She pushed the heavy door open, and even though I was prepared for grandeur, my jaw still dropped in awe. Most of the ceiling was a giant skylight, illuminating the entire room in soft light to frame a massive bed that was only slightly smaller than my custom bed at home. The marble floors were warm golden honey inlaid with large onyx circles. As in the other rooms, the walls were mostly glass.
Racks of clothes waited for us to examine, even more than I imagined. Daire dived in with a whoop.
Magnum walked over to another set of doors. “Your sauna, whirlpool, and master bathroom, Your Majesty.”
“Thank you, Magnum. The suite is lovely.”
“You’re most welcome, Your Majesty. This home has been languishing for more than twenty years waiting for our lost queen to return.”
I turned back to search her face. “I’ve only been lost five years.”
Her face blanked, like everyone when they thought of my mother, but her throat worked, each word forced out like she’d swallowed something thick. “A woman. Beautiful. Dark hair, like yours. Her mocha skin glowed like she’d swallowed the moon. She owned this house and oversaw every single renovation herself. I knew her well, though I can’t seem to remember her name. Do you know her?”
My eyes blurred with tears and I nodded. Esetta Isador. My mother. “Yes.”
“She said this house was to be her daughter’s sanctuary away from home, a place of safety and joy in the midst of danger and sadness.” Magnum cleared her throat, her eyes as teary as mine. “She was heavily pregnant the last time she came. When she left… she was not.”
“I was born here,” I whispered, my eyes flying wide. “Where? Could you show me?”
“Of course.” She led us back out to the elevator and a second massive door, though this one was ebony wood carved in snakes and a large tyet, knot of Isis. “Most of this unit was absorbed into the other, except for this one room. She was the last to enter this room. When she left, she ordered that no one enter it until the lost queen returned. I have kept the door locked ever since.”
She held out an antique, large key made of iron. My fingers trembled as I took it and inserted it into the lock.
“Should we wait outside for you?” Rik asked.
I shook my head. “No. You’re as much a part of this as I am. Without you, I wouldn’t have made it here.”
Even though the door hadn’t been opened in decades, the lock clicked smoothly, and I pushed the heavy door open. A single light flickered on automatically, but the room was still so dark that I could barely make out anything but black marble veined in gold and a small pool built into the floor.
Rik jerked his head, and Mehen, Guillaume, and Nevarre entered the room first, though I wasn’t far behind. The room didn’t have any windows, so nothing could have gotten inside. Very much like how I’d grown up, hidden from the monsters.
Magnum hovered outside the room. I gestured her inside with us. “Was she here long?”
“Many times over the years for renovations. Then usually a few days around Samhain. The last time I saw her, she arrived in late September and stayed through the first of November.”
My birthday.
My heart ached so badly I couldn’t breathe. “Did she leave me here? Or take me with her?”
“Another woman arrived, her sister, I believe, but she came and left in secrecy. I never spoke to her or knew her name. She stayed only one night and left with the baby. I never saw her again.” Magnum cried silently, fat tears trickling down her cheeks. “I heard…” Her voice broke and she turned aside, averting her face. “Sobbing. All night, after her sister left. And the next morning she left, alone, and I never saw her again. She looked shockingly weak and pale, but she wouldn’t allow me to call for help. She whispered something, and I fell asleep. When I awoke, she was gone, as well as most of my memory.”
My poor mother. She had given me to her sister immediately, and then left.
To die alone.
I squeezed my eyes shut. Oh, Mother. I’m so sorry. I wish I could have known you.
“Shara, you need to see this.” Guillaume’s reverent voice drew me to him against the far wall.
From a distance, it looked like the wall had been papered, but up close, I realized it was actual hand-painted papyrus. Painted by my mother, in her own hand.
Her last words to me.
“I need more light.”
“Here.” Magnum hit a switch and rows of lights clicked on all around the room to illuminate all four walls, each painstakingly covered in papyrus and hieroglyphics.
“Can you read it?” Guillaume asked.
