Or he might be the one to end my life.
Even She didn’t know exactly how the cards would unfold. Only that Wu Tien Xin would be at the heart of the deadliest Triune gambit.
It really came down to me. Did I want to make a play for the Triune? Did I want to play the deadliest game?
Or did I want to find my territory, carve out safety for me and my men, and bolt the doors?
Was I queen enough to use a blade like him?
16
Shara
I didn’t have to think for very long what my answer was.
I turned his face aside and sank my fangs into his throat. His blood was like iced vodka, somehow cold and slushy thick and burning pure, though hot from his body. A thick gray fog descended in my mind, cool and dark and comforting. I could hide in this fog. It wrapped me in silence, blocking out the world. All that remained were the four blood bonds winding through my mind.
They glowed in the fog, but didn’t burn it away. Instead, the shadowy murk covered them too, enfolding us all in blessed quiet and peace.
I lifted my head, dribbling blood on us both. His eyes gleamed like polished ghostly silver. “My queen.”
He didn’t ask permission to feed himself. He just waited. Silent. Unknown. Invisible.
Except I could see him so perfectly now. Through the dense fog, he burned with need. His thirst for my blood was matched only by his eagerness to wield his gift against my enemies. He hadn’t tasted royal blood in years. Decades. He’d been sustained by his sibs even while killing in his queen’s name.
I had a feeling that my blood was going to do insane things for his power.
I drew him up to his feet and offered him my throat.
He had his fangs in me before I realized it. So fast, so silent, so deadly. Rik wrapped his arms around me, pulling me back against his chest, supporting my weight, while Xin fed.
And he fed. A long time. At least that’s what it seemed like. His fog thickened in my mind. A ghostly, endless ancient forest. Trees whispering, words I could almost understand. The air thick and almost wet with moisture. Silence so heavy it was almost deafening. Something padded closer, barely heard, barely seen, only another whisper in the trees.
Until he brushed his muzzle against my cheek. A huge ghostly silver wolf with gleaming eyes like chips of ice. He whirled and disappeared into the trees.
Xin licked my throat, cleaning the blood and closing the wound. I opened my eyes, and for a moment, I saw his wolf flicker in his eyes. Then it was gone too, deep inside him.
Daire cleared his throat. “Kendall’s getting impatient.”
“He can go fuck himself.” My words were slurred and slow, making the corner of Xin’s mouth quirk ever so slightly. I was starting to understand and read his signals. For him, that was blatant amusement. “Rik, help me sit down. I’m probably going to need to eat something more substantial than toast now.”
The sandwich king immediately headed for the kitchen as Rik picked me up and sat with me between his thighs again.
Xin only looked at me expectantly, waiting for my order.
“I want you to hide in plain sight while we talk to him and figure out what play they’re trying.”
He nodded, though the expression in his eyes was flat and empty. I read disappointment in his bond though he didn’t protest or reveal any emotion on his face. He was eager to kill. Eager to slip behind his unwary target and slit his throat. It made me shiver a bit at how callously he regarded the death of another, but he would wait.
For my order.
“If I say your name,” I whispered, waiting until he focused on me. “Then I want you to kill him.”
An icy spark flared in his eyes. “And after he’s dealt with?”
I didn’t answer right away. Instead, I allowed my gaze to run over him. He was dressed simply in white cotton trousers and a loose gray T-shirt that only hinted at his physique. But the way he moved and held himself told me he was going to be just as magnificently powerful as Daire or G, though not as bulky and cut as Rik. Lean, wicked power, tightly coiled strength. I think I was going to have a very good time learning how to break his calm control. I might even find a way to burn through that cold fog that filled him.
His mouth actually fell open and his eyes blazed with burning coldfire. “You will use my body and share your blood?”
Um. Wasn’t that the general idea? I hesitated, just as surprised as he was. “Unless you don’t want to?”
Rik laughed behind me, hugging me closer. “I’ve never met a Blood who wouldn’t leap at the chance to share the queen’s bed.”
