Divine Misdemeanors_A Novel

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  He did a little half salute and said, “You’re on the side with the house.”

  Sholto smiled at him, because he was a good king, and good leaders appreciate people who make things easier. “Is that the system you’ve worked out? Whoever is closest to the house gets to help her out?”

  “If she’s in the backseat,” Galen said, “but if she’s in front, then Biddy or Nicca or whoever gets to the passenger side helps her out.”

  Sholto nodded. “Very logical.” He offered me his hand and I took it, letting him help me scoot over the seat. Nicca and Biddy were already at the back to help Uther out. You could fold the seats we were in down, but why make him squirm through when you could just open the back?

  Saraid actually took Uther’s hand to get out of the back of the SUV. It pleased him that she took his help. She was tall and muscled and trained in both weapon and magic, which meant she didn’t need the help, but she’d taken his comfort and now she gave it back to him, by letting him help her.

  I could hear the high, excited barking of the dogs inside. That, too, was a happy thing. The faerie hounds had vanished with our magic fading, but when the Goddess returned some of the magic she also returned some of our animals. The first to return were the dogs.

  Biddy laughed. “Kitto is trying to keep them still, but they’ve all missed their masters and mistress.”

  Rhys was at the door first, and tried to keep the door closed enough so he could slip inside without the furry horde getting past him, but it was a losing battle. They flowed out around him, nine of them, all terriers, staying to mill about his feet. He bent over to touch the heads of the black-and-tan terrier pair, a breed that hadn’t existed in centuries but was the founding breed of most of the modern terrier breeds. The rest of them were all white with red markings, the original colors of most faerie animals.

  Galen was almost covered in small lapdogs and tall, graceful greyhounds. For whatever reason, he’d gotten more dogs than any other sidhe. The lapdogs capered around his legs, and the greyhounds nuzzled him for petting. He did his best to give them all attention.

  Sholto let me have my hands free to greet my own dogs. There were only two dogs for me, but they were slender and lovely. Mungo was taller than the modern standard allowed, but Minnie was within range, though now her belly was swollen tight with puppies. She was due any day, and she would be the first of the dogs to give birth. One of the best dog vets in the area had started making house calls. We had a camera set up and a live feed on the computer. The computer savvy of us had come up with the idea to charge people for watching the birth of the first faerie dogs born in more than three centuries. Apparently, we were having a lot of people sign up for it, some because of the dogs, and some because they hoped to see me and the men on camera with the dogs, but whatever the motive it was surprisingly lucrative, and with this many people to take care of we needed it to be.

  I touched the silky ears of my dogs, and cupped their long muzzles in my hands. I put my forehead to Minnie’s forehead because she liked it. Mungo was a little more aloof, or maybe he just thought forehead bumps were beneath his dignity.

  Then the air was full of wings, as if the most beautiful butterflies and moths had suddenly decided to have a ball above our heads. Most of them were the demi-fey who had followed me into exile. They were the afflicted of their kind and had been wingless in a society that saw that as worse than crippled. But my magic, along with Galen’s, Nicca’s, and Kitto’s, had both nearly killed them and given them the wings they’d never had before. But there were demi-fey among them who had been in exile in L.A. for decades or more. The first ones had come quietly, almost afraid, but when they were welcomed we’d more than doubled our numbers.

  Royal and his twin sister Penny hovered above me. “Welcome home, Princess,” she said. She was wearing a small robe like she’d borrowed the dressing gown of someone’s doll, except there were slits in it for her wings.

  “It’s good to be home, Penny.”

  She nodded, her tiny antennae trembling as she moved. She and her brother were both dark of hair and pale of skin, and had the wings of an Ilia Underwing moth. It matched the tattoo I had on my stomach, because something about bringing out Royal’s wings and saving his life had taken me to another level of power, and all great magic leaves its mark on you.

