Seduced by Moonlight mg-3

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  The undersides of the wings were like dusty copies of the surface, with only the eyespots showing through with the same flashing brilliance of the surface. Thick brown hair like silken fur edged the base of the wings so that the line where the wings entered Nicca's back was hidden from me.

  Nicca kissed the edge of my cheek, but all I could see were his wings. He kissed his way down my cheek, and when I never looked at his face, he bit me, gently, along the neck. It brought a gasp from my throat, but not my gaze to his face. He moved lower onto my neck, and bit harder. Hard enough that my eyes closed and when my eyes opened, his face was before me.

  It was the same face as before, it was Nicca, yet it wasn't. There was a forcefulness to him, a demand in his eyes, his face, his lips. I stared into those brown eyes and saw that he wanted something. My pulse was frantic in my throat. I was afraid of the desire in his face. More than a want, though, it was need.

  He made a sound low in his throat. "I want to sink my teeth into you. I want to feed." He gripped my arms hard enough that it bruised, and his fear flashed in his eyes. "What is happening to me? What am I becoming?"

  "Is it food you want?" I heard myself ask the question, but didn't remember thinking of it. My pulse was slowing, and I felt calm, peaceful.

  Nicca shook his head. "No, not food, not drink." He shook me, then seemed to remember himself, and stopped. I watched him fight to relax his grip on my arms, but he didn't let me go. "I want you, Merry, you."

  "Sex?"

  "Yes, no." He frowned, then he yelled, one wordless sound of frustration. "I don't know what I want." Then he looked at me, puzzled. "I want you, but it's like you are food and drink and sex."

  I nodded and raised my hands until I cupped his arms. Even the skin of his elbows was soft. Had it been this soft before the wings came? I couldn't remember. It was as if I couldn't remember Nicca without the wings. As if he hadn't been real until they sprang from his back.

  "She is the Goddess," Doyle said from the doorway. "We all crave the touch of the divine."

  Through the unnatural calmness, I knew he was right. "I could make him into what the Goddess wants him to be, now, tonight."

  "But she is a goddess and you are mortal, and you need more sleep than she does," he said, striding into the room like some moving piece of the darkness itself. He walked to the far side of the bed and, after a moment's hesitation, bent down. He stayed kneeling by the bed, but a pressure I hadn't known was there eased. I could breathe again, and my pulse was back to its frantic dance. The fear returned with a flash of adrenaline that left me light-headed, but the fear faded almost as fast as it had come. Nicca blinked at me, looking confused. "What happened, just now? What happened?" He let go of my arms and moved back carefully onto the bed, having to move with care because of the wings.

  Doyle was still kneeling by the far side of the bed. "It seems the chalice has a mind of its own."

  "What do you mean?" I asked.

  "It had unwrapped itself and fallen underneath the bed."

  I walked around the bed to see that he had pulled the cup out from under the bed by the edge of the silk it still lay upon, but it was uncovered. "I wrapped it up, Doyle. Even if it had fallen over, it couldn't have unwrapped that neatly, not so that the silk was a perfect rectangle again."

  He gazed up at me, still on one knee, his finger and thumb still holding the silk corner. "As I said, Merry, the chalice has a mind of its own, but I would move it farther from the bed if I were you. Otherwise you will have a busy night every time one of us comes to you."

  I shivered. "What's happening, Doyle?"

  "The Goddess has decided to become busy among us once more, so it would seem."

  "Explain that," I said.

  He looked up at me. "The chalice has returned, and on the day of its return Her grace pours upon us once more. Cromm Cruach walks among us once more, as does Conchenn. Those of us who were gods are returning to our former glory, and some who were never gods are being visited with such powers as they never dreamt to have."

  "The Goddess is using Merry as a messenger," Rhys said. He frowned and shook his head. "No, Merry is like the flesh version of the chalice. It fills with grace and pours upon us."

  "I had nothing to do with you coming back into your powers," I said, hands on hips.

  Rhys smiled. "Maybe not."

  "You were in the room," Doyle said.

  I looked at him and shook my head. "No, Doyle, what happened with Maeve and Frost was different from what happened to Rhys."

