Kitto stared up at the tall dark man. “I don’t understand.”
I touched his face, turned his eyes back to me. “Does it matter, does anything matter except the scent of my skin?” I put my wrist next to his face, then slid my arm slowly, just above his lips, so that our bodies touched here and there. I ended on my knees by the bed, taking my other arm behind his head to bring his face close to the upper part of my free arm, just below the shoulder. During sex, biting is great, even some bloodletting; but this was cold, and I wasn’t ready for it. This was going to hurt, so I preferred it be somewhere with some cushioning, some meat.
His pupils had gone to thin black slits. There was a stillness to him, but it was not static. It was a stillness full of so many things, eagerness, need, and hunger, a terrible blind hunger. Something in that moment, as he watched the white flesh of my shoulder, reminded me his father was not just a goblin, but a snake goblin. Kitto was becoming warm and so terribly mammalian, yet something of that reptilian stillness was in him. He was still a small version of a sidhe warrior; but watching his body tense, I was reminded of a snake about to strike. For a moment, I was afraid of him, then he was moving in a blur of speed, and I fought with myself not to flinch away.
It was like being hit in the arm with a baseball bat, like being bitten by a large dog. It was the impact that startled, but it didn’t exactly hurt, not right away. Blood poured from his lips down my arm. He worried at it like a dog trying to break the neck of a rat, and I cried out.
I slumped down the side of the bed, away from him, and he stayed at my shoulder, teeth dug into my flesh. Blood dripped onto my chest, staining the white bra.
I drew my breath from deep inside my body, but I didn’t scream. He was a goblin; screaming and fighting back just drove them to blood lust. I blew my breath soft upon his face. He stayed locked on my arm, eyes closed, face enraptured. I blew one quick hard breath in his face the way you do on small pets when they bite. Most things don’t like having you blow in their face, especially on their eyes.
It made him open his eyes. I watched Kitto flow back into those eyes, watched him fill back up, while the animal receded. He let go of my arm.
I slumped back against the dresser, and the pain was sharp and immediate. I had the urge to curse him soundly, but staring up into his face, I couldn’t.
Blood covered his mouth like lipstick gone wild. It dripped down his chin, stained his throat. His eyes were focused, and he was himself again, but he still ran that narrow forked tongue across tiny bloodstained teeth. He rolled back onto the bed and basked in the afterglow.
I just sat on the floor and bled.
Doyle knelt behind me with a small towel in his hands. He raised my arm, wrapping the towel around it, not so much to stop the bleeding, but to catch the blood and keep it from getting all over everything.
The scent of flowers filled the air, pleasant but strong. Doyle glanced up at the mirror. “Someone is asking permission to speak through the mirror.”
“Who is it?”
“I am not sure. Niceven, perhaps.”
I looked at my bloody arm. “Is this a good enough show?”
“If you do not show pain while we bind the wound, yes.”
I sighed. “Great. Help me sit on the edge of the bed.” He lifted me in his arms and sat me on the bed. “I didn’t need that much help.”
“My apologies. I didn’t know how hurt you might be.”
“I’ll live.” I took the towel and held it on the wound. Kitto curled around me, his face still bloodstained. He’d kicked off all the sheets, so that with his body pressed up against mine you couldn’t see his short-shorts from the mirror. He’d look naked. He writhed against me, his forked tongue licking the blood from his lips, and further around his mouth. His hands stroked along my waist and hips.
Kurag could say what he wished, but taking flesh this way was sex for the goblins.
“Answer them, Doyle, then get me something to stop the blood.”
He smiled and gave a small bow. He motioned and the mirror sprang to life showing a hook-nosed man with skin the color of bluebells.
It was Hedwick, King Taranis’s social secretary. Not only was he not Niceven, but he was so not going to appreciate the show.
