Queen Takes Checkmate (Their Vampire Queen Book 5) Read online

  Queen Takes Checkmate

  THEIR VAMPIRE QUEEN - Book 5

  Joely Sue Burkhart

  Queen Takes Checkmate

  THEIR VAMPIRE QUEEN, book 5

  Published by

  Joely Sue Burkhart

  A Reverse Harem Vampire Romance

  The god of light has met his match. But whose life will the red serpent claim?

  Killing the queen of New York City has added a million new responsibilities to Shara Isador’s list. The former queen’s Blood must be dealt with before they turn thrall. The queens Keisha Skye coerced into sibling relationships must either be formally sworn to House Isador or freed. Though Shara can’t in good conscience allow anyone into her house who took part in the rampant torture in which House Skye indulged.

  While every single day, Shara feels the weight of the red serpent coiled around her throat. The goddess’s gift grows heavier with every passing moment. If she doesn’t act, the serpent will consume everything she loves. But if she goes after Ra as promised…

  Someone she loves very much will die.

  Any of her Blood will gladly pay that cost, but Shara loves them too much to even consider losing one of them.

  Who will survive the epic showdown with Ra, the god of light, and will this be the end of Shara Isador’s story?

  Copyright © 2018 Joely Sue Burkhart

  Cover Art by Cover Me Darling

  Formatted by Tattered Quill Designs

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in print or electronic form without the express, written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to any organization, event, or person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Adult Reading Material

  For my Beloved Sis.

  Thank you to my comma warriors and beta readers:

  Mads Schofield, Shelbi Gehring, Alyssa Muller, Meagan Cannon West,

  Sherri Meyer, Laura Walker, Briana Walker, Stephanie Cunningham,

  Kiersten Wukitsch, Kaila Duff, Amber Lynn Hamblin, Karmen Vele, Heather Hollmann, Ashley Strom, Kristy Atkinson, Monica Skee, Kee Robinson, Lydia Simone, Ashley Carlson, Bibiane Lybæk

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Also by Joely Sue Burkhart

  1

  Shara

  I wanted to see the body.

  I couldn’t help but fear that Keisha Skye had died too easily. In my rush to get to Rik and save him from the demon child, maybe I’d missed something. Maybe Keisha was faking her death or had some secret power that we’d never seen before. I’d died and come back. Maybe she could too.

  I hadn’t even changed out of the ruined dress, but I couldn’t rest back at my own home until I’d checked the body. I had to be sure.

  Waiting for the service elevator to arrive, I tried to remember the young woman I’d been before I learned of my power and Isis’ heritage. Life on the run had been hard and exhausting. I never stayed in one place for more than a week or two. I had no one to even talk to, let alone depend on. I didn’t want to go back to that lonely, dismal life.

  Yet that Shara had never killed anyone.

  I’d killed Keisha Skye with my own hands. My Blood had pinned her for me despite her struggles. I’d locked my mouth to her throat and drained her life force, leaving a husk of a body behind. I could have spared her, but I chose to kill her.

  Because of my actions, more people might die. I had to figure out what to do about Keisha’s Blood before they turned into thralls, like the monsters that had hunted me all of my life. I had no idea how many people my dragon and gryphon had killed in the turmoil following Keisha’s death. I’d been in the basement, trying to break a demon’s blood circle to save Rik.

  Several hundred people were missing from the Skye registry. I hoped to goddess they’d simply fled and could find a new life with a new queen somewhere safe.

  The elevator doors finally opened. Xin and Llewellyn stepped inside, Xin pressing the button to hold the doors open. Nevarre, Itztli, and Tlacel guarded our rear. Guillaume and Mehen had already taken the elevator down to the basement and waited for us to join them. Daire and Ezra were using their prior Skye contacts to smooth feathers and organize those who wanted to stay, along with Gina and Madeline, the consiliari.

  To be honest, that work was mostly being accomplished by Daire, but Ezra was willing to help, and his gruff, no-bullshit attitude was actually helping people realize that I wasn’t the same kind of queen as Keisha.

  I wasn’t sure if I could trust Skye’s former consiliarius, but I trusted Gina implicitly and she was willing to work with the woman. To a point, I agreed. Madeline Skye would know the ins and outs of Skye’s legacy. She could help us determine how to slice and dice the properties, treaties, and funds as needed for better management.

  I stepped onto the elevator with Rik glued to my side. In fact, he hadn’t stopped touching me since the ordeal. I wasn’t complaining, far from it. I couldn’t wait to get away from all the curious, prying eyes so I could cuddle with him.

  And yeah, I’d probably bawl like a baby. I’d come so close to losing him.

  The elevator was painfully slow and crowded with so many Blood. Again, not that I was complaining about them being pressed against me. I wanted—needed—them close. Always.

