A Stroke Of Midnight

He and Doyle both stepped back, leaving Adair to finish the last of the undergarments himself.

“If you can win the lady’s favor, then do it,” Frost said, and his voice was almost empty of resentment. He was truly trying.

Adair looked to Doyle one last time. “And if the mark still does not touch me?”

“Then you will have ended your long fast, and drunk deep of our lady. For she is our lady. Whether she is yours as well remains to be seen.” Then he stepped away, as had Frost on the other side. Galen and Nicca slid off the bed. Nicca said, “It’s a big bed, but the first time should either be with someone who’s sharing with you, or just you and the lady.”

I realized then that Biddy was not in the room. I started to ask where she was, then Adair was beside the bed. He was nude. He must have stripped while I was looking across the bed at Nicca.

I had seen him nude before, and recently. The queen had made certain he met me at the court naked except for his weapons. Andais was never subtle, and she had been determined that I make love with as many of the vegetative gods as possible. I don’t know if she’d thought their being nude would make us quicker, or if she had believed the sight of them nude would inspire lust in me. He was as beautiful now as he had been then. I expected to see lust, or at least eagerness on his face, but his eyes were downcast, and if anything he seemed reluctant.

I reached out, and took his hand. He did not respond, neither closing his hand around mine nor pulling away. “Adair,” I said, “what is wrong?”

“It has been a very long time since I was with a woman.” He dropped his gaze again.

“She will be gentle if you need it,” Nicca said, from the foot of the bed now.

“Or not gentle,” Doyle said.

“She will be what you need,” Frost said. “It is her magic.”

“It is, in part, what she is,” Doyle said.

Adair looked at the men. “What is she?”

“She is the fertility of the land,” Doyle said.

“She carried the hand of blood and flesh,” Hawthorne said. “Those are dark powers.”

“Oh, come on, Whitethorne,” Rhys said, “blood and flesh have been making the crops grow as long or longer than sex.”

“Do not call me that,” Hawthorne said.

Rhys shrugged. “Fine, but she combines the fertility of both courts.”

“The Goddess saw fit to give each court dominion over different areas of fertility,” Hawthorne said.

“What the Goddess saw fit to divide, she can also remake,” Doyle said.

I squeezed Adair’s hand. It made him turn and look at me, a frightening glimpse of eyes, then down at the floor again. “I won’t hurt you, I promise.”

He spoke with his eyes still downcast. “I am more afraid I will hurt you.”

Frost laughed.

It made all of us look at him.

He shook his head. “Do you remember what I said to you that first night?” he asked.

I smiled, and nodded. “Yes, and I remember what we did.”

“You will not hurt her, Adair. Did you not see what she and Mistral did in the hallway?”

Adair licked his lips, and darted another glance at me. “Did you have an audience the first time?”

“Ah,” Frost said, and a look almost of gentleness came to him.

Doyle put it into words. “We have all been where you are now. So long without the touch of a woman. We all wondered if we had forgotten how to pleasure anyone, including ourselves.” He clapped Adair on the shoulder. “I will not say that we did not improve with practice after so long a fast, but we managed, all of us, from the first time, and so will you.”

“I think he wishes less audience,” I said.

“Who would you have stay, and who go?” Doyle asked.

“Let you and Adair decide.”

That earned me a startled look from Adair. “You would let me choose who stays and who goes?”

“Most of these men are my friends and lovers, but they are not so intimate with you. Tonight is for your pleasure.”

“I want it to be your pleasure, as well.”

I smiled at him. “As do I. What I mean to say is, I have had my pleasure as I wish it. I would have you, this night, have your pleasure as you would wish it.” I sat up, away from the headboard. “How do you want me? What do you want to do with me? What dream or fantasy has tormented you the most? What have you missed the most?”

He looked at me then, not a darting glance, but a full-out stare. His eyes glittered, and it wasn’t magic. “Everything.” He looked away, so I would not see him cry.

“Everything is a tall order,” I said, “when we will be soon to wait upon the queen’s call.”

His shoulders hunched, just a little, almost as if I had struck him.

I squeezed his hand, and pulled him gently toward the bed. “It is a tall order, but I will do my best.”

He looked at me then, and his eyes held disbelief. He simply did not believe that I meant what I said. He did not trust that I would not hurt him, or cheat him, or starve that part of him that Andais had abused for so long.

I went to my knees, and closed the distance between us, with my hands on his shoulders. “Kiss me, please.”

“Please,” he said, and he raised eyes to me that glittered with tears, but held anger. “You say ‘please,’ what trick is this?”

“I say please, so you know that it is not an order. I ask for a kiss, because I want one, but only if you wish to give it.”

He looked back at the men ranged around the room. “Does she understand what this means to us, to be asked?”

Most of them nodded. “She understands,” Doyle said.

“That’s why she does it,” Nicca said, “because she feels our need.”

Adair turned back to me. “What would you have of me?”

“Only what you are willing to give,” I said.

He came to my mouth with a sob, but the moment our lips touched, it was as if all the uncertainty vanished. His mouth ate at mine, his fingers dug into my arms. He climbed onto the bed and forced me back against it. He laid his body on top of me, and found, as most of them did, that he was too tall for true missionary position. His body was heavy with need, but not as heavy as it would grow. He grew larger even as he hesitated above me, supporting himself on his arms.

He held himself above me, working very hard not to touch any part of me. I remembered that when I had met him in the hall yesterday his magic had recognized mine. That even being this close to him with my clothes on had made our magic shiver together. Tonight it was as if his body was cold. His hand had been warm in mine. He was alive as any man, but his magic seemed locked away.

I gazed down the length of his body, his skin the color of sunlight through leaves, that wonderful shade of gold that no human suntan can touch. Sun kissed the sidhe called it, and sun kissed it was. I brought my gaze back to his face, and the threefold color of his eyes. Their i

I gazed up at his face, and said, “You’re shielding your magic from me, why?”

“Barely touching, and our magic caused the healing spring to appear and run with water again. What will happen if we do more?”

I studied his face, his eyes, and saw… fear. Not cowardice, but fear of the unknown, and something more. That fear that you feel at the top of the roller coaster, when you’re afraid of it, but excited about it, too. You want to do it, want to give yourself to the experience, but the desire doesn’t make it not frightening. Less frightening, maybe, but not without fear.

“Not to put too fine a point on things,” Rhys said, “but the queen’s summons could come at any time.”

“Not until she’s done torturing Lord Gwe