I stepped back and scanned the walls quickly, looking for where to start. The shorter wall including the door had a large pyramid with the crescent moon hanging over the top of it, so I started there. “Blood of Isis. Upon this House She builds Her future.”
I moved to the next wall. This one was painted with a large volcano, with streams of lava flowing down its sides. Underneath, a man’s chest and upper body rose up out of what looked like a nest of large serpents, heads flowing out along the ground in place of legs and feet. “Lo, Father of Monsters, look down from Heaven and see what we have wrought.”
The third wall was one long passage. “We loose chaos upon the world. She brings blood. She brings magic. She brings justice. She walks with paws, slithers with scales, and flies on mighty wings. She cries out with flames and the dead rise to do her bidding. The grave is hers to command.”
That sounded too much like my dream of Coatlicue. I swallowed hard, pushing away my fear of which loved one I would lose, and stepped to the next wall.
“What she takes, she loves, and what she loves, she keeps for all time. Blood flows from the Mother through the Great One to our Daughter of Chaos. Burn with fire. Kill with shadow. Bleed to punish those who have turned aside from the Mother. Rise, Daughter, and blot out the cruel Sun. Fly, oh dark wings. Run, oh silent feet. Bite, oh wicked fangs, and mark the souls of your dead. Walk the ways cloaked in Shadow seeing all. Rise.”
Mehen grunted sourly. “Well, that’s as clear as fucking mud.”
This door had been locked at my birth—yet she described me so well it was scary. I did burn with fire. I did only take Blood that I loved, and once they were mine… I wanted to keep them for all time. I certainly flew on dark wings, whether as the wyvern or the winged jaguar I’d gained in Mexico. But marking the souls of my dead… Did she mean like I’d bitten Rik as the cobra queen? Or something else? Did I have to do that to each of my Blood? Kill them… to mark them as mine?
Shaken, I turned around to look at the sunken tub in the floor. It was big enough for several of us to fit in comfortably, like a whirlpool, but I didn’t see any jets. I laid my hand on the low tiled wall and my ears roared. A vision from the past filled my mind.
Two women knelt naked in the water, both dark haired and dark eyed. Mom, the woman who raised me, had her hands on the other woman’s rounded stomach.
My mother. I hadn’t ever seen her face before. It was like looking into a mirror in thirty years, if we were human and aged normally. Gray streaked her hair at the temples. Lines bracketed her mouth and eyes, pain and exhaustion sapping her strength. I didn’t see great power shining in her eyes or written on her face, but I wouldn’t, at this point. She’d already given up her Blood and her power.
To have me.
All I saw on her face was wonder and love, even though I was killing her. She still smiled. “She’s almost here. You must take her far from our world.”
“No. She needs you. She needs her mother.”
Esetta gritted her teeth and leaned forward, straining. Blood swirled in the water. “She needs. Her freedom. Take her. Away. Let her fly.”
She pushed and strained, screaming with effort as I tore my way through her body. Yet she laughed with relief and clutched the squalling newborn to her breast. She held me. She let me nurse. She kissed my fuzzy head and whispered secrets to me.
She looked
up and stared into my eyes as if I was there by her side, even though she held me as a baby. “Someday, you’ll come here and see where you were born. You’ll see how much I love you.”
She handed me to her sister. “Go. Take her. Take her now before I change my mind and damn us all to his fiery hell. Go!”
Mom fled with me clutched against her chest and the woman who birthed me sagged in the water, barely able to hold on to the side of the tub as she tried to climb out. Blood dripped down her thighs and pooled on the black tile. She hunched on her knees, her back shaking. I reached out to touch her, but my hand flickered through her image.
“Shara,” she sobbed. “My baby.”
Tears dripped down my face, my throat locked down with grief.
As before, her voice echoed in my head. Achingly familiar, because even though I’d grown up without her in my life, she had always been with me.
