Meredith Gentry 01 - A Kiss of Shadows

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  I’d known how much I missed the touch of another sidhe, but until this moment I hadn’t realized how much. If Griffin had been in the other room, I’d have gone to him. I might have driven a knife through his heart in the morning, but tonight, I’d have gone to him.

  I heard Roane in the doorway behind me but didn’t turn. I didn’t want to see him standing there. I wasn’t sure my abused strength of will could take it. The front of the dress was ripped, ruined, but I still couldn’t get the zipper myself. “Could you, please, unzip me?” My voice sounded strangled as if the words had to be pulled from my lips. I think because what I wanted to say was, “Take me, you rowdy beast,” but that lacked a certain dignity and Roane deserved better than to be left craving something he could never touch again. I could drop my glamour and sleep with him after this night, but every night he touched me in true form would only draw the addiction tighter.

  He unzipped me, hands moving up to help slide the dress from my shoulders. I jerked away from him. “My skin is soaked with the Tears. Don’t touch me.”

  “Even with the gloves on?” he asked.

  I’d forgotten about the surgical gloves. “No, I guess with the gloves you’ll be safe enough.”

  He lifted the cloth off my shoulders, slowly, carefully, as if he were afraid to touch me. I slipped my arms out, but the cloth was so thick with oil that the dress wouldn’t slide. It clung to me like a thick, heavy hand, sucking against my skin as I peeled it down my body. Roane helped me pull the wet cloth over my hips, kneeling so I could step out of it. I was unsteady on the high heels and cursed softly that I hadn’t taken them off sooner. I’d closed my eyes so I wouldn’t see him as he helped me undress. I touched his shoulder to steady myself on the high heels and nearly fell anyway because my hand touched bare skin.

  I opened my eyes and found him kneeling in front of me, nude except for the gloves. I stumbled back from him so violently that I ended up in the tub, on my ass, one hand held out in front of me to ward him off. I was sitting in about an inch of water and fumbled for the faucets to turn the water off. Though I might have been better off leaving it on and crawling under it.

  Roane was laughing. “I thought I’d get you unzipped before you noticed, but I didn’t know you’d close your eyes.” He stripped the gloves off using his teeth, my dress still in his arms. He plunged his naked hands into the oil-soaked cloth, hugged it against his bare chest.

  I was shaking my head over and over. “You don’t know what you’re doing, Roane.”

  He looked at me over the tub edge, and there was nothing innocent in his big brown eyes. “For tonight I can be sidhe for you.”

  I sat in the tub like I was about to take a shower in my underwear, and tried to sound reasonable. All the blood seemed to have left my brain and gathered in other places. It made it hard to think. “I can’t do glamour tonight, Roane.”

  “I don’t want you to do glamour. I want to be with you, Merry. No masks. No illusions.”

  “Without your own magic, you’ll be like a human. You won’t be able to protect yourself from the charm. You’ll be elf-struck.”

  “I won’t wither and die for want of sidhe flesh, Merry. I may have lost my magic, but I am immortal.”

  “You may not die, Roane, but forever is a long time to want what you cannot have.”

  “I know what I want,” he said.

  I started to open my mouth, to tell him at least part of the truth, part of the reason that I had to clean myself off and get out of town. But he stood up, and my voice died in my throat. I couldn’t breathe, let alone talk. All I could do was stare.

  He wadded the dress in his hands so tight that the muscles in his arms strained with the movement. Oil squeezed out of the cloth, gliding in slow lines from his chest, across the flat smoothness of his stomach, trailing ever lower. He was already smooth and hard, but when the oil slid over him, his breath caught in a sharp hiss. He ran one hand down his stomach, spreading the oil in a gleaming sheet across the pale perfection of his skin. I should have told him to stop, should have screamed for help, but I watched his hand move lower, until he cupped himself, slid the oil over the hardness of himself. His head threw back, eyes closed, and words tore in a loud gasp from his strained throat. “Oh, Gods.”