  I tapped my bare toes with impatience. I’d ditched the stupid heels hours ago.

  Rik slipped his arm around my waist, pulling me in even closer to the protective heat of his body. “You really think she might not be dead?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. She was the fucking queen of New York City. Could she really have been that easy to kill?”

  “She didn’t die easily,” Xin said. “You drained her. Most queens wouldn’t begin to have enough capacity to drain a queen in one feeding. That alone was a remarkable way to kill a powerful queen.”

  “Think of Mayte,” Rik added. “She could only take a small amount of your blood at once, because she couldn’t handle the power. Your capacity is much greater. You absorbed Keisha easily.”

  So easily that my stomach quivered with dread. I’d drained her to death. Worse, I could easily retire with my Blood and feed from all of them again. In fact, I’d need to do exactly that soon. My hunger was never satisfied, not even by all the blood in the former queen of New York City.

  “She also attacked you during the presentation,” Xin said. “That was no small spell she threw at you. She’d probably devastated many visiting queens that way, or at least scared them into surrendering before they were all killed.�
��

  “Plus her child,” Rik whispered. My prime, badass alpha didn’t shiver or flinch from what he’d endured in my service, but Tanza Skye had scared the crap out of all of us.

  Rik had been in the fucking circle with her while she hurt him with the kind of torture that didn’t leave external marks. Even after I’d healed and fed him, he still had tender spots deep inside that would need more attention. We Aima healed quickly, but I feared the wounds Tanza dealt him would never ease unless I continued to give him my blood as often as possible.

  “I had her bond inside me,” Rik continued. “I felt her spreading like worms through me, and her power… It was crushing. You’re the closest I’ve ever felt to that level of power, my queen. I think that Keisha was pumping everything she had into Tanza, who fed off her as much as she fed on the pain and torture of alphas. Keisha probably didn’t have much left to fend you off.”

  That made me feel a little better, until Rik set me down and I saw her body.

  Xin had brought her down to the same place her daughter died. I’d already blasted Tanza’s body into a pile of ash. Keisha had only been dead a couple of hours, but she looked and smelled like she’d been dead a week.

  Her body was bloated and decaying. Her eyes were already gone. Something wriggled beneath her skin, and I caught a flash of what might have been the hard shell of a beetle.

  I recoiled, clutching my stomach. Bile churned. I had to will myself not to throw up.

  I’d fed on her. I’d drank her blood. Was that corruption inside me now? I’d been so careful to burn Tanza’s tainted blood out of Rik and Ezra, but I’d never thought to check myself. My heart pounded so hard I swayed, my vision swimming.

  Rik closed his hands around my upper arms and squeezed, breaking through some of my panic. His bond surged through me like a giant searchlight, shining on every nook and cranny inside me.

  “There’s nothing.” He dragged me up in his arms. “You’re fine. She didn’t contaminate you.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I hated the quiver in my voice, the tears on my cheeks, and the burn of acid in my stomach. I hated being afraid.

  “I’m sure. Whatever’s wrong with her isn’t inside of you.”

  I breathed deeply, dragging his scent into my body to help ease my panic. Hot rock and smoke, a tang of iron and steel. His rock troll hovered just beneath his skin, ready to surge out and defend me to the death.

  I turned my head, keeping my cheek on his chest, and looked at the body again. “Do all Aima decay so quickly?”

  Guillaume squatted down beside the body, completely unaffected by the smell or creepy crawlies. “Thralls can decay like this while they’re still alive, but I’ve never seen an Aima do this before, let alone a queen.”

  Mehen let out a disgusted hiss and averted his nose. “I’ve seen this fucking shit before. That’s not demonic taint. That’s what Ra’s touch does to an Aima queen once he’s got hooks in her.”

  She had gone to Ra to try and sire a child with a god, the same as my mother. But how could the god of light make her rot like this?

  “It’s a perversion of the old vampire myths,” Mehen said. “If she’d died in sunlight, she would have burst into flame and disintegrated into dust and ash, but there’s no sunlight down here. I can shift and blast her with fire, if you like, my queen.”

  “No, thank you, Mehen. I’ll take care of it.”

  Rik’s chest rumbled against my ear. “There’s no need for you to get closer to her or do this yourself. We live to serve in any way possible, and there is no restitution or punishment you need to put yourself through. You saved me. You saved us all.”

  I forced my feet to start moving toward the body. No, toward Guillaume. I focused wholly on my Templar knight as Rik moved with me so smoothly that I didn’t even have to move my head. I held my hand out to Guillaume and the flash of silver told me he’d cut me. I didn’t feel the pain of his knife. “I killed her. I should make sure she’s taken care of.”