  Royal hovered beside my face, his wings moving more than any real moth to keep his heavier body airborne, though there had been that famous physics paper on the moth that proved that none of the demi-fey should be able to fly. He touched my hair and I swept it aside so he could sit on my shoulder. It was like a signal for the other demi-fey to flutter around us. They poured over Nicca’s braids and started swinging on them like they were ropes. He seemed to have an affinity with them, maybe because Nicca had wings of his own. They were a tattoo when he wished, but if not, they rose above his body like a magical sail on some boat that would take you only to beautiful, magical places.

  I’d had him as a lover, both when the tattoo was the only thing he had and he’d never had real wings, and after the new wild magic of faerie made the wings real so that they rose above me shining with magic. He’d been the child of a sidhe and a demi-fey who could be human sized.

  A flock of the smallest of the demi-fey, most of them ghost pale with white hair like cobwebs around their pointed faces, fluttered around Sholto speaking in high, twittering voices, asking for permission to touch the King of the Sluagh. He nodded his assent and they climbed in his ponytail like it was a playground and perched on his shoulders three deep on either side. None of them were bigger than my palm, the very smallest of the small. Royal was on the other end of their size range at ten inches.

  Penny, Royal’s sister, hovered by Galen and asked permission to climb aboard. Galen had only recently allowed any of them to touch him casually. He’d had a bad experience with them at the Unseelie Court. People think it’s funny to be afraid of something so small, but bear in mind that the Unseelie demi-fey drink blood as well as nectar. Sidhe blood is sweet to them, and royal sidhe is sweeter still. Queen Andais had once chained Galen down and given him over to those tiny mouths. Prince Cel had paid their queen, Niceven, to take more flesh than Andais had ordered. The experience had given Galen what amounted to a phobia of them. Ironically, the demi-fey liked the feel of his magic, and would hover around him in butterfly-colored clouds, but they’d learned not to touch him without asking. Penny settled onto his shoulder in her little robe, one hand in the deep green of his curls. Galen had begun to trust Penny.

  Rhys had so many of the smaller fey on his shoulders, giggling under his hair, that they looked like children peeking out from between drapes, or leaves, like a storybook. That made me think of our two murder scenes, and it was as if the sunlight were a little dimmer.

  “You’re sad suddenly,” Royal said near my face. “What did you think of just now, our Merry?”

  It was always tempting to turn your head when one of them talked, but when they were sitting on your shoulder, turning your head completely knocked them off, so you had to turn just enough to meet those dark almond-shaped eyes, but not as much as I would have if he’d been standing beside me.

  “Am I so easily read, Royal?”

  “You gave me wings. You gave me magic. I pay attention to you, my Merry.”

  That made me smile. The smile made him move in against my face so that his body curved into the line of my cheek, tucking his thighs underneath my chin. His small arm went wide around my cheek so that his bare upper body was pressed against my face, and that would have been all right. I might have been able to enjoy the hug—and if most people had been watching they would have seen it as innocent comfort, like being hugged by a child—but I knew better. And if I’d had any doubts, his face was now very close to my eye and there was nothing innocent in his handsome miniature face. No, it was a very grown-up look on a face not much bigger than my thumb.

  I would have been okay with that, but it was Royal, and he had to pu
sh it. His body tucked a little too close to the line of my jaw, and I could feel that he was happy to be pressed against me.

  It was considered a compliment among the fey if just being close to someone aroused you, but … “I’m glad to see you, too, Royal, but now that you’ve paid the compliment, a little breathing room, please.”

  “You should come play with us, Merry. I promise it would be fun.”

  “I appreciate the possibilities, Royal, but I don’t think so,” I said.

  He pressed himself more tightly against me, putting a little hip into the hug.

  “Stop that, Royal,” I said.

  “If you’d let me use my glamour it wouldn’t disturb you. It would entrance you.” And his voice held that edge of sultry bass that only a larger body with the deep chest to match should have given him. What few outside faerie realized was that some of the demi-fey had the most glamour of us all. I knew from experience that Royal could make me think he was a full-sized lover, and that his glamour could bring me to orgasm with very little effort. It was a gift, his talent.

