Chapter 28: A Queen’s Consort

She frowned down at him. “So?”

Theo was shocked. Was she truly that innocent? He considered her, then glanced again at the yatagarasu. “Give me your wrist again,” he said, watching the crow.

The golden crow stiffened as the queen naively held out her arm.

“Extend your fangs,” Theo said, eyes still on the yatagarasu.

“Umm…” she said, looking down at the pale flesh of her forearm. “I…uh…can’t. I’m sorry.”

Theo turned to her, surprised. “You’re young.”

“I’m nineteen,” she said, glaring. As if that made her ancient.

Theo blinked at her. “How long have you been awakened?”

She blushed. “Oh. Just a couple weeks ago, I guess. Masaaki made me do it.”

Just weeks ago… Theo’s breath caught. Glancing again at the yatagarasu, Theo reached a shaking hand to her forearm and started massaging the fangs from her wrist.

“Ow,” she whimpered. “Ow, ow, owww…”

Against the wall, the yatagarasu took a step forward.

“Stay there or she loses the arm,” Theo said, without looking. He watched her tiny fangs emerge from the still-forming scars of her wrist. Then, once they were visible, he brought the protrusions to his lips, wrapped a hand around the small bulge in her wrist and squeezed.

“Ewwwww,” the queen said, as silver magic began to spill forth from the fangs, into his mouth. Grimacing, she twisted her body away, but of course her arm was held immobile. “Yuck, yuck.”

Theo drank…and felt his entire world shift. Like liquid ambrosia, the queen’s magic flowed through him, spreading outward in a tingling heat from his center, wiping out the pain of the yatagarasu’s light. “Oh…” he murmurred, his heart beginning to pound like a jackhammer. “Oh my.”

“You’re dead, demon,” the yatagarasu snapped.

But Theo was staring at the queen’s wrist in awe. Throughout his long life, as many countless years that he had spent in thrall…he’d never imagined that imbibing of a queen could feel so good. The blood magic was electrifying him, heating up his carnal senses, demanding that instinctive mating rite. He was actually having trouble breathing, holding it back.

What was worse, he had to fight the insane instinct to press the fangs from her other wrist and drink of those, too, while he used his other hand to tear off her clothes. Clearing his throat, finding it hard to focus at the sudden, wondrous buzz of the queen’s magic, he bared his wrist, pushed forth his fangs, and said, “Drink of me.”

“What?” the girl asked, rubbing her wrist where her own fangs had slipped back into their sheath.

“Drink of me,” he growled, flexing his venom-sac slightly, allowing a silver dribble at the tip of his fang, into his palm. “Now. Before I change my damned mind.”

Against the wall, the yatagarasu’s sword dipped a bit and he straightened.

“Uh.” She glanced at the silver droplets, then sniffed and reached up to wipe her nose. “Dude, that’s really gross.”

Theo blinked at her complete dismissal of his gift, then narrowed his eyes. Grabbing her arm, he pulled her forward until his fangs were an inch from her nose, the puddle of silver in the palm of his hand directly under her lips. “Drink,” he growled.

“That’s gross!” the queen cried, scrabbling at his arm with her soft white fingers.

“Drink it, daimyō,” the yatagarasu said softly.

“Ew, no,” the queen blurted. She tried ineffectually to push Theo off of her.

Theo dragged her face to his, until they were eye-to-eye, nose-to-nose. “Drink it.”

She went pale, then her eyes flickered nervously to his wrist and the luminescent silver that was even then flooding over the palm of his hand. “Uh, why?”

“He’s offering to be your consort, girl,” the yatagarasu said. “Drink it, before the magic fades.”

“What the hell is a consort?” she demanded. “And what magic? Who cares if it fades?”

“I’ll hold her mouth open.” The yatagarasu sheathed his sword and started towards them.

It was almost comical how quickly the girl ducked to sip the magic from Theo’s palm. She drank until Theo ran out of venom, and then her eyes went wide and she rocked backwards. “Oh. Um.” Her mouth fell open and she looked up at Theo in obvious wonder. “Whoa.” He saw her shiver as his deeper, more violet-silver hit her lighter, blue-silver and mingled in her chest. Then he saw her pupils dilate, until her eyes showed nothing but black, and she was crawling over him, pulling at his shirt, his pants…

“Whoa, there, darling.” Theo quickly pinned her arms against her sides, trapping her wrists, and held her that way as she squirmed and gasped and tried to ride him through his clothes. For his own part, the urge was just as strong, but he’d had plenty of years to learn to control the sexual side of the blood magic.

