22. Tlacel
TLACEL
It wasn’t in my nature to be demanding or aggressive—except when it came to protecting our queen’s safety. Then I’d be as rabid as my brother’s black dog or Xin’s silver wolf. I hoped she would remember my request to be bound in her hair…
But I wouldn’t remind her of it. That would be too much like me requesting something for my own enjoyment. Which it absolutely would be, of course. She had no need of a Blood who loved to be bound and helpless for her amusement.
Rik didn’t have to order us to be outside her door, ready to go. We weren’t on guard duty. Yet. So we stood ready with Guillaume and Sekh, who were always near our queen. I didn’t begrudge them their positions at her right hand. She needed their expertise far more than she would need mine.
Ezra and Daire came out together and Rik gave a mental tug in my direction. Both Itztli and I stepped into the queen’s bedchamber and began to strip.
The dragon was still on the bed with them, still feeding on her wrist. Rik held her on his lap. Her hair cascaded across the bed and down to the floor. Just the sight of all that magical black silk made my knees tremble.
“You couldn’t be more mistaken, Tlacel,” Shara said.
Startled, I jerked my gaze up to hers. “I’m sorry, my queen?”
She held her other hand out to me, and I immediately went closer to the bed, intending to drop to my knees and press her hand to my forehead.
Her hair had other ideas.
Tendrils wrapped around my ankles as soon as I came close enough for her hair to touch me.
Creeping up my thighs. Sliding around my wrists.
Neck. So soft yet strong, fragrant with goddess power and smoldering incense.
She lifted me onto the bed with her power and tucked me against the headboard.
My arms pulled tightly behind me. Bound in her hair.
Exactly as I had requested.
Close enough to see everything she did with her other Blood. Close enough to smell her desire. Cum. Blood. Watch the way her heartbeat skipped and leaped as she watched my brother stride to her, so proud and strong.
“No blade tonight?” She asked.
He dropped to his knees beside the bed. “If I may make a request, my queen…?” He waited until she nodded. “Then I’d love to see if I can endure your nails while your other Blood pleasure you.”
“That’s a simple thing to endure,” Mehen drawled with a sniff of disdain.
Itztli flashed a toothy smile at him. “Without coming until our queen tells me I may, or takes me into her body.”
The dragon’s smirk shifted to a grimace and he shook his head. “Good fucking luck.”
Itztli turned back to our queen, saying nothing. Simply gazing up at her steadily.
“If that’s what you want, absolutely, my Blood.”
“My brother inspired me.”
I quivered with surprise again. Itztli was the formidable warrior, talented with all the weapons of our people.
Before we ever swore to Shara, he took on House Tocatl’s Blood singlehandedly and killed them.
Even their alpha and his sire, descended from Xipe Totec, the Flayed One.
Then he jumped through a blazing inferno to save me from their dying queen, who’d bound me much like this.
Only instead of our queen’s flowing black hair, I’d been wrapped in sticky spider webbing. The queen’s captive prey.
Though I don’t believe she intended to eat me. At least not right away.
“Guillaume and Sekh are next in line,” Rik said. “Which one do you—”
“Both of them,” Itztli broke in.
Laughing, Mehen shook his head. “Like I said, good fucking luck. If I had a bowl of popcorn, I’d stay and watch.”
I couldn’t see Rik’s face but no doubt he shot a dark glare at him from the harsh tone of his rumbling voice. “Our queen’s pleasure and hunger are not meant for your personal entertainment.”
“Tlacel gets to watch,” Mehen retorted.
Rik’s shoulders bunched, his muscles pumping up with fury. I expected him to thump the mouthy dragon, but Shara must have soothed him with a silent touch I couldn’t see.
“If you’d like to be bound in my hair like Tlacel, or endure my nails like Itztli, then you’re welcome to stay too, my dragon.”
Mehen licked his bite on her wrist, lingering over the feel of her skin. The taste of her blood. Considering, no doubt, how much he’d give to stay longer. Surprising no one, he slid from the bed with all the arrogance he could muster.
“I was the first to give our queen a bite of flesh. I’ll let the twins enjoy their torment.” He swaggered toward the door, adding even more swing when the general entered with the knight. “Plus I already came twice tonight.”
“Only a fool counts his own orgasms without consideration for how many he gave,” Sekh drawled.
“One fucking bite of my flesh filled her reserves, motherfucker,” Mehen snarled. “She didn’t need to tap the blood of three-thousand sphinxes. Just one King of the Depths.”
