Because every cell in my body wanted to act. Not wait. Not endure. Answer her call. Charge to victory. Slit my throat and offer her every last drop of blood. Anything rather than sit here and do nothing but wait for her to release me. Her hair glided around me, stroking me as surely as her hands. Her magic moved inside me, like I wished to be moving inside her. Back and forth flow. Thrust and pull.
Goddess. I’m losing my ever-loving mind.
She cried out, a deep, throaty moan of climax. Then she struck. Leaning down to sink her fangs into Itztli’s inner thigh. Going right for the femoral like any vampire queen would. Her hair slipping over his chest, his splayed thighs, his spurting cock. Just like mine.
Fuck.
A roar of release tore out of my throat. I strained against my bindings, my entire body convulsing. Her hair poured over me, stroking out every drop so it could absorb and feed her. Then releasing me.
Panting, I leaned against the headboard, unable to hold myself up. Muscles still quivering from the force of myclimax. Itztli was done, thanks to her bite. She lifted her mouth, allowing his blood to spray across her face, dripping down her throat. Her breasts. Licking her lips, she leaned back against Guillaume, her arm curving back over her shoulders to curl around his neck. Holding him close. Closer. Craning her neck so she could twist enough to sink her fangs into his throat.
He came on a deep bellow, his body jerking, shoving as deeply as possible, while she held him. Drinking him down.
Sagging back onto his bent legs, Guillaume didn’t make any move to bite and feed himself. Letting her drink from him as long as she wished. Another baller move from the ancient knight, because he couldn’t feed on anyone except our queen. He would regenerate his blood stores without feeding on her, but it would take time. Days, even, if she drained him enough.
And Shara fucking Isador could drain every Blood in this room and still call more to her side. Including the blood of three thousand sphinxes flowing to me.
Rik was still hard but not in agony. He’d probably come already tonight, and as the alpha, he’d always recover the quickest with the longest endurance of any of us. The only other man still standing…
I turned my head to check. Tlacel was still bound in her hair. His head hung low, his chin against his chest, his long hair partially covering his face. Coils of her hair tightened around his cock, turning the tip a deep purplish red. But he was still fully erect.
Rippling black waves rose around him, carrying him like a floating boat on a sea of her hair to her side. She cupped his face in her palms and gently tipped his head back so she could stare into his eyes. “I need you, Tlacel. You remind me that not every challenge can be won with aggression or open warfare. Sometimes winning a challenge means enduring without reacting or saying anything at all. Just like we endured the queen of Rome’schallenge. Surrender isn’t a weakness. You make it your—my—strength.”
The binding hair fell away from his cock, making him shudder and gasp. Yet he still didn’t release or even make a move to touch her. She shifted her legs from beneath her, reclining back against Guillaume while she pulled Tlacel into the cradle of her thighs. “Feed on me. Both of you. I need to feel your bites. Your mouths.”
The younger Blood might not fully understand how generous she was with her blood and her power. Guillaume certainly understood, though. I couldn’t imagine Desideria had ever encouraged him to feed as often or deeply as he wished. Let alone straight from her throat. Yet Shara curved her neck aside, welcoming his mouth. His fangs. Tlacel bit the upper curve of her breast. She clutched his head close, running her hands through his hair. Even deep inside her, he didn’t thrust. He didn’t need to. She undulated beneath him, her thighs locked on his hips. His breathing was loud in the room, ragged, strained, yet he still didn’t come.
Not until she finally tightened her hands in his hair, pulled his head up, and sank her brutal fangs into his throat. Even his climax was a beautiful surrender. Graceful and quiet yet so compelling. Eyes rolling back in his head, he gave every cell of himself to her. Trusting her implicitly. She fed on him until his limbs were heavy, muscles loose, his eyes dazed and dark. Not with weakness. But with supreme pleasure bordering on ecstasy.
She kissed his forehead. Each eyelid. His nose. “Please keep reminding me how to surrender, and if I ever forget to fulfill a need or promise made in passing, I command you to remind me. Whatever it takes, I will meet your need. Gladly. Because I love you. I love every part of you.”
Her gaze went to each of us, her eyes gleaming with expansive, infinite power. So much power could have been chilling tosee reflected in her eyes. I’d seen a fraction of such power corrupt other queens and humans alike for millennia.
But her love was even greater than the bottomless well of power at her fingertips.
“I love all of you. For all time. So let it be.”
“Then may I make a request, Your Majesty?” I waited for her nod, her lips quirking as if she already knew what I’d ask. “Since I lost this challenge, I think my punishment should be another round.”
23
VIVIAN
Anticipation licked and burned inside me, flickering with phoenix sunfire. I held the queen’s door as the rest of her Blood went to her. Mostly one by one, though Itztli and Tlacel often went to her together. Daire and Ezra had left together tonight. Everyone was able to walk out under their own power and didn’t have to immediately stagger down to the kitchen for food, so Rik was letting them feed too.
From the smirk on Mehen’s face and the arrogance in his cocky stride down the hallway, we could feed as much as we wanted. Though he made sure to flash the fresh scar on his forearm before heading downstairs.
I hadn’t served a queen before Shara, but I fully understood the significance and pure privilege we had to serve in House Isador. Power was a thing to hoard and covet. Bargain and kill and trade your soul to gain one step closer to the throne. Or in this case, the queen.
I’d seen it play out time and time again in Heliopolis. Especially among Ra’s offspring. The crueler and more terrible they could be, the higher they rose in the ranks. Though gaining the god’s attention was a reward few would ever survive.
Shara’s court couldn’t be more different.
She didn’t covet power, or she wouldn’t have given so much power back to Leonie, and she certainly wouldn’t allow us to feed as deeply and often as we wanted. Or very nearly, unless her reserves were too low. Any other queen would’ve put Leonie out of her misery and then absorbed all that dark, grim power into her base. Power raised from such pain and suffering carried a staggering punch. What better way to strike your enemies than with power flavored with such agonies? Besides, nothing raised immense power like suffering. So I had learned at an early age under the lash of Sepdet and his ilk.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Even through the thick, stout door designed to act as a last defense to the queen’s chambers, power seeped through the cracks, spilling out into the darkened hallway. Carrying the scents of sex and blood, the power twined around my legs like hungry vines. Trying to draw me into her presence. Or perhaps that was my own lust speaking.