  Doyle stood up, brushing his hands down the front of his unbuttoned jeans, as if he were wiping the feel of something off his fingers. Wiping what away? Power, magic, the feel of the silk? I almost asked, then Sage spoke.

  "Look at my eyes, Darkness. Look at my eyes, and see what our lovely Merry has done." Sage walked around the bed so Doyle could see the eyes up close.

  "Rhys told me that your eyes are tricolored."

  Sage's wings sagged a little, as if he were disappointed that his news had been spoiled. "I am sidhe now, Darkness, what do you think of that?"

  A smile curled Doyle's lips, a smile I hadn't seen before. If it had been anyone else, I'd have said it was a cruel smile. "Have you tried to grow small since it happened?"

  Sage frowned at him. "What does that matter?"

  Doyle shrugged, and that smile deepened. "Have you tried to shift your form since your eyes changed? It is a simple question."

  Sage went very still as he stood between Doyle and me, then I saw his wings shiver, like flowers caressed by a strong wind. He shivered once, twice, then he threw back his head and wailed. Wordless, speechless, a hopeless, wrenching sound.

  It wasn't until the last echoes of that scream faded from the room that I could move. "What's wrong?" I reached around his wings to touch his shoulder.

  He jerked away from me. "Do not touch me!" He was backing away, toward the door. Frost appeared in the door behind him, and Sage began to back away from him, too. It was as if he was afraid of all of us.

  "What's wrong?" I asked again.

  "Being sidhe comes with a price for those with wings," Doyle said, and there was a note of satisfaction in his voice. I'd always known there was some bitter history between the two of them, but I'd never realized just how bitter until that moment. I'd never seen Doyle be petty before.

  Sage pointed at Nicca, who was still kneeling on the bed. "He knows nothing of wings. He has never flown above a spring meadow, or tasted how sweet and clean the wind can be." He pounded his fist into his bare chest. "But I know! I know!"

  "I'm missing something," I said. "What difference does being sidhe mean for Sage?"

  "You have stolen my wings from me, Merry," he said, and there was a look on his face, of such unbearable loss, that I moved toward him. I had to hold him. Had to touch him. Had to try to take that look from his eyes.

  He held a pale yellow hand out toward me. "No, no more, Merry. I have had enough of the sidhe for one night."

  Rhys cleared his throat, and the noise seemed to startle Sage. He turned to find Rhys almost behind him, having walked across the room to stand near the mirror. Sage looked wildly around the room as if we'd trapped him and he was seeking a way out. It was true that Frost was near the only door, but he wasn't trapped. Not in any way that I understood.

  Sage pointed a finger at Nicca. "Do you know what we would call him if he had gotten his wings as a child?"

  Everyone gave their version of blank face, though it looked like everything from humor to arrogance. It was Rhys who said, "I give up. What would you call Nicca if he'd gotten his wings as a kid?"

  "Cursed." Sage spat the word as if it was the worst thing he could ever call anyone.

  "Cursed, how?" I asked.

  "He has wings but he cannot fly, Merry. He is too heavy for the wings of a moth to carry him aloft" —he smacked his fist into his chest—"as I am too heavy for mine now."

  "What's happened?" Galen asked from the doorway. He was rubbing
sleep from his eyes. His bedroom was the farthest away from this room.

  Before any of us could answer, Sage marched to him, brushing past Frost. "Look, look at what has become of me!"

  Galen gaped at Sage. "What... your eyes."

  Sage pushed past him, snarling one last phrase over his winged shoulder. "Wicked, wicked sidhe." And he was gone.

  CHAPTER 15

  "Rhys, go with him," Doyle said. "See that he comes to no harm."

  Rhys went without a word. He was still nude, as was Sage. I had a moment to hope that there wasn't anyone outside the wall with a night-vision camera. Then I realized that bad publicity was the least of our worries. The fact that I'd thought of it at all proved that I'd been too long away from faerie, too long out among the humans.

  "What harm could Sage come to?" I asked.

  "His own," Doyle said.

  "You mean he'll harm himself because he can't fly."

  Doyle nodded. "I have known other winged fey to let themselves fade and die when they lost their wings."

