Swallowing Darkness_A Novel

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  I glanced at Holly, then back to Ash as he said, “We have lived by that rule. We have punished others who were gentle. Your own pet goblin, Kitto, suffered at our hands.”

  “Did you enjoy his suffering?” I asked.

  He smiled. “No one but you would ask that, blunt as a goblin, with that pretty sidhe face.”

  “Human too,” I said.

  He nodded, but reached out to touch my cheek. “And brownie in there somewhere, though it does not show.”

  I looked away from his face, out into the night. “My cousin, Cair, hated her brownie looks enough to kill our grandmother in a bid for power.”

  “We heard you hunted her down with the wild hunt. Named her kinslayer.”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  Holly wrapped his arms around me, all that scarred muscled strength so gentle. He held me, and whispered in my hair, “When we are alone we can say how terrible for you. That we’re sorry for the loss of your grandmother.”

  Ash moved closer to us, moving my face with his fingers so he’d be sure of my gaze being on his face. “But in the world, in front of anyone, Meredith, and I mean anyone else, we are goblins. We will have to behave as goblins.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  “The other is not an act, Meredith. It is us, too.”

  Holly pressed his face into my hair. “You smell clean and sweet, like everything good. Good enough to eat.”

  I tensed a little in his arms. “Goblins would mean that as a threat.”

  “Never be fooled, Meredith,” Ash said. “We are goblins, but we are also ourselves.” He frowned at his brother.

  “I’m a little more goblin than my brother,” Holly said.

  “If you were sidhe, I’d say that you don’t get to give me oral sex, but I know the goblins see giving oral sex as an insult. I can perform on you, but you won’t perform on me.”

  “True,” Holly said, “but my brother’s a pervert.”

  It took me a second to understand, and it made me smile. Ash actually looked embarrassed. “There’s no one to see, no one to tell,” he said. “I can do what I want.”

  I spoke from the circle of his brother’s arms. “And what do you want?”

  “I want to taste you until your pleasure makes you shine for me.”

  “Then can we fuck?” Holly asked.

  Ash frowned at him, but I laughed. “Yes, eventually we’ll fuck.”

  “I’d rather make love,” Ash said, and there was a longing in his face that I never thought to see. A longing for things he didn’t get a chance to do much. There was almost no privacy in goblin society for sex. To hide away meant you were embarrassed, or bad at it in some way.

  I leaned toward Ash. Holly let me go, enough so I could put a gentle kiss on his brother’s lips. “Taste me, make love to me, Ash, please.”

  He kissed me back, his hand sliding down to cup my breast and play with the nipple until it hardened and I made a small sound into his mouth. He drew back enough to whisper, “On your back, Princess.”

  I gave the only answer there was to give. “Yes.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  ASH MOUNDED THE CLOTHES UNDER ME SO THAT MY LOWER body was angled higher for him as he lay flat on the ground between my legs. The moon loomed over us, white and shining, so close I could see the gray shapes of craters, and the black marks of deeper holes. I reached a hand upward, but as close as it looked, it was beyond my reach.

  Ash curved his fingers around my legs, opening them wider. He kissed along my thighs, putting a gentle touch of lips on first one leg, then the other, until he came to the inside of my thigh, and there he lingered. He kissed and nuzzled, just short of the spot I was wanting him to find. He laid a kiss in that hollow at the very innermost part of the thigh that is still thigh and not groin. He laid a second kiss in the hollow of the other side. He breathed along my flesh so that it was warm and close, and all of it made me more and more eager for him to touch me in that most intimate of places.

  Holly made a small noise. It made me look at him. He was hugging his knees tightly to his chest again, watching us. He looked eager, true, but there was more than that. Again, I got that glimpse of how lonely he and Ash must be. They were fierce goblin warriors, but part of them was not. Part of them craved different meat than the bloody raw stuff they got at their court. And here, in this place between time, between space, where no time would pass, might be their only chance to be sidhe and not goblin. Holly could say he wanted to be goblin rather than sidhe, but the longing was there on his face in the moonlight.

