[Merry Gentry 04] - A Stroke of Midnight

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  “I do not know, but he was wounded,” Kitto said.

  “Wounded?” Galen said.

  “How badly?” Nicca asked.

  “He had an arm in a sling, and a bandage on the side of his face and head.”

  “Who could harm a warrior of the Unseelie, and the King of Sluagh, that badly?” Nicca said as if he was simply thinking aloud.

  “Goblins could,” Kitto said, “if they caught him unaware and unable to use his magic. There are warriors among my people who could best any you have, except for your sidhe magic.”

  “Or another sluagh,” I said softly.

  They all looked at me. “There are some among his people who think that by coming to my bed he will become full sidhe, and they will lose him as their king.”

  “I heard it was mostly his harem of night hags,” Nicca said.

  “Did everyone but me know that his hags were his harem?” I asked.

  Nicca and Galen exchanged glances. “We envied him as the only guard who had an outlet for his desires,” Nicca said.

  “They’re afraid that the touch of sidhe flesh will steal him away,” Galen said.

  “No one but Merry would sleep with him,” Nicca said. “No other sidhe would risk bearing his child, for fear it would be a monster.”

  I shook my head. “Once the Unseelie welcomed any child. It was the way of our court. When did we become an anthropomorphic club? When did two arms, two legs, and human beauty become the ideal?”

  “Long before either of you were born,” Kitto said.

  Nicca nodded. He was cuddling Kitto now more than just holding him. Kitto’s eyes still looked fragile, as if he believed whatever the sidhe had said to him. No name calling truly bites deep unless, in some dark part of us, we believe it. If we are confident enough then it’s just noise, but Kitto wasn’t confident, not in the least.

  He spoke in a small, low voice. “I looked almost sidhe as a baby. My mother must have kept me for a few months, then the scales appeared around my spine, and when the teeth came in, so did the fangs. That was enough for her to leave me by the goblin mound, to either be taken in or killed. She left me there knowing that the goblins liked to eat a bit of sidhe flesh.” He huddled in on himself, wrapping Nicca’s arms closer around him. I couldn’t tell if it was on purpose or accidental that the movement wrapped the other’s arm tighter. Most fey like to be touched, it comforts them, but the goblins are a different race than most. They like sex, but touch can as easily lead to violence as sex among them, and there is very little touching that is only comfort and not sex.

  “But you’re wrong, Meredith. The sidhe, even the Unseelie, never took in every child. Goblin-sided babies that looked less than pure sidhe were left to die outside the goblin mounds.”

  “The goblins took in their sidhe-sided children,” I said.

  Kitto shook his head, and only Nicca’s arms kept him from curling into a little ball. Only Nicca’s strength kept the smaller man upright. “Not always,” Kitto whispered.

  I reached out to touch his face. Galen, with his longer arms, could touch more of him. He found a hand to hold on to, and Kitto gripped the hand he offered. If I hadn’t been almost touching his face with mine, I might not have heard what he whispered next. “Sometimes they raise them until they’re big enough to eat. Not enough meat on a baby.” He looked up at me, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “When I got big enough, the woman who wet-nursed me wouldn’t let them have me. Because I was smaller than normal, it had taken me longer to get big enough, so long that I was talking, and she had grown fond of me. She fought for me. She bled for me. She saved me, but when she needed me, I was too small, too weak, to save her.” A look of rage crossed his face, and he closed his eyes as if he didn’t want me to see it. “One of the sidhe today said something, like he knew. He said I’d always been small, too small to be a real goblin, too small to be sidhe, too small to be anything but a burden and a danger to those around me.” Kitto looked up at me. “I didn’t think any sidhe visited the goblin mounds except for your father, and you. How did he know?”

  I wanted to say that the sidhe in question had guessed. Had simply looked at Kitto’s small size and used it to be cruel. That he hadn’t known Kitto’s background, but only made an educated guess. But would it be more cruel to tell Kitto that his past was so obvious that a stranger could see it written on his body, or to let him believe that his history was known for certain by sidhe who dealt with the goblins more than they should?

