Chapter 9
ITZTLI
My people have taken plenty of trophies from our enemies, usually to honor the warrior they’d been, even in defeat. I’m far from innocent of such practices.
Lightly, I touched the obsidian blade I inherited from my father. After I killed him.
He used this blade to flay his victims alive and wear their skins around his shoulders. He would’ve proudly worn my skin, if he’d been able to kill me. I’d thought about taking a trophy from his body. Not to honor him—but to remind myself of what I could become.
From him, I inherited a similar hunger for pain. Though I usually preferred to receive the pain than to deliver it. The bloodier I became… The better.
Staring at the Dauphine’s cabinet, I was sickened not by the trophies themselves, but what they represented to her. Her victims weren’t honored in their death. They were used. These trophies enslaved them to her will.
:I have an idea to try,: my queen said in her bond. :If you’re willing.:
:Always,: I replied without hesitation.
She filled me so completely I could smell her lush scent.
Blowing desert sands and night-blooming flowers.
Pure crystal water shining beneath a full moon.
Precious herbs and incense burning on a goddess’ altar.
Using my body, she stood before the cabinet and stretched out our hand to lightly touch the shriveled tongue.
An image filled our mind. Another queen with a honey blonde braid. A sweet cherub face with smooth, pale cheeks and blue eyes.
:Illa Fólkvangr,: Shara whispered in my mind. :I’ve never met her, but I know her name. I see her nest. She’s still alive, though she’s in a deep, frigid lake not a muddy pit.:
Using my hand, she shut the cabinet and went to another drawer.
:Shelley Galatas, still alive. Laurell Akkad, dead. Though I can feel exactly where her bones are. Sophia Kazak, dead.: One by one, we opened the drawers, identifying the trophies’ owners. :Isabelle Vasconia.:
The next to last row was all that remained. My hand flowed over the drawers, not needing to open them now to identify their contents. :This one. This is Leonie’s.:
I carefully lifted out the hand and tongue. :I’m on my way, my queen.:
She started to withdraw, drawing an involuntary whine from my lips. The sound a dog makes when it yearns for his owner’s affection. In our bond, she pressed her forehead to mine, her arms around me.
:I’m sorry, my queen. I just love having you inside me like this.:
:Never be sorry that you need me, Itztli. I need you too.:
Her mind relaxed, sinking deeper into me rather than withdrawing, her spirit resting against mine as I trotted down the stairs and back outside to find her beneath the tree.
She still lay in the embrace of the kraken’s tentacles with the other queen against the front of her body.
Streaked in dried mud, the queen still fed on Shara.
My queen’s other sibling knelt beside them both with a glowing white nimbus.
“I’m surprised she’s able to take so much of your blood, my queen,” Gwen said as I neared. “As powerful as you are, your blood is difficult for lesser queens to assimilate. Though it’s certainly making my job easier. Every internal injury is healed except for her hand and tongue.”
Eyes hazy and relaxed, Shara looked up at me with a soft smile on her lips as I dropped to my knees beside Rik. “I remember when I gave Mayte blood for the first time. She could only take a few swallows.”
“It was the same for me,” I admitted hoarsely. “I feared one taste of your blood would release the monster inside me. Yet Coatlicue promised my destined queen would be strong enough to both wield and sheathe Her obsidian blade.”
Shara’s eyes shifted to some distant horizon I could not see, even though her spirit still flowed with mine. “Your goddess wears a necklace of human hands and hearts.”
I nodded. “She does.”
“Snakes. Not just a skirt of snakes but…” Her eyes re-focused on my face. “I see large red snakes where Her head and arms should be.”
“In some of our legends, She and other goddesses sacrificed themselves to birth the Fifth Sun. When She’s depicted in artwork, the red snakes at Her neck and arms represent the spray of Her blood.
Though in other traditions, Nanahuatzin jumped into the fire to sacrifice himself, rising as the Tonatiuh, the new Fifth Sun. ”
Because her spirit still hovered inside me, she saw the memory sparked by that story.
In Teotihuacan, I’d called upon my goddess to help me save my twin from the Tocatl queen.
In exchange, I promised Her my heart, fully expecting to die.
Only later, did I understand how Shara would accomplish such a sacrifice—and still let me live.
So I could be here now and feel the brush of her soul against mine.
