8. Dörr

8

D?RR

A gony. To be so close to her, unable to touch her. To feel the foreign warmth of sunlight on my stone hide, unable to move, even to look up and see blue with my own eyes. If thousands of years of imagination could even come close.

Plus, I worried for my queen. She was unprotected. Possibly injured. She would need to heal, but her Blood couldn't feed or tend to her.

With dark alfar as Blood, she would always be alone during the bright light of day. Hampered by our limitations. Which was wholly unacceptable.

I slept, but I was aware. My stone eyes didn't work, but I could sense her presence. I knew she was close. I could only imagine her distress, seeing her Blood in full daylight for the first time. The reality of what manner of creatures she'd called. It was one thing to need us in Hvergelmir, but here, in her land, she wouldn't be able to avoid the truth of our grim existence.

Perhaps it was for the best that I couldn't see her face.

Something warm pressed against my lip. Color exploded inside me. There was no other way to describe it. Stone melted instantly and I sank to my knees, unable to hold myself up. I didn't know what was wrong with me. Perhaps the alfar form couldn't exist outside Hvergelmir. I felt strange. Something beat frantically inside my chest, a desperate creature trying to flee the confines of my body.

"Shhh," she whispered, her arms closing around me. "I've got you. Feed, my Blood."

Feed? I felt her against my mouth and instinct snapped inside me. I sank fangs into her without thought.

Color erupted on my tongue. Brilliant and dazzling. Overwhelming sensation. I was falling. Unable to save her. Unable to catch myself. I looked up at her, the world spinning around me.

My queen. Her eyes gleamed. Her face, radiant. Her hair hung in choppy, uneven curls around her face. The ends were black and charred, forever stained with my essence. But the roots of her hair flashed like fire.

Fire. Color. I blinked. I could see a multitude of brightness and hues, more than I'd ever dreamed, and that was just looking at her .

I lifted my head slightly, so I could move. Though once I realized my head was in her lap, I settled back against her body, unwilling to move unless J?rmungandr came crashing down on us again.

"Hello there," she whispered, her lips curling. "How do you feel?"

I swallowed, shuddering as I tasted her blood again.

Wait. I had fed. On my queen. Her blood.

My eyes widened, my breath catching in my throat. The wild thing inside me ceased flittering about, shocked to stillness for several moments. My chest ached. My throat tightened.

She smiled and stroked my cheek. "Breathe, D?rr. It's alright. Welcome to earth. Or I guess you would know it as Midgard. Let me wake Svar and Myrk."

Setting my head gently aside, she rose and moved away. I stared up at a tree. I knew its trunk was supposed to be brown. I'd never imagined leaves would be so thin and pointy, but I wept at the sight anyway. The sky. Pale and light. Wisps of white floated across. Clouds?

Goddess below. I'd spent thousands of years trying to imagine what these simple things had looked like while sleeping as a gargoyle, but I'd failed. Miserably.

I turned my head, unwilling to look at anything but my queen. Trees and sky and sunlight were well and good, but it was my queen that captured my attention. The elegant curve of her spine. Tiny dots colored her skin. Brown flecks. I didn't know what they were, but they entranced me just the same.

The rounded curve of her hips. Her backside. The delicate curve of her calves. Her dainty ankles. Small feet. Pink toes. I wanted to kiss each and every part of her body and praise the goddess for Her creation. My hand rose to touch her, but I gritted my teeth, forcing my arm back down. I had no right?—

"Don't be ridiculous," she retorted sharply, giving me a look over my shoulder that was probably supposed to be intimidating.

But I was too consumed with the evidence of her glory to care.

I watched as she smeared her blood on Myrk's stone lips. I wasn't surprised when his gargoyle folded inside him. But I pushed up from the grass with a muttered curse when the emerging flesh wasn't dark alfar.

He looked… human. His skin was still dark, but not glittering shards of obsidian. His hair—yes, hair!—hung down to his shoulders, shining like dark alfar essence. Involuntarily, I turned my head, feeling the sweep of long hair on my shoulders.

Also black and long.

Hair.

I looked down at my hands. Not huge, beefy paws, but long, elegant fingers, nimble enough to pull a bow or play a harp.

Or braid my queen's hair once she grew it out again.

Equally shocked, Myrk stared at me with his mouth hanging open. His eyes were a strange color. I recognized it as not-black but couldn't identify the rich hue. Were my eyes the same? Or different?

"His eyes are amethyst, or purple." She gave us both an amused smile as we gaped at each other. "Yours are sapphire, or blue." With her blood on his lips, Svar groaned and opened his not-dark-alfar eyes. "Svar's eyes are rose quartz, or pink."

"But… how?" Myrk asked. "How is this possible? Are we no longer alfar?"

Even as he said it, I could feel my gargoyle inside me. I could also feel the slick glide of dark alfar shimmering beneath this new skin. I still possessed both forms. I could shift to either if I chose. Though in the broad daylight, I'd only turn to stone.

"When a Blood first tastes his queen's blood, he gains new power. For you, your new power is this form. But you're still the same as you always were."

Were we? I looked down at my spread fingers again, unable to reconcile these pretty hands with the black rock core of my ancient existence.

She wrapped her fingers around mine, dipping her head to press a kiss to my palm. The shorn, uneven cut of her hair made my eyes fill with moisture again. She didn't seem to mind the loss of her hair, even though now mine was much longer than hers. "You serve a queen, one who needs you during the light of day and the black of night, whether we live on this side of Yggdrasil or yours. Will you serve as my alpha, D?rr?"

I tightened my fingers on hers, gently so as not to harm her. I might be light alfar now, but immense strength hummed inside this new body. My mouth ached. I only identified the cause when I pricked my own tongue on sharp fangs that had descended from the roof of my mouth.

