Queen Takes Venom (Their Vampire Queen Book 12)

  Queen Takes Venom

  A Their Vampire Queen Story

  Joely Sue Burkhart

  Queen Takes Venom

  A Their Vampire Queen story

  Copyright © 2020 Joely Sue Burkhart

  Cover Art by Covers By Stella

  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

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Dedication

  1. Hekate

  2. Quintus

  3. Quintus

  4. DRAZHAN and DALIBOR

  5. Quintus

  About the Author

  For you, my beloved readers.

  Thank you for your patience this past year

  while I have a major life upheaval.

  You all keep me going when the road is dark.

  Trigger Warning:

  This story includes snakes, scorpions, and some spiders. But lots of snakes!

  1

  Hekate

  After sleeping for millennia, waking was a gradual process. The deep darkness of endless sleep lightened slowly to the murk of dreams.

  A voice whispered, "Wake, Sister. You are greatly needed."

  I recognized her voice as familiar, though I couldn't remember her name. I didn't know my own. Only that she, too, was as old as time.

  Ancient power threaded through her words, stirring something inside me. Not memories, exactly, but knowledge.

  Darkness had always been my domain. The great mysteries of the universe flowed through me. Mother Earth enfolded me in loving arms as I slept, and the world above had changed so much from what I'd known that it could now be an alternate plane of existence. It wasn't a world I knew any longer. I'd wearied of humanity long ago and had descended into sleep that never ended. No one had disturbed that sleep for thousands of years. Humans had long ago forgot my existence.

  No. That wasn't entirely true. There were still some who remembered me. Soft as spider silk, their prayers had whispered down through thick rock and earth to reach me. Pleas for my assistance. Offerings for my gifts. Some did still believe. But my interest in earthly doings had ended long ago when my line died out. I had no heirs to continue my bloodline, or to mother the creatures who'd sprung up from my magic.

  "You could birth a new heir."

  I sighed and the earth shifted around me, a deep rumble from the depths of bedrock that formed the foundations of the world. I could. Yes. But why? It was so much heartache to watch your children suffer in this world of men. Even thousands of years ago, they had no place for our kind any longer. Magic had all but died.

  "All things dark and deadly, all creatures of death and magic, all monsters poisonous and fanged, the Mother of Venom calls them all."

  Each word rang inside me, hammer to glowing iron in the forge, reminding me of my purpose. My children had once been formidable weapons in the Great Mother's arsenal. If Gaia had need of venomous queens on this earth in this age...

  Then I must certainly oblige.

  After lying as dead for so long, I didn't have the physical strength to regenerate a body. I would need help to restore myself to my former glory, especially if I was going to create an heir. A child for Gaia. A queen. She would be powerful and deadly, the most poisonous nightshade, so beautiful that she killed with a glance. All my gifts. All my magic. All my children. They would be hers to command.

  "Come." I sent the silent call out like a gentle rippling wave through layers of dirt and stone, tree and cement, layers both natural and manmade. Even the greatest cities couldn't keep my children out. They slithered and crawled and killed, just as I intended. As Gaia intended.

  I was death and destruction. So that life might be rebuilt from the decay.

  Time passed. How long, I did not know. Another century was only the blink of the Mother's eye. I was deep in the bowels of the earth. It took time for my smallest creatures to reach me, burrowing down through the darkness. But they came to my call.

  Slithering snakes coiled around my fossilized bones. Scorpions plated my exterior. The best armor a goddess could have.

  Cobras. Death adders. Mambas. Knotted together into flesh, their venom pulsing as blood. My will focused their individual shapes into my physical body. My magic melded them into one. One spirit. One beating heart, pumping venom through my regenerated body. The first step of my return was complete. The easiest, by far.

  My children still poured down through the earth, digging away stone and soil to form a path to the surface for me to return to the living. But I would need a place of safety for my heir. A palace stronghold to which she could always retreat from the world of men and jealous gods and goddesses who might harm her. I had suffered too many deaths of my daughters' daughters to be complacent. Gaia might need her, but I couldn't bear to watch yet another queen of my line die in vain.

  I needed sustenance to work such magic. The longer I was awake and aware, the more I felt the gnawing pit of need growing within me. Hunger. The kind of hunger that would devastate entire lands, tear down city walls, and bathe in the blood of thousands. Blood and sex were my preferred ways to feed, but until some of my larger creatures arrived, I could feed on venom.

  Vipers coiled around my newly formed arms and legs. Enough venom to kill thousands of humans. Or build my heir's home.

  "Bite," I rasped, trying out my new voice.

  Hundreds of fangs sank into my new flesh. Exquisite agony as venom pumped into me. Magic flared, power pulsing as if the sun had exploded. I opened my mouth wide and shrieked with pain and joy. Bedrock shifted into impenetrable walls that glistened with crystalized venom. A place of darkness, a retreat, but I also wanted it to be beautiful. Luminescent vines crawled up the glittering walls. Complete darkness lightened to shades of deep violet and midnight blue. Carpets of moss and delicate moonflowers softened stone floors.

  "Mother." A soft voice echoed in the cavernous hall I had made. "Hekate."

  The final piece of myself fell into place inside me. Goddess of magic, mother of darkness. Hekate Titanes. Nothing could hold me, even the gates of the underworld. I had traversed the land of the dead to help Demeter find her daughter, and the halls of darkness and death had become a second home to me.

  Wispy specters glided up from the underworld in answer to my call, even though I had forgotten the lampades might answer. They dressed me in a flowing cobweb silk robe and began making my new stronghold more comfortable. Cushions and carpets made from soft furs of creatures that hadn't walked the earth since the first Roman emperor. Gleaming goblets and platters forged in the deepest caverns until my stone table was laden with luscious fruits, wines, and tender meats. Yes, I hungered, but not for the pomegranates they offered.

  I moved deeper into my palace, marveling at what my creatures' venom had wrought. The walls glittered like black diamonds laced with poison. One casual touch and the unsuspecting human would certainly die in seconds. This much venom... I would suspect even the great lord of death himself would hesitate to transmute so much poison, for fear he might drain himself for a thousand years or more.

  Not that I would have any issues with Hades. We had an agreement. As long as he had his precious Persephone at least half the year...

  Suddenly unsure, I hesitated. How many of the gods and goddesses were still aware and brea
thing? Or had they long ago succumbed to slumber as I had done?

  When I had decided to sleep in the Mother’s embrace, few of my kin still walked the earth. Our time of renown and respect among the peoples of the world had ended long ago, and some of the ancient ones had adjusted better to the changing centuries than others.

  The voice who’d woken me. She Who Was and Is and Always Will Be. Isis, the Egyptian mother, had always been more interested in the various bloodlines and courts our children had established in the world of men. She’d once had many daughters of her line, but the old blood faded. Magic died. Though it did not surprise me in the slightest that Isis’ line might still walk this earth. Her queens had always been stronger than most.

  Who else still breathed to work their magic? Too few, even in my day.

  I retreated to the darkest corner of the cavern and lay back among the cushions and furs the lampades had brought from the depths of hell. My children of venom immediately covered me, drawn by my hunger. Poison dripped from their fangs and barbs, casting a green light on my skin. I soaked in each drop, adding to my power, but I needed so much more.

  Bowers of glowing flowers hung around me, but I yearned for the midnight sky. Sister moon, shining silver and pure in the sky. I could feel the pulse of moonlight through layer upon layer of stone and soil, pulling me like a ceaseless tide.

  Not yet, I reminded myself. Soon, I will reclaim the night and braid my magic with the power of the moon. Once I’m stronger.

  Closing my eyes, I drifted into uneasy slumber. Hunger burned in me. This new body wanted the warmth of another pressed against her. Many others.

  It has been too long.

  2

  Quintus

  Only a handful of tall columns and jumbled stones remained from the temple once known as the Sanctuary of the Great Gods. White stone gleamed beneath the crescent moon. Samothraki might be a tiny island in the Aegean Sea, but forbidding dark mountains loomed over the ruins, offering protection from the wild sea.

  I couldn't say why I came back to this island hundreds of times over the centuries. This place called to something in my blood. I'd always thought my queen must have once walked these hallowed grounds, but she'd been lost ages ago. Long before she'd been able to call me to her side.

  I was old enough to remember the fall of the Roman Empire. I had walked across Europe dozens of times. Sometimes a soldier, a scholar, even a bard. Sometimes I managed to avoid Samothraki for years, forgetting what might have been. Dulling the hollow wound inside me.

  I had never served a queen. I never would. I had resigned to my fate long ago. I watched young Aima rise up and serve the last precious queens of our kind. Many fell. Many more rose to take their place.

  But not me. My place was here. A long-forgotten ruin that no longer carried any meaning or relevance, much like me. Once, I'd certainly been bitter and angry. Why me? Why must I live so very long, if I was never to serve? Never give myself to anyone? I'd fought in the crusades, hoping I might meet a glorious end, only to walk away unscathed from every battlefield. For whatever reason, I could not seem to die.

  Even the Great Mother didn't want me. Not yet, at least.

  What use was a queenless, miserable old Aima like me? I still didn't know, but I'd resigned myself to this unending life long ago.

  Ironically, I became stronger every year that I lived and breathed on this earth. Perhaps I inherited the strength of every other unBlooded Aima of my line. Or, more likely, we Aima simply grew stronger the closer we came to returning to the Mother. If so, my time must be near. Goddess, I hoped so. Please, Mother, bring me home to Your loving embrace.

  Even the temple ruins hadn't been immune to the passing of time. More ancient stones had crumbled away each time I visited. This year, even part of the mountain had fallen away, revealing a dark hole.

  A hole that crawled with snakes, scorpions, and spiders, as if a giant nest had exploded out into the courtyard.