Chapter 26
HEDWICK DIDN’T EVEN LOOK OUT FROM THE MIRROR. HE WAS reading down a list, face half-averted. “Greetings to Princess Meredith NicEssus from the High King Taranis Thunderer. This is to inform you of a pre-Yule ball three days hence. His majesty looks forward to seeing you there.”
During the speech, he had not looked out at the room. His hand was actually reaching out to cleanse the mirror when I spoke.
I said the one word he probably didn’t expect to hear. “No.”
His hand went down, and he looked up into the room with a cross look on his face. The look gave way to astonishment, then disgust. Maybe it was watching Kitto writhe on the bed. Maybe it was me being splattered with blood. Whatever, he didn’t like the show.
“You are Princess Meredith NicEssus, are you not?” His voice dripped with disdain, as if he found it hard to believe.
“Yes.”
“Then we will see you at the ball.” Again his hand went up to cleanse the mirror.
“No,” I said again.
He lowered his hand and scowled at me. “I have quite a few invitations to make today, Princess, so I do not have time for histrionics.”
I smiled, but could feel my eyes going hard. But underneath the anger was pleasure. Hedwick had always been an officious little bootlicker, and I knew that he gave the invitations to all the lesser fey, lesser people. Another sidhe handled all the important social contacts. That Hedwick had extended the invitation was an insult; the way he’d given it was a double insult.
“I’m not the least bit hysterical, Hedwick. I cannot accept the invitation as it stands.”
He bristled, his fingers going to his fluffy white cravat. He was dressed as if the 1700s had never passed. At least he wasn’t wearing a wig. For that I was grateful.
“The high king himself commands your presence, Princess.” He sounded like he always did, as if it was the utmost honor to toady for the king.
“I am Unseelie and I have no high king,” I said.
Doyle knelt at my feet with a small basket of medical supplies. We’d started keeping them near at hand, though the bites from the other guards were usually nowhere near this bad.
Hedwick’s gaze flicked down to Doyle, then up to me with a frown. “You are a Seelie princess.”
Doyle moved around me so that he was on the side with the wound. He took the towel, applying direct pressure with it.
I took a slightly sharper breath as he pressed the cloth very firmly into the bite, but other than that my voice was normal. I sounded all business as Doyle tended my wound and Kitto writhed against me.
“It was agreed that my title in the Unseelie Court super-cedes my Seelie title. Now that I am heir to the Unseelie throne I can no longer acknowledge my uncle as high king. For me to acknowledge the title might imply that he was also high king of the Unseelie, and that is not true.”
Hedwick was clearly perplexed. He was good at following orders, flattering those above him, and playing errand boy. I was forcing him to think. He wasn’t used to having to do anything that complex.
He smoothed his cravat again, and finally, looking a great deal less sure of himself, he said, “As you like. Then King Taranis commands your presence at the ball three days hence.”
Doyle’s gaze flicked up to my face at that. I smiled and gave a small shake of my head. I’d caught it.
“Hedwick, the only royal who can command my presence is the Queen of Air and Darkness.”
He shook his head stubbornly. “The king can command the presence of anyone of lesser title than he, and you are not a queen yet—” He stressed the yet. “—Princess Meredith.”
Doyle opened the towel to see if my wound had stopped bleeding. Apparently it had, because
he got some antiseptic to clean the wound.
“If I was King Taranis’s royal heir, then he could command me, but I am not his heir. I am Queen Andais’s heir. Only she can command me, because only she outranks me.”
Hedwick flinched at the mention of the queen’s true name. All the Seelie were like that, never invoking her true name, as if afraid it would call her to them.
“Are you saying that you outrank the king?” He sounded truly outraged.
Doyle began to clean the wound with soft gauze; even so, the little touches sent tiny shock waves of pain through my arm. I gritted my teeth a little and fought not to show it. “I am saying that order of rank in the Seelie Court has no meaning for me anymore, Hedwick. When I was merely a princess of the Unseelie Court, I could also have had the same rank at the Seelie Court. But I am to be queen. I cannot have a lesser rank in any other court if I am to rule.”