  I remembered that there was something important I should have been saying or doing, but for my life I couldn’t remember what it was. I was thinking things, but not words. Words had deserted me, leaving only images: sight, touch, smell, and finally taste.

  Roane’s skin tasted overwhelmingly of cinnamon and vanilla, but under that was something green, herbal, a light clean taste like drinking spring water straight from the heart of the Earth. Under all that was the taste of his skin, sweet, smooth, and lightly salted with sweat.

  We ended on the bed. My clothes were gone, though I didn’t remember them going. We were naked and slick with oil on the clean white sheets. The feel of his body sliding over mine brought my breath shuddering from between half-parted lips. He kissed me, tongue probing, and I opened to him, rising from the bed to force his tongue deeper inside my mouth. My hips moved with the kiss, and he took it as invitation, sliding inside me, slowly, until he found me wet and ready, then he slammed the length of him inside me, as fast, as far as it would go. I cried out under him, body rising off the bed, then falling back against the sheets, staring up at him.

  His face was inches from mine, his eyes so close they filled my view. He watched my face as he moved inside me, half-raised on his arms so he could watch my body writhe underneath him. I couldn’t stay still. I had to move, had to rise up to meet him, until a rhythm built between us, a rhythm forged of pounding flesh, the thundering of our hearts, the slick juices of our bodies, and the throbbing of every nerve. It was as if one touch was many caresses; one kiss, a thousand kisses. Each movement of his body seemed to fill me like warm water spreading out and out, filling up my skin, my muscles, my blood, my bones, until it was all one rush of warmth that built and built like the press of light as night fades. My body sang with it. My fingertips tingled, and just when I thought I couldn’t hold any more, the warmth turned to heat and roared over me, through me. Distantly, I heard noises, screaming, and it was Roane, and it was me.

  He collapsed on top of me, suddenly heavier, his neck lying against my face so that I felt his pulse like a racing thing jumping against my skin. We lay there entwined as intimately as man can be with woman, holding each other until our hearts slowed.

  Roane raised his head first, propping himself on his arms to look down at me. The look was one of wonderment, like a child who had learned a new joy that until that moment he hadn’t known existed. He said nothing, just stared down at me, smiling.

  I was smiling, too, but there was a vein of wistfulness to mine. I remembered now what I’d forgotten. I should have showered and fled the city. I should never have touched Roane with Branwyn’s Tears on our bodies. But the damage was done.

  My voice came soft, strange to my own ears, as if we hadn’t spoken for a very long time. “Look at your skin.”

  Roane glanced at his own body and hissed like a startled cat. He rolled off my body to sit staring at his hands, arms, everything. He was glowing, a soft, nearly amber light as if fire were being reflected through a golden jewel, and that jewel was his body.

  “What is it?” he asked, voice low and almost frightened.

  “You are sidhe, for tonight.”

  He looked at me. “I don’t understand,” he said.

  I sighed. “I know.”

  He put his hand just above my skin. I glowed with a white, cold light, like moonlight caught behind glass. The amber glow of his hand reflected off the white glow, turning it pale yellow as his hand moved just above my skin. “What can I do with it?”

  I watched him move that glowing hand down my body, still careful not to touch my skin. “I don’t know. Every sidhe is different. We all have different abilities. Different variations on a theme.”

  He laid his han
d against the scar on my ribs, just under my left breast. It hurt like the twinge of arthritis when it’s cold, but it wasn’t cold. I moved his hand away from the mark. It was the perfect imprint of a hand, bigger than Roane’s, longer, more slender fingers. It was brown and raised slightly above my skin. The scar turned black when my skin glowed, as if the light could not touch it, a bad spot.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “I was in a duel.”

  He started to touch the scar again, and I grabbed his hand, pressing our flesh together, forcing that amber glow into my white. It felt as if our hands melded together, the flesh parting, swallowing. He jerked away, rubbing his hand against his chest, but that slid the oil over his hand, and that didn’t help. Roane still didn’t understand that he’d had only the first taste of what it could mean to be sidhe.

