Seduced by Moonlight mg-3

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  Kitto said, in a small voice, "I'm afraid."

  I understood then. Anger, lust, all sorts of emotions could make the magic flare, but fear, strangely, could kill it. It depended on the kind of fear. If it was that mind-numbing, panic-inducing kind of terror, you just couldn't concentrate around it. But a little fear could help you bring it on, and sometimes your greatest fears could manifest your greatest powers. Still, especially at the beginning, when the magic was new, you never knew which way fear would work for you.

  Kitto couldn't draw his magic because he was scared to death of Kurag and Creeda. He was too terrified to think clearly, let alone do magic.

  I cupped his face in my hands. "I understand." I glanced behind me at Rhys, and sighed. Rhys had played a good game up to now, but that one forceful hug was the most physical interaction he'd had with Kitto. Asking Rhys to help me do what amounted to foreplay with Kitto was asking too much. My white knight, as Kurag put it, had done his duty for the day.

  With his face still cupped in my hands, I laid a gentle kiss on Kitto's mouth.

  "What's this?" Kurag asked.

  I raised my face enough to see his face. "I want Kitto to call his magic, but he fears you too much."

  "What use to the goblins is such frail magic?"

  "In the beginning of your powers, you sometimes need help drawing them."

  Doyle added, "It is like any other weapon, Kurag. Someone new to the sword may hesitate in battle, or be unsure where to strike the blow."

  He frowned, settling into his big chair as if it were suddenly less comfortable. "I don't do magic, but if you say it's like a weapon, then so be it." I could tell by his face that he'd gotten our meaning, though.

  Creeda hopped back into the frame of the mirror. Kurag picked her up absently, as if she were a pet that had asked to be taken onto his lap. "Shine for us, Princess, shine for us," Creeda said in an eager voice that still held a touch of that high, mechanical whine.

  Kurag cuffed her gently on the side of the body. She rolled her eyes up to him. "What? You wanted me to make the little one shine."

  Looking at Kurag, fighting to keep his face neutral, I realized that it was one thing for Creeda to have her fun with Kitto, but another to include me. In that moment, I knew two things. One, I had the advantage of Kurag in any negotiations; two, the other goblins would notice, if they hadn't already, and they'd see it as a weakness. The goblins don't have a hereditary monarchy. You become king because you are strong enough to slay the old king. No Goblin King ever dies quietly in his sleep. They all feared Kurag, but if they sensed one weakness, they'd suspect there were others. Goblins, like sharks, sniff for blood.

  "Will the rest of us miss the show?" The male voice that had commented earlier spoke off camera again.

  Kurag sent a baleful look in the direction of whoever it was. "The princess doesn't do shows." He turned back to me. "Or has that changed since you got your harem?" He'd managed to get his face back into a belligerent blankness, using anger to hide whatever he was thinking.

  "To ease Kitto's fears, I will caress him."

  There were shouts and sounds from beyond the mirror. They were typically masculine sounds, and wouldn't have been out of place in most bars on a Saturday night.

  Kurag ignored them, as he should have, but the effort showed in his big hands, the set of his shoulders. His queen tensed, as if she were poised to leap to safety.

  "It will not be much of a show by goblin standards, or even by Unseelie standards, but I will ease his fears and open him to his magic."

  "I've seen him shine, Merry. I believe he's sidhe. I believe he has magic in him. But not the kind of magic that will help on a battlefield. And that is the only kind of magic we need."

  "You say that, Kurag," Doyle said, "because the goblins have never known any other kind of magic."

  "I say it because it is true." His eyes were more orange than yellow, colored with his anger.

  "Do you want to see him shine with the magic that could be yours, Kurag?" I asked, and I dropped my voice a little. I admit to using his attraction to me against him. If we could gain the goblins for near-permanent allies, we could keep most of our enemies at bay. For the lives of those I held dear, for the future of the Unseelie Court itself, I could manipulate a king.

  He gave a gruff nod. Creeda clapped her many hands together, those that had mates to clap, and bounced like a child on his lap.

