“The rest of her court will be seated on the main floor in smaller tables,” Gina said. “They will all be watching you and your Blood, evaluating your power and your stature. Watching the way you interact with Mayte. If she’s unhappy, her court will be displeased. Everything from your clothing to the way you eat will be judged. If you send an offered dish away, for example, then Mayte could be offended. It will say her best efforts to entertain you are insufficient.”
Geez, talk about pressure. “I’m not so great in social situations. I mean, I know better than to eat with my fingers or belch loudly, but other than that, formal table etiquette is beyond me.”
“We’ll practice,” Gina promised. “And Zaniyah’s a small court. The pressure won’t be as immense as you fear.”
“Oh, the pressure’s there,” Guillaume said, nodding. “But for Mayte, not you. She needs you. Remember that. She wants to impress you. She wants to make sure you’re willing to protect her from other queens. Anytime you’re worried about something, just remember that her alternative is Keisha Skye, the queen who would have tortured your alpha before he could find you, and you’ll be fine.”
Indeed, just the thought of how close I’d come to never having Rik at all made my power rise. Goose bumps flared down my arms and my hair fluttered slightly about my shoulders, as if someone had cracked a door.
“What’s the worst thing that could happen?” I asked. “Honestly, I want to know.”
“Honestly?” At the end of the table, Mehen kicked back with a beer in his hand. “We’re killed. Every fucking one of us.”
Guillaume sighed. “The snake’s right. Worst case, she seals the circle, locking us inside. We’ll be out numbered. It’s been done before under the guise of diplomacy.”
I took a deep breath, my mind racing. I didn’t want to go into this if we didn’t have a Plan B. Some back door way to get out if we needed to escape. “I couldn’t break her blood circle?”
Gina spluttered on her wine and set her glass down. “No.”
I arched a brow at her. “No? For sure?”
“It’s never been done before. A blood circle, made by a queen, is impenetrable.”
“So you’ve told me, but then ants tried to crawl up from underneath my circle.”
Mehen took a long pull of his beer and then said, “I could fly you out. But no queen’s circle can be broken.”
“Unless the queen’s killed,” Rik said. “Here’s my orders to each of you so we’re absolutely fucking clear. If this meet goes badly, we get Shara out. No matter what. Kill your assigned Blood and get her to Mehen. He flies her out. Guillaume, your main priority will be to kill Mayte. Only you will be able to do it if she’s well protected.”
Guillaume nodded coolly. “Understood.”
Rik looked at Xin. “You will use your gift of invisibility to reach Shara and get her to Mehen. I don’t care if you kill anyone else, even your Blood. Just get her to the dragon so he can fly her out.”
“Understood, alpha.”
I shivered, looking down at my men, now grim and hard as they contemplated killing our way out of Zaniyah’s nest. I wasn’t scared, just… On edge. Nervous. Adrenaline already pumped though my veins and we hadn’t even left for Mexico yet. I didn’t doubt our ability to win. Not in the slightest. How could I after tonight’s battle with the ants? After Gaia and Morrigan and Isis worked together to grow a formidable grove of magical trees to protect us?
I wouldn’t have my trees or my nest in Mexico.
I would have something better.
My Blood.
13
Shara
Hand in hand with Rik, we slowly walked toward the guest house. Slowly, because that was all I could manage. My legs still felt weak, but I didn’t want him to carry me. It was early, not even ten o’clock, but sleep was far away. My mind raced with plans and questions I needed to remember to ask Gina. We had little time to prepare for this meeting.
I needed to practice using complicated sets of silverware for all the various courses. The polite ways to greet a queen and her Blood, as well as the less warm and fuzzy ways. So many nuances were built into life at court—something I had never known. I didn’t have any idea how to insult with a smile or charm with a touch.
Three days to teach me a lifetime of court etiquette, when I was so weak I couldn’t walk from the house to my bed.
Rik drew me to a halt outside the guest house door. “You’ve got an innate sense of how to play the game, whether you know it or not. You handled Kendall perfectly.”
“But that was only a minor Blood, not his queen. I don’t care what Keisha Skye thinks of me, but Mayte may be more important.”
