A Kiss Of Shadows

I gave him my best blank face. "I don't have any use for your soul, Sholto. What else can you offer me that would be worth risking death by torture?"

"If you are my sidhe lover, Meredith, then the queen will know what you mean to me. I will make sure she understands that if anything happens to you that she will lose the sluagh's loyalty. She can't afford that right now."

"Why not make this deal with other more powerful sidhe women?"

"The women of Prince Cel's Guard have him to have sex with, and unlike the queen, Cel keeps them busy."

"When I left, some of the women were begi

Sholto smiled happily. "The movement has become quite popular."

I raised eyebrows. "Are you saying that Cel's little harem is turning him down?"

"More and more of them." Sholto still looked pleased.

"Then why not make this invitation to one of them? They're all more powerful than I am."

"Perhaps it's what you said earlier, Meredith. None of them would understand me as you do."

"I think you underestimate them. But what could Cel possibly be doing to them that's making them leave him in droves? The queen herself is a sexual sadist, but her guardsmen would crawl over broken glass to bed her. What is Cel offering that is worse than that?" I didn't expect an answer, but I couldn't even begin to think of anything that bad.

The smile faded from Sholto's face. "The queen did that once," he said.

"What?" I asked, frowning.

"Made one of us strip and crawl over broken glass. If he made it without showing pain, then she'd fuck him."

I blinked. I'd heard worse, hell, I'd seen worse. But part of me wanted to know who it was, so I asked, "Who was it?"

He shook his head. "We of the Guard have sworn to keep the humiliations among ourselves. Our pride, if not our bodies, survives the better for it." His eyes looked lost again.

Again, I wondered what Cel could be doing that was worse than the queen's games. "Why not make this offer to a more powerful sidhe woman who isn't a member of the Prince's Guard?" I asked.

He gave a faint smile. "There are women at court who are not members of the Prince's Guard, Meredith. They would not touch me before I joined the Guard. They fear bringing more perverse creatures into the world." He laughed, and it had a wild sound to it, almost like crying. It hurt to hear it. "That's what the queen calls me, her 'perverse creature'—sometimes, simply 'creature. In a few centuries I will be like Frost and her Darkness. I will be her Creature." He gave that painful laugh again. "I will risk much to keep that from happening."

"Does she really need the sluagh's backing that much, so much that she'd give up my death, give up punishing us for going against her strictest taboo?" I shook my head. "No, Sholto, she can't let this stand. If we find a way around her celibacy taboo, then others will try. It will be like the first crack in a dam. Eventually it breaks."

"She is losing control, Meredith, losing her hold on the court. These three years have not been good ones for her. The court is splitting under the weight of her erratic behavior, and Prince Cel's growing… " He seemed at a loss for words, then finally said, "When he comes into power, Cel is going to make Andais look sane. It will be like Caligula after Tiberius."

"Are you saying, if we think it's bad now, we ain't seen nothing yet?" I tried to make him smile, and failed.

He turned haunted eyes to me. "The queen ca

"The queen's mercy" had become a saying among us; if you feared something, you said, "I'd rather be at the queen's mercy than do that." It meant that nothing scared you more.

"What do you want of me, Sholto?"

"I want you," he said, his gaze very direct.

I had to smile. "You don't want me, you want a sidhe in your bed. Remember that Griffin rejected me because I was not sidhe enough for him."

"Griffin was a fool."

I smiled, and it made me think of Uther's words earlier that night, that Roane was a fool. If everyone was a fool for leaving me, why did they keep doing it? I looked at him and tried to be just as direct. "I've never been with a nightflyer."

"It is considered perverted by those that consider nothing perverse," Sholto said, and his voice was bitter. "I would not expect you to have experience with us."

Us. An interesting pronoun. If you asked me what I was, I was sidhe, not human, not brownie. I was sidhe, and if you pushed me, I was Unseelie, for better or worse, even though I could claim the blood of both courts. But I would never have said "us" when speaking of anything but Unseelie sidhe.

"After my aunt, our beloved queen, tried to drown me when I was six, Father made sure I had my own sidhe bodyguards. One of them was a crippled nightflyer, Bhatar."