  I looked at Kitto. I asked him with my eyes if he was ready. He mouthed, Yes. I kissed him gently on the mouth, not as foreplay but as a thank-you, and as an apology for making him do something he didn't want to do.

  I could feel the reluctance in his body and I was torn. I knew Kitto well enough to put him in the right mind-set quickly, but if I did it in front of the goblins they'd know how to do it, too. I knew how to make Kitto shine, because I was his lover and his friend. If I went slower and did more things, with the touches that were truly his favorites lost in many touches, then Creeda would not have the keys to his body. It would take longer, but I didn't want to help Creeda torment him. I would do my best to see that Creeda never got her hands on him, but I knew too much of royal politics to be certain I could keep him safe. You do not lightly refuse a queen, any queen.

  I made my decision, and drew Kitto into my arms.

  CHAPTER 4

  I sat on the edge of the bed with Kitto in my lap, his legs straddling my body as if I were the boy and he the girl. His shorts were stretched tight across the firm roundness of his buttocks, and my hands cupped that firm flesh through the cloth. I held him in my lap while my mouth explored his face, his neck, his shoulders. I bit gently at his shoulder, and he shuddered against me. Even through the cloth, I felt him grow firm. I kept one hand on his buttock, to keep him from falling, but the other I trailed up his back. I played on the rainbow scales on his back and found the line of naked skin that traced up his spine. I caressed a fingertip up that long, smooth line of skin, and it brought his breath shivering, flung back his head, put his face up to mine with his eyes closed and his lips half parted. But still he did not shine.

  He was beautiful as he sat in my lap, but there was only the magic of bare skin and delighted flesh. He did not glow with power.

  "Make him glow, make him glow!" Creeda cried, as if she had waited as long as she could to exclaim.

  At the sound of her voice, Kitto wilted, both with the slump of his shoulders and the lowering of his head, and the press of him against my stomach lessened. It was as if just the sound of her voice made him remember unpleasant things. The goblins do not see marriage vows the way we do, and both partners are allowed certain freedoms. Whatever child results from whatever liaison is raised by the married couple as their own. There's no shame or screams of being cuckold. Maybe that's why there's no hereditary monarchy. But whatever the custom, I hadn't known that Kitto had ever been Creeda's pet.

  Kurag said, "Hush, Creeda." But the damage was done.

  Kitto wrapped his legs around my waist like a child clinging for comfort. He hugged himself to me and buried his face against my shoulder.

  I looked up at Kurag. "I didn't know your queen knew Kitto that well."

  "She didn't."

  I patted Kitto's back and wasn't sure I believed him, but I couldn't think of a good reason for him to lie. "Then I don't understand his level of fear around her."

  "Creeda, like most of our women, is eager to try a goblin who is also sidhe. He will have his choice of females at the banquet." Kurag didn't look particularly happy about it, and I wasn't exactly sure why, but it didn't matter, not really.

  "Goblins will rape an enemy, or a prisoner, but they do not rape each other," I said.

  Kurag looked past me to Rhys. "Your pale prince knows just what we do to prisoners." He gave an ill-tempered leer, as if he was happy to be back on ground he enjoyed. He liked teasing Rhys.

  Rhys moved on the bed behind me. He'd been very still during the scene with Kitto. "I know I was a fool, Kurag. The princess
has told me that I could have saved myself a great deal of pain, if I'd known what to ask for."

  Kurag's leer faded into a frown. "A sidhe admitting he is a fool, it's a miracle."

  I glanced back just enough to catch Rhys's nod. "We are an arrogant race, but some of us can learn from our mistakes."

  "And what have you learned, pale prince?"

  "That before we arrive for any banquet at your court we'll be very clear on what can happen to us, and what can't. To all of us, including Kitto."

  "Now, that's arrogant," Kurag said. "No sidhe can deny the goblins access to another goblin."

  I added, "If Kitto doesn't want to be with the women, then he can say no."

  "I will have a taste of him," Creeda said.

  "Not if he says no," I said.

  "I will have him," she said, leaning toward the glass.

  Kitto cringed in against me. "Control your queen, Kurag," I said.

  "Why, she's one of hundreds who feel the same, Merry."