“Ra and his minions have distorted our power to the point that all women, whether Aima or human, have lost control of our bodies. Our power, our very lives, are at stake. They judge us amoral, twisted, and deviant, when the very acts of sex and giving birth show our connection to the Mother. She lives on in every woman, whether we choose to have children or not. We create love in the world. What greater magic can there be?
“And so Ra hates us, but he will hate you especially, daughter of mine. You were conceived in darkness and born here, where the Sun never shines. Always work your greatest magic in complete and utter darkness. Embrace that darkness. Embrace your nature. Revel in your hunger. Love your monsters. Because you are the beloved child of a god and a queen of Isis who died to set you free.
“Beware,” her voice thinned as if she whispered from a great distance. “You are not the only child born in darkness and kept in secrecy.”
20
Rik
I carried her from the black-marbled bathroom and tucked her into bed. She clung to me, crying, but it felt as though the tears cleansed an old, nagging grief.
Daire started to climb onto the bed with us, but she shook her head. “No, I’m sorry. Not this time. I need to speak to Rik alone.”
“Of course, my queen.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead and filed out with the rest of the Blood. Someone had turned down the blinds, and the room was dark and cool.
I closed my eyes and sank into her bond. I was not a jealous alpha, but I had to admit, having my queen to myself was a rare luxury that I would remember well. Even if foreboding chilled my heart.
Despite her tears after seeing her birth, she was braced for war. She wasn’t closed off from me—she would never lock me out of her heart and mind. Yet she wasn’t easy and open to read right now. I could easily guess what troubled her.
We were here to kill my former queen, who tortured alphas. My queen was many things, including fearless and powerful, but she could also be tenderhearted, especially for those she loved.
Before she could ask, I said, “Yes. Use me as bait. She’ll want an alpha to make an example of, and I’m strong enough to last until you can find a way to kill her. Let her take me.”
“No.”
“You can heal me,” I insisted. “I trust you implicitly. If you can’t heal me, then I’m still relieved to spare your other Blood the same fate. You will kill her, I’m sure of it.”
She jerked upright and glared down at me, tears glittering on her cheeks like diamonds. “You think that’s why I wanted to talk to you? To ask you if I could risk your life to kill Keisha?”
“It’s not?”
She blew out a long breath, shaking her head. “Despite knowing my heart inside and out, you couldn’t be more wrong. I will kill her, and I won’t have to offer you or any of my Blood up as bait, either.”
Eyes narrowed, I searched her bond for answers. She gleamed like fresh, hot steel straight out of the forge, showering me with sparks. “How?”
“By giving her exactly what she wants.”
I started to push up in protest, but Shara planted her palm on my chest. I could have ignored her, of course, but my body melted to her every touch and desire. If she wanted me to stay flat on my back, then so be it. “You can’t give her your blood.”
She swung a thigh over me and straddled my lower stomach. Arching a brow, she shrugged out of the elegant emerald green silk suit jacket that Mehen had picked for her to wear to New York City. “Oh, really? I can’t?”
“She’s not going to be as easy to kill as Greyson. She won’t blindly take your blood like he did.”
Shara pulled the ivory shell over her head and tossed it aside. She’d gone braless. The sight of her naked breasts stilled my tongue—so I could put it to better use. I leaned up and nuzzled her breasts, breathing in her scent. She always smelled divine—literally. But when her hormones raged, and blood spilled from her center, I couldn’t think of anything else. Her scent permeated my senses, rich, thick blood calling me to insanity.
“I tried something new this time.” She looped her arms around my shoulders and leaned back into my hands, letting me support her so I could lave her nipples and feast on the softness of her skin. “I think it worked. No tampon—but I didn’t bleed everywhere either.”
It took a few moments for her words to sink into my brain. I closed my eyes and let my senses flow through her bond, gliding through her body. All her bonds gleamed in the corner of my mind, glowing red streams tangled around her heart. Deep in her abdomen, something else glowed.