Sholto nodded. "He lost a wing in the last real battle we fought on American soil. We can grow back most of our body parts, so it was a grave wound."

"Bhatar stayed in my room at night. He never left my side when I was a child. Father taught me chess, but Bhatar taught me how to beat Father." It made me smile.

"He still speaks well of you," Sholto said.

I started to ask, then shook my head. "No, he would never have suggested that you do this. He would never have risked my safety, or yours. You see, he spoke well of you, too, King Sholto. The best king the sluagh had had in two hundred years, that's what he used to say."

"I'm flattered."

"You know what your people think of you." I tried to read that face. The need was there, but need could mask so many things. "What of the hags, your little harem?"

"What of them?" he asked, but there was a look in his eyes, that gave lie to his casual words.

"They wanted to hurt me to keep me from you. What do you think they'll do if you actually bed me?"

"I am their king. They will do as they are told."

I laughed then, but it wasn't bitter, just ironic. "You are a king of a fey people, Sholto, they never do quite what you tell them, or quite what you think they will. From sidhe to pixie, they are free things. Take for granted their obedience and you do so at your peril."

"Like the queen has done for a mille

I smiled, nodding. "As the king of the Seelie Court has done for even longer."

"I am a new king compared to them and not quite so arrogant."

"Then tell me truly what will your hag lovers do if you desert them for me?"

He seemed to think about it for a minute, long and slow, then he looked at me. His face was serious. "I don't know."

I almost laughed. "You are new at being king. I've never heard one of them admit ignorance before."

"Not knowing a thing is not ignorance. Feigning knowledge you don't have, can be," he said.

"Wise, as well as modest; how terribly unique for fey royalty." I remembered a question I'd wanted to ask. "The Agnes that took you into the woods as a boy, your na

"Yes," he said.

I fought not to frown. "Your ex-na

"She has not aged," he said, "and I am all grown up now."

"Growing up around immortal beings is confusing, I admit, but there are still fey that helped raise me that I don't think of in that way."

"As there are among the sluagh for me, but Agnes is not one of them."

I wanted to ask why, but didn't. First, it was none of my business; second, I might not understand the answer even if he gave it to me. "How do you know the queen intends to execute me for certain?" Back to the important topic.

"Because I was sent to Los Angeles to kill you." He said it like it meant nothing—no emotion, no regret, just fact.

My heart beat a little faster, my breath catching in my throat. I had to concentrate to ease the air out without making it noticeable. "If I don't agree to sleep with you, then you carry out the sentence?"

"I gave my oath that I meant you no harm. I meant it."

"You would go against the queen for my sake?"

"The same reasoning that keeps us safe if we bed each other, keeps me safe if I leave you alive. She needs my sluagh more than she needs to be vindictive."

He seemed so certain of that last part. Certain of what he was certain of, uncertain of everything else; like most of us if we're honest. I looked at that strong face, the jaw a little wide for my taste, the bones of the cheek at little too sculpted. I liked a softer look to my men, but he was undeniably handsome. His hair was a perfect white, thick and straight, held back in a loose ponytail. The hair fell to his knees like one of the older sidhe, even though Sholto was only about two hundred years, give or take. The shoulders were broad, the chest looked good under the white, button-down shirt. The shirt fell absolutely smooth, and I wondered if he were using some sort of glamour to make it so, because I knew that what lay under the shirt was not smooth. "The offer is very unexpected, Sholto. I'd like some time to think about it, if I may?"

"Until tomorrow night," he said.

I nodded, and stood. He stood as well. I found myself staring at his chest and stomach trying to see that movement I'd noticed on the street. Nothing showed, he was wasting glamour on keeping it hidden." I don't know if I can do this," I said.

"What?" he asked.

I motioned at him. "I saw you once without a shirt when I was much younger. The sight… stayed with me."

His face paled, eyes hardening. He was throwing his walls back in place. "I understand. The thought of touching me frightens you. I do understand, Meredith." He let out a long breath. "It was a pretty thought while it lasted." He turned away from me, gathering his long coat from the back of the chair where he'd laid it. The heavy tail of hair lay like a white furred stripe down his body.

"Sholto," I said.

He didn't turn around, just held the length of hair over one shoulder while he put on his coat.