A Kiss of Shadows

"You mean sex?" Galen asked.

Kurag nodded. "Yes, sex."

I said, "No."

Galen said, "Oh, no."

"No flesh sharing, no alliance," Kurag said.

"Among the sidhe," Doyle said, "your marriage vows are still sacred. Meredith can no more help you cheat on your wife than she could cheat on her own husband. The rule of flesh only works if both parties are unjoined."

Kurag scowled. "You would not lie outright. Damn." He looked at me. "You always escape me, Merry."

"Only because you always resort to trickery to try and get in my pants."

A servant had come with a bowl of clean water, holding it for Fflur as she washed my wrists. She popped open a bottle of antiseptic and drenched both of my wrists with it. The reddish liquid fell into the water, floating on the surface like drops of new blood.

"I made you a valid offer of marriage once," Kurag said.

"I was sixteen," I said. "You scared the shit out of me." Fflur patted my wrists dry.

"Just too much man for you, aren't I?"

"The two of you together are too much man for me, Kurag, you're right," I said.

His hand went to his side where the extra genitalia lay. One heavy stroke and there was a bulge under the pants in a place where most men didn't have to worry about it.

"Flesh has been invoked," Kurag said, still stroking his side. "It ca

I looked to Doyle. "What does he mean?"

Doyle shook his head. "I'm not sure."

A second servant brought up a tray of medical supplies and held it while Fflur started binding clean white gauze around my wrists. The servant acted as a sort of nurse, giving her scissors and tape as she needed it.

"I know what Kurag is doing," Frost said. "He is still trying to run from your enemies."

Kurag turned on Frost like a large, broad storm. "Merry needs every strong arm she can muster at her back. That is lucky for you, Killing Frost."

"Will you honor your alliance then and be one of the strong arms at her back?" Frost said.

"Truth," Kurag said. "If I ca

What was happening in the courts that Kurag, the goblin king, was afraid?

"If you do not honor your alliance," Frost said, "then all the court will know you for an honorless coward. Your word will never be trusted again."

Kurag looked around at the crowd. Some had gone with the queen like a brightly colored train of toadies, but many had remained behind. To watch. To listen. To spy?

The goblin king did a slow circle of the waiting faces, then came back to me. "I have invoked flesh. Share flesh with one of my goblins, one of my unwed goblins, and I will honor this alliance of blood."

Galen stepped up next to me. "Merry is a princess of the sidhe, second in line to this throne. Sidhe princesses do not sleep with goblins." There was a force in his voice, a heat. Anger.

I touched his shoulder. "It's all right, Galen."

He turned to me. "No, it's not. How dare he make such a demand."

There was a low angry murmur that swept through the sidhe in the room. The small knot of goblins that he'd been allowed to bring into our hill closed at his back.

Doyle moved up at my back. He whispered, "This could go badly."

I glanced at him. "What do you expect me do?"

"Be a princess and a future queen," he said.

Galen caught part of that. He turned on Doyle. "What are you asking her to do?"

"The same thing she is doing with us at Queen Andais's request," Doyle said. He stared at me. "I would not ask if the sacrifice were not worth the goal."

"No!" Galen said.

Doyle stared at Galen then. "Which do you value more, her virtue, or her life?"

Galen glared at him, tension ru

If I had the goblins as allies, then if Cel did manage to kill me, he'd have a blood feud with Kurag and his court. It would make Cel, or anyone else, hesitate. I needed this alliance. "One of your goblins' flesh in my body, I take it," I said.

Kurag smiled. "His flesh in your sweet body. Let your flesh and his be one, and all the goblin nation will be your allies."

"Who's flesh will I be sharing?" I asked.

Kurag looked thoughtful. The eye on his shoulder went wide, and the two thin arms on his side gestured wildly, pointing.

Kurag turned to the circle of goblins and began to move through them, following the small arms of his twin. I couldn't see who he finally stopped at. He walked back out of the tightly packed knot of goblins and it wasn't until the small goblin stepped out from behind him that I could see him at all.

He was only four feet tall with pale skin like gleaming mother-of-pearl. I knew sidhe skin when I saw it. His hair curled over his neck, black and thick, but cut short of his shoulders. His face was strangely triangular with huge almond-shaped eyes that were a solid sapphire blue with a line of black pupil like a stripe in the center of all that blue. He was wearing nothing but a silver edged loincloth, which in a goblin meant that there was something of a deformity on the bare spots. They did not hide deformities, but saw them as a sign of honor.

He walked toward me over the stone like a tiny perfect male doll. If there was a deformity I couldn't see it. Except for his size and the eyes, he could have been of the court.

"This is Kitto," Kurag said. "His mother was a sidhe lady raped in the last goblin war." Which made Kitto nearly two thousand years old. He certainly didn't look it.

"Greetings, Kitto," I said.

"Greetings, Princess." There was a strange sibilance to his words, as if he had trouble forming the words. His lips were full and pink and shaped like a perfect cupid's bow, but those pretty lips barely moved when he spoke, as if there was something in his mouth that he didn't want me to see.

"Before you agree," Kurag said, "see the whole show."

Kitto turned his back and showed why he was wearing the loincloth. There was a spread of shining iridescent scales starting at the base of his hairline and descending down his back to the base of his spine. His butt was small and tight and perfect, but the glittering scales told me why his eyes had elliptical pupils and why he had trouble with his "sss."

"Snake goblin," I said.

Kitto turned back to face me. He nodded.

"Open your mouth, Kitto. Let me see it all," I said.

He looked at the floor for a moment, then rolled his strange eyes up at me. He opened his mouth in a wide yawn, flashing dainty fangs. His tongue flicked out like a red ribbon with a dab of black on the end of each point. "Ssatissfffied?" he asked.

I nodded. "Yes."

"You can't," Rhys said. He'd been so quiet I'd almost forgotten he was with us.

"It's my choice," I said.

Rhys touched my shoulder, took me to one side. "Take a good look at the scar across my face. I know I've told you a thousand heroic stories about how I got this, but the truth is the queen punished me. She gave me to the goblins for a night of sport. I thought, why not, free sex even if it is with goblins." He blinked his one good eye. "A goblin's idea of sex is more violent than you can imagine, Merry." He traced the length of the scar with his fingertip, and the look in his eye was distant, remembering.