“My queen,” Xin said, his voice hoarse. “Let me kill this fucker quickly so you can use me any way you desire.”
17
Rik
Normally, I wasn’t the kind of man who enjoyed rubbing someone’s nose in crap or beating a man for spite, but that’s exactly what I wanted to do when Kendall Skye walked into my queen’s living room. Or better yet, I’d say Xin’s name myself and smile as the new Blood cut down this unwanted intruder. Though I had no idea exactly where Xin was in the room. He’d disappeared as soon as she’d told Daire to let Kendall in.
My queen. Mine. Don’t touch. Don’t even fucking think about it.
He was smaller than I remembered. Even Daire stood a few inches taller than him now. Or maybe we’d grown that much bigger with our queen’s blood. He offered a hand to Daire first, but he only snarled. Kendall dropped his hand with a wry twist on his mouth. “I remember a time when you both begged me to feed you.”
Daire’s cheeks flushed and he stole quick look at me. Yeah, I remembered that night all too well. It’d been good. I’d fucked Daire while he’d sucked off Kendall and we’d all shared blood. That was as good as it was ever going to get for us in Skye’s court.
Sucking off a Blood who never shared his own queen’s bed.
Deliberately, I brought up my best memory with him and Shara, letting it play in my mind as I shared it with him. How I’d fucked him while he’d fucked Shara. Her blood burning in both of us. :Don’t let him get to you.:
Her bond blazed hotter in both of us. :We need to do that again. And soon.:
Daire flashed a cheeky grin at Kendall and brought the massive sandwich to Shara. “Now I get to beg my queen to allow me to lick her pussy until she comes, but I don’t have to beg her to feed me at all.”
Kendall’s jaw tightened and he met my gaze. Well, he tried to, at least. With my queen sprawled in my arms, sated on my blood, I was bursting with power, my muscles straining to stay inside my skin. I didn’t have to scream alpha or growl or get into a pissing contest.
He couldn’t look me in the fucking eyes.
He dropped his gaze to Shara as she tore into the sandwich. He noted the blood on her sweater. The fresh bite on her throat, though it wasn’t mine. She didn’t even look at him, as if he was beneath her notice.
Because he was. He wasn’t her Blood and he never would be.
“Thank you, Daire.” She paused a moment and ruffled his hair. He rumbled a purr and draped himself over my thigh so he could put his head in her lap. She looked up at Kendall as if surprised to see him there. “Who are you?”
“Kendall Skye, Your Majesty.”
She ate another few bites, making him shift his weight from foot to foot. “What do you want?”
He flicked a quick glance up at my face, not quite meeting my gaze, as if he hoped I’d help him out. Not a snowball’s chance in hell. “Well, to start, your name, please? Your Majesty?”
She tipped her head to the side. “You’re here. Asking to speak to me. And you don’t know who I am?”
She might not have been raised in a court, but she had an innate sense of how to make a worm wriggle on her hook. Casual royal arrogance. She played the part so well that I almost smiled.
Kendall actually looked a little pale. Maybe he’d thought he could come in here and throw his prior blood bond around, muscling us into letting him in. Or mayb
e Keisha was on the other end of his bond, squeezing hard for information. I didn’t fucking care.
I could have reached for his bond and listened. But I refused. My queen’s bond shone brightly in me and I wouldn’t sully it by touching an old blood bond that I’d forged from necessity.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know your name. My queen felt her sibs making a connection with a new queen and sent me as an offering to you.”
“And who might your queen be?”
He looked at me and Daire with a dazed look in his eyes. “They didn’t tell you?”
“I don’t give a fuck about who they fed from in the past. They’re mine now.” Shara shrugged and handed the last bit of sandwich she hadn’t eaten to Daire. He finished it with one huge bite and continued to rub on her, purring so loudly that he almost drowned out the other man. “I don’t really care.”
He blinked and swallowed a hard gulp. “You don’t care about Keisha Skye, the queen of New York City?”