“She will know what we know.” Rik’s eyelids were heavy, his voice a deep rumble. “I have no doubt.”
My Blood formed a loose ring about us, waiting for their orders.
From me.
I looked up at the sky a moment, letting the silver moonlight glow on my face. The moon seemed smaller now, normal sized rather than huge and mystical. Softly, I said, “I’m going to need a lot of blood tonight.”
“Take me first,” Daire said immediately, sliding up in a hug behind me.
“I’m ready,” both Mehen and Ezra said at the same time, and then they glared at each other.
Guillaume didn’t say a word, but he casually flicked his wrist and a blade gleamed against his palm. Standing beside him, Xin rolled up his sleeve and offered his wrist, though G didn’t cut him. Not yet.
Nevarre was the only one I really wasn’t sure about.
He immediately came and dropped to his knees before me, slinging his hair back in an effortless, practiced move. He tipped his head to the side so his throat gleamed in the moonlight. “Take what you need from me, my queen. My sincerest apologies if I gave you any reason to doubt my willingness to serve.”
“I know you’ll let me feed. But I’m not sure how you feel about everything else.”
“My queen?”
“I didn’t give you much choice last night, and for that, I’m sincerely sorry.”
Tiny crinkles formed at the corners of his eyes and his lips curled in slow, wide smile that made me sag with relief, leaning a bit harder on Daire. “You’re worried about that? Surely my enthusiastic participation in your Christmas evening orgy was full indication of my willingness to do everything you could ever desire.”
I reached out to stroke my fingers through the long black hair that fell over his shoulders. “You’re still grieving for Brigid and what you lost.”
He nodded, but leaned closer to press his face against my stomach. I wrapped my arms around his head and continued combing my right hand through his hair. “I’ll always grieve for the woman who took me in when no one else would. I loved her. I died with her. But she was not my queen. If anything…” He pressed his face tighter to me, leaning in harder. “I’m guilty of not loving her as much as I should have. She often said our love was quiet and kind, not wild and passionate, but sometimes I saw a wistful look on her face when she thought I wasn’t watching. Or I’d leave, and I’d see a look come into her eyes. The doubt that I would actually return to her side. It hurt, so badly, because it was true. I’d loved her more than my first queen, chosen by my mother to solidify her power, but not enough. Never enough.”
Tipping his face up so he could see me, he still kept his mouth pressed to the thin silk barely covering me, his eyes burning with dark emotion. “When I felt your call, nothing, absolutely nothing, would keep me from you. Nothing would ever make me leave your side. There is nothing kind and gentle about what roars through my body when I look at you or touch you or smell your blood or feel your magic. I already love you more wildly and passionately in a day, than I ever loved the woman I lived with for decades. That’s my guilt to bear, my queen. Not yours.”
“Am I to feel guilty for loving each of you?”
His eyes flared with shock. “Of course not, my queen. I’d never make that judgment of anyone, let alone y
ou.”
“I don’t love you the same as I love Daire. Does that make my love for you less? Should you leave, then, because you’re not Daire?”
His hands closed around my hips, his fingers digging into me. “Please don’t make me leave you, my queen. I’d rather you suck my life out of me and let me die here in the grove than live one moment without you.”
I cupped his cheeks in my hands and leaned down, holding his gaze. “Then why do you punish yourself for having different kinds of love for more than one woman?”
He swallowed hard, his throat working, and when he spoke, his voice was as raw as his words. “Because if she’d still lived when I felt your call, I would have left her without a moment’s hesitation and flown straight to you.”
I brushed my lips against his. “I’d rather think that I couldn’t have called you if she’d still lived, because I’d never want to take a man from someone he loved, no matter how badly I needed him as Blood. I won’t take a Blood I don’t love, and I won’t call a Blood when he loves another.”
The moon shone brighter and I could almost feel the pearly beams sinking into me, sliding through the lava-hot bonds of my Blood. I felt the surety in my bonds, the moon binding my oath into my magic and my Blood.
Nevarre’s shoulders relaxed and he melted against me. Daire started purring. Nevarre nuzzled my stomach, his lips tugging on the belt of my robe.