  He must have made a fairly large cut, because it didn’t take long for me to bleed the full length of her body. I made myself watch as I coated her in blood. Blue-black beetles moved beneath her skin, devouring her from the inside out. I swallowed hard. “Are these scarab beetles?”

  “Looks like it,” Guillaume agreed. “Knowing your heritage, and his, it makes sense.”

  “Can they report back to him in some way? Or infiltrate the rest of the nest?”

  They looked at each other and shrugged. “I’m sorry, my queen, but anything is possible,” Rik finally said. “Keisha was able to use ants before. Maybe these beetles carry the same magic. Maybe that was Ra’s power all along.”

  Fuck. I needed to be sure that I blasted them all to be safe. The last thing I wanted was a beetle horde spying on us.

  I bled on Keisha’s body until my tongue felt like a wad of cotton and my knees wavered. Even if I thoroughly destroyed her and these beetles, I didn’t know if I’d ever feel safe enough in this building to sleep. Though sleep sounded heavenly right now. I must be near the end of my reserves. I didn’t want to wipe myself out for weeks again.

  Something Mehen said earlier tickled in the back of my mind. “There’s no sunlight down here.”

  Guillaume’s brow creased with concern, and Rik picked me up in his arms, cradling me carefully in his arms. “Enough, my queen. You have to rest.”

  “No, not yet. This is important.”

  He paused mid-turn to the elevator. “Do what you must, my queen, but then I’m taking you back to the Isador house.”

  “It’s dark, here. Complete darkness. My mother said I should always work my greatest magic in complete darkness. Can someone turn out the lights, please?”

  I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, relaxing fully into his arms. My alpha had me. My Blood were here. My loved ones were safe and close. There wasn’t anything in the darkness that could hurt me.

  I’d rarely ever gone outside at night. It wasn’t safe with the thralls constantly hunting me. My bedroom at home in Kansas City had been pitch dark like this, because I couldn’t sleep in a room with windows. Glass wasn’t enough to keep the monsters out.

  I let my mind drift for a moment, resting in that darkness. Ra couldn’t touch me. He had no power here.

  This power is yours.

  My mother’s voice whispered in my head, so familiar, even though she’d died shortly after my birth. She’d given me to her sister to raise far from the Triune political games and any nest or queen who might influence me. She’d loosed me on the world on purpose.

  Controlled chaos. Spreading change, reveling in blood, and now, drawing on the powers of the dark.

  There was power here. Not like the ancient earth energy of my grove back home in Eureka Springs, but a vibrant energy despite the darkness. With my eyes closed, I focused on the internal tapestry of my mind. Deep purple flowed around me like I’d jumped into an indigo river. Strands of power swept on either side of me, some softer lavender and others as dark as a shadowed bruise. Where were the streams going? Where had they come from?

  I couldn’t be sure without doing some investigation. Power eddied and flowed here in the basement, maybe connecting to other underground tunnels and access points like subway routes under the city. I wasn’t sure if this power was everywhere, or only here in New York City. I couldn’t recall ever being in complete darkness—and looking at the tapestry like this.

  All darkness is yours. A male voice I’d never heard before rasped in my head, each word stretched out as if from a great distance. My daughter.

  Oh. Fuck.

  Typhon. The father of monsters. My father.

  Something rustled deep in my mind, as if I’d opened up a basement door and peered inside.

  She gave you the Great One’s legacy. I give you dominion over any creature of darkness. The breath of the night wind. The darkest shadow slipping silently through the trees. The silent music that rises from the earth as it cools from the punish
ing light of day. The paths of death that lead to life. The ways are open to you, Daughter.

  The rustling sound came closer, and I finally recognized the sound as scales rasping over concrete. I saw him for a moment, at least in my mind. He filled the space around me, his head bent down toward me. His shoulders rose almost to the ceiling. Long black serpents flowed around me. He had arms and a bare, muscular chest, but no legs. Just the snakes, each as thick as one of Rik’s massive thighs.

  Typhon’s eyes glowed like molten magma at the earth’s core. Liquid rock, unimaginable heat. He cupped my cheek and his palm was even bigger than Rik’s rock troll.

  Be not afraid of any creature that hides from the light of day, for Ra is merciless and has hunted our kind through the ages.

  “The demon child, Tanza. Was she not of the dark?”

  We have our demons of darkness. We have our thirsts, our needs for pain and blood and pleasure. We are monsters and revel in that need. But Tanza was no child of darkness. She was wholly a child of Ra—a vile, evil creature of his own creation. Not the vilest, and certainly not the evillest.

  Great. Just fucking great. Something worse than Tanza waited out there for me?

  Call your monsters, Daughter. Love them. Embrace your darkest hungers, because your love is the light that will keep the darkness safe from the punishing light of Ra.