  “I forbid you that,” I said.

  He kissed the side of my face but he did move his lower body enough that I wasn’t quite so aware that he was there. “I wish you hadn’t forbid it.”

  Galen called from the door. “Are you coming inside?” He was frowning a little. I wondered how long I’d been standing there talking to Royal.

  “You may not use your glamour but you’ve distracted me again,” I said.

  “The fact that I distract you isn’t glamour, my goddess of white and red.”

  “Then what is it?” I asked, tired of the games.

  He smiled, obviously pleased with himself. “Your magic calls to mine. We are both creatures of warmth and lust.”

  I frowned at him.

  Sholto loomed over me, and certainly over Royal. “I do not think the princess is a creature of any kind, little man.” The flock of tiny fey in his ponytail stopped playing hide-and-seek in his long fall of hair, as if they were listening.

  Royal looked up at him. “Perhaps the word ‘creature’ is ill chosen, King Sholto. It was perverse of me to forget the queen’s pet name for you.”

  Sholto was suddenly very still beside me. He had hated Queen Andais calling him “her Perverse Creature.” He had confessed to me he feared one day being just that as the Killing Frost and the queen’s Darkness. Feared one day he would simply be the queen’s “Creature.”

  “You are like some winged bug I can smash with a careless swat. Your glamour can’t change that, or give you the full-sized women you seem to prefer.”

  “My glamour has given me full-size, as you call it, more than once, King Sholto,” Royal said. Then he smiled, and I knew just from his expression that whatever he was about to say I wouldn’t like it. “Merry can speak to my glamour and just how much she enjoyed it.”

  Sholto’s face showed just how unhappy that made him. He turned that scowl to me. “You didn’t,” he said.

  “No,” I said, “but if I hadn’t been stopped I might have. If you’ve never had a demi-fey who carried sex magic try their wiles on you, then you don’t understand. It’s more powerful glamour than most of the sidhe still have.”

  “Remember, King, we hide in plain sight from the humans as real butterflies, moths, dragonflies, and flowers. They never see through our disguises, and that’s not always true with sidhe glamour.”

  “Then why don’t you help trail people for her detective agency?” Sholto asked.

  “We could if they would stay in certain parts of the city, but they tend to go places with too much metal.” Royal shivered, and it wasn’t a good shiver.

  Two of the tiny fey still riding in Sholto’s hair took to the air as if the thought was too frightening even for listening. The three left in his hair hid like children hearing the monster under the bed.

  “It is beyond most of us to travel through some parts of the city,” Royal said.

  “So your glamour is only good for soft things,” Sholto said.

  Royal looked at him, but a smile curved his delicate lips. “Our glamour is very, very good with soft things.”

  “I believe Merry when she says something, so if she says you are that good at it, then I believe her, but I also know she’s forbidden you to try your wiles on her again.”

  “It’s my week to take Queen Niceven’s weekly donation. I think Merry will want me to use my glamour for that.”

  Sholto had only to move his eyes to come back to my face from the little man on my shoulder. “Why are you still donating blood to Niceven through her surrogates?”

  “We need allies at the courts, Sholto.”

  “Why do you need them if you never plan to go back and rule?”

  “Spies,” Royal whispered. “The demi-fey are the proverbial flies on the wall, King Sholto. No one looks at us, no one notices how often we are about.”

  He looked from one to the other of us. “And I thought it was Doyle’s spy network that was getting such accurate information.”

  “The Darkness has his sources, but none as sweet as Merry has,” Royal said, and I knew he was playing it up to see if he could irritate the other man. Royal took great pleasure any time he could make one of my full-sized lovers jealous. It pleased him inordinately.

  Sholto frowned at him, then laughed. The sound startled Royal and me. The little man on my shoulder jumped, while I was simply puzzled. The fey in Sholto’s hair flew skyward and went over the house and away into the blue.

