Cold Queen Page 12

  I pull my queen closer and slide my hands into her silky hair. Her breath hitches when I tug at the roots in a possessive way, angling her head up so I may see her pretty face. Her blue eyes shine with a love that most unions of royalty don’t have. We are the lucky ones. Our beasts found each other. My lips press hard to hers as I kiss her in a claiming way. She parts her lips and allows my tongue to seek hers.

  Cold and hot.

  A clashing of two opposites that somehow are perfect together.

  I kiss the queen, who grows stronger each day without the poison running through her veins. Mine. She’s mine and I’ll drag her all over this world so we may conquer it together.

  “Is that all?” I growl to the priest.

  “That is all,” the priest says, chuckling.

  I scoop Elzira up in my arms and stride from the room, loving her sweet giggles as they echo down the hall. Once inside her tower, I strip her down quickly and toss her down on the bed. Her blue eyes watch me hungrily as I shed my own clothing.

  She catches her bottom lip between her teeth before parting her slender thighs. Her arousal glistens along her slit and my cock seeps with need. I pounce on her, eager to devour every part of her.

  “I want to eat you up,” I rumble, nipping at her stomach as I make my way to her cunt. “I’ll start here.”

  A squeal escapes her as I run my tongue along her slit, tasting her sweet juices. Her back arches off the bed. Cold ice pellets ping off my back, but all it takes is one scorching stare on my queen to have her warming.

  “The next time I have my cock deep inside you, it’ll be as my wife.” I suck on her clit until she screams. “Beg for it, wife. Beg for me to fill you up and give you a little prince.”

  Her blue eyes shine with love and adoration. “Please. Please give me a family.”

  I suck on her clit over and over until she spasms with pleasure, her orgasm tearing through her violently. I don’t wait for my wife to recover as I prowl up her writhing body. She whimpers when I push into her without warning, thrusting my hips hard enough to bruise her deep inside. Gripping her wrists, I pin her to the bed as I rock against her. Our mouths meet and I kiss her until she knows it with every ounce of her being that I’ll give her whatever it is she yearns for…especially a family. I grind on her in just the right way that has her coming once more. This time, with her cunt clenching tight around my cock, I groan with my release. Hot semen shoots deep within her and I pray to every god out there that a little heir will begin growing within her before morning.

  Sliding out of my queen, I gather her in my arms and pull her to my chest as I rest on my back. I stroke my fingers through her soft hair.

  “What will you be when there are no more of The Damned to punish?” I ask her absently. Eventually, I’ll take over the Easta and Westa, forbidding such practice in all corners of our world.

  She lifts up and frowns. “There always have been and always will be The Damned. You make sure of it.”

  “Not me. My father. His father. And so on. Never me.”

  “Why not?”

  “My mother…” My voice cracks at the mention of her. “She was feral and hungry. A truly disgraced queen, sent away by her tyrant husband because she loved another.”

  “Oh, Ryke,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I killed her. What was left of her anyway. I vowed then I would find a more civil way to punish those who disobeyed the law. Danser has always helped me rule justly, as my mother would have wanted. I am the Truth Seeker, not a creator of The Damned like my father.”

  She leans forward and kisses me. “There will always be traitors and murderers and rapists. Someone will need to punish them.”

  “You’ll simply be The Punisher?”

  “Simply so.”

  “I don’t know what awaits in the Hidden Lands, but I assure you my heart won’t rest until I seek it out for myself.”

  “We’ll seek it out together. Always together, Volc.”

  I pull her over me and we make love so I can watch her perfect tits bounce as the snow falls all around her.

  Beautiful.

  My fiery, cold queen.

  Elzira

  A few days later…

  The horse ride past Norta Layke and through the mountain passageway toward the Hidden Lands is quiet. Ryke is determined, aware, and fierce as ever. Despite earning a husband out of the deal, I can’t help but feel the bleeding loss inside of me.

