.

  He bellowed, thrashing beneath us, coming hard with nothing left in his balls. Dry spurts shook his big body. Blood dripped down his chin and throat where he’d gnashed his own lips.

  She lifted her head, dribbling blood on his chest. “Hold his head.”

  “Gladly,” Rik replied, tightening his forearm on the man’s throat again, and wrapping his other hand around his forehead to hold him steady.

  She slowly crawled up Mehen’s body, licking blood from his skin. Which gave me plenty of time to s
hift forward with her, using her movement to slowly slide and thrust inside her. She licked his blood from his chin up to his lips.

  He tried to lean up, whether to kiss her or bite her, I couldn’t say. But Rik squeezed his big palm and tightened his forearm, ready to pop the bastard’s head off with an easy snap.

  “So mean,” she whispered against his lips, drinking from him even as she kissed him. “So angry.”

  “My queen.” The fight bled out of him. He quit struggling against Rik’s grip and softened his mouth, opening his lips for her instead of trying to inhale her. “Please.”

  I wasn’t sure which touched her the most: that he finally called her my queen without an edge in his tone that said he wanted to kill her, or the fact that he pleaded for her rather than demanded. Or both. Regardless, she lifted her head, bared her fangs, and sank them into my forearm rather than him.

  With a roar, I plunged deep inside her, shaking, her fangs pushing me over the edge. I shuddered against her, spurt after spurt rocking through me. And yeah, I lost my punctures on her throat.

  I expected him to surge up and take my place at her throat, but he didn’t move. His emerald eyes flashed like chipped ice, locked on the twin ribbons of blood trailing down her throat.

  But he didn’t take what she hadn’t offered to him.

  Even I had to admit that was impressive. Maybe Mehen was finally starting to trust her. Or more likely, he’d simply come too many times to get his damned brain to work.

  “All right, my dragon. Show me what you’re made of.”

  36

  Shara

  He lurched up and locked his mouth to Guillaume’s bite, sucking hard enough to make my throat ache. But it was a good hurt that tightened my lower body too. I half expected him to flip me over on my back in an aggressive roll, but he didn’t haul me into position, even though I felt his hardened cock beneath me.

  Maybe I’d put a dent in his desire by biting him so many times. Or maybe he was finally settling into his role. Not that I even knew what that was exactly.

  Rik sat up, still underneath us all. But he didn’t seemed bothered by the fact. At all.

  In fact, he wrapped his palm around Mehen’s dick and squeezed him hard enough the man’s breath caught on a moan. Touch. What he craved, even though he might be too proud to admit it.

  “Is this what you want next, my queen?”

  I wrapped one arm around Mehen’s neck and the other around Rik’s shoulder, keeping them both close so that the dragon was sandwiched between us. “Yes.”

  Guillaume’s hands settled on my hips and he lifted me up over the tip of Mehen’s dick and let me slide slowly down over him.

  :Hold me too,: I said through the bond.

  Pressing against my back, he wrapped his arms around the three of us.

  Every inch of Mehen touched somebody. He relaxed against us, supported in our arms. His head fell back against Rik’s shoulder and he panted softly, eyes closed, soaking us in.

  “So long,” he said hoarsely, his voice cracking on what might have been a sob.

  I nuzzled into his neck, breathing in his dragon scent, mixed with Rik’s hot iron and Guillaume’s horse. Just smelling them made me tighten on his dick. But he already came several times, painfully hard. I didn’t want to damage him…

  He snorted and tipped his hips up against me, giving a little stir and friction inside me. “As if that would even be possible. No Blood ever complained that his queen used him for too much sex.”

  I leaned back, seating him deeper. “I didn’t think you were Blood.”

  He shrugged, his eyes flashing. “I don't know if a king can ever be Blood, not really. Let alone me. I had a lifetime of independence and then centuries of imprisonment where I could do nothing but simmer with my rage.”

  His gaze dropped to my throat, his fangs adding a lisp to his words. I felt his hunger, but more, a desperate need to pierce me. To bury his fangs in me as deeply as his dick. He wanted to be inside me as much as possible.

  I tipped my head to the side, offering the other side of my throat that Guillaume hadn’t marked.

  Waiting a moment, Mehen gave a wary look at the knight behind me, his back tensing as if my alpha might thump him if he made his move. “I do know one thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  He sank his fangs into my throat, making me arch against him. :I’m yours.:

  Gasping, I jerked between him and Guillaume. It felt like a live wire connected his fangs and his dick, pulsing and sparking with power. A positive and negative charge that met and exploded inside me. I’d never felt anything quite like it. He felt bigger, wider, his fangs impossibly long. In moments, I came again, but the current didn’t relent.

  In fact, my pleasure made that connection surge even higher. My muscles quivered and I cried out again. Unable to stop the climax pounding through me.

