Страница 55 из 77
"I am sorry," he whispered, as if he'd read my mind.
I shook my head, touching the silken skin of his cheek. "I wear your mark with honor, Kitto. Never doubt that."
He gave a shy smile, then raised up on his arms much as he had through the begi
It was my turn to say, "I'm sorry."
He shook his head, and the smile wasn't shy now. "You have marked me, and there is no higher compliment among my kind. May the marks never fade."
I traced the edge of one of the nail marks, and he shivered above me. "You are among your kind now, Kitto. Right now."
Doyle seemed to know what I wanted, because he pulled his black T-shirt up enough to show Kitto the nail marks on his black skin.
"You are Unseelie sidhe," I said.
He moved off of me, his body grown softer with all the talking. He lay beside me, one arm over my waist. He gazed at the men around the bed. "My mother's people were Seelie. They left me for dead outside the goblin mound." His voice was matter-of-fact, as if it was just truth, something he'd always known.
Doyle lowered his shirt and turned to face the bed. "We are not Seelie." He did not lower the circle around the bed, but stepped inside it. He raised Kitto up with a hand on his shoulder. Kitto seemed frightened but didn't struggle.
Doyle laid a chaste kiss on the smaller man's forehead. "You have already tasted the blood of our court and been tasted in return. Now receive our kiss and be welcome among us."
One by one the other guards bent and laid lips upon Kitto's forehead. He was crying and shaking by the time they had finished. And when the last of my knights had kissed Kitto's forehead, Sage rose up into the air, his wings humming, a blur of color. It made an angry whirring sound.
"I hate you all." The venom in those words was thick enough to choke on. "Now let me out of this accursed circle."
Doyle made an opening in the circle big enough for the demi-fey. The tiny figure flew through it, and Doyle closed the circle behind him.
Sage hovered in front of the closed bedroom door. I thought one of us would have to get up to open it, but the door opened of its own accord, and Sage hurried through the opening. He turned in the darkness of the living room, still glowing faintly from all the magic.
"The queen has had her price, but you have not had your cure. The cure lies within my body where the queen didst place it. I meant to share you with the goblin to ensure his silence, not be displaced by him." He hissed like an angry cat. "Who knew goblin could be sidhe? Would that it were me in thy arms and not he. What could have been done in pleasant glamour will nidst be done in unpleasant bargain." He hissed again, and vanished into the darkness beyond. The door slammed shut behind him.
We all stared at the door. "Did he mean what I think he meant?" Galen asked.
"It would amuse Niceven to force a sidhe princess to pleasure one of her tiny men," Doyle said.
I raised eyebrows at that. "How?"
"Best not to ask," he said, and he looked down at Kitto, "for tonight we will worry over nothing. We have found new blood of our blood, kin of our kin. We will sorrow over nothing tonight."
As celebration of the faerie court went it was modest. We ordered out, Kitto's choice, bought some very fine wine, and partied until dawn.
It was a little after dawn when the earthquake hit, a 4.4 on the Richter scale, centered in El Segundo. There is no major fault underneath El Segundo. It's probably all that saved us from demolishing the entire city. It lasted for only about a minute, really not that much damage overall; no one was killed, though there were injuries. But it added an entirely new twist on the idea of safe sex.
Chapter 30
On the first day of my being restricted to the apartment, hiding behind our wards, Taranis's main social secretary, Dame Rosmerta, had called. She'd been dressed in pink and gold cloth that complemented her gold-tinted skin and dark gold hair to perfection. She'd been the soul of polite and proper decorum, more than making up for Hedwick's rudeness. She also made it clear that the ball in question was the Yule ball. I had to decline. If I attended any Yule ball, it had to be the Unseelie ball. Rosmerta had made noises that she, of course, understood that.
We weren't missed in helping with the murders, because Peterson had forbidden anyone from the Grey Detective Agency from interfering with the case. Jeremy had been pissed enough that he told Teresa not to tell them what she'd seen, but Teresa is all about helping her fellow man. She went dutifully from the hospital to the police station and finally found a detective who would take her report.
Teresa had felt the people suffocate, felt them die, and she'd seen the ghosts -- white shapes, she said, sucking the life from them. The police had informed her that everyone knew ghosts didn't do shit like this. Peterson had come in about then and thrown the report in the trash can in front of Teresa. Usually the police wait until someone's left the room before doing that.
Teresa had managed to drag her husband out before he got himself arrested for assaulting a police officer. Teresa's husband used to play for the Rams back when they were the football team in L.A. Ray's like a nicely maintained mountain, with a wi
We ended up with a lot of time on our hands. No, we did not just have sex all day. We pestered Sage. I had paid the price that Queen Niceven asked, but we had no cure. Why hadn't Sage given us the cure last night? Why did Kitto becoming sidhe change everything for Sage? Did he really mean to imply that he needed to have sex with me to effect the cure? Sage didn't want to answer any questions.
He had flown around the apartment trying to escape our questions, but it was a small apartment, even if you were the size of a Barbie doll. Late in the day he launched himself from the windowsill and got a little too near Galen, who batted at him like you'd swat a mosquito. I don't think he meant to strike him.
Sage fell heavily on the floor. He lay very still, a tiny butter-colored thing with his bright wings like a fragile shield. He raised slowly onto one arm before I could finish kneeling by him. "Are you all right?" I asked.
He looked at me with such hatred in those tiny doll eyes that I flinched. He stumbled a little in rising to his feet, but he fa
"If I die, green knight, the cure dies with me. Best remember that, when you're being careless."
"I didn't intend to hurt you," Galen said, but there was something in his eyes that was not kind, not gentle, not Galen. Perhaps, more than just his manhood had been damaged by the demi-fey.
"Too close to a lie, that," Sage said, rising into the air, his butterfly wings a blur. Butterfly wings just didn't work like that. It was more the way a dragonfly moved. When he'd gained height enough to meet Galen's gaze, the wing beats slowed and he hovered, the large wings fa
"I didn't intend to strike you that hard." Galen's voice was low and warm with anger. There was a hardness there that I'd never heard before. Part of me mourned that tone; part of me felt a flare of hope. Perhaps even Galen could learn those harsh lessons that would be needed if he ever became King. Or perhaps he was just learning how to hate. That lesson I would have spared him if I could.