  Galen decided for me. “They didn’t know, Kitto, they just guessed. They were being mean. That’s all. They didn’t know that what they said would hit so close to the truth.”

  “Guess?” Kitto said, looking at him. “Guess? They guessed? How? How could they know? How?” He gripped Galen’s hand with his smaller ones. “Is my shame written across my body? Is it that easy to see that I am weak? That I am a burden to those around me? I am a danger to you even.” He reached out to me then, gripping my hand so tight it almost hurt. “If I got you with child, they would never accept me as king, or you as queen. The two sidhe lords said they’d see you dead before they’d let a goblin-sided sidhe sit on the Unseelie throne.”

  I wanted to ask who “they” were, but he might not know their names, and to ask it now seemed cruel. The two lords hadn’t been talking of conspiracies. They had simply been giving voice to their prejudices. They had said the cruelest truths they could find. But if they had truly planned on killing him, and me, then they wouldn’t have told him. They wouldn’t have taunted him with it. Or they wouldn’t have let him go unscathed after overhearing them. His clean, unbloodied flesh meant they didn’t really mean it. They were bullies, nothing more. I could get him to describe them for me later. Tonight, I didn’t want to make him dwell upon it. I wanted him to forget about it, at least for a little while.

  I wanted to caress him, to hold him until that look left his eyes. But there was no room tonight on my dance card, not unless I could figure out a way to combine people again. Galen would sleep in big puppy piles, but he didn’t like sharing sex. Nicca shared just fine, and I think he would have agreed to almost anything just so he could get to Biddy in the next room. I didn’t mind being the one he rushed through. I enjoyed Nicca, but he did not speak to my heart and body the way Galen did, or Doyle, or Frost.

  It was Galen who reached for Kitto. Galen who pulled him closer to the tub. “I’m sorry, Kitto, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to say . . .” He didn’t finish it, but he’d said enough to let me know that he knew he’d said too much. That he’d said aloud what I’d been thinking, and he understood that his comments had hurt Kitto. He understood it, and was willing to try to undo the hurt he’d inadvertently done.

  Many humans watched the casual touching among us and mistook it for sex, but it isn’t always. Sometimes you just need to be touched. Sometimes you see such hurt, such loneliness in another fey’s eyes that you must do something, anything, to chase that look away. Sometimes sex isn’t even about sex among us. Sometimes it’s just the last resort for making someone smile.

  CHAPTER 29

  KITTO LAY BACK IN THE WATER, CRADLED AGAINST GALEN’S BODY. Galen trailed his hands over the smaller man’s arms and shoulders, stroking strong hands through the now damp curls around his face. Kitto half floated, his eyes closed as he snuggled his shoulders and head against the curve of Galen’s upper body.

  I trailed my fingertips down the front of Kitto’s leg, until I traced along the top of his foot. I knew he was ticklish there, and it earned me a smile, but his eyes stayed closed. I held his foot in my hands, and licked along the top of his foot where I had touched. It made him squirm and laugh. He opened his eyes, sinking his legs below the water and sitting up. Galen’s arms spilled around his shoulders, holding him more securely against his own body.

  I moved in against the front of Kitto’s body, straddling his legs. I brushed myself over the loose thickness of his groin. It drew a sound of pleasure from him. But when he put his han
ds at my waist, it was to stop the movement of my hips.

  Kitto’s voice was a little strained, but his small hands were very firm at my waist, stopping me from pushing harder against his body. “It is Nicca who is meant to be with Galen and you this night.”

  “I am content to wait my turn,” Nicca said from where he knelt beside the tub. His wings fanned gently at his back as he reached to trail his fingers in the water.

  Kitto shook his head, water trickling down his face from his sodden hair, his black curls flattened against the white of his skin.

  I moved my groin against his, and his hands on my waist could not stop it. His fingers tightened, and again he said, “No.” But other parts of his body were already responding to even the light touch he was allowing me.

  “Your body says otherwise,” I said.

  He swallowed hard and blinked those blue on blue eyes up at me. “I cannot be your king, Merry. Word has come from Kurag, Goblin King, that Holly and Ash have laid challenge on any goblin that takes their prize before they can.”

