Gina smiled at me, already at the table with a cup of coffee nearly gone. “Good morning, my queen. When you’re ready, I have some things to go over with you.”
“Me too.” I sat down and trusted Rik to get me a plate. “When we get home, I’d like to take a look at the legacy again.”
She immediately picked up her phone and typed rapidly. “Of course. I’ll make sure it’s there and waiting for you.”
I loved that she did as I asked without question. “What else is happening at home?”
“Our general contractor was eager to get some work done despite the holiday. Evidently, we had some unseasonably nice weather, so your bedroom and bathroom should be ready for you when we return to Eureka Springs.”
Rik set my plate in front of me and I dove into scrambled eggs with peppers and onions. I normally wanted something light, like fruit, but I’d slept so long that my body was eager for protein. Of course, he’d somehow known that, more in tune with my body than I was. “Oh wow, really? That was fast.”
She smiled. “He had a small army of workers who were eager for bonuses in an otherwise slow time of year. Next up will be the kitchen. Even with that small army, Winston estimates a full week of work, but he’s arranged for all the meals to be delivered indefinitely until he’s satisfied with the renovations.”
Mayte came in with her daughter in her arms, both of them dressed in bright, colorful dresses. “Good morning, Your Majesty.”
I started to rise, but she quickly dropped her hand on my shoulder. “Please, don’t trouble yourself. Not for me.”
“Then you shouldn’t call me Your Majesty, either. Especially under your own roof.”
Smiling, she sat down beside me with Xochitl on her lap. “I have to set a good example for her, and this is still my roof only by your good graces.” The little girl giggled and reached for me. “Oh, no, sweetie. Wait until our queen has finished eating.”
“Nonsense.” I put the fork down and opened my arms for her. The little girl crawled over into my lap, her eyes bright. “Good morning, Xochitl.”
She giggled. “It’s afternoon, silly.”
“So it is. I was up way too late last night, and I sleep a lot.”
“Mama slept in late today too.”
I didn’t look at Mayte for fear I’d blush. “What have you been doing today?”
“Papa took me riding this morning. I have my own pony.”
“You do? What’s her name?”
“Esperanza.”
“That’s a pretty name. What color is she?”
“White. How did you know she was a girl?”
I smiled and leaned down to whisper, “Because girls are the best.”
“Could you ride with me today after you eat? Please?” She drew the plea out for several long seconds, her eyes glistening with excitement.
“I’m afraid I don’t know how to ride.”
“I can show you. It’s easy. Papa has lots of horses that you can pick from.”
I quirked my lips and tipped my head in Guillaume’s direction near the door. “I have a horse to ride. I just don’t know how to use the reins, or how to keep from getting bucked off.”
Guillaume let out a huff in our bond that sounded very much like a disgusted nicker. :As if I would ever allow you to fall off me, even if I’m bucking beneath you.:
I couldn’t help but look at him, then, my hunger stirring. I’d like to have him bucking beneath me. Very much indeed.
“He shifts into a horse?” Xochitl wiggled around to look at her mother. “Mama only has jaguars. Can I call horses, Mama?”
“It’s too early to know what you’ll call, sweetie.”
I sensed hesitation in Mayte’s bond, a reluctance to disappoint her daughter. Mayte’s mother and grandmother before her had only ever called jaguars, so it was very likely that Xochitl’s goddess would give her the same gifts.
Xochitl looked back at me. “What else do you have in your Blood?”
“A rock troll, warcat, hell horse, wolf, dragon, raven, and a bear. Plus, your uncles can shift into a giant black dog and a feathered serpent.”
Xochitl tipped her chin up, her eyes gleaming with sudden determination. “Then I’m going to call unicorns.”
My power stirred, my hair fluttering softly about my face. Staring into her brown eyes, I asked her solemnly, “Are you sure that’s what you want? Unicorns?”
“Yes. That’s all I want. Forever and ever.”
