Shara drew her blood with one of her nails and closed her eyes.:Vivian doesn’t touch my male Blood, and neither does Mayte. Rik, my alpha, is always with me, but he will not touch you.:
:I understand.:I hesitated for only a moment, watching as a hole opened in the side of my healthy oak. Wide and tall enough to walk through.:If I take Blood of my own, you’re welcome to use us all as you desire.:
Her head tipped to the side in a slight shake.:I only take people I love to my bed. I don’t expect to love your Blood. They’ll be yours. But my mother and aunt did share Blood between them, so I won’t say I’ll never share Blood with another queen. Just not my Blood I currently have, unless they come to love you too. Two of my Blood—Thierry and Llewellyn—previously belonged to House Isador before I was born. I hope to reclaim the rest of our Isador Blood soon.:
It said much about this queen’s personality that she still considered Thierry her Blood despite his death. He’d been in the pit with me for years. Decades. I had no way to know how long. But surely before this young queen was even born. So he’d been contaminated by the Dauphine long before Shara could have claimed him as her own.
Yet she loved him still.
The dragon slithered through the hole in the tree, twisting and contorting his way through the slit until he disappeared. Then a huge raven—the one who’d been so kind as to provide fresh milk for our tea—flew through the crack, followed by a fiery phoenix. I’d never seen a phoenix with my own eyes, but Ihadn’t expected its flames to be so dark. Like black fire with flashes of molten lava. I feared the ancient tree might burst into flame but not a single leaf was scorched.
Vivian must be the phoenix. Both the dragon and raven had male voices in our queen’s head.
:Welcome to the party,:Vivian purred.:When our queen desires, we’ll introduce you to my sunfire, Smoak.:
I had no idea what a sunfire was, but I couldn’t wait to find out.
“Itztli, Tlacel, Xin, Daire, and Ezra, you’re up,” the alpha said, giving me an idea of whose names went with each Blood. Though he said five names and I only saw four Blood pass through the tree.
Once they were through, Shara released my hand and turned to the other queen to embrace her. “Thank you for coming, Gwen.”
“Always, my queen. I’ll be ready for another adventure tomorrow. Once all of your Blood are through, we’ll pass through to the tower.”
Shara nodded and gave a smile to the queen’s alpha and the other flesh eater dressed in a purple robe. “Thank you for your service today, Sir Lancelot and Merlin.”
One of the other knights grunted with disgust. “Hopefully we can get in on some action tomorrow. I felt useless today.”
“Anytime you want to chow down on some thralls…” Merlin began.
The man shuddered. “Not happening.”
Shara’s knight shook hands with Gwen’s three knights, and then we were finally ready to enter the dark hole ourselves. Shara tucked her arm around my waist as we walked closer to the tree. Her alpha strode behind us, his hand on her back, as if he couldn’t bear to not touch her for one second.
Same, big guy. I had no idea what manner of beast he might be, but I’d never seen such a large man. The knight and threeother Blood brought up the rear. Sekh, the general, the one with the tentacles who’d carried us out of the pit, and the other flesh eater.
:Okeanos and Vore,:Shara said.:Guillaume’s the last Templar knight. You might know him as the former Triune Executioner.:
I let out a low whistle.:Desideria’s former Blood? He’s still alive?:
:Sir Guillaume de Payne Isador at our queen’s service, Your Majesty,:the knight said, though I also heard a horse pawing the ground and snorting in his bond.:Death rides again.:
My heartbeat quickened as we entered the darkness, my muscles braced for a jolt or a scare. I smelled moist, rich earth and green living things mixed with damp, decaying leaves. I didn’t feel a tingle of magic on my skin, though goosebumps raced down my arms. In seconds, we stepped out into open air.
The temperature was cooler and less humid, though it was still a lovely spring evening. Frogs peeped. Bugs hummed and buzzed. I glanced back over my shoulder to see a similar dark hole in the trunk of a tree, but in the darkness, I couldn’t identify its species. Red petals and thorns dotted its branches, but it was far too large to be a rose bush. Mossy rocks and thick roots arched up out of the ground. Steam curled around the roots.
Releasing me for a moment, Shara turned to the tentacled Blood and gave him a hug and kiss. “Thank you, Okeanos.”
“Always, my queen.” Then he shifted into his massive kraken and slipped over the rocks and disappeared.
“There’s a grotto on the other side of the tree,” Shara explained. “It’s a hot spring here, but it also has a portal to the Deep Blue, the ocean, so Okeanos can swim and hunt.”
“And the tree is a portal?” I asked.
“Yes. I set the intention in my mind and simply step through, though it helps to have a picture in my mind of where we’re going. Thierry showed me the giant tree in your yard, which made it easy for us to travel straight to your nest.” She lifted herhand up to the blue bird on her shoulder and he hopped onto her fingers. “Thank you, Thierry.”
He chirped back to her in her bond.:Thank you for upholding the oath I made in Isador’s name, Your Majesty.:
:Always.:
