The Magic Queen (Dark Queens Book 4) Read online

  It was impossible to stay irritated with a buffoon. “Good gods,” she hissed, “do you never give up?”

  “Not really. No. Favorite food. Go.” A large grin cut a swath across his handsome face, and her traitorous heart beat a tad harder at the sight of it.

  Tossing up her hands, she muttered the first food that came to mind. “I dunno, haggis?”

  His nose wrinkled, and he gave a violent shake of his head. “Of all the foods in all the worlds, my woman loves haggis. Well, it fits, I suppose.”

  Ignoring the strange little curl of heat that’d simmered through her belly at his use of “my woman,” she narrowed her eyes. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  Lifting a knee, he casually draped his strong, long arm over it, and she hated that she suddenly felt compelled to count just how many veins he had on his hands. She had a thing for veins—on a man’s hands anyway. Separated from ones body, veins were pretty ghastly things, but when covered by the flesh of a strong, virile male... Well, even she was prone to noticing such things. She sniffed, not liking where her thoughts were headed.

  “Only that haggis is the least romantic thing in all the worlds, and so are—”

  “Watch your tongue, male.” She flicked her knife upward and had to suppress a grin when his clear blue eyes filled with humor.

  He wet his lips, showing her said tongue as if to taunt her with it. “You know you want it.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Mm.” He nodded. “Between your thighs, lapping up that honey. It’ll get there, love. Don’t you worry.”

  “Gods.” She snorted but wiggled on her bum at the thought. “You’re an idiot.”

  He shrugged. “Don’t deny that. You still want me though. And to answer your question, I like apples. Nice, fleshy, meaty apples.” As he said it, his palms wiggled as though he were imagining holding not apples, but a nice, rounded pair of breasts.

  She swallowed hard. That stupid male kept giving her carnal ideas. She might be the most powerful witch in all the worlds, but even she wasn’t immune to fertility magick. And he knew it too. He tossed his head back and laughed to the winds.

  She glowered. “I hate you, male.”

  “Sure you do. I want an apple.” He winked.

  Jerking on the pendant around her neck, she called forth an apple. Yes, she’d packed a few in case there was no food to be had where the goddesses took her and without missing a beat, she tossed it at his head.

  He hadn’t been expecting the tiny missile. It thunked off his skull and landed with a plop onto his lap. It was his turn to glower and her turn to laugh. The sound came from deep inside her belly, spilling up her throat and off her tongue.

  When she glanced back at him, it was only to discover him looking at her with the kind of look no male who knew who she really was had ever given her before. A slow-as-molasses smile curved along his lips. Snatching up the apple, he took a large, man-bite-sized chunk out of it, moaning as he munched. Those intense eyes of his never left her face, causing whatever humor she’d had left to die a swift death.

  Clearing her throat, feeling as though she’d swallowed a raging fire the way her stomach suddenly burned, she retrieved the bowl and called back the image of the Dark Queen. But she might as well have been staring at a blank wall for all the good it did her. She could hardly focus on anything other than the sounds of his chewing, the way his Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed, and how big and all-consuming he suddenly seemed to her.

  Needing to break the tension, she said, “I think the goddesses hate me.”

  He said nothing for the longest time, and she was forced to look up and see whether he’d heard her at all. He had. That stupid, gorgeous smile was fixed right back on his face.

  “This is a momentous occasion. I do believe we should mark our calendars.”

  She should not ask. She so shouldn’t ask. She asked, “What the bloody hell are you blathering on about now?”

  He shrugged and flicked the apple over his shoulder to join the bones of their discarded meal from earlier.

  “You talked to me first. I’m wearing you down.”

  “Fellatio—”

  He lifted a brow in question.

  “—shut up.”

  That deep, rich laughter she was coming to associate solely with him filled the space between them. Freyr was unlike anyone she’d ever been around before. He didn’t quake, Didn’t grovel and beg for mercy. At this point in the game, she’d usually cut out a male’s tongue, so as not to be forced to have to listen to them chatter on. But she liked the sound of his whiskey-rich voice, though she’d kill someone before admitting that.

  “Nope. I will not shut up. You said, ‘I think the goddesses hate me’ and piqued my interest. Why do they hate you, shrew?”

  Bah. Why had she ever spoken to him at all? “You should see the Dark Queen’s realm. It’s a bloody slice of heaven compared to the hell they stuck us in.”

  Rolling forward onto the palms of his hands, he leaned into her body so close that his scent of moss and bergamot was all she smelled. He reminded her of her woods back home, bringing a pang to her chest and making her drag in another lungful of it. Damn that man for being so alluring.

  But he seemed to be completely unaware of her current struggle for equanimity as he studied the contents of the bowl. His thick brows gathered into a tight V. “Hm, you might be right.”

  Baba didn’t need to glance down to know what he was looking at. There was definite favoritism happening in this sham of a game. The Dark Queen’s realm was a massive castle built of stone and sun-bleached coral threaded through with veins of gold. The grounds were littered with trees full to bursting with ripe, colorful fruit. Birds of every shape and color flew through the air, and the sky—whether night or day—was an enchanting shade of lavender-blue.

  “They hate you.” He grinned, and his face was so close to hers that if she closed her eyes, she could still feel the wash of heat from his breath razor across her lips.

  Suddenly angry with him for reasons she could barely fathom, she shifted to her knees, causing her scrying bowl to fall to the ground, dumping out the now harmless water. Latching her claws into his shirt, she dragged him the scant few inches forward and slammed her mouth down on his.

  It was his damn sex magick that made her do it. She knew it. It was also his sex magick that caused her to lick and suck on his bottom lip, to draw it sharply into her mouth and bite down hard. At first he hadn’t moved, as though she’d startled him. When she bit down, he groaned so loud and so deep in the back of his throat that her eyes—which had been closed just a second ago—suddenly snapped open, and she shoved him away from her.

  What the hell had she been thinking?

  He landed on his ass, wide-eyed and astonished with a trace of blood leaking down his chin. And she had to bite down on her tongue to keep from moaning because he looked delicious.

  Not like nom-nom delicious—that was a phase in her life, never to be repeated again—but he looked sex-tousled with his hair all mussed and that bit of blood that appealed to her more violent tendencies and that golden scruff on his chin and those clear blue eyes and silvery-blond hair...and...and...and...

  Oh, gods.

  Assuming her most haughty demeanor, she jumped to her feet, dusted off her skirts, and without saying another word, turned on her heel and headed for their tent—her tent tonight.

  “By the way,” she snapped, “find someplace else to sleep.”

  ~*~

  Freyr

  Touching the bit of blood on his chin, Freyr lifted his fingers and stared at the crimson stain. Like a morning glory slowly unfurling its petals to first kiss of sunrise, a smile spread across his face.

  Oh no, this woman wasn’t boring. Not even one tiny, little bit.

  Chapter 5

  Baba Yaga

  She was up and ready before the crack of dawn. Baba was just checking the roasted haunch of venison to make sure there was no pink in it
s center when she sensed his presence behind her. Stabbing the hunk of meat with her knife, she pulled it out of the fire and plopped it into her bowl. Sleep hadn’t come easily to her last night. She’d tossed and turned all night long, and the bloody rocky soil—which hadn’t fazed her at all the night before—had caused her to wake up this morning covered in bruises.

  Freyr plopped on the ground beside her, crossing his arms over his legs and staring broodily into the fire. It was the first time she’d ever seen him quite so moody.

  Her lips twitched. “Rough night?”

  His glower grew brighter. “What do you think, female?”

  Snickering, she ripped off a chunk of roasted flesh and stuffed it into her mouth. Three days of venison was enough to make her want to vomit at this point. She’d pretty much stopped eating meat around the same time she’d stopped eating...well...eating meat of a bipedal form. It filled her belly, but she remembered why she’d quit it long ago. The stuff tasted vile on her tongue. They really needed to solve this food problem. That meant exploring this waste trap they’d found themselves in at some point. The deer hadn’t come from nowhere. There was food to be had. They just had to find it.

  “What happened to love? Am I no longer your love? I think I should die if I wasn’t, Fellatio.”

  With a growl, he reached over to the bowl in her lap and tore off almost half of the meat. Gripping it tight in his fist, he ripped into it with his blunt white teeth, eyeing her angrily as though in defiance.

  It was all she could do not to giggle at his antics.

  “Kick me out of our bed again, love, and I’ll curse your delectable arse.”

  Her heart fluttered at his proprietary words. But she refused to let on. “Pft. You can’t curse me. I invented the concept.”

  Setting his meat slowly down on his lap, he turned to her, and she swallowed hard at the intensity of his glass blue eyes as they practically consumed her. Leaning in, he lifted his grease-smeared fingers and ran them along her bottom lip. The powerful rush of his magick blasted straight through her, making her dizzy as though she’d just been knocked sideways. Holy hell, he was strong, stronger than she’d imagined.

  He leaned into her, his mouth nuzzling the shell of her ear as he whispered hotly, “I’ll pump you so full of lust, love, that your dreams will be consumed by erotic fantasies day and night. Your need will ratchet up higher and higher, deeper and deeper. You’ll burn for it. For relief. For orgasm. But none will be had. You’ll be consumed by the fires of your own dark desires.”

  He was basically threatening to kill her with lust. This ordinarily would have caused her to retaliate in kind, maybe turn him into a horny toad, but her body was nothing but mush right now.

  Her fingers, legs, arms, hell even the roots of her hair tingled and burned as the power of his godhood continued to pulse erotically through her, turning her nipples into hardened little nubs that stabbed painfully into her corset.

  “Mmm, my pliant little mouse,” he whispered, nuzzling her neck and breathing her in. “You see, I was playing nice before. But after last night, I’ve begun to reconsider my approach. You seem to have forgotten who I am. So let me remind you.”

  More of his power pulsed through her, causing her to sway and roll her eyes to the back of her head. Good gods, if he even so much as breathed on her, she was going to come, right here, right now, break apart into a million tiny fractures of torturous bliss and probably die from the pleasure of it all. Her chest heaved like a whore in a church on Sunday. Did that make sense? She wasn’t sure... Gods, he’d turned her into a babbling idiot.

  Clenching her molars, she chanted in her head, a nonsensical melody of words that helped clear the fog of lust he’d built up inside her. On the one hand, she was tremendously impressed by the power he possessed. On the other, she was Baba Yaga, a very, very bad witch and no one’s plaything.

  Feeling more in control of herself, even though her thighs still trembled and her sex clenched wetly, she turned to look at him. She gave him a vapid smile, just to make him believe she was still under his influence. Oh, the man was going to pay.

  Freyr, who was looking at her like she was a good little girl only there to service his needs, groaned hotly. “You really are beautiful, shrew.” He traced his finger along her cheek, and she didn’t have to pretend to shiver at his touch. He’d awakened a hunger in her like none she’d ever known before.

  Their fire sparked, shooting like a thirty-foot tower toward the sky, and she knew without turning that Peabrain had returned as promised.

  “Well, come on then, idiots,” he snapped.

  As Freyr looked at the little fellow, Baba do the same, only to note the demon imp clutching at his chest wide-eyed, his gaze on Freyr with a look of astonished wonder.

  “What ’ave you done?” Peabrain’s words were gritty and full of excitement. Ugh, last thing Baba wanted was to be in the middle of this kind of orgy. She curled her lip at the thought and then shuddered because she’d gotten blasted by the horrific image of a withered penis.

  “Just wearing my future bride down. Isn’t that right, dear?” Freyr crooned to her.

  “Yes, Fellatio,” she monotoned, still pretending to be knee deep in his grip.

  Freyr, handsome bastard that he was, smirked, no doubt believing he had Baba exactly where he wanted her. She wouldn’t lie though and say that the hand he’d placed on her bicep and the thumb rubbing circles along her flesh didn’t feel wonderful. They absolutely did. She wanted to yank his shirt off, claw up his flesh, and ride his cock hard.

  That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to pay for what he was doing. This god might be used to getting his way, but he’d never come up against the likes of her before. She smirked. And from the corner of her eye, she saw his smile start to waver.

  Oh yes, my little lapochka, you’re in big, big trouble now...

  Peabrain shook himself several times and cleared his throat again. “Umm...it’s erm, time to fight.”

  Watching him try to shake off the effects of Freyr’s charms was a lot like watching an orangutan dance—that was to say, hilarious. She couldn’t help chuckling.

  Freyr’s brows dipped in curiosity. Turning to him with a large smile wreathing her face, she shoved him off her, until his ass landed in the dirt. Planting her hands on her hips, she stood over him. “Honestly, Fellatio, did you really think it was that easy to subdue me?”

  His eyes widened in astonishment, and he looked adorably shocked.

  Laughing, she turned toward Peabrain. “Well!” she snapped at the ugly little imp and marched forward.

  But Peabrain only shook his head, still looking a little dazzled by the strength of Frey’s magick.

  “It is both of you that...that must go.”

  One good thing about Freyr’s sex magick was that at least Peabrain wasn’t quite so abrasive this morning. She might have to ask Freyr to make sure to keep the frequency tuned up when the demonic imp made a showing.

  “Why?” She cocked her head.

  Peabrain blinked several times before answering. “Because Freyr will need rescuing.”

  “I will need what?” The god thundered, no doubt cranky because his planned seduction had failed so spectacularly.

  Peabrain nodded. “Aye. The goal of this competition is twofold.” He held up gnarled, arthritic fingers. “Keep your mate alive until the sun sets to win. And solve your riddle.”

  What kind of bloody game was this? She rubbed her temple. The gods were such a capricious, silly lot. “Are you serious? This is a duel to the death? I thought they said no death.”

  Peabrain tossed out his long arms with exasperation. “How the blazes should I know? I only tells you what they tells me.”

  Ah, and there was the little bastard she’d come to know and love.

  She rolled her eyes. This couldn’t possibly be for real. The whole point was to pair them together, right? So why go put them in danger? If she’d been in charge of these games, she’d have simply locked ea
ch couple in a sex den for a month and called it good. And they called Aphrodite the Goddess of Love. Ridiculous.

  Sighing, she flicked her wrist. “Well then, let’s be off.”

  “No, wait a second.” Freyr, who’d risen, held up a finger. “As a god, I cannot be killed.” He chuckled.

  Peabrain nodded. “Oh, yes you can. With the right weapon, of course.”

  Freyr blinked, looking astonished for a millisecond before shaking his head vehemently. “Then I won’t go. And you know you can’t make me.”

  “Oh, you’re coming, Freyr. If I have to go, so do you.”

  He shook his head.

  “I’ll make you, meat sack. Watch me.” She narrowed her eyes, daring him to defy her.

  He smirked and crossed his arms, silently saying, “You can try.”

  Freyr didn’t act scared. On the contrary, he acted more upset and put out than anything. Why? Hell, if she had to face these trials, so would he. Plus, there was the matter of getting him back for what he’d done to her earlier. He’d used his magick on her. It was only fair she return the favor. Tit for tat and all that.

  Peabrain’s smile was little more than an ugly slit in an equally ugly face. “True enough, my good man. I cannot.”

  That smirk was fixed back on Freyr’s face with that arrogant pride all gods shared. And Baba’d had more than enough of it.

  Glancing at Peabrain, she nodded then tipped over her pendant, calling a vial to her. The small green jar warmed her palm as she slowly unscrewed it.

  Freyr frowned. “What’s that? Your potions cannot harm me, witch.”

  She said nothing, only filled her palm full with about an ounce of the transformation powder and then, lifting her mouth to her hand, blew. The wind rose at that moment, lifting the powder and bathing him in it.

  Freyr snorted derisively. “Woman, if you think that a bit of powder can do aught to me, you’re sorely—”