The hands eased my arms back from the pain; now they were just something to hang on to.
"Hmm," Kurag said, "that was well done, Merry. You are indeed your father's daughter."
"High praise indeed coming from you, Kurag." I stepped back from him and stumbled. The hands steadied me, allowing me to lean back against the chest that went with them. I knew who it was before I turned my head to see. Doyle stared down at me as I leaned against his body, hands still clinging to him.
I mouthed the words, "Thank you," to him.
He gave a small nod of his head. He made no move to let me go, and I made no move to leave the press of his body. I was terribly afraid if I did step away from him or let go of his hands, I would fall. But it was also in that moment I felt safe. I knew that if I fell, he would catch me.
"My blood is in your body and yours in mine, Kurag," I said. "Blood kin we are until the next moon."
Kurag nodded. "Your enemies, my enemies. Your beloved, my beloved." He took a step closer, looming over me, even over Doyle. "We are blood allies for a moon's space of time, if..."
I stared up at him. "What do you mean if? The ritual is complete."
Kurag raised his three eyes and stared at Doyle. "Your Darkness knows what I mean."
"He is still the queen's Darkness," I said.
Kurag's eyes flicked down to me, then back to Doyle. "It's not the queen's hands he's holding."
I started to pull away from Doyle, but he tightened his grip on my hands. I forced myself to relax against his body. "It's none of your business what Doyle holds of mine, Kurag."
Kurag's eyes narrowed. "Is he your new consort? I heard rumor that that was why you were coming back to the court, to choose a new consort."
I wrapped Doyle's hands around my waist. "I have no consort." I leaned more solidly into Doyle's arms. He stiffened for a second, and then I felt his body relax one muscle at a time until he rested like a heavy warmth around me. "But you might say I'm shopping around."
"Good, good," Kurag said.
I felt Doyle tense, though I doubt anyone watching could have told a difference. I was missing something here. But what?
"No consort means I can demand one more thing or the alliance is broken."
"Do not do this, Kurag," Doyle said.
"I invoke the right of flesh," Kurag said.
"He has taken your blood under false pretenses," Frost said. "He knows who your enemies are, and the goblin king fears them."
"Do you call Kurag, Goblin King, a coward?" Kurag asked.
Frost tucked the little goblin he was holding under one arm, leaving his other hand free, but still bare of weapon. "Yes, I name you coward, if you hide behind flesh."
"What is the right of flesh?" I asked. I started to step away from Doyle, but his arms tightened. I looked up at him. "What is going on, Doyle?"
"Kurag is trying to hide his cowardice behind a very old ritual."
Kurag grinned at them both. Call anyone a coward at any of the courts and you ended up righting a duel. Kurag was being much too reasonable. "I fear no sidhe," he said. "I invoke flesh not to avoid her enemies, Guardsmen, but to truly join my flesh with hers."
"You are already wed," Frost said. "Adultery is a crime among the sidhe."
"But not among the goblins," Kurag said. "So my marital status makes no difference here, only hers."
I pushed away from Doyle. The movement was too sudden. I swayed, and Fflur's hand on my elbow saved me from falling. "I am going to bind your wrists now," she said.
I couldn't really argue. "Thank you," I said to her. As she began to dress my wrists I turned back to the men. "Someone, please, explain what he is talking about."
"Glad to," Kurag said. "If your enemy is mine and I must help you defend yourself against powerful forces, then my beloved must truly be your beloved. We will share flesh as we shared blood."
"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 cannot be undone, until it is answered."
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 cannot have sex with our Merry, then I would rather not honor the alliance." His lopsided multi-eyed face suddenly seemed serious, even intelligent. I realized for the first time that Kurag was neither as stupid as he acted, nor as ruled by his glands as he pretended to be. There was a moment of absolute shrewdness in those three yellow eyes. A look so intent, so different than a moment ago, that it made me step back, as if he'd tried to strike me. Because underneath that so serious look was something else-fear.
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 running through his body like a near-visible current of anger. Finally, he said, "Her life," but it was spat out as if it were something bitter.
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.
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 cannot offer you my blood without gaining in return."
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 grinned. "Six."
"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.
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