  "I meant him no harm."

  "The sidhe are at their most dangerous when they mean us no harm," Frost said, and his voice held a bitterness that I'd never heard before.

  "It's my night," Nicca said. He hadn't taken part in the conversation until now, and when I looked into his brown eyes what I saw tightened things low in my body. His need was so raw, and it wasn't the gentle need that he usually held, but something far more fierce.

  "Look at you," Doyle said. "You are still power-besotted. I think the chalice is not done with you yet, Nicca, and I fear what that would do to our Merry."

  Nicca shook his head, eyes still on me, as if nothing else were truly real. "My night."

  Galen had come into the room and was gazing at Nicca's wings. "Wow, that's new."

  "There are many things new tonight," Doyle said, and he sounded wary.

  Nicca ignored them all. "My night." He held his hand out to me.

  "No," Doyle said, and he took my hand and led me back away from the bed.

  "She's mine tonight," Nicca said, and for a moment I thought we'd see a fight, or at least an argument.

  "Technically, it was Rhys's night," Doyle said, "and you have both had your pleasure."

  "If Rhys has had his night," Frost said, "then it is your night, Doyle."

  Nicca balled his hands into fists. "No, we aren't finished." And his voice was like something that should call you from deep within the ground. He might have had wings, but his energy was all earth.

  Doyle moved me behind him so that he formed a barrier between me and Nicca where he still knelt on the bed, those wings draped behind him like some magical cloak. "Listen to yourself, Nicca. I do not know what the Goddess has planned for you, but until we are sure it will not harm Merry, we will be cautious. Your godhead, or whatever, is not worth our Merry's life."

  I peeked around Doyle's smooth dark arm and watched Nicca fight for control. It was as if something else wanted this, and that something else didn't necessarily care what Nicca wanted, or did not want.

  He ended up on all fours, those wings flowing back along his body. His hair spilled across his face and over the foot of the bed like thick brown water. He took a breath that trembled along his back, shivered the rainbows of his wings. He raised his face up to the light with a look almost of pain, but he nodded. "Doyle's right, Doyle's right," he muttered over and over, as if to convince not just himself but whatever was riding him.

  Doyle stepped forward and laid a gentle hand against Nicca's face. "I am sorry, my brother, but Merry's safety must come first."

  Nicca nodded, almost as if he was unaware that Doyle had touched him. His eyes weren't focused on anything in the room.

  Doyle moved back from the bed, using his body to move me backward, as if he still didn't trust Nicca. "No one who has not become a god can sleep with Merry until we understand what the chalice and the Goddess want."

  "That means only Frost and Rhys," Galen said. He didn't sound happy.

  "Only Frost until we know for certain how much power Rhys has recaptured," Doyle clarified.

  "Not as much power as I'd hoped," Rhys said from the doorway. "Sage rolled me like a wino on Saturday night."

  "Where is Sage?" I asked.

  "It seems Conchenn was attracted by all the power. She's comforting our newest sidhe."

  "I thought he'd had enough sidhe for one night," Galen said.

  Rhys shrugged. "Conchenn can be very persuasive."

  "How desperate she must be to take him into herself," Frost said.

  "I don't know," I said. "She's made it pretty plain over the last two weeks that she'd love to have any of us in her bed."

  "She's had us in her bed," Doyle said.

  I looked at him with raised eyebrows. "Only to hold her while she cried herself to sleep, Doyle. That's not the kind of bed I mean."

  Doyle gave a ghost of a smile. "When Maeve's grief began to abate she did make it... plain that she would have taken more active comfort."

  I wondered at that smile! Perhaps Maeve had been more "active" in her attempts to seduce my Darkness than I'd known.

  Rhys snorted. "Well, she's getting very active comfort right now."

  "You don't understand," Frost said, "none of you."

  "What don't we understand?" I asked, looking up into that coldly handsome face.

  "How great her need must be to take Sage."

  "He's sidhe now. Whether it's permanent, I don't know, but for tonight he's sidhe."

  "It will be permanent," Frost said.

  I frowned up at him. "No," I said, "you can be made sidhe for a night through magic, like Branwyn's Tears, but you're either born sidhe or you're not."