  I frowned at him. “And that means what?”

  “Any goblin that does anything to become your king before Holly and Ash have had their chance will be challenged and killed by them.”

  “They have no right to dictate to you, Kitto,” I said. “You are sidhe now. You have a hand of power. That is sidhe magic, not goblin.”

  He gave me a sad little smile. “You do not know them as I do. I would not anger them, not for anything in faerie.” He touched the side of my face where the blood still clung. “Let me help you and Galen clean yourselves.” He smiled, and it was a real smile, not so sad. “I am honored that Galen reached for me first. I know that that is not his way.” He leaned in against the taller man’s body and smiled up at him.

  Galen smiled down at him and ran his hands down the other man’s arm. “I wanted to see you smile.”

  Kitto smiled wider, amost a grin. “It means much to me that you care if I am happy or sad.” He looked at me, and his face sobered. “But heed me on this, Merry, sidhe or no, princess or no, you should fear Holly and Ash.”

  “They will come to my body as the rest of you have. They will have their chance for kingmaking. I know to negotiate exactly what kind of sex they can have from me. Beyond that why should I fear them?”

  “We will be with Merry in the goblin court,” Galen said. “We won’t let anything bad happen to her.”

  “You make it sound so easy,” Kitto said, gazing up at the other man.

  “How dangerous are the twins?” Nicca asked.

  “They are some of the most feared warriors of our court,” Kitto said.

  “They looked sort of puny standing next to the Red Caps,” Galen said.

  “I do not know what this ‘puny’ means,” Kitto said.

  “Small, weak,” I said.

  Kitto acknowledged it with a nod. “But size is not everything in combat. Holly and Ash have a reputation for viciousness among the goblins.”

  I stopped petting Kitto and went very still, because what he’d just said put things in perspective for me. For Holly and Ash to have earned such a fearsome reputation among the goblins spoke of terrible violence against a people who thrived on it.

  “Goblins are stronger than we are,” Galen said. “To be half-sidhe in their court must make life hard.”

  Kitto shivered, and he relaxed his hands on my waist enough for me to press the front of my body against the front of his. Galen and I held him between our bodies; he wrapped his arms around me, and clung to the feel of our bodies. “You have no idea, Galen, no idea how it marks you as victim. I was unlucky enough to be as weak as I look. Holly and Ash were beautiful children, blond and pale, and except for the eyes would have passed at either sidhe court. Even with the eyes they would have been accepted.”

  “Why didn’t they petition to join our court?” I asked, my face resting on the top of Kitto’s wet hair, and the warmth of Galen’s shoulder.

  “I do not know,” Kitto said, “for they suffered when they were young males. Our females liked to make them perform, until they grew strong enough to fight them off.”

  Galen and I were frowning at him, but Nicca seemed to understand. “You mean the she-goblins raped them?”

  Kitto nodded.

  “It’s not easy for a woman to rape a man,” I said.

  “It is possible,” Nicca said, and he leaned his face against the one folded arm that graced the edge of the tub. His other arm was deeper in the water, as if he sought something below its surface. “The queen is fond of force.”

  I moved through the water to touch his shoulder. He started when I touched him, as if he had expected a far less pleasant touch. Nicca’s brown eyes were a little too wide. Whatever memory he was thinking upon, it was a bad one. So many bad memories among the guard, thanks to Andais.

  I laid a gentle kiss on his mouth, and drew back to stare into his face. “Let me clean up, and we will make love. Gentle love, and then you will have Biddy and that will be gentle, too.”

  He nodded, but it was a little too rapid, and his eyes still held that shadow of fear. I felt the water move before Kitto came beside me to add his hands to mine on Nicca’s body. “Until I became a part of the princess’s household, I did not understand that any sidhe could be forced to such horrors, not unless they had earned punishment.” He touched Nicca’s face. “I know now that there is pain in every court, and no one is truly safe.” He kissed Nicca’s cheek. “Let me help them rid themselves of the blood, and then the princess will take that sadness from your eyes.”