“Oh, that’s good to know,” Sekh replied lightly. “Each time her reserves dip, she can just take another bite of you. If we’re patient enough, eventually the fucking dragon will be nothing but some bones and a few flaps of leathery wings.”
“Maybe you should bind this motherfucker up in your hair too, my queen,” Mehen called back over his shoulder as he exited. “Make sure to gag him.”
“If anyone should be gagged…” Sekh blew out a growl. “My apologies, my queen. I shouldn’t have let him get under my skin.”
“Same,” Rik said. “I nearly smashed his skull at the popcorn comment.”
Shara laughed, a deep, husky chuckle that shifted the mood in the room from annoyance to sultry heat in an instant. “Everyone should feel important and needed in my house. Even a rude, snarly dragon or a grumpy bear.”
“Or a tarnished knight,” Guillaume said softly.
“Or a stone-cold sphinx,” Sekh said.
Or a soft, weak feathered serpent who loves to be made helpless.
Shara’s head turned and she pinned me with her luminous dark eyes. “Sekh, would you be willing to help me prove a point tonight?”
“Absolutely, my queen. Command me in any way you desire.”
“Hear my request before you agree. Everyone in this room acknowledges my general’s control.
Your power. You’re the All Seeing, Never Sleeping commander of a legion of bloodthirsty sphinxes.
No one would ever dare to call you weak.
Not even the dragon who’s so desperate to hate you.
Yet I believe even you would hesitate to be bound in my hair.
Helpless to watch as I fuck another Blood.
How long do you think I could torment you with silken ribbons of hair before you came?
Longer than Tlacel, perhaps? Or do you think you would lose that challenge? ”
Silent while he removed the rest of his clothing, Sekh climbed onto the bed beside me. On his knees, his hands relaxed on his upper thighs, his weight settled back on his heels. “I have no idea, my queen, but I’m excited to find out.”
SEKH
I fully understood the challenge. My ego could take it. I would gladly lose to any of my queen’s Blood in a pleasure game, except for the dragon. I drew the line with him. He would know nothing but my hard, unyielding stone hide in all things.
Though truth be told, I’d shed even my stone hide and allow the motherfucking dragon to bleed me dry to take a spot on her bed any time she offered.
The first long tendril of hair snaked around my throat. How something so soft could be so powerful, I would never understand. Truly a gift from the Mother, demonstrating the beauty and deadly power of Her daughters’ gifts on this earth.
I trembled, but not from the sensation of being bound.
A cold, empty statue, I’d stood guard at the peak of the world since the beginning of time itself.
I fully understood what it meant to be helpless and powerless.
Forced to only watch the unfolding of tragedies and wars, famines and diseases.
I witnessed the death of magic in our world as the sands flowed through infinity, never daring to dream I might be here.
Living in Shara Isador’s nest. Breathing in her magic and the scent of her desire. Feeling the waft of her magic on my bare skin. Soaking into my cells. Pumping up my inner gifts without a single drop of blood.
The torture wasn’t feeling her hair wrapping around my limbs, or even the ache in my muscles as she tugged my arms behind my back, binding them tightly together. No. The torture was feeling all this magic stroking my flesh—and not being able to act upon it.
Sweat already beaded my brow, my breathing coming harder. My cock as rock hard as the sphinx statue that had first entered her nest.
“G,” she moaned.
So focused on the sensation rippling through me, I’d lost track of what was happening on the main stage.
Rik had moved aside, making room for both Itztli and Guillaume on the bed.
She straddled Itztli’s hips, her hands braced flat on his chest and stomach, as the knight slowly thrust into her from behind.
In her bond, I felt the impossible stretching of her inner walls as he breached her.
Slowly. Methodically. The kind of diabolical precision I would expect from a talented Templar Knight and queen’s Blood with centuries of experience.
His considerable size did most of the sensual labor for him, making her writhe against the other Blood.
But a heavy broadsword took talent and strength to wield effectively.
He worked his cock deeper, making her twitch and moan—and most importantly, for this challenge, at least—dig her nails into Itztli’s flesh.
Not to feed. Not yet. But her long silver nails pierced his skin. Tearing at his chest as she squirmed against his erection trapped beneath her.
The knight settled to the hilt with a low, heavy grunt of satisfaction. He leaned harder against Shara, adding his weight on top of the Blood beneath her. “Still alive, Itztli?”
“Yes,” he hissed out, his breathing loud.
“Very good,” Guillaume said lightly. “Now the siege begins in earnest.”