Holding my gaze, she tipped her head to the side invitingly. I swallowed. The throb intensified, spreading through my entire body.

"Will you love me, D?rr?"

I dragged my gaze up to hers. "Always, my queen. I love you like…" In a land of infinite darkness, I had nothing to compare how much I already loved her to anything that I could voice without reminding her of the horror she'd seen in Hvergelmir.

Her lips curved, her eyes shining in the sunlight. "Infinity."

Wordlessly, I nodded. If I tried to say anything else, I would fall to my knees and weep against her with gratitude.

She hooked her other arm around my neck and hopped up against me. "I'll be the one to cry and thank you. Because you saved me from J?rmungandr, not once but twice."

Her skin. So beautiful. So sweet. The scent of her filled my head. Sunlight and life. I'd never dreamed in a million years to see something so precious. Let alone touch. A fevered madness filled me. A desperation I'd never known. I wanted to feel her against me. Every inch. I wanted to crawl inside her and never leave. Even though I was the mighty dark alfar tasked with guarding her down to the last precious hair on her head.

My fangs sank into her throat. Groaning, I drank greedily from the wellspring of Yggdrasil, for all waters flowed from my queen.

Svar and Myrk pressed against me, steadying me as I started to fall. Her hunger rose, this beautiful queen of such courage and strength. Who'd survived passing through the Midgard Serpent's belly and watered the world tree with her power. She sank her fangs into Svar, holding him close, while offering her wrist to Myrk.

We fed, the four of us. In broad daylight. I lay beneath a blue sky while my queen sank over me, taking me inside her. She flowed over me, her desire hotter than any noonday sun. I basked in her heat. Her pleasure sparkled in the air like rainbows and diamonds. So bright. So many colors. It hurt to look at her, and I never wanted to close my eyes again for fear of missing one moment of her presence.

She drew my hands to her breasts, and I marveled at such softness. That she allowed—no, invited —me to touch her. Me—a thing of darkness, no matter the form. I stroked my palms over her silken skin, watching her face. Reading her bond. I wanted to know everything that pleased her. I squeezed her nipples and her head fell back. She moved harder on me, spiraling toward release that burst over me like a glittering waterfall.

Again and again. I would never tire of her pleasure.

Panting, she paused and gave me a narrowed look that made me involuntarily grip her thighs for fear she would withdraw. I couldn't remember the last time I'd fucked, certainly never in this strange new form. If I failed to fully satisfy her…

I gulped down my dread. "I'm out of practice, my queen."

She swiped moisture from her forehead. The tattered ends of her hair were plastered to her face, and her cheeks were a darker pink than Svar's eyes. She shifted back and groaned deep in her throat. "Are you doing that on purpose?"

I flicked my gaze to Myrk to see if he knew what she meant. Doing what? Goddess below, I should have spent the last millennia dreaming of all the ways I could pleasure my queen so I could do a better job. It just never occurred to me that I would be here. Lying beneath my queen. Aching to feel her pleasure rolling over me again.

But evidently not enough pleasure.

She rose up slightly, shivering and moaning as my dick eased out of her. Leaning forward, she braced her hands on my stomach, holding her hips up off of mine. "Are you shifting to your gargoyle?"

Startled, I blinked. "No, never. Certainly not without your permission, my queen."

"You feel like a fucking granite baseball bat."

Svar choked back a snort, but Myrk wasn't as successful at holding back his mirth. Laughing, he shook his head. "Don't you mean he's fucking you with a granite baseball bat? I have no idea what that is, exactly, but it must be bad."

"Not bad," Svar chuckled. "That good."

Slowly lowering her chest to mine, she slid her hand up behind my head, lifting my mouth toward hers. "You know it's perfectly acceptable to come, right? That is the ultimate goal here."

I'd been so involved in drinking in her pleasure that I hadn't truly allowed myself to feel . The tight, hot grip of her body. The glide of her slick essence on my dick. The softness of her breasts pressed against me. Gritting my teeth, I fought down an immediate surge of lust. I was Blood. Her alpha. I couldn't give in to my own selfish needs so easily.

She nibbled on my lips. "I want to feel you climax inside me. I want to feel you pumping inside me, filling me up with your darkness."

At her words, the dam inside me broke. I couldn't hold back the tidal wave of dark alfar essence that boiled out of me like the geyser she'd freed in Hvergelmir. My hips bucked. The small creature pounded inside my chest so hard I feared it would burst free and injure her.

For a moment, I panicked at so much darkness flooding into my queen. Until she threw her head back and ground her pelvis on me. Reveling in the darkness pouring into her. Just as she'd said.

When my thrashing body finally stilled beneath her, she nuzzled my throat. Curled up in my arms, she lazily licked a path up my neck to my mouth. She sucked on my bottom lip and carefully grazed me with her fangs.

Everything in my body throbbed again. Fangs. Dick. The wild creature still trembling with such frantic energy in the center of my body.

"It's your heart," she whispered, rubbing her lips gently back and forth against mine.

Bewildered, I shook my head. "But what use do I have for a heart if there's no blood in my body? This form is an illusion, my queen. I'm still dark to the core."

She lifted her head, her shining eyes so solemn that I held my breath in dread of what she would say. "The goddess gave my darkness a heart, so you would always feel how much I love and need you."

Her words fell on the barren, cold night inside me. Shining like a full, silvered moon.

Or at least what I imagined a silvered moon would look like.

She laughed softly. "There's so much to show you, my Blood."

I pressed my forehead to hers. "The only thing I ever need to see again is my queen. Here. In my arms."

Wrapping her arms around my neck, she laid her head against my chest, listening to the rapid pounding inside. "For infinity."

Continue reading Helayna's story in Queen Takes Darkness 2 .