My power shimmered inside me, shifting with her intention. Isis could give her this gift through me. I touched Mayte’s bond. :My goddess is willing to make this gift, if you aren’t opposed.:
I felt a surge of tearful emotion from her. :Blessed be, thank you, Great One. Yes, please, I would give her anything in my power, but I cannot give her any Blood but jaguars.:
:Has she had blood before? I don’t think I can give this power to her otherwise.:
:Yes, she’s had mine and her father’s. She knows what it means, though she has no need to feed yet. She doesn’t have fangs yet.:
I looked back into the child’s eyes, shining with such promise. I didn’t want to call down my massive fangs and scare her, so I held my hand up for Rik. He carefully punctured the tip of my index finger and I offered my blood to the child. “Take your gift of unicorns, Xochitl. Make them yours.”
Her rosebud mouth closed over my finger and she sucked hard, like I was a piece of candy and she was determined to get every drop. Her eyes spun rainbows for a moment, glittering like crystals and diamonds. Then she pulled back and smiled brightly. “I can’t wait to grow up now, so I can have my unicorns!”
Mayte smiled, her eyes glittering just as brightly as her daughter’s, but with tears. “What do you say, dearest?”
“Thank you, my queen.”
“You’re very welcome, Xochitl, Princess of Unicorns.”
“I’m going to go tell Papa!” She jumped off my lap and raced for the door, but paused, looking back at me over her shoulder. “You will go for a ride though? Please?”
I laughed and nodded. “Of course. If Guillaume doesn’t mind.”
“Yay!” She skipped out the door.
I turned my attention back to my food. After a few moments, Mayte said, “You’re very good with her. You will make a wonderful mother.”
“Maybe someday.”
Mayte gave me a questioning look, her brow furrowed. “You don’t want children? I assumed… Well, I mean, if you can have a child, and children are so rare to our kind, I thought you’d be eager to have as many children as possible. The power you’ll gain will be immense.”
“How old were you when you had Xochitl?”
“Nearly two-hundred-and-thirty years old, but only because I couldn’t have children. I tried everything we could think of for decades. Every queen does.”
“I’m only twenty-two. I’ve been alone for the last five years, on the run and scared to death. I’ve only had my Blood and known what I even am for a few weeks. There are a million things I must do before I can even think about settling down into my nest and having a child. Not the least of which is making sure we’re all safe.”
“Certainly, take care of Keisha Skye and Marne Ceresa first, but—”
“They’re not my only enemies,” I whispered softly. “In fact, they’re not even the worst of my enemies.”
Mayte’s eyes widened and she dropped her voice to a whisper. “Who’s worse than Marne?”
“Ra.”
“The god of light? What does he have to do with you?”
My knee gave a phantom twinge as I remembered the skeleton trying to drag me through the portal in my bedroom. “Everything.”
4
Guillaume
I tried not to twitch my tail with impatience, although I would have loved to snap at the man droning on and on about the different pieces of tack as he saddled me.
Picking up on my irritation, Shara asked in the bond, :Are you sure you don’t mind?:
; :Not at all, my queen. You need to learn how the saddle and bridle work so you can ride a regular horse. I simply wish he wasn’t quite so dedicated in telling you everything you could possibly ever wish to know about a piece of leather.:
The new Blood, Itztli, gave a hard tug to tighten the girth one last time. Unnecessarily, because I was no standard horse that would employ such tricks to loosen the girth and risk giving my queen a tumble off to the ground. I picked my rear hoof up and deliberately planted it on the fool’s foot.
I was a hell horse. The smell of brimstone burned my nose, along with the scent of scorched leather.
To his credit, the man didn’t make a sound, even when his boot started to smoke.
“G,” Shara chided.
:Oops.: I picked up my hoof and the idiot moved his foot out of my way. Even better, he received the message loud and clear that I was finished with this lesson.
“May I assist you in mounting, Your Majesty?”
“Of course.”