  I held Kitto closer. "He might not survive the attentions of hundreds of goblinesses."

  Kurag shrugged. "We're immortal. We heal."

  I shook my head, but it was Rhys who answered. "No, we won't give Kitto over to that."

  "He is mine," Kurag said, that grumbling roar trickling into his voice. "I have given him to Merry, but he is still mine. I am his king, and I say what will and what won't happen to him."

  "Kurag," I said, and when those nearly orange eyes were upon me, I continued. "I know your laws. You do not rape your own people, not unless they have broken some law and you have deemed it fit punishment for the crime."

  "There is one exception to the rule, Merry."

  I must have looked as puzzled as I felt. "I know of no exception to this rule." Silently, I thought, Except that to refuse your ruler is a dangerous thing.

  "I thought your father made sure you were versed in our ways."

  "So did I," I said, "but you do not force yourself on each other; there's no need. There is always some willing partner close at hand."

  "But if one of us sells his body for safety and shelter, then he gives up the right to refuse his body to anyone. Only his protector can dictate who can touch him, and who cannot."

  I was still frowning.

  Kurag sighed. "Merry, did you not wonder how I was so sure Kitto would go with you, and do what you wanted?"

  I thought about that, then answered, "No, if our queen had bid one of her guard go with me and do what I wanted, he'd have done it. It's not our law, but it's unhealthy to refuse the queen. I assumed that it was the same with your people."

  "I gave you Kitto because I knew his protector had grown tired of him. We are a hard people, Merry, but I had no desire to watch Kitto be torn apart if he could not find someone to take him in. A good king watches over all his people."

  I nodded. Kurag was crude, lecherous, ruled by his temper at times, but no one had ever accused him of not tending his people, all his people. It was one of the reasons that he'd never faced a serious challenge to his kingship. He was hard, but fair. Half his people feared him, and the other half loved him, because he kept them safe.

  "I didn't know that any goblin needed that kind of protection," I said. Kitto went very still against me, and I could almost smell his fear. Fear of what I'd think of him now.

  "The fate of a half-sidhe among us is not pretty, Merry. Most die young before they come into that famed sidhe magic. But there are many among us who long to have a sidhe in our bed. A lot of your half-breeds end up trading their flesh for safety."

  He was talking about prostitution, a concept unheard of among the fey, at least in faerie itself. Outside faerie, well, an exile has to make a living, and there were a few who made it that way. But even then, it was more a way to make the fey's usual joys pay off. We are a traditionally lusty lot, and sex is sex to some of us. No judgment, just truth. But the goblins did not even have a word for prostitute. A more alien concept for their society would have been hard to come by.

  "But there is always sex among the goblins. Don't most goblins think that one sexual partner is much like another?"

  Kurag shrugged. "All goblins are voracious lovers, Merry, but it is the addition of more tender meat to ours that has given rise to trullups. Those who cannot protect themselves, and have no other skills to offer. They are not craftsmen; they do not make anything, or sell anything. They have only one skill, so we allow them to trade that skill for what they need." He didn't look happy about it, as if it somehow offended him, offended his idea of how the world should run.

  "We would have killed such weaklings, but once they found shelter with someone who was strong enough to keep them safe, we had to let it bide."

  "There can't be many among you like this," I said.

  "No, but almost all of them are sidhe-sided." He glanced off to the side of the mirror. "Though not all sidhe-sided are weak." He made a motion, and two men stepped into view of the mirror. At first glance I would have taken them for sidhe, Seelie sidhe. They were both tall, slender, with long yellow hair, and handsome the way that the sidhe sometimes are, with full, generous mouths and a line from brow to cheek to chin that reminded me of Frost. Their skin was that delicate gold the Seelie Court calls sun-kissed. It's rare among them, unheard of among us. But a second glance and you saw the eyes, too large for the face, oblong like Kitto's, and a solid color that gave no white to the eye, only a dark round of pupil lost in a sea of green for one, and red for the other. The green was the color of summer grass. The red was the color of holly berries in deep winter. They were bulkier than sidhe, too, as if they'd done more weight lifting, or the goblin genetics allowed them to simply carry a little more muscle mass.

