Divine Misdemeanors_A Novel

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  “Sorry,” he said, and moved the gun a little so it wouldn’t dig into me. He laid his face against my hair. “I have weapons, but once we start having sex I won’t be able to use them. I’ll be too busy using my favorite weapon to worry about guns and swords.”

  “Weapon, is it?” I said smiling.

  I felt his smile just by the flexing of his lips against my head. “Well, I don’t mean to brag.”

  I laughed and looked up at him. He was grinning down at me. His face was half in moonlight and half in shadow. It hid his good eye and left his scars painted silver, his face looking smooth and perfect except for that glimmer of scar, so that the scar simply became another part of that perfection.

  “Why so solemn?” he asked.

  “Kiss me and find out.”

  “Wait. Before we get distracted, my point was a good one.”

  “Why, yes it is,” I said, and I traced my fingers over the firm muscles of his stomach toward lower things.

  He caught my hands in his empty hand, and used the hand full of weapons to help hold me still. “No, Merry, not until you hear me on this.” He moved his face so all of him was in the bright, soft moonlight. The light grayed his eye so that it was no longer blue at all.

  “Once the sex starts I will be too distracted to guard you. Everyone else is in what amounts to an enchanted sleep, so there will be no help if we need it.”

  I thought about what he’d said, and finally nodded. “You’re right, but first we’ve made it clear to all of faerie that we want no throne of either kingdom, so killing me gains them nothing. Second, I don’t believe the Goddess brought us out here to be attacked.”

  “You think she’ll keep us safe?”

  “Have you no faith left, Rhys?” I studied his face as I asked it.

  He looked very sad and sighed. “Once I did.”

  “Let us go down to the sea and find it again for you.”

  He smiled, but it was sad around the edges. I wanted that sorrow gone.

  I pulled gently on his hand and he let me pull away. I leaned up and kissed him, soft and full of lips, and let my body fall against his so he made a small surprised sound, still kissing me. Then his arms came up with gun and sword still in one, so I could feel the press of them against my back again.

  I drew back from the kiss to find him a little breathless, lips parted, eye wide. I could feel his body growing hard and firm against mine.

  He didn’t protest again, but let me lead him toward the sighing of the sea.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  THE SURF BECKONED LIKE WHITE FOAMING LACE, THE WATER BLACK and silver in the moonlight. The tide had grown and deepened around the bottom steps, so that I walked into the cold foam of the sea to find it spilling around my knees, while I could still touch the railing. It was cold enough to make me shiver, but the sight of Rhys there nude, suspicious, and very Rhys helped the shiver be more. The pull of the ocean made my legs move and the sand shift, as if the very world wasn’t certain it would hold still.

  “I’ll have to pin everything down so the tide doesn’t take it, Merry. Once I do that the weapons will be slow to draw.”

  I should have said no, or cautioned him, or tried to wake other guards, but I didn’t. I said, “It will be all right, Rhys.” Somehow, I knew it would be.

  He didn’t say a word, just moved down into the swirling water until he could touch my outstretched hand. The moment our hands touched, there was power, magic.

  “We stand in a place betwixt and between neither land nor sea,” I said.

  “The closest we’ll get to faerie here on the Western sea,” he said.

  I nodded.

  Rhys threaded the straps of the sword sheath around the gun, and used the naked blade to pin the sheath to the sand. He knelt in the water, so that it was above his waist, to thrust the sword almost hilt deep into the shifting sand, so that it would not be pulled away by the sea.

  He grinned up at me, still kneeling in the water, and the edge of it playing with the ends of his curls. “Most of the positions I’m thinking of will drown one of us.”

  “You can’t drown, you’re sidhe.”

  “Maybe I can’t die from drowning, Merry, but trust me, it hurts like a son of a bitch to swallow that kind of water.” He made a face and shivered, and I didn’t think it was entirely the chill of the water.

  I wondered what old memory was shaking him. I almost asked, but the scent of roses came mingled with the salt of the next wave. No bad memories tonight; we would make new and better ones.

  I went to stand so that I could touch his shoulders and his face, and made him look up at me. There was a moment where the shadow of that old hurt was there in his face, and then he smiled up at me, wrapped his strong arms around my hips, and drew me in against his body. He kissed his way up my stomach, my chest, and my neck, as if the kisses themselves drew him to his feet until he could lay his lips against mine.

  He kissed me. He kissed me as the water swirled and moved around us so that the pull and push of it was like more hands to caress our bodies, as our lips, hands, and arms explored the skin above the water’s edge.

  He leaned down, and used his hand to mound my breast up so his mouth could lick and suck, until just the pull of his mouth on my nipple made me cry out for him. He mounded the other breast with his other hand, and did the same again. He went back and forth between them as the water rose around us, until I cried out his name. Only then did he drop back to his knees, chest deep in the water, and lift me so that my knees were on his shoulders, and his face was between my legs.

  I protested, “You can’t hold this position long enough.”

  He gazed up the line of my body, his mouth close to that most intimate part, but not quite touching me yet. “Probably not,” he said.

  “Then why do it?”

  He grinned. “Because I want to try.” And that was very Rhys. It made me smile, and then his mouth found me, and it wasn’t smiles he got from me.

