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«Yes, the sluagh, those of our kind that most sidhe would rather not admit even belong in faerie, let alone that we could share a bloodline or two.»
«We are not related to those creatures,» Frost said.
«Their king, Sholto, is half-sidhe, Frost. You've seen him. His mother was Unseelie sidhe.»
«Him, perhaps, but not the rest.»
I shook my head. «The sluagh are the Unseelie, Frost, more than the sidhe themselves. Our one strength as a court is that we take in anyone. The Seelie Court keeps rejecting anyone who isn't good enough for them, and that has been the Unseelie's strength for centuries. We take in the fey they don't want. It's what makes us different from them; better, I think.»
«What do you want from us?» Rhys asked, and he wasn't so much angry now as puzzled.
«Kurag is like a schoolyard bully. He only continues to pick at you because he gets such nice reactions from you. If you could act as if it didn't bother you, then he'd tire of the game.»
Rhys hugged himself tighter. «It isn't a game to me.»
«It is to him, Rhys. It's wonderful that you've overcome your feelings enough to sit beside me when I speak with the goblins, but truthfully, I spend so much time worrying about your feelings that I'm not as focused as I need to be.»
«Fine,» he said, «I won't go in with you. Consort knows, I'd rather not have to see his ugly face.»
«When you're not there, Kurag spends time asking after you. He keeps asking, Where's my delicious guard? The pale one. »
«I didn't know he did that,» Rhys said.
I shrugged. «He does.»
«Why didn't you tell me?»
«Doyle said it would just upset you, and there wasn't anything you could do about it.» I closed the distance between Rhys and me, laid a hand on his crossed arms. «I disagree. I think you're stronger than Doyle knows. I believe that you can swallow this hurt, and help me turn the tables on Kurag.»
He looked suspicious. «How?»
I dropped my hand from his arm. «Never mind, Rhys.» I turned toward the hallway.
«No, Merry, I mean it. How could I help you negotiate with. him?»
«Doyle's right, if I lose most of my swimsuit it will make it easier to negotiate with Kurag. He's a terrible letch.»
Rhys shrugged. «And where do I come in?»
«Put on a robe and flash some of that gorgeous white flesh if Kurag gets stubborn. If you could keep your temper, no matter what he said, you beside me like this would distract him, not because of sex, but because all goblins love the taste of sidhe flesh. One of the things the goblins hated the most about making peace with the sidhe was that they couldn't eat us anymore.»
«You ask too much,» Frost said.
I looked at that handsome, arrogant face and shook my head again. «I haven't asked anything of you, Frost.»
«How can you ask Rhys to sit there and let a goblin think of him as food? It is beneath us.»
«If Kurag agrees to lengthen the alliance, I'll be beneath a lot of goblins.» I'd said the last almost to be cruel. I was tired of hearing how much they hated my plan.
Frost's face showed the disgust he felt. «The thought of any sidhe woman giving herself to goblin men is repulsive. The thought of a princess of the blood, and a future queen, lying with them is beyond anything I have words for. Even Queen Andais has never stooped so low to gain the goblins' favors.»
«Kitto is half-goblin and half-sidhe, and for better or worse I brought him into his powers, full-sidhe powers, through sex. No one thought that any goblin half-breed could be full-sidhe.»
«Their blood is not pure enough,» Frost said.
«I may hate it,» Rhys said, «but Kitto's magic is the magic of our blood. I've seen him glow with it.» He looked suddenly tired. «Kitto's not even half bad for a goblin.»
«Merry,» Frost said, and took a step toward me. «Merry, please don't do this. Don't say that you will bring over more of the goblin half-breeds. You have not seen them. Few of them are as fair as Kitto. Most are much more goblin-like than sidhe-like.»
«I know, Frost.»
«Then how can you offer yourself?»
«First, I want the alliance lengthened, at almost any cost. Second, the sidhe have been dying out for centuries, but if Kitto can be full-sidhe, then maybe other half-sidhe could be brought into their full powers. It would mean that the Unseelie Court would suddenly be stronger than it has ever been.»
«The queen is excited about Merry bringing Kitto to us,» Rhys said. «The queen wants Merry to try other half-breeds in her bed.»
«And what if one of them gets you with child?» Frost asked. «No sidhe will accept a half-goblin king.»
«At this point, Frost, I'd settle for just being pregnant. It's been four months of sharing my bed with all of you, and there's no child. I think I'm going to worry about wi
«The sidhe will not accept a goblin king.» He said it with such finality.
«I hate the plan as much as Frost does, maybe more,» Rhys said, «but it's not my lily-white body that's being bartered over.» He took a deep, shaking breath, as if he pulled the air from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. He finally said, in a voice so calm that it was empty of all emotion, «If you can agree to fuck them, I guess I can flaunt myself in front of their king.»