  Nicca smiled at him. “There are other things you can do with Merry besides intercourse. You, too, could have her do things to you that would take that sorrow from your eyes, Kitto.”

  He did that quick grin again, as if he was afraid to be seen smiling so broadly. “In the goblin court the one who gives oral pleasure is the lesser being. It shows that you are submissive to the one you are pleasuring.”

  “That’s not how the sidhe see it,” Galen said, moving to join us at the center of the tub.

  Kitto flashed him another grin. “So I have seen whenever Merry could persuade one of us to let her but touch us.”

  “I like oral sex,” I said.

  “We know,” the three of them said in unison, which made them all laugh.

  “I don’t like that Holly and Ash feel they can dictate to you, Kitto. But if you truly aren’t comfortable with intercourse, then let me finish what I’ve only been able to start with all of you but Sage.”

  “With Sage you were forbidden to have intercourse,” Nicca said. “Queen Andais doesn’t want to risk a demi-fey on our throne.”

  I nodded. “So we did nothing that would risk Sage getting me pregnant.” I looked at Kitto, and didn’t fight the look that filled my eyes. “And now I’m supposed to do things with Kitto that won’t let him get me with child either.”

  Kitto’s breath shook on its way out, but not with fear. “If you were a goblin and looked at me so, I would be afraid, but I’ve learned what that light in your eyes means.”

  “What?” I asked, in a voice that was already grown lower with need.

  “That you’re about to do something to me that I’m going to like,” he said. “Let me help you and Galen get clean.”

  “And then?” I asked.

  He gave me a look that I’ve seen in men’s eyes before, a look that says they know what we’re about to do, and that there will be no going back, no stopping. “And then I will let you have your way with me.”

  “Other than the little you’ve allowed Merry to do to you, have you ever had anyone do oral sex on you?” Galen asked.

  Kitto looked at him. “No.”

  I took in a long shaking breath and shivered when my breath ran out. I’d never gotten to be the first for anyone before. I was almost certain that the rest of the guard had had this particular pleasure performed by someone else once upon a time. I would be the first one to ever hold Kitto in their mouth,
and suck, and lick, and bite, if he wished.

  “Your face,” Galen said, “like it’s Winter Solstice and you’ve gotten every present you asked for.”

  “If you’d let me go down on you, you’d see this expression on my face more often,” I said.

  He gave me a look. “You’re incorrigible.”

  I leaned around Kitto, closer to Galen. “If you’d only say yes, you’d find out just how incorrigible I can be.”

  I was rewarded with a look almost of pain, as if he wanted to say yes, but . . . intercourse had become everyone’s goal, because we pursued a baby like some infertile couple.

  “Me first,” Kitto said.

  “Me second,” Nicca said, “though I think the queen will be upset if we do oral and not something that would gain you a child.”

  I nodded. “She was very specific about that, so yes. I don’t want to disappoint Andais.”

  We all shivered in unison, and this time it had nothing to do with pleasure.

  CHAPTER 30

  THE TILE WAS TOO COLD TO LIE ON, BUT TOWELS TOOK CARE OF that. Kitto lay back on them, knees up, legs slightly spread so I could reach him better, an ivory dream against all that burgundy darkness. His sex was swollen and thick even before I got to kneel between his legs. Anticipation had done much of my work for me.

  I slid my mouth over the swollen tip of him, like taking in a whole, ripe plum until my mouth was so full I couldn’t bite down, and couldn’t swallow. My mouth is full of the ripe, firm flesh, but with this plum, filling my mouth was only the beginning, so much left to swallow. The warm thick firmness of the fruit doesn’t writhe in your mouth, as you move over it. It doesn’t cry out as you lick along it inside your mouth.

  Kitto’s hands dug at the towels underneath him, bunching them in his hands, clutching the only thing he could find while he rode the pleasure.

  Nicca’s hands stroked along my ass, making me writhe and push myself against him, but he kept me from more of his body. He cupped my buttocks in both his hands, and the feel of him holding me like that made me suck at Kitto, hard and fast. Kitto cried out. I waited for Nicca to push himself against me, but nothing came, nothing but the promise of his hands on me.