  Ash came to my edges at last, and it brought me back to gaze down my body at him. I could see only part of his face, the lower half of him hidden against my own body as if it were a mask. He rolled his eyes upward, and they were huge and almond shaped, the green turned to darkness by the moonlight. His hair was almost white with contrast, but his gold-kissed skin looked almost highly tanned in the dimness. He licked around my edges, gazing at my face as he did it. Whatever he saw there pleased him, because he moved to my center, and licked from my opening, to the top in one quick, wide, wet line. It made me shudder, and that seemed to please him too, because he licked me over and over until my hands found his hair and held on. My skin began to glow softly, paled by the glow of the moon, but rising under my skin, as if I were reflecting the great shining orb above us.

  Ash pressed his mouth against that most intimate part, and began to suck. It made me press myself against his mouth, eager for more. He responded by giving me more, pressing his mouth around me in a tight seal so that the sucking became more intense. That sweet pressure began to build between my legs. It grew with each movement of his mouth, each caress of his lips, his tongue, and the press of his teeth, not biting, but helping raise the sensation level. He brought me to that trembling edge, as the weight grew and grew between my legs until, with one last kiss, one last suck, one last flick of his tongue, he spilled me over the edge and brought me screaming, hands reaching up toward the moon, as if I would claw my pleasure on the very surface of it.

  Holly was suddenly there, taking my hands and putting them against his chest. Ash kept sucking, kept the orgasm rolling over and over, and I marked Holly’s flesh with the pleasure of it, tracing my nail marks among the scars of battle, fresh red to join all that white.

  There were crimson lights, green and gold shadows, and I realized it was me, my hair, my eyes glowing so bright that they challenged the glow of that huge moon.

  Ash moved away from me, and I started to protest, to call him back, but then I felt him above me. I looked down from Holly’s body to find Ash hard and ready, as he pushed his way inside me. Just him entering me made me cry out again. I was still spasming inside from the orgasm he’d given me so that my body squeezed and writhed around him as he shoved himself in.

  Holly pinned my wrists to the clothes and grass beneath us, using one big hand for both of mine. Ash stayed up on his arms so that almost all that was touching me was that part of him that thrust in and out, his skin glowing in the white light. It took me a few heartbeats to realize that Ash’s skin was glowing on its own. He was beginning to glow like a sidhe.

  I gazed up at Holly to see if he had noticed to find that the blood I had drawn from his chest was glowing in crimson lines. I might have remarked on it, but he angled his body, and I knew what he wanted. I moved my mouth so that he could slide himself into it as his brother slid himself between my legs.

  They both found their rhythm, and worked as if they’d done this before, or as if something helped them know just where the other would be, and what they would be doing, so that they mirrored each other, one in my mouth, one between my legs.

  I raised my hips for Ash, and moved my mouth eagerly toward Holly, but both of them controlled what I did, Ash with his hands on my hips, holding me still so he could find the spot he wanted, Holly with his free hand in my hair, holding me a little away from him so he could stare down at me as he drove himself in and out of me.

/>   I made small whimpering noises around Ash’s body as he found that spot inside me, and began to work over and over it. The orgasm began to build again. Holly’s hand jerked my hair, hard and fast enough for pain. It made me cry out, and press my mouth eagerly against him, trying to take all that long hard length into my mouth at once.

  Ash began to lose his rhythm, shoving more deeply at the end of each thrust. I felt him fight his body to keep going inside me until I came first. That wasn’t just being sidhe; goblins prided themselves on their stamina, and how many orgasms they could bring their partners. He fought his body, fought to keep some rhythm as he began to thrust more and more deeply, losing his concentration, but he didn’t need it, not anymore. He’d done his work well, and from one thrust to another, he brought me. He brought me screaming my orgasm around his brother’s body. Holly cried out above me and thrust into my mouth so far and deeply that during anything but full-blown orgasm it would have been too much, but in that moment, at that second, it was exactly right. The sensation of both of them inside me at once brought me screaming again, bucking around both their bodies.

  Holly spilled down my throat in a rush of heat, crying out again. Ash thrust one more time, deep inside me, hitting the end of me with the end of himself, like a battering ram, but it felt so good. It brought me again, screaming and writhing around them both.

  Holly pulled himself out of my mouth, and let me scream my pleasure at the moon. He knelt above me on all fours, head down, one hand still pinning my wrists. His hair glowed like yellow fire around his face, and he blinked eyes that glowed with the same crimson fire of the blood that still dripped down his chest.