  I stared at the new cavern a moment before I realized what bothered me. They weren't crawling out. They were going in. A steady stream of creatures glided past me. Slithering and crawling over my boots. Ignoring me completely, as if I was merely an obstacle rather than a threat that could stomp them into a bloody smear

  In all my endless years, I'd never seen anything like it. The crawling, slithering tide pulled me closer to the dark crack in the rocky hillside. Something inside me stirred. Something that had lain silent in every court. Before every queen. In every nest. After thousands of years of waiting...

  I heard the Call.

  3

  Quintus

  Running down the rough tunnel, I dragged my shirt over my head and tossed it aside. I paused long enough to kick off my boots and strip off my pants. A snake fell down across my back while I was bent over, as desperate as me. She called. We must answer.

  I didn't stop to think about what kind of queen might call cobras, tarantulas, and scorpions. I didn't fucking care. I didn't care if she shapeshifted into a giant black widow or spit cobra venom. I would serve. Wholeheartedly. My heart pounded so hard my ribs creaked and ached, barely able to contain its frantic thumps. I'd throw myself off the top of the mountain to reach her. A few snakes wouldn't keep me from her.

  As I went deeper into the cave, the slithering creatures grew thicker, inching up my legs. The stone walls writhed, covered so thickly they brushed my head and shoulders as I passed. Scratchy legs and the rasp of scales crawled over my bare skin. I couldn't help but step on some of them, though I didn't try to hurt them. Most of them seemed to slide out of my way as soon as I neared with some sixth sense warning of my descending feet.

  I couldn't guess how deeply the tunnel cut into the earth. The snakes were bigger now, some as thick as my thigh. Serpents lined the walls and hung from the ceiling, forcing me to push and tear my way through with my bare hands. I shoved through large coils and almost tumbled headfirst into a writhing, twisted mass. Maybe it had once been an underground lake, but the water had been replaced with a living, seething mass. Scorpions and spiders the size of dogs. Writhing snakes too large and tangled to find their heads.

  A grunt drew my attention to the opposite side of the cavern. Two men pushed through the snakes to stand on the edge of the wriggling lake. Frozen a moment, they stared at me over the chasm. I didn't know them, but they had to have heard her call too. Big fuckers, both of them. Twins by the look of it. We took each other's measure for a long moment. Muscles tensing. Tendons screaming with strain.

  One of us was her alpha.

  I intended it to be me.

  I dove headfirst into the writhing lake a split second before they did. Something seized me in massive coils, dragging me deeper. I didn't fight it, but focused my will on reaching the queen, wherever she was. Whatever she was. I shot my heart and soul toward her like an arrow. Blackness closed. Scaled muscles worked and flexed around me, as if I'd been swallowed whole. Coils tightened, cracking ribs. I didn't care. I didn't need to breathe.

  I only needed to bleed for the queen to take me.

  The heaving tide of snakes suddenly parted, tossing me out into a tumbling heap. My head pounded with urgency. The call thundered in my ears, resounding in my skull. Blindly, I reached out. Snagged a rock and pulled myself across the ground. Closer to her. My left leg dragged behind me, damaged at some point. It didn't matter. Nothing could keep me from her. I hadn't lived thousands of years waiting for the call only to give up because my hip was dislocated.

  "At last." Her words resounded inside me as if someone had tapped a pure crystal gong. "Come, my loves, and let us feast."

  I flung out my hand to haul myself closer, and my fingers found flesh. Her ankle, I thought, but her skin didn't feel quite right. Cold and hard, though muscle moved beneath my fingers. She gripped my shoulder and dragged me up effortlessly into her embrace. Her fangs in my throat. So deep. Massive. Glorious. I bled for my queen, my heart eagerly pumping blood up through my veins like a fountain for her pleasure.


  With such a powerful call, she’d pull many more Blood to her. I could feel her snakes writhing around and over us in the darkness. In the tangle of limbs and serpents, I couldn't tell if the twins I'd seen across the chasm had joined us. In her arms, it didn't matter. Let a thousand Blood answer her call.

  I had been the first.

  HEKATE

  Hot, fresh blood. Living flesh. Bright spirit burning like an incandescent flame. I had forgotten the pleasure to be had in the flesh. The taste of his blood... Indescribable. The more I drank, the more I thirsted. I drained him until he was naught but a shell, his body colder than mine. But my thirst raged higher. Two more crawled closer, both injured in their rush to reach me through the tide of snakes and scorpions surrounding my new nest. I tucked the first man closer over my heart, expecting him to feed from me to regain his strength.

  Instead, he lifted his head weakly. "You're... not a... queen."

  Smiling, I traced a finger down the soft curve of his cheek and over his full lips. "Indeed not. Though I wish to sire a queen of my line this very night. If you're willing."

  His eyes flared wide. His blood heated my throat and stomach, a tantalizing appetizer for so much more. The other two men paused, their soft pants echoing through the chamber. The smell of their blood and the hot musk of their bodies made me quiver with hunger. Yet I hesitated. I had never taken what wasn't freely offered to me. I certainly would not start a new life on this earth by abusing these men who'd answered my call.