A Boy Queen: Chapter 3
A boy is destined to be Queen of Glacia. Incest mentioned.
Surreal would become Matti’s joint guardian until he reached maturity, according to Daemon and Uncle Saetan. She had bitched something fierce when they had proposed the idea but the second Matti walked out of the Birthright Ceremony with the darkest Sapphire Jewels she had ever seen, Surreal had swallowed her anger. A Sapphire Jewel was something to be reckoned with, more power than Surreal herself had had at his age. Surreal felt somewhat honored to be asked to look after the boy.
He still annoyed the Darkness out of her.
Matti was immaculately anal in everything he did, from making his bed to perfecting his Craft. The boy never had a hair out of place and his court etiquette was so engrained that Surreal would often look to him for the proper bow or greeting when they visited the various Queens in Kaeleer. Having once been part of Jaenelle Angelline’s court, Surreal could pass through the multitude of Territories in the Shadow Realm with little difficulty. By his thirteenth birthday, Matti had been announced in the courts of Scelt, Dhemlan, Dharo, Nharkhava, Ebon Rih, Little Terreille, and the woods of the Dea al Mon.
Surreal had been privately devastated by the lack of familiar faces among the courts of Kaeleer. In Terreille, she had never associated with the courts and the bitches who ruled them but, here in Kaeleer, she had personally known the grandmothers and grandfathers of the current Queens and aristos. Seventy years had passed since Surreal had first come to Kaeleer and the land, rife with short-lived races and kindred, had changed. Three Queens, Morghann, Sabrina, and Kalush, were still alive and even they were at the end of their lives. Surreal knew she had at least a century more. It hurt to have so many friends return to the Darkness.
By Matti’s eighteenth birthday, they were all dead.
ØØØ
The dance filled Rizaro as he moved with his partners. He needed this dance just as his partners did; he needed to feel the world moving together as one, a one that for just a short while, they controlled and lived. It was a rare day that so many of his people gathered together and so many so young. Summer in the jungle, jasmine blossoms and rotting earth seeping the air and the senses, warm shadows and clearings of soft light, racing blood and sensual sweat, moving hips and whirling fur. Togetherness, oneness. It was magic, Craft that was not Craft, quick, sensual, seductive movement.
Rizaro threw his head back in joy, letting the dance flow through him. He paused, his head half back, in curiosity. His sisters and brothers danced intoxicatingly well but something else was there, something far more interesting than anything he had smelled before. Rizaro’s nostrils flared as he sniffed the air, wondering what it was that he smelled.
A pale form slipping between the dancers caught his cat-like attention. Rizaro moved away from his partners and followed it to the table with water and refreshments. He stood a pace away and watched as the pale form materialized into a creature he had never seen in real life before: a human.
He studied the human, noting the pale skin, white fur and oddly-shaped hands. The human picked up a cup of water and drank, the muscles of its neck shifting slightly in a way that made Rizaro’s heart race. It’s eyes opened and Rizaro had a glimpse of blue, a color Rizaro had never seen in a human’s eyes before. His groin tightened deliciously as he watched the human place the cup down.
Rizaro stayed like that for a while, just watching the human. He was confused by his reaction to the stranger. Could humans and Tigrelans mate? Was it even possible, let alone acceptable, to be attracted to a human? He wondered those and many other questions as he watched the creature.
When it began to move away to rejoin the dancing crowd, Rizaro made his move. He stepped before the human abruptly. It looked up, startled. Rizaro realized swiftly that it was a boy and much more attractive close up. Icily pale with shockingly blue eyes, a thin frame, and the most enamoring look of surprise on its- his- face.
The Tigrelan flashed his teeth brazenly at the cold boy, flicking his pink tongue against his near canine. He watched in pleasure at the way the boy blushed, a hint of color in that delicate, pale face.
Rizaro grabbed his elbow and pulled the boy close, tilting his white, white chin up so that their eyes met. Blue, glacier-filled eyes stared up at him. Rizaro flicked his tongue again. The boy watched, mesmerized, and did not notice the way Rizaro shifted into him so that the boy’s hip rested against his.
“Hello,” he whispered into the boy’s ear, “I haven’t seen you before.”
“I, uh, I’ve never been here-”
“What’s your name?”
The boy gulped, the fine muscles in his neck moving mesmerizingly. Rizaro trailed a sheathed claw along the boy’s neck and breathed in the boy’s heady psychic scent. The Warlord Prince in him growled, demanding the boy, wanting to stroke him and claim him right there.
“Matti,” he said shakily.
“Ma-tti,” Rizaro repeated, rolling the word on his tongue, “Matti. What in the Darkness are you doing here?”
“Visiting,” Matti squeaked as Rizaro slid a hand onto the boy’s waist and drew him closer, “I’m visiting Lady Naara and someone invited me to come tonight. Am I not supposed to be here?”
Rizaro chuckled and traced a pattern along the boy’s neck, making him gasp delectably.
“Oh, everyone’s welcome here. I’ve just never seen a human before so close,” he murmured, “What race are you, Matti?”
“Glacian, from Glacia.”
Rizaro laughed.
“Yes, I would suppose that someone from Glacia is a Glacian. You know, I happen to know a few words in Glacian,” Rizaro said before he whispered something against the boy’s skin, making his blue eyes widen in shock.
Rizaro heard Matti’s name called. The boy looked back, muttering something about his friends leaving. Rizaro traced a single line against the boy’s jaw.
“I’ll see you later,” he growled before slipping away among the lithe, dancing bodies of his fellows.
The Glacian would be his, something primal inside Rizaro decided. That one thought crowded his mind, pushing away the confusion welling inside of him. Something about the boy spoke to him on a level he did not understand quite yet but Rizaro knew he had to have him.
ØØØ
Surreal sighed and petted Graykin’s head. The wolf snorted and buried his hairy head into the hollow of her chest, wuffling softly. Today Matti would enter the Altar to begin his Offering to the Darkness and claim his full power. Today Matti would leave her guardianship and she would pull away from the Glacian’s life.
Matti had grown into a beautiful boy. He was still too quiet and polite for Surreal’s taste but he was well-trained in Craft and weaponry. Surreal had sent a message to Saetan, asking him what he wanted her to do. Matti had yet to attract enough males to create a court or even an Inner Circle. He had time but Surreal continued to worry.
It wasn’t like the boy was terrible in bed, Surreal had made sure of that. Matti just unnerved people with his androgyny and, of course, his actual gender. It would take a very self-assured group of males to be willing to fight for him when they could more easily serve a weaker, more normal Queen.
Surreal tapped her forehead with a slim finger, wondering once again if the boy would ever become anything.