“There are queens aplenty in the court who acknowledge Taranis as their high king.”
“I am aware of that, Hedwick, but they are part of the Seelie Court, and they are not sidhe. I am part of the Unseelie Court and I am sidhe.”
“You are niece to the King,” he said, still trying to think his way through the political maze I’d thrown up around him.
“So nice of someone to remember that, but it would be as if Andais had called Eluned and asked her for acknowledgment as her high queen.”
“Princess Eluned has no ties to the Unseelie Court.” Hedwick sounded terribly offended.
I sighed, and it went sharp as Doyle finished cleaning the wound. “Hedwick, try to understand this. I will be Queen of the Unseelie Court. I am royal heir. King Taranis cannot command me to do anything or to appear anywhere, because I am not his royal heir.”
“Are you refusing to appear at the king’s command?” He still looked like he didn’t trust his own ears. He had to have misheard something.
“The king has no right to command me, Hedwick. It would be like him having you call the president of the United States with a command to appear.”
“You grow above your station, Meredith.”
I let the anger show on my face. “And you no longer seem to know what yours is, Hedwick.”
“You truly are refusing the king’s command?” Astonishment showed through his voice, his face, his posture.
“Yes, because he is not my king, and cannot command anyone outside his own kingdom.”
“Are you saying you renounce all titles that you hold in the Seelie Court?”
Doyle touched my arm, made me look at him. His gaze said, careful here.
“No, Hedwick, and for you to say such a thing is deliberately insulting. You are a minor functionary, a message carrier, nothing more.”
“I am the king’s social secretary,” he said, trying to pull himself up to every inch of his small height, even though he was sitting down.
“You carry messages to lesser fey and to humans of no great account. All the important invitations go through Rosmerta, and you know it. Sending his invitation through you and not her was an insult.”
“You do not merit the attentions of the Duchess Rosmerta.”
I shook my head. “Your message is incomplete, Hedwick. You’d best go back to your master and learn a new one. One that has a chance of being well received.”
I nodded at Doyle. He stood and blanked the mirror in the middle of Hedwick’s sputtering. Doyle smiled, almost grinned at me. “Well done.”
“You just insulted the King of Light and Illusion,” Rhys said. He looked pale.
“No, Rhys, he insulted me, and more than that. If I had accepted such a command from Taranis, it could have been interpreted that when I gain the Unseelie throne, I would acknowledge him as high king over the Unseelie as well as the Seelie.”
“Could it have been the secretary’s error?” Frost asked. “Could he simply have used the same words with you as everyone on his list?”
“Perhaps, but if so, it was still an insult.”
“Insult, maybe. But, Merry, we can swallow a few insults to stay out of the king’s bad graces,” Rhys said. He sat down on the far end of the bed as if his knees were weak.
“No, we cannot,” Doyle said.
We all looked at him. “Don’t you see, Rhys? Merry will rule Taranis’s rival kingdom. She must set the rules now, or he will forever treat her as less. For the sake of all of us, she must not appear weak.”
“What will the king do?” Frost asked.
Doyle looked at him, and they had one of those long looks. “In absolute truth, I do not know.”
“Has anyone ever defied him like this?” Frost asked.
“I don’t know,” Doyle said.
“No,” I said.
They looked at me.
“Just as you walk around Andais like she’s a snake about to strike, you tiptoe around Taranis the same way.”
“He does not seem as frightening as the queen,” Frost said.
I shrugged, and it hurt, so I stopped. “He’s like a big spoiled child who’s had his own way for far too long. If he doesn’t get what he wants, he throws tantrums. The servants and lackeys live in fear of those tantrums. He’s been known to accidentally kill in one of his rages. Sometimes he’s sorry, sometimes he’s not.”
“And you just threw a steel gauntlet into his face,” Rhys said, staring at me from the end of the bed.