  Guillaume’s arms squeezed me hard and he locked his mouth back over his marks. Rik growled and sealed his mouth over mine. Our bonds flowed hotter, winding through my mind like rivers of flaming oil.

  We were going to come again.

  Even Daire, who wasn’t in the room. I felt him on the couch, quivering with me, panting through my desire. Worried for Xin and Nevarre, I touched their bonds and found them both on the verge with me. Shifted back to human form, Xin leaned against a pine, gasping for breath, and Nevarre had a hand braced by the other Blood’s head, leaning against Xin. Needing touch.

  The same as Mehen.

  The same as me.

  All my Blood, even though they weren’t touching me, were going to come.

  I had a feeling that I wouldn’t be able to stop coming as long as Mehen was inside me. The easiest way to make him finish…

  I sank my fangs into his shoulder.

  He thrashed against me, unable to move much with Rik and Guillaume squeezing us so tightly together. He let out a muffled roar against my throat, unwilling to miss a single drop of my blood. His hips jerked beneath me, lifting us both up off Rik’s thighs, but finally the brutal pleasure loop broke and his softened cock slipped out of me.

  Tumbled down into a heap, we all lay tangled together, a quivering mass of exhausted muscles. Distantly, I felt Xin and Nevarre leaning against each other, holding each other up until they caught their breath.

  Daire was by himself.

  :Not for long,: Rik said in our bond, and then I felt him call, :Daire.:

  He must have already been sneaking in because barely a second went by and he launched up onto the mattress with us.

  On top of me, naturally, because with three other massive Blood in bed, there wasn’t a spare spot for another body.

  Daire being Daire, he managed to scoot and worm his way beneath and around me so that I wasn’t squished at all, just wrapped in smoking hot flesh. His hair slid down over my cheek and he started up a rumbling purr that vibrated his chest against me.

  “Fuck,” Mehen said in a disgusted voice at my ear. “Does he do that all night?”

  “Usually,” Daire replied cheerfully.

  My head was on Rik’s chest, his arm curved around my back, his hand on my stomach. Mehen had his head on Rik too. Daire had wedged himself in partially between Guillaume and Rik, but my knight’s thigh was tossed over mine, his groin hot against my thigh.

  “Can you all sleep like this?”

  “Of course,” they all replied except for Mehen, who said, “Fuck, no. But no Blood is going to waste time sleeping when he’s in his queen’s bed.”

  Guillaume grunted. “The snake has a point.”

  “Dragon,” Mehen retorted.

  Daire purred louder.

  Smiling, I closed my eyes, enveloped by my Blood.

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  Queen Takes Queen

  Shara

  Lounging in bed was a luxury I’d been denied most of my adult life. When you’re
on the run, afraid for your life, the last thing you want to do is close your eyes. Let alone drop your guard enough to actually sleep soundly and deep. Sleeping made me vulnerable, and alone, I couldn’t afford to be vulnerable. I couldn’t relax one minute without worrying I’d end up dead.

  That fear was long gone now. I could lie in bed all hours of the day or night and sleep without a single worry. I didn’t have to keep one eye on the door, or strain my ears to hear a whisper in the hallway. Because I would never be alone again, not with my Blood by my side.

  Before I opened my eyes, I liked to touch each of my six Blood bonds one by one, locating their position. Partly to know who was in bed with me, but also so they would each feel me touch their bond. They’d know I was awake and well, and I’d know they were well.

  Of course as my alpha and my biggest, baddest Blood, Rik probably knew I was awake before I realized it, but I always felt for him first, even though I knew he’d be right there beside me.

  Until he wasn’t.

  He isn’t here.

  I jerked upright, my heart pounding. “Rik?”

  He hollered from the bathroom. “In here, my queen. Sorry, I didn’t meant to worry you.”

  “Even alphas need to take a leak now and then,” Xin said beside me.

  Whew. My heart still pounded, but I lay back down beside him and curled into his side. Even in his human form, Xin smelled like a wolf. Well, that didn’t come anywhere close to a good description. He smelled like a wolf, paused in a clearing in the middle of an ancient forest beneath a full moon on a cold winter’s night, with frost and snow crystallized on his fur.

  Touching him felt so strange with that image in my head, because his skin was so hot and smooth. I ran my palms over his chest and shoulders, enjoying the play of muscle and sinew beneath his skin. He was one of my leaner Blood, but no less powerful or strong as the others. As my second-oldest Blood—born in 712 AD—he had endured centuries upon centuries of a cold, untouchable service to his queen. To say he was starved for touch was the understatement of the year. All my Blood were starved to a point, but he and Mehen, my oldest Blood, who’d been imprisoned as the mighty dragon, Leviathan, definitely felt the need most severely.