  "That is not true," Frost said.

  I had a sudden image of him as the beautiful child dancing across the snow. I had no problem with someone who had begun "life" as something other than flesh becoming sidhe. It seemed somehow right. But lesser fey, or humans, did not suddenly become sidhe. They just didn't.

  "Once we brought sidhe to us like harvesting the fruits of the forest," Frost said. "They simply came to us."

  "My father never spoke of such a thing." I didn't mean to imply that I didn't believe him, but doubt was in my voice.

  "It was two thousand years, or more, ago," Doyle said. "We lost such abilities with the first weirding. Many of us refuse to speak of things that are truly lost."

  "I think it is not so lost as we've been led to believe," Frost said.

  "No one has deceived us," Doyle said.

  Frost gave him a long look. "It was the Seelie Court that lost us the chalice, Doyle. They who stripped us of much of what we were."

  Doyle shook his head. "I will not have this argument with you, or any of you," he said, looking at Rhys and Galen.

  Galen held his hands out wide. "I've never had this argument with anyone."

  "You're too young," Doyle said.

  "Then can you explain it for those of us under five hundred?"

  Doyle gave a small smile. "Most of the great relics that simply vanished were Seelie relics. The Unseelie relics remained, though lessened in power. Some believed that the Seelie court angered the Goddess, or the God, to lose such favor."

  "We believed that they had done something so terrible that the face of deity turned from them," Frost said.

  I looked at him. "I assume you believe that."

  He nodded, and his face was like some beautiful sculpture, too handsome to be real, too arrogant to touch. He had retreated behind the cold mask he'd used for centuries in the Unseelie Court. I understood now that it was a form of protection, camouflage, if you will, to keep his pain hidden. I'd peeled back some of those layers and found what he'd hidden. Unfortunately, we seemed stuck at the moody, pain-exploration stage. I was looking forward to drilling through to another layer. There had to be more to him than mood. There had to be, didn't there?

  "Many believe that," he said.

  Doyle shrugged. "I know only th
at we diminished, and we came to the Western Lands. Beyond that, I know nothing for certain." He gave Frost a fierce look. "And neither do you."

  Frost opened his mouth to speak, but Doyle cut him off with a gesture. "No, Frost, we will not reopen this wound. Not tonight. Is it not enough that you will share her body until we are sure the rest of us are safe?"

  "I'm going back to bed," Rhys said, and it was abrupt enough that we all looked at him. "I want no part of this old argument, and after Sage's glamour took me so easily, I don't trust that I am truly Cromm Cruach. If I am not a god, then I'm too dangerous to be around Merry." He blew me a kiss. "Good night, sweet princess, we have to pack in the morning and catch a plane to St. Louis. So don't all of you stay up talking all night." He wagged a finger at us and left.

  Galen looked at all of us. "I might as well go, too." He gave me a look of such pain. "Whatever is happening, I hope we clear it up soon."

  I called after him, "Check on Kitto. This much noise should have woken him."

  He nodded and left, carefully not looking back, as if he didn't want to see.

  "To your room as well, Nicca," Doyle said.

  "I am not a child to be sent to my room, Doyle."

  We all blinked at him, because Nicca never spoke back to Doyle— really, to anyone. "It seems you have gained nerve with your wings," Doyle said.

  Nicca gave him a very unfriendly look. "If you leave with me, then I will go."

  "Are you implying that Doyle is trying to get rid of you so he can have me to himself?" I asked.

  Nicca just kept that unfriendly look on Doyle.

  Frost came out of his deep funk long enough to look at Nicca. "Nicca, it is I who ask Doyle to stay."

  Nicca sent that dark look to Frost. "Why?"

  "Because I trust him to keep Meredith safe."

  Nicca crawled off the bed and stood before us, very straight, a slender, muscled brown vision framed with a fall of thick wild hair, and those wings. The wings seemed to fascinate me more than they should. It wasn't that they weren't lovely, but they drew my eye, my attention. Something wanted me to touch them, to roll myself along the brilliance of them, and cover my body in the brush of multicolored dust.