  “Every sidhe has a hand of power. Some can heal by touch. Some can kill. The sidhe I fought placed her hand against my ribs. She broke my ribs, tore through muscle, and tried to crush my heart, all without ever breaking the skin.”

  “You lost the duel,” he said.

  “I lost the duel, but I survived, and that was always win enough for me.”

  Roane frowned. “You seem saddened. I know you enjoyed it. Why such gloom?” He trailed a finger along my face, and the glow intensified where we touched. I turned my face from him.

  “It’s too late to save you, Roane, but it’s not too late to save myself.”

  I felt him lie down beside me, and I moved my body just enough to keep him from lying the length of himself along the length of me. I looked at him from inches away.

  “Save you from what, Merry?”

  “I can’t tell you why, but I need to leave tonight, not just this apartment, but the city.”

  He looked startled. “Why?”

  I shook my head. “If I told you that, you’d be in more danger than you already are.”

  He accepted that and didn’t ask again. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  I smiled, then laughed. “I can’t go to my car, let alone the airport glowing like a rising moon, and I can’t do glamour until the oil wears away.”

  “How long?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.” I stared down the length of his body and found him limp, though he recovered quickly, as a rule. But I knew something he didn’t. Tonight, like it or not, I was sidhe.

  “What is your hand of power?” he asked, though it had taken him a long time to ask the question. He must have truly wanted to know, to ask that which was not offered.

  I sat up. “I don’t have one.”

  He frowned. “You said all sidhe have one.”

  I nodded. “It’s one of many excuses the others have used over the years to deny me.”

  “Deny you what?”

  “Everything.” I ran my hand just above the line of his body, and the amber light intensified, following my touch like a fire when you breath on it to make it glow. “When our hands melded, it was one of the side effects of the power. Our entire bodies can do the same.”

  He raised eyebrows at that.

  I cupped him in my hand, and he responded, but I spilled power into him, and he was instantly hard, instantly ready. It made his stomach contract, made him sit up, moving my hand away from him. “It felt almost too good. It almost hurt.”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  He gave a nervous laugh. “I thought you didn’t have a hand of power.”

  “I don’t, but I am descended from five different fertility deities. I can bring you back to strength all night, as quickly and as often as we want.” I leaned my face toward his. “You are like a child tonight, Roane. You can’t control the power, but I can. I could bring you again and again until you rubbed yourself raw and begged me to stop.”

  He’d lain down on the bed as I moved over him, until he was staring up at me, eyes wide, his auburn hair spilled around his face. Tonight, it was almost the same shade as mine . . . almost. He spoke in a breathy rush. “If you do that, it will be your flesh that gets rubbed raw, too.”

  “Think if I was not the only sidhe in this room, Roane. Think what we could make you do, and you could not stop us.” I spoke the last into his half-parted lips. When I kissed him, he jumped as if it had hurt, and I knew it hadn’t.

  I pulled back enough to see his face. “You’re afraid of me.”

  He swallowed. “Yes.”

  “Good. Now you begin to understand what you have called to life in this room. Power comes with a price, Roane, and so does pleasure. You have called both, and if I were a different sidhe, you would pay dearly for them.” I watched the fear slide across his face, fill his eyes. It pleased me. I liked the edge that fear could give sex. Not the big fear, where you truly weren’t sure you’d both come out alive, but the lesser fear, where you risked blood, pain, but nothing that wouldn’t heal, nothing you didn’t want. There is a vast difference between a little game playing and cruelty. I wasn’t into cruelty.