  He bowed my body backward with the strength of his hands and arms so that he could reach all of me to lick and suck. His hands were actually supporting my weight at the small of my back, my legs on his shoulders like some impossible act. I kept meaning to tell him to put me down, to be reasonable, but every time I came close to saying it, he would do something with his mouth, his tongue, and he would steal my words away with pleasure.

  I felt his arms begin to tremble, ever so slightly, as that delicious pressure began to build between my legs, so that it would be a race to see if he could spill me over that edge before he had to put me down. A few sensations earlier and I would have told him to put me down when I felt his muscles begin to tremble, but the pleasure had passed to that point of selfishness so that I wanted release more than I wanted to be kind or generous. I wanted him to finish what he had begun. I wanted him to spill me over that wet, warm edge.

  My skin had begun to glow as if I was some still pool that could reflect the moon’s glow to herself. Rhys had called my magic to life.

  In the end he moved on his knees, so that my back touched the railing. The water was high enough that the lower steps were underwater, and I leaned back against the wood, using the railing as I would have used the headboard of a bed to support my weight, to keep me at the angle he needed. He moved up the water-covered steps so that they helped him support my weight as he licked and sucked, and made love to me there with his mouth as he would make love to me later with other things.

  I caught the glow of my own hair and eyes; crimson, emerald, and gold. His own skin had begun to glow white with a play of light underneath it as if clouds or something else moved inside his body, things I couldn’t see or understand.

  I was almost there, almost there, almost there, then between one caress of his tongue and the next that building warmth between my legs spilled out and over and through me in a warm rush that danced over my body, and made me grind my hips against his face. He sucked harder, drawing the pleasure out, making it last, growing one
orgasm into another, into another, until I shrieked, and screamed at the moon above us.

  Only when I sagged, limp, and couldn’t quite make my hands keep their hold on the railing did he stop and stand on the steps to lift me with his arms, and let the rising water buoy me up. I felt him push against the front of my body. The cold water had done him no harm, because he was long and hard and eager as he pushed against my opening.

  The sea came spilling between our legs. It was too soon since his kiss there, so that it made me cry out as he pushed his way inside me, as if the sea and Rhys were both making love to me at the same time.

  Then he was inside me, as deep as he could go, pinning me against the railing, his hands holding onto the wood to keep the waves from chasing us down into the sea. I wrapped my legs around his waist, my arms around his shoulders, and I kissed him. I kissed him and tasted me on his lips, fresh and salty, my body mingled with the ocean so that it was different, as if he’d gone down on someone else, someone who tasted of the sea.

  His eye with its three circles of color had regained its blue, because his magic had its own light to show me the day’s blue sky in his eye, if the sky could burn blue.

  He slid in and out of me, with the waves helping some of the time, and some of the time they seemed determined to pull us apart, as if they were jealous of what we were doing. I began to feel that growing weight of pleasure again, but deeper inside me this time.

  I wasn’t sure if I shouted or whispered against his face, “Soon, soon.”

  He understood, and he began to work his hips faster, driving himself deeper and quicker, so that each thrust ran over that part of me, and the waves tried to help find that spot inside me, but Rhys gave them no room. He filled me up, and then between one thrust and the next I was screaming his name again, my nails pinning into his back, tracing my pleasure in half-moons on his pale skin.

  I screamed his name as he rode me, in the sea and the steps leading up. I felt him fight his body to keep the rhythm that had brought me so that he could bring me again and again, and only when I’d lost count did he finally allow himself that last deep thrust that spasmed him backward, so that he was staring at the sky as he finally let himself go.

  That last deep thrust brought me one final time, and it was then that the scent of roses fell around us in a shower of pink petals that glided out to sea with the waves. The magic rushed across our skin like a different kind of orgasm, so that our skin ran in shivers, but it was warm, so warm. Warm enough that the sea could not be cold for us. The twin glow of our bodies merged and became one, as if together we could make a new moon to send into the sky—a moon that had eyes of liquid fire, burning emeralds, spun garnets, melting gold, and sapphires so blue they would make you weep to see them. His hair was white foam around his face, across his shoulders, merging with the white glow of our bodies.

  It was only then that I realized we should have put up a circle to keep in the power, or to control it, but it was too late. The power surged through us and went up and out into the night. I’d felt a release of power before, but never one with such purpose. Always before it had been almost accidental, but I felt our merged energies seeking something, like a magical missile aimed at a target.

  We felt it hit, and I half expected to hear the echo of some great explosion, but there was no sound. The impact of it shook us, and sent Rhys thrusting inside me one last time, as we both cried out at the release of our bodies and the release of the magic miles away.

  Only when our skin began to fade, glowing around the edges, instead of that white-hot light, only then did he let himself slide to his knees, still holding me, as I slid down the railing. The sea held our weight, and then tried to spill us down the steps. He moved us up in a kind of crawl until he had us safe on a drier step. He had fallen out of me somewhere in the climb but we were both ready to be done. It had been enough.

  He gave a shaky laugh as he cradled me against him, and we leaned back against the steps.

  “What was that magic?” I asked, my voice still breathless.