  My sister.

  Cavon.

  Two people whom I cared for most in this world betrayed me.

  It’s not something you simply get over. Only time will heal those wounds. Until I reach that time, I will continue onward with my king. As if he’s inside my head, he darts his head my way, his amber eyes flaring with concern.

  Before he can speak, Jorshi gallops our way from ahead. “There were a few lingering of The Damned, but that’s not our problem.”

  Ryke uncoils his whip from his hip and trots over to Jorshi. “What is our problem?”

  “Pariahs. Untouchables. Lost ones. They lack the madness, but they’re every bit as untamed and feral,” Jorshi explains.

  “I thought we might run into these groups,” Ryke grumbles. “How many?”

  “They’re in clusters,” Jorshi explains. “Small ones. But we can’t just k—”

  I take off at full gallop, the sound of my horse clomping through the snow silencing the rest of his words. If these lost ones are in need of destroying, they will meet The Punisher.

  Ryke calls out after me, but I lean down, closer to the horse, and inspect the trees ahead of me. A man steps out from the tree line and holds up a bow, pointing it at me. It catches flame before he can fire it and Ryke bursts past me. Several more men emerge from the trees and Ryke strikes out at them with his powerful whip, knocking them down long enough for me to shoot diamondblade spikes through their hearts. When I hear sounds coming from beyond the tree line, I guide my horse farther toward it.

  “Mama!” a small voice cries out.

  I come to a trot, staring in shock and horror at the people caged in wooden jails. All women and small children. They look at me as though I’m here to save them.

  “Get the white-haired bitch!” a portly man yells from behind me.

  His head flies from his shoulders and rolls toward one of the cages. I lock eyes with Danser and he nods as he swipes the blood from his sword. Danser and Ryke take off, chasing after a group of men with weapons. I slide off my horse and walk over to the cage where a woman near my age eyes me warily.

  “Are you their prisoner?” I demand.

  She nods. “Unfairly so.”

  “What was your crime?”

  “Being a woman. The Untouchables see women as currency.” She looks over her shoulder at a small child who whimpers in the corner. “The children are worse off.”

  “You’re used as currency? What happens when you’re cashed in?”

  The woman rubs her stomach.

  “And the children are worse off, why?” I whisper.

  “The men enjoy fresh meat and The Damned cleared most of the lands of game,” she says harshly, her voice cracking slightly. “I’m growing food for the monsters.”

  My stomach clenches violently.

  The Untouchables eat their own kind.

  They eat children.

  No.

  No. No. No. No.

  These are the fabled “monsters” in the Moral War.

  When I was a child, I asked about the Hidden Lands. Father said it was overrun by The Damned, but they were trapped there. That the Moral War was not real. He never told me the people living there were worse than The Damned.

  I feel duped.

  People, just a couple days’ worth ride away, were being kept by monsters. Fed to them. And they’re worse than beasts because they’re human.

  “Have you always lived here? Trapped with them?” I ask, the snow thickening around me by my own doing.

  “Not always. M
y parents kept me safe, deep in the woods, until a cluster found us. They slaughtered my father and then…my mother…” Her chin wobbles. “You don’t want to know what they did to my mother. As for me, well, you can see what they did to me.” She rubs her stomach, and even though I can’t tell, she’s indicating her pregnancy.

  Rage burns up inside me. So many small children and women locked inside these cages. I start forward, ready to destroy the lock, when the woman cries out.

  “Watch out!”

  I swivel behind me as a man sneaks up. With a roar of fury, I sling nearly a dozen diamondblades piercing through his heart. He falls with a thump into the snow.

  When I turn back around, the woman is kneeling, hope shining in her brown eyes. “You’re a queen, yes? Save these people and you’ll have our undying loyalty. We need protection, which you can offer. And you need information, which we can offer. Please. I beg of you.”

  All the other women and older children are nodding rapidly.

