Mistral's Kiss

"So you do not kill me for fear of Doyle and Frost?"

He looked at me, and for a moment let the veil drop from those glowing eyes. He let me see his need, such need, as if it should have been carved in letters across the air. "It is not fear that impels me to spare your life," he whispered.

I gave him a smile, and the chalice still gripped in my hand pulsed once against my skin. The chalice would be part of what we did. "Let me wash some of this blood away. Then I will put my glow against yours."

His own glow began to fade a little, his burning eyes cooling to as normal as they ever got. It was hard to call his triple-gold irises normal, even by sidhe standards, though. "I am hurt, Meredith. I would have had our first time together be perfect. I'm not certain how much good I'm going to be to you tonight."

"I'm hurt, too," I said, "but we'll both do our best." I stood up and found my body stiff with injuries I hadn't even realized I'd suffered—small wounds that I must have received in the fight.

"I will not be able to make love the way you wish it," he said.

"How do you know what I wish?" I asked as I made my way slowly across the rough and smooth of the rock.

"You had quite an audience for Mistral's turn with you. The rumors have grown, but if even part of it is true, I will not be able to dominate you as he did."

I slid into the water. It found every small cut and scrape. The water was cool and soothing, but at the same time it made the wounds burn. "I don't want to be dominated right now, Sholto. Make love to me—let it be gentle between us, if that is what we want."

He laughed again, and I heard bells. "I think gentle is all I'm capable of tonight."

"I do not always want rough, Sholto. My tastes are more varied than that." I was shoulder-deep in the water now, trying to get the blood off me. The blood began to dissolve in the water, washing away almost more easily than it should have.

"How varied are your tastes?" he asked.

I smiled at him. "Very." I dunked under the water in a bid to get the blood off my face, out of my hair. I came up gasping, wiping the ru

Sholto was at the edge of the island when I came up the last time. He was standing, using the spear like a crutch. The white knife was tucked carefully through the cloth of his pants, the way you'd stick a pin through: in, then out, so the point was exposed to the air. He offered me his hand. I took it, though I could have gotten out by myself, and I knew that bending over must hurt him.

He lifted me out of the water, but his eyes never got to my face. His gaze stayed on my body, my breasts, as the water ran down them. There are women who would have taken offense, but I wasn't one of them. In that moment he wasn't a king, he was a man—and that was just fine with me.

CHAPTER 15

SHOLTO LAY NAKED BEFORE ME. I'D NEVER SEEN HIM LIKE THAT, lying naked, and waiting, knowing that we didn't have to stop.

The first and only time I'd seen him completely nude he'd still had extras. But he had used his own personal magic then to make his stomach look like the perfect six-pack abs. Even to the touch, I hadn't been able to feel what I'd known was there. He was very good at personal glamour, but then he'd spent years hiding that bit of deformity.

Now he lay back, using his own pants as some small cushion against the stone. The Seelie had ski

He had laid the white spear and the bone knife to one side of him. I had set the chalice on the other side of him. We would make love between the chalice, symbol of the Goddess, and two symbols that were oh, so masculine.

The air above his body wavered, like heat off a road, and the next moment there was no wound. He was back to creating the illusion of that perfect six-pack. Of all my lovers, only Rhys had it for real. "You don't need to hide, Sholto," I said.

"The look on your face is not the look I want to see the first time we make love, Meredith."

"Take the glamour away, Sholto, let me truly see you."

"It is no more beautiful than what used to be there." His voice was sad.

I touched the smooth skin of his shoulder. "You were beautiful. You are beautiful."

He gave me a smile as sad as his tone. "Meredith, no lies, please."

I studied his face. He was as fair of face as Frost, who was one of the most perfect men I'd ever seen. I said out loud, "The queen once called you the most perfect sidhe body she had ever seen. You are wounded, you will heal; it has not changed the perfection of you."

"The queen said that it was a pity that one of the most perfect sidhe bodies she'd ever seen was ruined by such deformity."

Okay, maybe mentioning the queen's words hadn't been a good idea. I tried again. I crawled to his face and leaned over to touch his lips with mine. But it was a cold kiss, and he barely responded. I drew back. "What is wrong?"

"In Los Angeles, even the sight of you clothed hardened my body. Tonight I am weak."

I gazed down the long length of his body to find that he was still soft, and as small as he got. He was one of those men that wasn't truly small even when soft; a shower, not a grower.

I had magic in me that could bring a man to life, as it were, but it was Seelie magic. I wanted to use less Seelie magic in this union, not more. Although Sholto had made the decision to accept the risk, I feared for the sluagh. I feared them losing their identity as a people.

Of course, there were other ways to bring a man to life besides magic.

I crawled, carefully, on the bare rocks, until I knelt by his hip. "You aren't weak, Sholto, you're hurt. There is no shame in that."

"To see you nude and not to react is shameful."

I gave him the smile he needed and said, "I think we can fix that."

"Magic?" he said, staring down his body at me.

I shook my head. "No magic, Sholto, just this." I traced my hand over his thighs, reveling in the smooth skin. The fey didn't have much body hair, but I think the fact that he was part nightflyer—a creature that had no hair—made him utterly smooth. Smooth as a woman and so soft, yet terribly male from the bottoms of his feet to the top of his head. I traced along the inside of his thighs and he spread them for me, so that I could sweep upward and touch the silken skin between his legs. He was still soft and loose as I rolled those delicate balls in my hand.

The touch bowed his spine, sending his head back, eyes closed. But with the pleasure came a sound of pain. The movement had hurt the butchered skin across the middle of his body. What progress I'd made wilted in the face of such pain.

He threw his arm across his eyes and made a sound between a sob and a yell. "I will be useless to you tonight, Meredith. I will be useless to my people. I will not bring us back to life with death, and I ca

"I would wait until you were healed, Sholto, if I could. But this night is about bringing life back to faerie. Console yourself—we will have other nights, or days. Other times, after you are healed, to do what we want to do. Tonight, we do what we must."

He uncovered his eyes and gazed down at me. His face held such despair.

"I can't think of any intercourse position that isn't going to hurt you, and you don't like pain," I said.

"I did not say I did not like pain, but not this much."

I stored that away for future reference. "I know. There are limits for most of us beyond which pain is just pain."

"I am sorry, Meredith, but I fear I have reached that point with these wounds."