My eyelids fluttered, my skin sparking at their soft touches. Daire’s mouth moved on my neck, while Nevarre kissed my stomach. My knees quivered and Rik swooped me up against him. “Daire, Nevarre, with me. Ezra, Guillaume, stand by. Xin, Mehen, take the first watch.”
I expected Mehen to bitch about having to take watch when Ezra didn’t, but he stalked off into the night without a word.
Rik carried me inside and lay me on the bed.
But he didn’t join me.
My eyes flew open and I pushed up on my elbows.
Before I could say anything, he snapped his fingers and Daire and Nevarre slid in on either side of me. Blissfully naked. Hot flesh. Soft mouths. Slow, stroking hands.
“Soak them in, my queen,” Rik whispered, a deep yet soft rumble that thrummed my spine. “Let their touch wipe away every sting the thorns gave you this evening.”
I’d had several men in my bed at once for many nights now. But I’d never had two at once who made it seem like they were in absolutely no rush to do more than stroke me with their hands and mouths. All my Blood wanted to give me pleasure. But these two made me believe they’d be perfectly happy giving me endless pleasure with just their mouths. They didn’t attack the most obvious areas either. Neither of them touched my pussy or my breasts at all.
Nevarre cupped my left hand and kissed every fingertip and then my palm. He paid loving attention to the pulse in my wrist, stroking his tongue over my skin as if he could taste my blood without ever biting me. While Daire did the exact same thing to my right hand. Using their bond, they coordinated their touch, drowning me in waves of exquisite sensation.
Kisses in the crooks of my elbows. Soft nibbling lips up the curves of my biceps. My shoulders. My throat.
I reached around them both and pushed my hands up into their hair, tangling my fingers in the long strands. Daire’s wasn’t as long as Nevarre’s yet, but it’d easily grown six inches since he’d come to me.
Then Rik joined them, and my brain had a nuclear meltdown.
He was just as gentle… but with a firm grip. He massaged my right foot, rubbing his thumb firmly in my arch to loosen up kinks I wasn’t even aware of. Then my left received the same deep massage. Both hands squeezed and kneaded my calves. His mouth teased the tender skin on the inside of my knees. He worked my thighs, stretching and loosening every muscle, his mouth a slow torment. He didn’t tease and flutter like Nevarre or Daire. The higher he got up my legs, the more firmly he gripped me with his jaws. Not a bite, exactly, but he worked his teeth up and down my thighs until I trembled beneath their slow assault.
Nevarre’s hair trailed over my breasts. Daire’s rumbling purr a steady, deep vibration. If he laid between my thighs, I’d come just from feeling him purr against me.
He whispered against the hollow of my throat, “Could we make you come just from kissing your breasts?”
I didn’t have to answer. We all knew they could. Climax already hovered inside me, a fluttering, eager bird ready for the cage door to open.
He licked my skin like I’d dribbled blood all over my chest, his tongue firm and rough like his cat’s, but slow and tender. Nevarre’s lips roamed over my breast like butterfly wings, soft and dreamy. Rik kneaded my thighs in those big, powerful hands. Two mouths finally closed over my rock-hard nipples and my back arched on a soft cry. Climax pulsed through me, as gentle and tender as their touch. Pleasure rippled through my body, a sweet, soothing salve to the internal nerves and muscles that remembered suffering and bleeding on the thorns.
Rik’s palms slipped under my buttocks and he lifted me up to his mouth. He flattened his tongue against me and licked firmly up my entire slit. A low rumble tore out of his throat. Hunger.
If their come could be addictive and intoxicating, it made me wonder what my juices would do to them. Only Daire had ever licked between my thighs that I could remember, and most of those times I’d been bleeding, which had been a whole other fire to play with.
Rik’s bond blazed inside me. The hottest forge fire, melting me into iron he could hammer and meld into a new shape. :You’ll see.:
As if they had all the time in the world, Daire and Nevarre continued to lick and suck and bite my nipples. Endless pleasure. Torment. Delicious agony. A hint of fang. Rik kneaded my buttocks, keeping my pelvis tipped up to his mouth. He licked my outer lips, the tender curves where ass met pussy, dropping tiny, gentle bites that made me quiver. My clit throbbed, so sensitive and swollen it’d only take a touch to send me soaring again. But he waited until I trembled on the edge of orgasm, muscles wrenching tighter. My breath caught in my throat. I fisted my hands in their hair, helplessly tugging, pulling them closer. A silent plea.