“On a smaller mount, I’d suggest putting your left foot in the stirrup and swinging up onto his back, but he’s rather too tall.” He bent down and laced his fingers together. “Give me your left foot, and I’ll toss you up. Carefully,” he added that last word hurriedly, sensing our alpha’s unspoken warning.
She picked up her foot, encased in borrowed boots, since we hadn’t thought to shop for riding gear in Dallas, and Itztli gave her a gentle toss up onto my back. Even with the leather separating my sensitive skin from direct contact, her weight brought the nerves in my back to life. I had a warhorse’s instincts. I could feel the tightening of her muscles, the slight press of her thighs and heels as she shifted her weight in the saddle. I would have dearly loved a thinner English-style saddle rather than the heavy Western-style roping saddle they’d used. Bareback would be even better.
I’d had her bareback and bare-ass naked. Once. Having my queen’s bare pussy on my back had been a life-altering experience, to say the least.
“The stirrups are a bit too short,” Itztli said. “Let’s drop them down a notch.”
His brother stepped closer on my other side, their eagerness to touch our queen, even for something so minor as fixing her stirrups, painfully obvious. I watched Rik, his gaze merciless. He didn’t care one whit how desperate they were to be taken by our queen. He’d make them wait as long as possible.
“Stand on the balls of your feet,” Tlacel said, smoothing the leather straps into place. “Let’s test that.”
She shifted her weight to her feet, rising up in the saddle a bit. I could feel the rightness of her balance now. The stirrups had definitely been too short for her.
“Much better. Alright, you can sit back down. Keep your heels down as much as you can, and your… um… seat yourself deeply in the saddle.”
She wriggled her delightful ass deeper into the saddle, and it was all I could do not to nicker with encouragement. She felt my appreciation and laughed, her voice husky. “I didn’t realize that riding a horse had so many similarities to making love.”
:Wait until I canter for you.:
“Pick up the reins,” Itztli said, his voice deeper than before. “Tighten up a little until you can feel the bit in his mouth. That’s how you tell a horse where you want to go, along with shifting your weight or tightening your thighs. It depends on how well the horse is trained, but you can often direct a horse by pushing against his side with the opposite knee. Like you’re pushing him in the direction you want to go.”
She slid the reins through her fingers until she felt the contact with my mouth. By instinct, I arched my neck, ears flickering back and forth, waiting for her command.
“Watch his ears,” Tlacel noted. “He’s listening to you. Ready for you to tell him where and when and how fast.”
She laughed again and stroked my neck. “Yes. Very much like the bedroom. But sometimes a girl just wants the guy to take over.”
If I wasn’t a horse, I would have laughed at Tlacel’s labored breathing, let alone the way he stumbled over his words.
“There are times you’ll want to trust your horse’s instincts rather than your own. For example, picking a path down steep terrain, or at night. They have better night vision than humans, and a horse has an instinctual ability to plant his hooves on the safest path.”
“Horses don’t see well behind them,” Itztli added in a voice so deep and raw that I flicked my tail at him. “They spook easily and whirl to check behind them. Or they balk at something they’ve seen a thousand times. If you feel as though he’s out of control, just pull his head around to either side. Force him in a circle. Eventually he’ll come to a stop, no matter how spooked he is.”
Enough was enough. :Will you allow me to show off?: I asked her through the bond, keeping my focus narrow, though I made sure Rik knew what I was up to.
She laughed in my mind, her magic sparkling like starlight through our bond. :Without question.:
:Tighten your thighs and stay deep in the saddle. I’ll take care of you.:
I pivoted on my rear left hoof, shoving both twins out of my way, and more importantly, away from our queen. I did it quickly, but so smoothly that she didn’t have a problem keeping her seat.
Clear of the twins, I started an old dressage drill I’d used as a young stud to warm up. Back before Desideria had gotten her claws into me. When I’d been young and idealistic. When I hadn’t known how heavy my honor would weigh upon me.