I sank lower, reveling in the way our souls rubbed and melded together. Her power made it possible for me to look inside her body and search for any illness or injury, or in this case, liquid moonlight that caught the menstrual blood flowing from her core.
Her scent still flooded my senses, ripe with hormones and need, but the blood itself stayed contained rather than leaking over her clothes. Smart. But I couldn’t help but miss the very visual sign of her fertileness. Since it was difficult for Aima queens to breed at all, we’d been conditioned to respond to the sight and smell of menstrual blood. It was a biological compulsion bordering on the strength of a meth-head’s drive for that next hit. One taste of that power-laden blood would fucking blow the top of my skull off.
So much blood, pooled in one place. Waiting.
“What I wanted to ask you…”
She waited until I blinked and tugged my gaze up to her face. “Yes, my queen?”
“When we are presented to Keisha, will any of her people try to feed on you? To try and cower us, or prove her dominance over me?”
“Generally, no, but House Skye likes to push boundaries. Since this is a fight between two powerful queens, her Blood may very well try to make an example of us. If one of them feeds on your alpha, a former sib, that automatically puts the Skye stamp on the rest of your Blood.”
She nodded, a small smile quirking one corner of her mouth, but her eyes remained locked to mine, watching my reaction. “I thought to warn them not to feed on any of my Blood, especially my alpha, or I would see them dead.”
I smiled back with appreciation for my queen’s wicked sharp wit. Of course, if she warned them not to do something, Keisha would very likely do it out of spite. “An excellent idea.”
“You said you didn’t care for anyone to feed on you outside of my bed, and I don’t want to put you through undo pressure. If you don’t—”
I grinned and lay back down, giving her a bump with my hips to remind her I was fully at her disposal. “It will be my great pleasure to let one of those fuckers sink fang into me and taste my cobra queen’s poison.”
“Who else has fed from you since I poisoned you?” She leaned down and pushed her hands up beneath my shirt to stroke my chest. “Daire, right? Anyone else?”
“No, but it’d only take a few minutes to envenom them all, except Guillaume, of course. Your headless knight won’t need any poison, though.”
“If you don’t mind—”
“Never. Ask me anything, my queen, and it’s yours.”
She
pushed up to stand above me and unbuttoned her pants. “Then I ask that you allow me to give you the blood you hunger for the most, while the rest of my Blood taste yours.”
Shara
The thought of allowing him to taste my period blood still squicked me out—but not as much before. How could it, when his eyes blazed with hunger?
He locked his hands around my ankles. “Are you sure? I don’t need or require anything from you, my queen. I’ll gladly give your Blood my last drop if that’s what you need.”
“I’m sure.”
His hands convulsed on me, a shudder wracking his big frame. “I wouldn’t wish to cause you any unease, and I know—”
“Rik,” I broke in. “I’m sure. Why else do you think I used my power to come up with a better way to contain my blood? So I could give it to you, if you wanted it.”
“I want.” He licked his lips, his eyes so hot the silk should have disintegrated off my body. “I want every drop.”
I let the silk pants slide down my body, pushed the black lace panties down to my knees, and kicked them both off. As I started to lower myself to my knees, he reached up and caught me around the waist, lifting me up his body so my knees slid up over his shoulders. He flattened his tongue against me, slowly tracing his way down my body. Locking his mouth over my opening, he thrust his tongue inside me to taste the magic I’d used to contain the blood. Groaning against me, he squeezed me harder against him, working his mouth against me.
:Call your first Blood, and give me every fucking drop.:
:You heard him.: I said through the bond to no one in particular.
Shuddering with pleasure, I let the magic dissolve. He reared up beneath me, quivering as the blood hit his system. An explosion of power surged through our bond. He thrust his tongue deep and growled inside me. His hunger roared through me, his hands hard on my hips. I jerked in his grip, drowning in sensation. His hunger, pleasure, and ultimately, his need, to sink deep inside me. My pleasure, rising higher, threatened to throw me to the moon and back.
Queen Takes Rook (Their Vampire Queen Book 4) Page 15