“Regeneration requires sacrifice.” With a small jerk of her arm, she pulled her nails from her alpha’s chest. “Leonie has already made the sacrifice and suffered much.”
She didn’t ask. She didn’t have to. I took her hand in mine and brought her palm to my chest. “I offer my heart again, my queen. Use me as you see fit.”
SHARA
I shoved my left hand’s nails into Itztli’s chest, but it was different with him. My alpha would never hesitate to give me anything I needed, even his own life if necessary. But he wouldn’t feel any pleasure in the pain of his sacrifice.
Itztli would—and did. So though I could feed on him without hurting him, I deliberately jammed my nails deep, driving into his heart muscle.
Reminding him of his sacrifice to grow the tree inside the Zaniyah nest, as well as my sacrifice to grow the tree in Isador Tower’s basement.
He relished any pain, especially if blood was involved, and even more so if I could gain some pleasure or satisfy a need.
I held his heart in the grasp of my nails and squeezed.
Feeling the hot, rapid pump flowing into me, straight from the source.
The surge of his pleasure echoed through me as well.
I felt the stirring of his hunger as my own.
The baying of his black dog eager for the hunt. Any hunt. But especially retribution.
All of my Blood relished being used as the deadly weapons they are.
Power rolled through my voice like distant thunder. “Put her hand by her wrist.”
He leaned closer to lay the shriveled hand by Leonie’s right stump, which pushed my nails even deeper into his heart. A small sound escaped his lips. A gasp of pleasure. Hunger. Sending sparks through my veins.
“I have need of my obsidian blade.”
His eyes flashed like the black sun tattooed on his chest. Reaching down to his hip, he unsheathed the wicked blade. “How may I be of service, my queen?”
“Coatlicue, Mother of the Gods, Goddess of House Zaniyah, we call upon you to regenerate Leonie Delafosse’s sacrificed limb and tongue.
I offer you the Great One’s blood in exchange.
” I turned my wrist upward, twisting my nails in his chest, slicing his heart to ribbons.
Though his heart thudded harder, pumping even more blood to me in his eagerness.
“Blade of Zaniyah, draw an appropriate symbol on my flesh for your goddess.”
He dragged his gaze down to the smooth skin of my inner wrist and shuddered.
So many veins thinly covered by my skin.
A delicate place for such work. Letting his breath sigh out softly, he lifted the blade to my arm and began to carve a glyph.
Deep enough to honor Coatlicue with blood—but not cause me true injury.
“Now add a similar mark to Leonie’s injured wrist, mingling our blood.”
When he finished and lifted his gaze back to mine, his eyes burned like black pits, his nostrils flaring wide with each breath. Anticipation licked through his veins, as if he already knew my next request.
So I simply opened my mouth and stretched out my tongue.
Gwen gasped softly.
Leonie stopped feeding, pushing my other wrist down toward her chest, though she didn’t let go of my right arm. “No,” she moaned out, intelligible despite her own injuries.
I stared back at Itztli evenly, trusting him to know the appropriate level of sacrifice his goddess would require. If She wanted all of my tongue, or just a prick of blood, so be it.
With a smooth, quick downward stroke, he stabbed the tip of the blade all the way through my tongue.
The obsidian clicked on my bottom teeth.
Blood dripped down my chin. I didn’t really feel the thrust of the blade.
It was too sharp. But I felt the pull and glide through the muscle as he lifted the knife away, leaving a deep throbbing cut in my pierced tongue.
I let blood drip onto Leonie’s face as I said each word. “Pierce her tongue and place it back into her mouth, Blade of Zaniyah.”
Without looking away from me, he jammed the blade downward against his own palm, skewering the dried, shriveled tongue and his hand as cleanly as he’d stabbed my tongue. Then using the knife, he guided the small piece of flesh back to Leonie’s open mouth.
“So is Leonie Delafosse restored.”
He lifted his bleeding hand toward my mouth, but instead, I leaned toward him and pressed my mouth to his. I gave him my bleeding tongue, letting him suck and lick all the blood from my mouth. While I stroked his heart.
“Goddess,” Leonie said, her voice trembling but her words perfectly enunciated. “It worked.”
I leaned back so I could see her face. She lifted her right hand above her, slowly squeezing and splaying her fingers, making sure each one still worked independently. Gwen swept pearly power over her again, wiping away the last of the mud from her skin.