I trotted slowly in a large circle, neck arched, picking up each hoof like the ground was hot lava, but so smoothly that she never once lost contact with the saddle. She had no need to post or rise up in the stirrups. Then to really show off, I changed leads, back and forth, giving her a good rocking motion in the saddle, before I leaped, all four hooves leaving the ground. I landed so softly she didn’t even jar her teeth.
Rik, Daire, and Ezra rode after us while the twins scrambled to get on their mounts and follow. Mehen and Nevarre circled in the air above us. Xin was his ghostly wolf, and though my eyes couldn’t see him, my hell horse was fully aware of a predator quietly scouting ahead. I could smell him, even if I couldn’t see him without our queen’s bond to point the way.
I settled into a gentle canter, though I couldn’t resist putting just enough bounce in my gait to make sure her pelvis rocked up against the saddle. I circled around the waiting riders, Xochitl and her father on their mounts. The child laughed and clapped her hands. “You were teasing me. You don’t need help learning how to ride.”
Shara laughed ruefully as I settled into a walk beside them. “If this was any other horse, I would have fallen off in the first five minutes. Where are we going, Xochitl?”
“Papa said I could show you where the Fire Ceremony will be tonight.”
I drew to a halt and snorted. I could feel the outer boundary of the nest shimmering a pace ahead.
Our queen felt it too, and though she said nothing, I felt her immediate anxiety. She’d been hunted all her life and had only recently learned of the safety to be found in a nest. Rik rode closer on our left, his knee brushing my shoulder, while Daire and Ezra rode ahead to be sure it was safe. In broad daylight, there shouldn’t be any thralls about, and if Keisha Skye was half as smart as everyone thought she was, she’d wait to attack Shara on her own turf in New York City, not in another queen’s territory. Keisha couldn’t know how strong our queen was, let alone after taking her first sib.
I stepped across the invisible barrier and she shivered, though she kept her voice light. “What’s a Fire Ceremony?”
“We turn out all the lights at home and pile up big bonfires, but we don’t light them right away. There’s drums and dancing and singing, and I get to stay up all night.” She scowled. “If I can make it. I will this year.”
“I’m sure you will, butterfly.” Tepeyollotl’s voice rolled with thunder, even though he spoke to his daughter with a smile. He rode a black stallion almost as large as me, without a single rein or stirrup to control the a
nimal. Evidently ancient Aztec gods had no need for something as trivial as tack. I had a feeling that he’d stride into war the same way: no weapon, no shield, just his formidable presence. The air around him was thick and heavy with danger, like any moment, a hurricane would explode out of him and devastate everything in his path.
“Tell her about the ceremony, Papa. What it means.”
“In the old days, we held the ceremony at the end of the fifty-two-year cycle with the hope that life would continue. All the fires were put out throughout the villages, and the priests waited for the signs to confirm the sun would rise again and life would continue. Zaniyah started the tradition of having the ceremony on the modern calendar’s New Year’s Eve. The intent is the same. Starting a new year, a new appreciation for life, our gifts of fire and sunlight and the promise of spring.”
“And death,” the little girl added. “Sacrifice.”
“We don’t sacrifice any longer, butterfly.”
“But you used to.”
He nodded and looked over at my queen, a wry smile softening the harsh planes of his face. “Our queens make the necessary sacrifice for us now.”
Shara’s thought echoed in all our bonds. :It always comes back to blood.:
Her bond tightened, not with fear, exactly, but preparation and grim acceptance. She would do whatever was needed to protect us all, without hesitation, though she didn’t look forward to whatever trial she would face. None of us did. In fact, a giant ball of dread settled in my stomach at the memory of what she’d gone through the last time the goddesses desired a sacrifice of her.
She didn’t want to suffer agony again, like when she’d grown the grove in her own nest.
When she’d died.
Shara
The burn of thorns in my flesh flashed through my memory. I didn’t want to die on a heart tree again. Though if the goddesses wanted to grow a grove for House Zaniyah…
Queen Takes Rook (Their Vampire Queen Book 4) Page 3