  “It was the power of faerie creating a sithen.”

  “A hollow hill here in Los Angeles,” I said.

  He nodded, still trying to catch his own breath. “I caught a glimpse of it. It’s a building, a new building that wasn’t there before.”

  “Wasn’t where before?” I asked.

  “On a street.”

  “What street?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, but tomorrow I’ll be able to find it. It will call to me.”

  “Rhys, how will you explain a new building appearing?”

  “I won’t have to, just as the hollow hills would appear and the people would think the hill had been there forever. If the magic works as it always has, everyone will accept that it’s been there. I’ll be new moving in, but the building won’t look new, and people will remember it.”

  I laid my head on his chest, and his heart was still thudding fast. “A sithen is like a new court of faerie, right?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “So, in essence, faerie just made you a king.”

  “Not the Ard-ri, but a lesser king, yes.”

  “But I didn’t see the building. I didn’t feel it.”

  “You are the high queen, Merry. You don’t have just one sithen; in a way they’re all yours.”

  “Are you saying that the other men will get them, too?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe only those of us who had one once upon a time.”

  “Which would be you, and who?”

  “Barinthus for one. I’ll have to think about the others. It’s been so long for most, so many centuries. You try to forget what you were before, because you don’t ever think you’ll get it back. You try to forget.”

  “First my dream or vision and being able to save Brennan and his men when they have to be hundreds of miles away, and then them being able to heal with my blessing, or whatever you want to call it. Now this. What does it all mean?”

  “The sidhe didn’t appreciate the Goddess coming back through you. I think she’s decided to find out if the humans are more grateful than the fey.”

  “And what exactly does that mean?” I asked.

  He laughed again. “I don’t know, but I can hardly wait to see this new modern sithen, or try to explain all this to Doyle and Frost.” He pushed to his feet, grabbing onto the railing to steady himself.

  “I can’t walk yet,” I said.

  He grinned. “High praise for me.”

  I smiled at him. “Very.”

  “I’m going to rescue my weapons before the tide rises any more. I’ll have to clean everything. Salt water rusts like nothing else.” He waded down into the water, and finally had to dive out of sight in the waves to find where he’d pierced the sand and left his weapons.

  I had a moment of being alone with the sea and the wind and the moon full and glowing above me. I whispered, “Thank you, Mother.”

  Then I heard Rhys surface, taking a deep breath, splashing toward the steps, his weapons dangling from his hand, his curls plastered to his face and shoulders. He walked up beside me, the water running down his skin in shining rivulets.

  “Can you walk yet?”

  “With help, I think so.”

  He grinned again. “That was amazing.”

  “The sex or the magic?” I asked as he helped me to my feet. My knees were still weak enough that I grabbed for the railing even with his arm on mine.

  “Both,” he said. “Consort save us, but it was both.”

  We walked a little shakily up the steps laughing. The wind from the water seemed much warmer than before we’d made love, as if the weather had changed its mind and decided that summer was a better idea than autumn.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  SALT WATER IS ONE THING YOU HAVE TO RINSE OFF YOUR BODY BEFORE you fall into bed. I was in the big shower doing just that when the door burst open and Ivi and Brii, short for Briac, were in the doorway, breathing hard, and weapons naked in the
ir hands.

  I froze in the middle of rinsing the conditioner out of my hair, blinking at them through the glass of the shower doors.

  I caught movement from the corner of my eye, and Rhys was just suddenly sliding in low through the door they had left open behind them. He had his newly oiled sword at Brii’s throat, and his newly cleaned gun pointed at Ivi as the other man froze in mid-motion of bringing his own gun up.

  “Sloppy,” Rhys said, “both of you. Why did you leave your posts?”

  They were both breathing so hard I could see their chests fighting for air, so much so that they couldn’t get enough air to talk. Brii might have been having trouble talking around the sword point that never wavered from his skin, and the short bow in his hand with its half-cocked arrow and a hand full of arrows fanned in his fingers were completely useless.

  Brii blinked brilliant green eyes, his hair the yellow of cherry leaves in the fall, tied back in a long braid. His clothing was leather and could have looked like club wear, but was actually pieces of armor older than most people’s history books.

  Rhys’s sword point seemed to be shoved up against the thudding pulse in his throat.

  He looked at the other man, who was still frozen, unmoving under the point of his gun; only the frantic rise and fall of his chest betrayed him. His green and white hair was loose and swirled around his legs, but like Doyle and Frost, it never seemed to tangle. Unlike them, Ivi had a pattern of vines and leaves like a print upon his hair. His namesake on his hair was like a work of art, and his eyes were starbursts of green and white, so that people would ask him if it was fancy contacts, but it was just Ivi. He wore modern clothes, and the vest on his chest was modern body armor.

  Rhys said, “Ivi, explain, and it better be good.” He never took his gun off the other man.

  Ivi fought his own breath and pounding heart rate to speak. “We woke … on guard duty. Enchanted sleep … thought enemies.” He coughed, sharply trying to clear his throat, or take a deeper breath. He was being very careful about keeping the naked gun unmoving in his hand. “Thought we’d find Princess dead, or taken.”