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I touched the scar where it ended on his cheek, catching his hand in mine. "A goblin did this to you during sex?"
He nodded.
"Oh, Rhys," I said, voice soft.
He patted my hand and shook his head. "No pity. I just want you to understand what you're agreeing to."
"I understand, Rhys. Thank you for telling me." I patted his cheek, squeezed his hand, and walked past him back to the waiting goblins. I was walking straight and upright, but there was a little turning inside my head that made me want badly to hold on to something. But when you're negotiating a war treaty, you need to look strong, or at least not like you're about to faint dead away.
"Kitto's flesh in my body, right?" I asked.
Kurag nodded, and he looked pleased with himself, as if he knew he'd already won.
"I agree to take Kitto's flesh into my body."
"Agreed?" Kurag said, surprise dripping from his voice. "You would agree to share flesh with a goblin?"
I nodded. "I agree, on one condition."
His eyes narrowed. "What condition?"
"If the alliance between us is a season long," I said.
I felt Doyle step closer to me. The ripple of surprise spread through the room in whispers and small movements.
"A season," Kurag said. "No, too long."
"Eleven moons from now," I said.
Kurag turned back to me. "My queen has saved us the trouble of opening my vein."
"Then let's get on with it. I'm wasting blood," I said.
Galen still had his hands over my wrists, and I realized he was holding pressure on my wounds.
I looked up at him. "Galen, it's all right." He kept his hands tight around my wrists. "Galen, please, let me go."
He stared down at me, opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it and slowly moved his hands back from my wrists. His hands came away stained with my blood. But the pressure he'd applied had slowed the bleeding, or maybe it was just Galen's touch. Maybe it wasn't just my imagination that made his hands a cool, soothing presence.
He helped me to my feet. I had to push his hands away so I could stand alone. I spread my legs to get as good a balance on the heels as I could, and faced Kurag.
Standing, I came almost up to his sternum. His shoulders were nearly as wide as I was tall. Most of the sidhe were tall, but the larger goblins were truly bulky.
Fflur had moved to one side of me to join Galen, Doyle, and Rhys at my back. Frost stood to one side, with the little goblin dangling from his hands. There was a press of bodies all around us: sidhe, goblin, and others. But I had eyes only for the goblin king.
"Though I do offer you my apologies for my man's rudeness," Kurag said, "I ca
I held my right hand out to him, and my left hand to the red mouth on his chest. "Drink then, Kurag, Goblin King." I raised my right wrist as close to his main mouth as I could reach. Reaching so far above my head left me faintly dizzy. I pressed my left wrist to the open mouth on his chest, and it was those lips that closed around my wrist first, that tongue that worked over the wound to get it to bleed afresh. The tongue in that mouth felt soft and human, not at all like the little goblin's harsh cat tongue.
Kurag bowed his head over my wrist, careful not to use his hands to hold the wound close to him. To use his hands would have been rude and taken as a sexual overture. His tongue was rough like sandpaper, even rougher than the little goblin's had been. It abraded the wound and brought a soft gasp from my throat. The mouth in his chest had already formed a seal over the wounds, sucking like a baby with a bottle. Kurag's tongue lingered until the blood flowed fresh and easy. When he wrapped his lips around my wound, his mouth took in almost all of my wrist. His teeth pressed against my flesh painfully as the suction grew. The smaller mouth in his chest was much more polite.
Kurag's mouth worked at my wrist, lips in a tight seal. Just as I grew accustomed to his sucking, his teeth grazed the wound, his tongue flicking in a sharp painful movement. He was staying at the wound a long time. It was sort of like a beer-chugging contest: you took as much in at a time as you could manage without throwing up.
But finally, finally, Kurag drew his head back from my wrist. I drew my left hand from his chest. The lips placed a light kiss against my wrist as I pulled away.
Kurag stretched his thin lips in a smile, showing the yellowed teeth stained with blood. "Do better if you can, Princess, though I've always found the sidhe a little too prissy for good tongue action."
"You must be entertaining the wrong sidhe, Kurag. I've found them all..." I lowered my voice to a husky whisper and put a look in my eyes to match. "... Orally talented."
Kurag chuckled, low and evil, but appreciative.
I swayed slightly, but I kept my feet and that was all that was required. But I was going to need to sit down soon, before I fell down. "My turn," I said.
Kurag's grin widened. "Suck me, sweet Merry, suck me hard."
I'd have shaken my head if I hadn't been convinced that it would make the dizziness worse. "You never change, Kurag," I said.
"Why should I?" he said. "No female I've bedded in over eight hundred years has ever gone away wanting."
"Just bleeding," I said.
He blinked, then laughed again. "If there ain't blood, what's the point?"
I tried not to smile and failed. "Big talk for a goblin who hasn't offered up his blood yet."
He shook his head. "Two moons."
"Ten," I said.
"Three."
"Be reasonable," I said.
"Five," he said.
"Eight," I countered.
He gri
"Done," I said.
Kurag stared at me for a heartbeat or two. "Done." He said it softly, as if even at the moment he spoke he was sure it was the wrong thing to do.
I raised my voice so it would carry throughout the room, standing with feet braced wide apart. It must have looked like an aggressive stance, but I wasn't trying for aggressive. I was trying not to let my body sway to the swirling inside my head. "The alliance is forged."
Kurag raised his own voice. "Forged only after you share flesh with my goblin."
I held my hand out to Kitto. He laid his hand on top of mine, a light touch of smooth flesh. I raised his hand up to my face. I tried to bend down and kiss the back of his hand, but the room swam. I had to straighten up and raise his hand with both of mine, spreading the small perfect fingers wide. I'd never held a man's hand that was smaller than my own. Sucking a finger would have been the most sexual thing I could do, but I'd sucked the last piece of flesh I wanted tonight. I laid a gentle but full kiss on his open palm. I didn't leave a lipstick print behind, which meant I'd worn it all off sucking on Kurag's arm.
Kitto's strange eyes widened.
I raised my mouth away from his hand, slowly, so that I rolled my eyes at Kurag as I came up over the goblin's hand, as if it were a fan. "We'll get around to sharing flesh, Kurag, don't worry. Now join me, Kitto. The queen awaits me and all my men."
Kitto darted a glance at Kurag, then back to me. "I am honored."
I looked up at the tall king. "Remember this, Kurag, as I share flesh with Kitto in the nights to come: that it was your own lust and cowardice that gave him to me, and me to him."
Kurag's face changed from yellow to a dark orange. His great hands balled into fists. "Bitch," he said.
"I spent many a night at your court, Kurag. I know that to have me share myself with another sidhe is nothing to you. For only sharing flesh with a goblin is true sex to you. Anything less is merely foreplay. And you have given me over to another goblin, Kurag. The next time you try and trick me into your bed, think where your trickery has gotten you and me."