  "This is Holly and this is Ash. Twins left at our doorstep by some Seelie woman after the last great war. They are feared among us." For the King of the Goblins to say this in an introduction was the highest of praise for a goblin warrior —and something of a warning for us, I think.

  The one with the red eyes glared at us. The one with the green had a much more neutral look to him, as if he was still deciding whether to hate us. His brother seemed to have already made up his mind.

  "Greetings, Holly and Ash, one of the first among Kurag's warriors," I said.

  The green-eyed one answered, "Greetings, Meredith, Princess of the Sidhe, wielder of the hand of flesh. I am Ash." His voice was pleasantly neutral. He gave a small bow as he spoke.

  His brother turned to him and looked as if he'd strike him. "Do not bow to her. She is nothing to us. Not queen, not princess, nothing."

  Kurag was out of his chair and nearly on top of Holly before he could react. Holly actually put his hand on the knife at his belt, then hesitated. If he drew the blade, then Kurag could take it as mortal insult, and the fight would be to the death. Once he drew the blade, it was Kurag's choice. I had a second to see the confusion on his face, then Kurag's hand was a blur, and the younger goblin was on the floor near the chair. Blood flashed in the light like an odd crimson jewel on his golden skin. The blood was almost the same color as his eyes.

  "I am king here, Holly, and until you are goblin enough to say different, my word is law."

  Holly smeared the blood from his chin onto his sleeve and spoke, still sitting on the ground. "We are not trullups. We have done nothing by our laws that enables you to send us to her bed, to anyone's bed. We need no protectors for our flesh." He coughed and spat blood on the floor. It was an insult among the goblins, wasting blood. He should have drunk it. "We have proven ourselves goblins first, and sidhe not at all, yet you would trade us away to this pale sidhe. We have done nothing to deserve this."

  Kurag moved forward in a slow-motion stalk, as if every muscle fought against every other muscle. He wanted to tear Holly apart; it was plain on his face. We watched him try to master his rage.

  Ash made a small movement. I wasn't sure what he'd done, but it attracted the eye. The knife at his belt was still sheathed, but he'd done something.
>
  It was Doyle who called, "Kurag, this will be difficult enough without reluctant bed partners."

  Kurag looked up at us. "They are too young, Darkness, they do not remember what we were. If Holly understood what we once were, what we could be again, he would go eagerly."

  "Are most of your half-sidhes from the last great war?"

  Kurag nodded. "Most of the old ones are dead. Sidhe-sides didn't last long among us until we made them trullups."

  "We have never been trulls," Holly said.

  Ash stood almost smiling at Kurag's back, but one of his hands was hidden against the side of his body. Creeda was behind the throne, and I caught the flash of a blade held in her many hands, but not the hands on the side facing Ash. Had he drawn a blade? Whatever he'd done, Creeda didn't like it. Truthfully, neither did I.

  "Enough of this, Kurag," I said. "I will not force myself on anyone. If Holly does not want to be sidhe, then so be it."

  "But I want to be sidhe," Ash said in that easy voice that matched the slight smile, and left his green eyes empty and pleasant. He was a born politician, was Ash. His smile widened, but was somehow sad. "My brother and I have never disagreed on anything until this. But I will be sidhe, and Holly will, too."

  Creeda was almost close enough to be sure of what he held out of sight. He moved his hand into view. I saw Creeda tense. I felt Doyle and Rhys tense around me. Ash's hand was empty. But I would have bet almost anything that it hadn't been a second ago.

  My voice was a little breathy as I asked, "Come and be sidhe then, Ash. Why drag your brother if he is unwilling?"

  "Because I will it so," Ash said, and the pleasantness was replaced by an arrogance that you saw only on the face of a sidhe. Oh, yes, Ash was one of ours. He survived among the goblins, but he was ours.

  Holly was on his feet now, keeping the big wooden chair halfway between Kurag and himself. He had his back to us, so I couldn't see his face, but I heard his voice, something close to fear or some other harsh emotion I couldn't name. "Brother, do not do this to us. We do not need the shining ones. We are goblin, and that is better."