  “Can you fight?” I ask, breaking a diamondblade from my crown and offering it to her.

  Her brown eyes gleam with violence as she takes it. “I can, your highness.” With those words, she slings the blade right at me. It whizzes past me and stabs into the throat of one of her captors.

  I like her already.

  Summoning my ice, I create a long blade from my fist and then saw through the rope holding the cage closed. As soon as it breaks free, I fling open the door. The woman helps everyone out and exits last. I grip her arm before she can go far.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Valari.”

  Thundering hooves pound our way and then a wave of heat washes over me. Ryke hops off his horse and storms my way, his face morphed into one of anger. “The area is clear.” His gaze rakes over Valari before lifting his brow in question.

  “Captives. And The Untouchables?”

  He grunts. “We killed them all.”

  “The ones in this cluster, your highness, but many are in these woods between here and Castle Highland.” Valari points toward a mountain in the distance.

  “And what’s in the castle?” I ask. “More of them?”

  “The Untouchables, yes,” she spits out. “They reign here.”

  Ryke and I share a dark look.

  “Not anymore,” I tell Valari.

  Ryke smiles and grabs my hand. “We do now.”

  For months now we’ve been travelling to Castle Highland. The clusters, although unorganized, are plentiful. Rescuing women and children is a time-consuming effort. But I’ve never felt so alive. So filled with purpose.

  The Eyes of the White have grown to trust the Volc army. Both sides have acclimated to one another. Friendships have bonded. Trust strengthens the army as one. Ryke has taken to calling them the Bloodstones. When he’d merged our names, I’d thought it was foolish at first. And I was slightly angry. I was a Whitestone. He was a Bloodsun. Why ruin hundreds of years by blending our names? But he kindly reminded me that we are better than those before us. As Bloodstones, we are something new and more powerful. We reign together, as equals, over all the lands we choose to claim as ours.

  “Your highness,” Valari says, emerging through a copse of trees, dragging a deer behind her.

  “Ahh, someone’s been hunting.” I chuckle when she drops the dead thing at my feet. “Better than nap time for the children?”

  She makes a sour face. “I was meant to be out there, not tied down to littles.”

  I step closer and touch her stomach that has grown bigger. Sometimes you can feel the baby move. “And this little?”

  “Belongs out here in the wilderness.”

  Danser storms out of the trees, an angry look morphing his usually impassive features. “I told you to wait for me, woman. Couldn’t even give me a minute to climb out of the damn tree. You shouldn’t be hauling around that heavy carcass by yourself.”

  “You must be quicker than that, old man,” she says, shooting him a smug grin before walking away.

  His eyes narrow. “She’s maddening.”

  “You like her,” I tease. “You want to make her yours.”

  He snaps his head my way. “If she were mine, she’d be laid up in a tent resting as she grows bigger with her pregnancy.”

  Ryke’s warmth envelops me from behind and he kisses the top of my head. Heat travels to my stomach where he touches our own little who’s growing inside. “Imagine if I’d told my queen she had to stay locked away in a castle while I did everything for her.”

  Danser groans. “Valari is not my queen. She’s not anything to me.”

  “She’s your fellow soldier in the Bloodstone army,” I remind him, loving the way he rolls his eyes in a blatant disrespectful way. If I learned anything from Ryke, it’s that I love a challenge from those closest to me. It makes things more interesting. Entertaining.

  “Only a soldier because you commanded it so.” Danser’s voice drips in sarcasm. “My queen.”

  Ryke chuckles and then sets Danser’s boots on fire. Danser scowls as he stomps out the blaze in the snow.

  “A couple of children,” Danser grumbles as he storms off. “I serve a couple of children.”

  As soon as he’s gone, I look up through the trees at Castle Highland. Another day’s worth of travel and we’ll be there.

  “They’ll be safe here while we forge ahead?” I ask, turning to look at Ryke.