The girl, on the other hand, was completely lost to it. She was busy dry-humping his leg, to the obvious embarrassment of the yatagarasu.

“It’ll pass in an hour or two,” Theo told the yatagarasu, still holding her tight as she thrashed and moaned against him, fully enraptured by the heat of the magic. “Young vampires can’t control it.” Young vampires…or those who never bothered to learn. Thankfully, he was pretty sure that, with this one at least, it was the former.

“She’s…untouched,” the yatagarasu said awkwardly. There was pleading in the man’s eyes.

“If I have my way, she will remain that way,” Theo assured him.

But the yatagarasu cleared his throat, eyes caught on the way the vampire queen was rolling and undulating against Theo. “She needs someone to teach her. I can’t do it.”

…because she would kill him. Because she would kill anything other than a lord.

Theo glanced at the girl twisting and moaning in his lap. Her face was flushed, her lips crimson. If he allowed it, he was sure she would try to thrust both sets of fangs into his chest. Even then, she was twisting her wrists, trying to escape him.

Training a queen. Theo grimaced at the idea. “Uh. I can’t say that’s really on my list of priorities, there, buddy.”

Immediately, the yatagarasu’s face darkened. “That is part of being a consort.”

“Not necessarily,” Theo said. “Technically, a consort feeds a queen.”

“Well, I can’t do it,” the yatagarasu snapped. “And she’s going to kill somebody. Look at her.”

Theo glanced down at the writhing, whimpering form in his arms. She was nineteen. And he was forty centuries. He didn’t want to be responsible for that loss of innocence. “In the Third Lands,” he said softly, “she would be consorted with someone older, yes,” he said reluctantly. “But I’d rather not. Not now, anyway. If I were going to teach her, she’d have to know what was going to happen from the beginning. She’d have to ask me.” He shook his head. “We’ll just keep her away from boys until then.”

“That’s irresponsible,” the yatagarasu growled. “And sooner or later, it’s going to get me killed.”

Still holding the writhing queen, Theo grinned up at the yatagarasu. “The name’s Theo. I’ll be your bodyguard from now on.”

The yatagarasu gave him a flat, utterly straight-faced stare. “I am samurai. I don’t need a bodyguard.”

Theo raised a brow. “Then I should just let her go?” He started to release his prize.

Immediately, the yatagarasu floundered away from him, eyes wide.

Theo laughed and cinched down his grip again. “All right, samurai. What’s your real name? Masaaki?”

There was a long pause before Masaaki gave a reluctant grunt.

“Sorry about hitting you over the head and pinning you at the house, there, Masaaki,” Theo said, turning to look over his shoulder at the man. “I was afraid you’d kill me if I didn’t.”

Masaaki grunted again, watching the queen’s contortions.

“Sorry I scared you.”

The yatagarasu’s eyes flickered to him, then away again.

“How long were you a slave?”

Masaaki jerked and scowled at Theo. “How long were you enthralled?”

Theo grimaced, feeling the anger in the man’s gaze. “Too long.” He peered down at the queen in his arms. “You really think this one’s different?”

“You’re alive, aren’t you?” Masaaki demanded.

Which, Theo decided, could be taken several different ways. The queen had spared him, more than once. But Masaaki had also spared him, after he’d offered consort.

“Someone needs to teach her,” the yatagarasu insisted. “You’re a lord. That’s your job.”

“Uh,” Theo said. He was still getting over the idea that he had just offered the little queen his venom, instead of ripping off her head. He could teach her, but he was afraid that it would bring back too many bad memories. He glanced down at the squirming female in his arms. His skin, already over-sensitized from the blood magic, was starting to succumb to her body’s contortions. He swallowed, hard, against the surge of passion that followed. “Let’s just get her past the next couple of hours, then we’ll all have a nice big sit-down chat, okay?”