He let go of my hand slowly, reluctantly. "I have never been with another sidhe, Meredith. Do you understand what that means?"
I understood, probably better than he did, because the only thing worse than never was to have had it, and be denied it. But I kept my voice neutral because I was beginning to fear where we were heading, and no matter how much sympathy I had with him, it wasn't worth being tortured to death. "You wonder what it would be like."
He shook his head. "No, I crave the sight of pale flesh stretched underneath me. I want my shine matched by another. I want that, Meredith, and you can give it to me."
He was heading where I'd feared. "I told you, Sholto, I won't risk death by torture for any pleasure. No one, nothing, is worth that." I meant it.
"The queen joys in making her guards watch her with her lovers. Some refuse to watch, but most of us stay on the off chance that she may beckon us to join. 'You are my bodyguards - don't you want to guard my body?'" He did a fair imitation of her voice. "Even when it is meant for cruelty, the love of two sidhe is still a wondrous thing. I would give my soul for it."
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 beginning to refuse Cel's bed."
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 cannot afford to lose the support of the sluagh. Trust me on this, Meredith, I have no desire to end up at the queen's mercy, any more than you do."
"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 millennium?" He made it half question, half statement.
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.
"Yes," he said.
I fought not to frown. "Your ex-nanny is now your lover?"
"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.
"I didn't say no, Sholto."
He turned then. His face was still closed, careful, all the emotions I'd worked so hard to find buried again. "Then what are you saying?"
"I'm saying, no sex tonight, but I can't say yes, I'll have sex with you, until I see everything."
"Everything?" He made it a question again.
"Now who's being coy," I said.
I watched the idea take shape on his face, in his eyes. A strange little smile played on his lips. "Are you asking to see me naked?"
"Not all of you." I had to smile at the look on his face. "But down to your thighs, yes, please. I have to see how I truly feel about your... extras."
He smiled and it was warm with an edge of uncertainty. It was his real smile, that edge of charm and fear. "That is the kindest way anyone has ever described them."
"If I can't be with you in joy and shared pleasure, then your dream of matching your glow with another falls apart. A sidhe does not glow for things that are duty and not pleasure."
He nodded. "I understand."
"I hope so, because it's more than seeing you nude. I need to touch and be touched to see if..." I spread my hands wide. "If I can do this."
"But no sex tonight?" His voice was as close to playful as I'd ever heard it.
"You dream of sidhe flesh and have never had it. I have had it, and for three, nearly four years, I've gone without. I miss home, Sholto. Strange and perverse as it is, I miss it. If I agree to this, then I get a sidhe lover and home. Not to mention I'm escaping a death sentence. You are not a fate worse than death, Sholto."
"Some have thought so over the years." He tried to make it a joke, but his eyes gave him away.
"That's why I need to see what I'm getting myself into."
"Do I raise the question of love, or is that too naive for a king and a princess?" he asked.
I smiled, but this time it was sad. "I tried love once; it betrayed me."
"Griffin is a worthless thing, Meredith, unworthy of such depth of emotion, and certainly incapable of returning it."
"I found that out, eventually," I said. "Love is grand while it lasts, Sholto, but it doesn't last."
We looked at each other. I wondered if my eyes were as tired and full of regret as his.
"Am I supposed to argue with you, and tell you some love does last?" Sholto asked.
"Are you going to?"
He smiled, and shook his head. "No."
I held my hand out to him. "No lies, Sholto, not even the pretty ones." His hand was very warm wrapped around mine. "Let me take you to bed, and see what I'm bargaining for."
He let me lead him toward the bed. "Do I get to see what I'm bargaining for?"
I pulled him backward toward the bed so I could watch his face. "If you like."
A look passed through his eyes that was neither sidhe, nor human, nor sluagh, but simply male. "I like," he said.
Chapter 12
I LET GO OF HIS HAND SO I COULD CRAWL ONTO THE BED, STILL WORKING backward so I could watch him. I took the gun out of my waistband and slid it under one of the pillows, then lay back in the middle of the bed, propping myself up on my elbows. Sholto stood beside the bed looking at me. He had a strange half-smile on his face. His eyes looked uncertain, not unhappy, just uncertain.
"You look terribly pleased with yourself," he said.
"It's never a bad thing to see a handsome man naked for the first time."
His smile vanished. "Handsome? I've never had anyone who knew what lay under the shirt call me that before."
I let my gaze speak for me. I lingered over his face, the eyes, the strong, nearly perfect nose, the thin wide mouth. The rest of the body looked wonderful, but I knew at least part of what I was looking at was magically enhanced. I just didn't know how much. But I kept my gaze on the parts that I was pretty sure were real, like the slender width of his hips, the strong length of legs. Until I saw him without the pants I wasn't sure what the bulge in the pants was, so I passed that by in mind as well as by eye. The queen was right, it was a shame; he truly was magnificent.
"I've fantasized about a sidhe woman looking at me like that." He still looked too solemn.
"Like what?" I asked. I made the question low, sexual, teasing.
That made him smile. "Like I'm something to eat."
I smiled, and made it everything he wanted it to be, everything he needed it to be. "Eat, eh. Lose the coat, and the shirt, and maybe we'll get to that."
"No sex tonight remember," he said.
"How about just no orgasm?"
He threw back his head and laughed, a loud, joyous sound. He looked at me with shining eyes, and it wasn't magic that made them glitter, just laughter. He looked younger, more relaxed. I realized that with his white hair and skin, those gold eyes, that he'd be welcomed at the Seelie Court. If he could keep his shirt on they'd never suspect.
The laughter faded rou
nd the edges. "Now you look solemn," he said.
"I was just thinking that you look more Seelie Court than I do."
He frowned. "You mean the blood auburn hair?"
"And my lack of height, and the breasts are a little too plentiful for sidhe style."
He grinned then, wide and sudden. "It has to be the women who are complaining about the breasts. No man would dream of it."
That made me smile. "You're right. My mother, my aunt, my cousins."
"They're just jealous," he said.
"Pretty to think so," I said.
He let the grey overcoat fall to the floor, then undid a button of his cuff. He watched my face while he did it. He undid the other sleeve, and moved to the first shirt button, the second, fanning the cloth to expose a triangle of white, gleaming skin. A third button, and the first swell of chest muscle came into view. His fingers went to the fourth button, but he didn't undo it. "I would ask for a kiss now, before you see."
I would have asked why, but I thought I knew. He was afraid that once I saw all of him, he wouldn't get his kiss.
I crawled across the bed toward him. Sholto put his hands on the bed and lowered himself to his knees. He moved down until his chin was nearly touching the bed, his hands flat on the bedspread.
I stayed on all fours above him. He gazed up at me, and I lowered my face toward his in a sort of push-up position. I gave him his kiss. A soft brush of lips and Sholto started to pull away. I touched his face gently. "Not yet," I said.
Sholto was right, once I saw all his "extras" he might not get another kiss. If it was the only touch of sidhe hands that he would ever know, I wanted it to be memorable. A kiss couldn't make up for not having ever felt the touch of sidhe flesh, but it was all I could offer. In his own way he was as alone as Uther.
Sholto laid his chin back on the bed, rolling his eyes up at me. He waited for me patiently, totally passive, waiting for me to do whatever I was going to do. In that instant I had another question answered. If I was going to tie myself to any one person for a lifetime, we'd have to have more in common than just sidhe blood. He'd have to share my love of pain.
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