Rik closed his mouth over my clit and I flew apart at the seams. I dragged Daire up by his hair and sank my fangs into his throat. He let out a guttural cry and came with me. Rik sucked me firmly, drawing out my climax. Wave after wave of pleasure throbbed through me, and only when my hips jerked in his grip did he finally relent and slide his tongue deeper to taste me again. Groaning with pleasure himself, he sought out every crevice to lick every drop. His bond seared me like a branding iron, a molten sun that hurt to look at. So it surprised the hell out of me when he pulled up to his knees and backed away.
“Nevarre, our queen needs to be filled.”
Nevarre immediately slid up over me. I tightened my hand in his hair, but didn’t let go of Daire’s throat, either. He tasted too good. Thick and sweet like warm, slow honey. I kept my fangs buried in him, even though it slowed the blood flow, just because I liked being inside him. Nevarre pushed into me, making me groan against Daire’s throat. I wrapped my legs around Nevarre’s waist and he started to move inside me with an unhurried continuous stroking, just as he’d done with his mouth.
With Daire’s blood flowing into me and pleasure rippling through me, my need had eased a bit. Nevarre wasn’t a big, powerful man, but he moved with the same lithe grace that he had in the air. Sometimes a bird flapped its wings frantically to gain altitude, but other times it coasted on the wind currents, gliding effortlessly on the breeze in a dreamy cruise. That was how he moved in me. As if we had nowhere to go. No rush. No hurry. No urgency. Just the ceaseless stroking of his body in mine.
I thought a good long drink from Daire would steady me, but his blood only stirred my hunger for more. I finally pulled my fangs out of him but kept a firm grip on his throat, gulping him down as quickly as I could. His purr a constant rumbling drone, he worked one arm beneath my neck to help support my head, but his other arm looped over Nevarre’s shoulders. It was the most
natural and sweetest thing in the world when Nevarre turned his head and pressed his lips to Daire’s. The three of us. Wrapped together in black silk hair and a warcat’s purr.
Even though I drank Daire’s blood, Nevarre’s bond whispered to me, drawing me deeper into his shadows. Where Rik was volcanic lava and Daire was playful feline, Nevarre was the dark stillness of a moonless, starless night. Not dark-evil. Just the absence of light. Something fluttered nearby, heard but not seen, his raven rustling its wings. I sank deeper into his bond, mentally feeling my way toward his core.
In the darkness, it was his scent that had me turning and gliding closer to the giant raven of his gift. He smelled like brilliant green fields. Thick fog hanging low over ancient stone monoliths. A warm, smoky hearth after tromping across windy moors sprinkled with sweet purple heather. Music floated through his bond, not the earth music I’d heard before, but a high, soul-piercing wooden flute. That sound brought tears to my eyes. It was so sad, and yet glad too. Full of hope. Warm with love.
Letting go of Daire, I pressed my face to Nevarre’s throat. Though I felt hot skin and man on top of me, in the bond I touched feathers, soft as down.
He gathered me close, fingers spread against my nape and we flew through the night with whisper soft wings, moonlight dancing in the air, and that brutally haunting flute.
His need rose, powerful shoulders moving beneath my hands. No longer silent, he let out a low groan with every thrust and he added a little twist at the end, lifting at the end of his stroke to change the angle inside me so I gasped. My nerves sang with sensation. I wouldn’t have thought I could come again, not so quickly, but the wave of pleasure crested inside me. I sank my fangs into his throat and he shoved deep with a ragged groan.
I could taste his pleasure in his blood. He’d tasted like magic before, but now his blood was deeper and richer as he spurted into me, both his blood and his semen. My body eagerly took his offering, soaking him in. Soaking them all in. I’d had them all one after another before, except Ezra. The remnants of my human sensibilities insisted that should be disgusting and degrading and most of all, messy, but I never had much mess after sex with them, unless it was blood.
Queen Takes Queen: Their Vampire Queen, Book 3 Page 11