“One thing I always noticed about Taranis’s temper was that it never struck out at anyone powerful. If he was in this uncontrollable rage, then why was it always directed at people who were powerless to fight back? Always, his victims were either magically inferior, or politically inferior, or people with no strong allies among the sidhe.” I shook my head. “No, Rhys, he always knows who he’s lashing out at. It’s not mindless. He won’t hurt me, because I stood my ground. He’ll respect me, and maybe begin to worry about me.”
“Worry about you?” Rhys asked.
“He fears Andais and even Cel, because Cel’s crazy and Taranis isn’t sure what he’ll do once he’s got the throne. Taranis was probably thinking he could control me. Now he’ll begin to wonder.”
“It is interesting that this invitation comes after we have spoken to Maeve Reed,” Doyle said.
I nodded. “Yes, isn’t it.”
The three of them exchanged glances. Kitto just stayed wound around me, quieter now. “I do not think it would be wise for Meredith to attend this ball,” Frost said.
“I agree,” Doyle said.
“Unanimous,” Rhys said.
I looked at them. “I don’t intend to go. But why are you all looking so serious?”
Doyle sat down on the far side of me, forcing Kitto to scoot back a little. “Is Taranis as good a political thinker as you are?”
I frowned. “I don’t know. Why?”
“Will he think you refused for the true reasons, or will he wonder if you refused because of something Maeve said to you?”
I still hadn’t told them Maeve’s secret, and they had not asked. They probably assumed that she had made me give my word not to tell them, which she hadn’t. The reason I hadn’t shared it was because it was the kind of knowledge that could get you killed. And now, suddenly, out of the blue, was the invitation to court. Shit.
I looked at Doyle and the others. Frost had moved over to lean against the dresser, arms crossed. Rhys was still on the bed. Kitto curled against me. I looked at each in turn.
“I wasn’t going to tell you what Maeve told me, because it’s dangerous information. I thought we’d just avoid the Seelie Court altogether, and it wouldn’t matter. Taranis hasn’t sent me an invitation to anything for years. But if we are going to have to deal with him, then you need to know.”
I told them why Maeve had been exiled. Rhys just put his head in his hands and said nothing. Frost stared. Even Doyle was speechless. It was Kitto who said it. “Taranis has condemned his people.”
“If he is truly infertile, then, yes, he has doomed them all to death as a pe
ople,” Doyle said.
“Their magic dies because their king is sterile, dead soil,” Frost said.
“It is what I believe Andais fears for the Unseelie. But she has borne one child, and Taranis has always been childless.”
“So that’s why she’s so interested in Cel or me breeding,” I said.
Doyle nodded. “I believe so, though she has kept her own counsel on her exact motives in pitting you and Cel against each other.”
“Taranis will kill us all.” Rhys’s voice was quiet, but very certain.
We all looked at him. It was beginning to feel like a very confused tennis match, looking from person to person.
He raised his face from his hands. “He has to kill everyone who knows he’s sterile. If the other Seelie find out that he’s condemned them, they will demand he make the great sacrifice and his blood will be spread to recover their fertility.”
Looking into Rhys’s bleak face, it was hard to argue, especially since I’d thought the same thing.
“Then why is Maeve Reed alive and well?” Frost asked. “Julian has told us there have been no attempts on her life, none whatsoever.”
“I can’t explain it,” Rhys said. “Maybe it’s because she has no way to tell anyone else in faerie. We’ve met with her, but she can’t talk to anyone else who isn’t already in exile. Meredith is not in exile, and she can talk to people who would matter. People who would believe her and act on it.”
We all sort of sat there, thinking. Doyle broke the silence. “Frost, call Julian and tell him that there may be trouble.”
“I cannot tell him why,” Frost said.
“No,” Doyle said.
Frost nodded and went out into the other room to call on the phone.
I looked at Doyle. “Have you talked to anyone else about this?”
“Only Barinthus,” he said.
“The bowl of water on the altar,” I said.
Doyle nodded. “He was once the ruler of all the seas around our islands, so contacting him by water is nearly undetectable.”
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