  “They’ll have to be. We can’t storm a castle full of The Untouchables with a bunch of fussy children in tow. I’ve already instructed some of the older men to stay back and care for them. The younger, stronger ones we’ll need.” His eyes drop to my stomach and worry clouds his amber eyes.

  “Are you going to ask me to stay back?” I challenge, lifting my chin.

  His lips curl up on one side in a devilishly handsome way. “I wouldn’t dream of it, Punisher.”

  Ryke

  Our plan is one of surprise. They have to know we’re coming, but they’re expecting an extravagant attack. To storm the front gate. They aren’t expecting for us to climb in the windows and slay them while they sleep. I glance over at Elzira, who stands near a window. The moonlight shines down on her and I take a moment to admire her beauty.

  At one time, her eyes were sunken in and her bones protruded. Her lips and fingers and skin were blue. Even her hair was turning blue. My cruel queen was dying at the hands of others. Now, she is strong and her body has filled out, especially since she carries our child. Her once icy-blond-and-blue-streaked hair has changed. Dark strands of black are mixed in with the blond. At first, I was worried something terrible was happening to her, but Mazon assured me it’s because fire courses through her veins. Our firstborn is a fire maker.

  I storm over to my bride and kiss her hard enough to steal her breath. She threads her fingers in my hair, giving me a soft look that’s usually reserved for me when we’re alone and I have her thighs wrapped around my head.

  “What is it?” she whispers.

  “If I die today,” I rumble. “Know that every second with you was the ultimate gift.”

  “Whoever kills you will have to meet my wrath.” Her plump lips curl into a smile. “Death by decapitation seems too easy. Perhaps this time I’ll freeze them from the inside out.”

  I nip at her fat lip. “It gets me hard when you tell me how you’ll get your vengeance over my death, Punisher.”

  “You always were a twisted one,” she teases. Then, her expression grows somber. “And what about me? What will you do to the one who kills your queen and your unborn child?”

  Heat blazes through me, my eyes searing into hers. “I’ll burn the whole damn world to the ground. If you can’t exist in my world, then no one else is allowed to.”

  My cruel queen smiles. “Our love is destructive.”

  “Only for those who attempt to step between it.”

  I’m about to throw responsibility into the wind and take my queen right now, but Danser hisses at me that we must make our m
ove now. I hoist Elzira up and push her through the window, before quietly following her inside. At the base of the castle, it’s empty. The room is silent other than an incinerator in the corner that glows red from the square opening. It’ll only be a matter of time before whoever mans the incinerator returns.

  When I turn around, twenty men, including Danser and Valari, have slid into the room with us. Valari walks over to me and points at a pile of rubble. I follow her gaze to the bones. So small. A fox, perhaps? One look at Valari’s pursed lips and I know.

  Children.

  Elzira stiffens. The calm before the storm.

  Her rage consumes her to the point that snow begins heavily falling in the room. I touch her shoulder in a calming gesture.

  Calm down until we slaughter each and every one of them, my queen.

  We can’t let them know we’re here and her losing her cool—literally—is the worst possible idea ever.

  I head for a staircase and everyone follows after me. More men file in behind us. We climb the stairs that eventually lead into a great room where a fire is still lit. The stench of cooked meat makes my stomach roil. Several fat men are snoring nearby, passed out at the table. Valari and Danser make quick work of stabbing them through the base of their skulls. Quick, violent, silent.

  “Spread out,” I order. “Remember the plan.”

  Valari and a few others had been inside the castle before. Once they laid out where The Untouchables were, we decided on the best possible way to kill them without hurting any women or children.

  As much as I disagreed with the plan, Valari and Elzira are to seek out the nest of innocents while the men kill the monsters. I know she wanted the satisfaction of spilling their blood, but there’s more to being a queen than just punishing the wicked. Saving the good is just as important.

  “This way,” Valari urges, quietly surging ahead. Elzira follows with five of the Bloodstones behind her. They disappear around a corner.