«Rhys!» Frost looked as shocked as that one word sounded.
Rhys gazed at the bigger man. «No, Frost, it's time. Merry is right.» He looked at me, and the ghost of his usual grin flickered on his mouth. «How distracting to Kurag will it be to see me nearly nude?»
«About as distracting as this.» I ran my hands over the mounds of my breasts where they lay barely contained in the red bathing suit. My hands slid lower, down my ribs, my waist, to frame my hips. Rhys's gaze followed my hands like a starving man. Nude as he was, he couldn't hide how watching me touch my body affected him.
He was one of those men who looked small until he grew, and then you knew he wasn't small in anything but stature. It was Rhys's laugh that brought my gaze back to his face. «Consort thank you, I love seeing that look on a woman's face.»
A human would have blushed to be caught staring, but my cheeks held no heat as I raised my eyes to meet his laughter. If I had not stared at Rhys's lovely body, it would have implied that he wasn't worth noticing. My eyes held all the heat that would have blushed across my face if I'd been just a little more human, a little less fey. The heat in my eyes sobered his face, drenched his tricolored eye in heat of its own.
He had to clear his throat to say, «As distracting as all that, my, my.» A smile flashed across his face. «So you're the tits and I'm the ass?»
That made me laugh. «That's one way to put it.»
He stepped closer to me, letting his eye linger in one of those looks that is almost more intimate than a touch. A look that made my skin begin to glow, softly, as if I'd swallowed the moon and it was shining underneath my skin. It raised the hair along my body, caught my breath in my throat. All this from a look.
I had trouble focusing on him as he smiled down at me. «To see your body react to my gaze like that» — he let out a shaking breath—"I'd face a thousand ogling goblins to watch the play of light under your skin.»
My voice came out breathy, very early Marilyn Monroe, but I couldn't seem to help it. «Why is it that you're the only one who can do that with just a look?»
His smile quirked into a grin, and his gaze slid briefly toward Frost, who was scowling at us both. «I could say it was because I'm the best lover you have.» He held up a hand, as Frost took a step forward. «But I'd rather not have to fight a duel later.»
«Then why?» I breathed.
The humor faded, replaced by a depth of emotion, intelligence, everything, that Rhys had managed to hide for centuries. A month ago, more by accident than design, Rhys had recovered powers that had been stripped from him centuries ago. All of the guards had recovered lost magic, but it was Rhys who had recovered the most because it was Rhys who had been stripped of most of his power. The price for the fey coming to the United States after they'd been kicked out of Europe was that there were to be no more large-scale fights among us. If we went to war against one another on American soil, they'd exile us, and we were out of countries that would take us. The answer to keep that from happening had been the Nameless: a creature made up of the wildest magic the sidhe of both courts had left. But as with all spells dealing with wild magic, it was unpredictable. Some sidhe had barely lost any powers; others had been nearly stripped dry. The Nameless wasn't the first time the sidhe had done this. The first time was trying to stay in Europe after the great human-fey war. That one didn't take, but Rhys had lost a lot in the first great spell. The Nameless had taken most of the rest. Rhys had been transformed from a major deity to one of the less powerful of the sidhe. He'd lost so much, he would no longer allow anyone to mention his old name. Out of respect, and horror that it might have been one of them, all the sidhe honored his wish. He was simply Rhys now, and what he had been was lost.
A month ago he'd recovered himself. He was simply more. He could call light into my skin by looking at me. I wasn't sure if he was truly more powerful magically, or if it was the nature of his magic. I thought the former, rather than the latter, because he was a death deity and not a fertility god. Surely my body should have reacted more to life than death.
His voice came soft and low. «What do you want me to do?»
For a moment I couldn't think what he meant. It took all my concentration not to buckle at the knees. «What?» I asked.
Frost made a disgusted noise. «She's power-drunk. Rhys, you really must be more careful.»
«It's been almost seven hundred years since I had this much power. I'm a little rusty.»
«You enjoy how you affect the princess,» Frost said. He was closer now, but it would have been too much effort to turn my head to look at him.
«Wouldn't you?» Rhys said.
Frost hesitated, then said, «Perhaps, but we have no time for it, Rhys.»
I felt Frost's strong hands on my arms as he turned me slowly to face him. «Find robes for both of you while I fix this.»
I thought I heard Rhys move away into the room, but I wasn't sure. I was too busy staring at Frost's chest. His white shirt was buttoned all the way up to the rounded collar. I knew what lay under that tightly buttoned cloth. I knew the swell of his chest as I knew my own hand. I felt heavy and thick—not just thickheaded, but as if the hand I raised toward him was heavier than it should have been.