  I stared down at Roane, that sweet flesh, those lovely eyes, and I wanted to scratch nails over that perfect body, sink teeth into his flesh, and draw just a little bit of blood in a lot of different places. The thought tightened my body in places where most people didn’t respond to violence, no matter how mild. Bad wiring, maybe, but there comes a point when you either embrace who and what you are, or condemn yourself to be miserable all your days. Other people will try to make you miserable; don’t help them by doing the job yourself. I wanted to share a little pain, a little blood, a little fear, but Roane wasn’t into any of that. Hurting him wouldn’t bring him pleasure, and I wasn’t into torture. I was not a sexual sadist, and Roane would never know how lucky he was that that particular miswiring was not part of my urges. Of course, there are always other urges.

  I wanted him, wanted him so badly that I didn’t trust myself to be careful. Roane would carry the desire for this experience to his grave, whenever that would be, but he could carry more than psychological scars away from this night. If I wasn’t careful. Even now, even here with him sidhe for this one night, I couldn’t drop all my control. I was still going to have to be the one in charge, the one that said what we would do and what we wouldn’t. The one that said how far things would go. I was achingly tired of being the one who drew the line. It wasn’t just the magic I missed. It was having someone else in charge or, at least, someone equal. I didn’t want to have to worry about hurting my lover. I wanted my lover to be able to protect himself so that I could truly do what I wanted to do without fearing for his safety. Was that really too much to ask?

  I glanced back at Roane. He lay on his back, one arm flung over his head, the other arm lying across his stomach, one leg drawn up so that he was displayed, in all his glory. The fear had faded from his face, leaving only desire behind. He had no idea how bad things could get in the next few hours if I wasn’t ever so careful.

  I hid my face in my hands. I didn’t want to be careful. I wanted everything that the magic could give me tonight and to hell with the consequences. Maybe if I hurt him enough, Roane wouldn’t look back on it as something wonderful. Maybe he wouldn’t crave it like some golden dream. Maybe he’d fear it like a nightmare. A small voice in my head said it would be kinder in the long run. Make him fear us, our touch, our magic, so that he would never want the touch of sidhe hands on his body again. A little pain now to save him from an eternity of suffering later on.

  I knew it was lies, and still I couldn’t look at him.

  His fingertips brushed my back, and I jumped like he’d hit me. I kept my hands over my face. I wasn’t ready to look again.

  “Those aren’t burn scars on your shoulders, are they?”

  I lowered my hands, but kept my eyes closed. “No.”

  “What then?”

  “It was another duel. He used magic to try and force me to shape-shift in the middle of the fight.” I heard, felt, Roane moving along the bed, closer to me, but he didn’t try and touch me again. I was grateful.


  “But changing shape doesn’t hurt. It feels wonderful.”

  “Maybe to a roane, but not to one of us. Changing shapes is painful, like all your bones breaking at once and re-forming. I can’t change shape on my own at all, but I’ve seen it in others. You’re helpless for the minutes it takes to change form.”

  “The other sidhe was trying to distract you.”

  “Yes.” I opened my eyes and stared into the blackness of the windows. They acted like a dark mirror, showing Roane sitting just behind me, body half-lost to sight, glowing like the sun behind the moon of my body. The three rings of color in my eyes glowed bright enough that even from that distance you could see the individual colors: emerald, jade, liquid gold. Even Roane’s eyes had lightened to a dark honey brown like glowing bronze. Sidhe magic suited him.

  He reached for me, and I tensed. He traced his hand over the rippled skin of the scars. “How did you stop him from changing you into something else?”

  “I killed him.” I saw Roane’s eyes widen in the windows, felt his body tense.

  “You killed a sidhe royal?”

  “Yes.”

  “But they are immortal.”

  “I am truly mortal, Roane. What is the one way for all the eternal fey to die?”

  I watched the thoughts flicker across his face and finally saw the realization in his eyes. “To invoke mortal blood. The mortal shares our immortality, and we share the mortal’s mortality.”

  “Exactly.”

  He sat close to me, going up on his knees, but he spoke to my reflection not directly to me. “But that is a very specific ritual. You can’t invoke mortality by accident.”

  “The ritual for a duel binds the two participants together in mortal combat. Among the Unseelie sidhe they share blood before they fight.”