  “What is so funny, oh King of the Sluagh?” Royal asked.

  “Does your glamour make men jealous, too?”

  “As for Merry’s reaction to me, so your jealousy, King Sholto. Neither is magic.”

  Sholto’s face sobered and he studied the little man, not unhappily, but he truly studied him. He did it long and hard enough that Royal hid his face in my hair. I’d noticed this was a social gesture for all the demi-fey. They did it when they were embarrassed, afraid, being coy, or even simply out of other things to do. Royal didn’t like being the object of such concentration by Sholto.

  Mungo bumped my hand and I petted his sleek head. For the dogs to react meant that it wasn’t just Royal who was getting tension from Sholto’s reaction to the demi-fey.

  I stood and petted my dogs, letting some of the tension bleed off into the gesture. “We should get inside,” I said at last.

  Sholto nodded. “Yes, we should.” He offered me his arm and I took it. He led me inside as Royal whispered in my ear, “The sluagh like the goblins still eat us like prey.”

  It made me stumble up the small steps to the porch. Sholto caught me. “Are you all right?”

  I nodded. I could have asked Sholto, but if the answer was yes, I didn’t want to know, and whether it was yes or no, it was still an insulting question. How do you ask a man who you are supposed to love and who is the father of your child if he commits a little cannibalism on the side?

  “You’re afraid to ask,” Royal whispered like one of those cartoon devils on my shoulder.

  That made me lean in against Sholto and whisper just inside the door, “Do the sluagh still hunt the demi-fey?”

  He frowned and then shook his head. He looked at Royal, now hiding more seriously in my hair. “We do not hunt the small ones for food, but sometimes they are very irritating and we have to cleanse our faerie mound of them. How my people clean our house of them is their own business. I don’t tolerate them in my kingdom, because you’re right, you forget they are there, and I don’t tolerate spies.”

  Royal slid completely behind my neck so that he put his arms and legs on either side of my neck and held on as if I were the trunk of a tree.

  “Hide all you want, Royal, but I won’t forget you’re there,” Sholto said.

  I could feel Royal’s heart thudding against my spine. I was about to be sympathetic, but then I felt him lay a kiss against the back of my neck. It can be a very erotic spot, and as he laid soft kisses against my skin,
I felt that totally involuntary reaction low in my body. I made him move.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  I WAS IN THE BEDROOM CHANGING FOR DINNER WHEN THERE WAS A knock on the door. “Who is it?”

  “It’s Kitto.”

  I was down to my dark brown bra with its lace trim, and still in my skirt, hose, and heels, but he was on the list of people who I didn’t have to hide from. I smiled and said, “Come in.”

  He peered around the door as he opened it, as if unsure of his welcome. I’d managed a few minutes alone and he knew I valued my rare privacy, but I hadn’t seen him in two days, nearly three, and I’d missed him. But the moment I saw his black curls and his huge almond-shaped eyes with their swimming blue color, like looking into one of those perfect pools that dotted the neighborhood, I smiled more widely. The thin black of his elliptical pupils no longer detracted from the beauty of his eyes for me. It was just Kitto’s eyes, and I loved all of his face, the delicate bones in that soft triangle. He was the daintiest of all my men. He was four feet even, more than a foot shorter than I, but it was four feet of broad shoulder, narrow waist, tight ass, and everything he needed to be male, just done in a perfect miniature package. He was wearing designer jeans and a tight T-shirt that showed off the new muscles that weight-lifting had given him. Doyle made all the men work out.

  My face must have shown how pleased I was to see Kitto, because he smiled in return and ran to me. He was one of the few men in my life who didn’t try to be cool, or in charge, or even worry about being manly. He simply wanted to be with me and didn’t try to hide that. There were no games with Kitto, no hidden agendas. He simply loved being with me, in the way that most people outgrow, but since he had been born before Rome became a great city, he would never outgrow the childish enthusiasm that he had for life, and I loved him for that, too.