She sighed as if bored to death with this discussion. “What does she want?”
“Um. She wants her sibs back.”
“That’s what she sent you here to tell me?”
“Either she wants her sibs back, or she wants you to accept me as your third Blood.”
I felt a moment of relief in Shara’s bond. They had no idea how many Blood she’d managed to take already—so they couldn’t hear and see everything through Daire. Then she felt for Xin, bringing my attention to her newest Blood. Through her bond, I could see him. He fucking hovered behind Kendall so close that I had no idea how the man couldn’t sense death breathing on his nape.
Shara leveled a hard look on Kendall but she didn’t call her power. “Or…?”
Kendall’s eyes flickered and I could almost sense his internal conversation with his queen. Sweat dripped down his forehead and his hands trembled. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost. “My queen says,” he rasped out. He paused to clear his throat harshly. “You might be too… Um…” He looked up at me, daring to finally meet my gaze head on.
He was fucking terrified. He knew damned well if he said what his queen had told him, he was dead.
She knew it too.
And she didn’t care.
He was only a pawn that she’d sent to judge how hard she’d have to play this game against a new, untried queen.
Shara sat up and gave Daire a gentle but firm push to get him off her. “Go on.”
“You might be too ignorant,” he said softly, his eyes locked on her face.
“Too ignorant to get my own Blood without her help? Too ignorant to know a spy when one’s sent to me?” Her voice rose slightly, her power humming through our bonds. “Or too ignorant to know how to deal with another queen since I wasn’t raised in a nest?”
Kendall’s nostrils flared, breathing in her power. Though she held back the bulk of her strength. She didn’t want them to sense how powerful she really was. Hopefully he wouldn’t scent that she was breeding too.
“All the above.”
She leaned forward, looking deeply into his eyes. “Can she see and hear me now?”
The pulse thumped so hard in his throat I could see it from feet away. Sweat poured dripped off him and his muscles quivered as if he would shift. I whispered to Xin. :He shifts into a lion.:
:Understood, alpha. He won’t get a claw on her.:
“Yes,” Kendall whispered.
“I’m Shara Isador and this is what happens to other queen’s Blood who come into my territory.” Through our shared bonds, she said, :Xin.:
Xin materialized against Kendall’s back. One hand wrapped around his throat, the other shoved up into his back. The tip of the blade he used jutted through Kendall’s ribcage. Xin held him, tucked against his back so that Kendall had no idea who’d killed him, so his queen would only know that Shara had a third Blood. Not who… or what… he was.
Blood trickled from Kendall’s lips, his breathing a loud rasp. “You. Will. Pay.”
Shara stood and took a step closer, staring fiercely into the dying Blood’s eyes. “Don’t fuck with my Blood again.”
Shara
Two days… two bodies to dispose of. “This is getting ridiculous.”
Daire grinned and grabbed the dead man’s feet. Guillaume took his shoulders. “At least Xin’s kill didn’t spray you this time.”
I looked down at myself and grimaced at the blood I’d dribbled all over myself. Handling fangs were going to take some getting used to. “I’m still messy. What are you going to do with him?”
Guillaume replied as they carried him toward the door. “The easiest way to get rid of an Aima is to feed the thralls.”
I shuddered at the thought. “We haven’t seen any thralls since Greyson.”
“They’re out there.” Rik settled me back against him. “You know that better than anyone.”
Yeah. I did. Though I’d hoped that with Greyson dead, maybe they’d leave me alone. I hadn’t felt anything out in the night—but we hadn’t been anywhere, and I’d been a little too busy the last few nights to worry about any monsters roaming around outside.
I sat up enough to grab the ancient book that had been part of the legacy off the coffee table and then leaned back against him. Stroking my fingers over the leather, I imagined all the Isador queens before me. Who created it? How far back did it go? Would I be able to read it? Should I write in it… and what would I say?
Maybe I’d be the last Isador queen. No one else would ever read it.
“Do you need anything else, my queen?” Xin asked, startling me.
I’d actually forgotten he was standing there. Looking at me. Waiting for me to see him. On the surface, he was only being courteous to his queen and checking in to see what I wanted him to do next. When I reached deeper, though, and listened harder to his bond, he wanted so much more. My promise that I’d take him to bed too had stirred a different kind of hunger in him. He wanted closeness. Connection. And most of all, touch.
So many people never bothered to even look and see him. Let alone touch him.
“Yes,” I said simply and drew my feet up. “You can come sit with us, if you like.”
In the end, I had my feet on his lap and my head back against Rik’s chest, using him like a body pillow so I could prop myself up enough to read. Xin cradled my feet in his hands like I’d given him a priceless artifact to hold.
I opened the book and my heart thudded painfully in my chest. Esetta Isador scrawled across the page, with a note. To me.
To my daughter I will never know,
This book is for you. Your ancestors have recorded everything we know you will need for thousands of years.
It all culminates in you.
You are our most beloved.
Our greatest hope.
Our weapon.
Long live the queen of Isador.
My hand trembled as I turned the page. Our most beloved. And she’d known she would never see me. That she’d be gone. Never raise me. Why?
Across the next two pages was a genealogy listing with every queen all the way back to Isis Herself. There weren’t as many as you’d expect after thousands of years. Mostly because of the dates written beside each name. Dates that made my eyes bug out of my head.
The first queen of Isis, Baast, had lived for nearly two thousand years. She would have seen the rise and fall of the Egyptian kingdoms, Rome, and the birth of Jesus.
No queen after her lived so long. One poor woman, Isabella Isador, was only listed for twenty years.
Beside each woman’s name, the father of her daughter was listed. I didn’t recognize any of them, and though I eagerly traced down to the bottom right of the page, where Esetta and Selena Isador were listed…
No father was listed. His name was blank.
But I was definitely marked as descended from Esetta. Alan Dalton’s name was listed by Selena, but they had no children.
The next few pages recorded the history of this translation. My mother do
cumented each scroll, parchment, and personal journal that she’d transcribed into this single book. The last note said, “Every original source is locked in the Talbott safe if you need them for any reason.”
I couldn’t imagine holding a several-thousand-years-old parchment in my hand that had been written by my great-something grandmother.
I flipped through a few pages, but they were mostly sketches of the cannisters I’d seen in the legacy and other ancient Egyptian symbols. All of which were important, I’m sure, but I wanted to see what my mother might have contributed herself. I flipped forward to the very last page that wasn’t blank.
So it ends. And begins with you. Start your own book now, daughter, and write our future.
Goose bumps prickled on my arms and I shivered. Daire suddenly appeared with a blanket. “I always knew you’d be the kind of reader who’d skip to the last chapter.”
I held the book up so he could tuck the blanket up beneath my arms. “I always read the spoilers first. What time is it?”
“One in the afternoon,” Guillaume answered. This time he brought my cup, rather than Daire. It was steaming hot, but smelled like tea instead of coffee. “Something new to try, if you’d like.”
“Perfect, thank you. Where’d you put… him?”
“In the line of trees at the edge of the park,” Daire said. “I’m sure he’ll be gone by morning.”
“What if someone finds the body? I don’t know if Stuller has a police department of their own, or if they’d have to call the county sheriff. Or the state patrol…”
Guillaume shrugged as if I’d asked him opinion on the color of the drapes. “No one will find him.”
“How can you be sure?”
He squatted down beside the sofa and laid his hand on my arm. “My queen—”
“Worries for nothing,” Rik said in unison with him.
Making me roll my eyes, as they intended.
“No one comes down this road. No one comes to this town. And if a curious human like that woman turns at the park and approaches the house, you have two surprisingly sharp and dedicated security guards on duty who will firmly and politely get rid of them. They know about the body. Frank helped us put him there. They know that man meant you harm. And they’re paid very, very well not to ask too many questions.”
Queen Takes King (Their Vampire Queen Book 2) Page 10