  Ash drew himself out, and collapsed beside me. He threw one hand over my waist, and lay there panting. He blinked eyes at me that glowed like emerald fire. His hair was a halo of gold and yellow fire against the ground.

  Our glows began to fade, like fire banked for the night. Holly collapsed on the other side of me, a little more of him curving around my head so that I was cradled against his chest.

  Ash took one of my hands in his and raised it for us all to see. Our skins glowed together, mine white like the moon, theirs as if they’d swallowed the gold of the sun. Holly reached down and laid one of his hands over both of ours, and it was like we’d all swallowed the lights of the sky into our veins.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  WE REAPPEARED IN THE WINTER FIELD HAND IN HAND. WE’D dressed ourselves, and tied our weapons back on, and left that place of peace and magic, to step back into the aftermath of battle. No, worse than battle: bomb. There were no enemies to fight, just physics gone horribly wrong.

  There were moans from the Red Caps, and for them to make noises of pain meant they were dying. But I knew what to do. I knew it as surely as you know your name, or your favorite color. I simply knew, because the air still smelled of summer, and our skin still held the dim glow of the moon and sun.

  We stood in the center of the wounded, and we pushed our magic outward; as the queen had pushed darkness, we pushed blood and flesh. Blood to wash the metal bits from their bodies. There were cries of pain, clouds of blood in the dimness. Flesh to heal the wounds. Then the cries stopped, and the Red Caps got to their feet, a little shaky perhaps, but healed and whole. They stood to a man, and turned to us.

  I held Holly and Ash’s hands upward in mine. I called out, “The hand of blood!” and Holly stepped forth, his hand held high, his skin and hair and eyes shining with the healing that we had done.

  “The hand of flesh!” and Ash stepped away from me, glowing with magic, and smiling.

  I held my hands up to the sky and said, “I hold the hands of flesh and blood, and now I can make whole what is torn apart.”

  The Red Caps gathered around us, then dropped to their knees, their faces covered in blood from the caps that gave them their names. I went to Jonty, and touched his face. The moment I touched him, his cap ran with blood as if I’d dumped a bucket over his head. The other Red Caps clustered around me, touching, and where they touched, they bled. Then one of them grabbed Holly’s wrist. Holly snarled at him, but stopped in the middle of drawing his blade because blood was pouring down the Red Cap’s face.

  Holly stared over his shoulder at me. “I truly have the hand of blood.” He made it almost a question.

  “Yes,” I said, and nodded in case he was too far away to hear my voice.

  A look of wonder crossed his face, and he turned back to the Red Cap at his feet and touched him gently with his free hand. The blood flowed faster, and the Red Caps began to cluster around him too.

  One of them tried to grab Ash, but they did not bleed faster. “The hand of flesh,” Ash said, and it wasn’t a question.

  I nodded.

  The Red Caps clustered around Holly and me, but Ash didn’t seem to mind. He just stared at his hand, as if he could feel which one held the power.

  Doyle came to me, wading between the Red Caps, like walking through small, kneeling mountains. He went to his knees in front of me.

  I shook my head and reached down, taking his hands in mine. I raised him to his feet. He took my hands in his, but he was staring at me in a way that I’d never seen before. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Look at yourself,” he said, his voice soft.

  I didn’t understand what he meant; then I caught the soft glow on the edge of my vision. There was something on my head, and it was glowing, but the glow was so faint that I hadn’t noticed it.

  One of the Red Caps unsheathed his great sword, and held it up for Doyle. He took it, and held the flat of the blade so I could see myself. The image was distorted, but I could see something black and silver on my head, though silver was too strong a word. I turned my head, and the moonlight caught the dew, and outlined the spiderweb that formed the crown.

  “Oh, my God,” I whispered.

  “It is the Crown of Moonlight and Shadows,” he said.

  I stared at him. “But that’s the crown of the Unseelie Court.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “And it’s mine!” Cel screamed it, from the edge of the field. He held a spear in his hand. The runes glowed across the field, and I knew it was the spear known only as Shrieker. The queen had indeed opened the weapons vault to her son. Shrieker had once been able to slay armies, not with its blade, but with the screaming it made in the air when it was thrown.

  I saw a flash of white on the edge of the field. Cel’s arm pulled back, and he made a small running start to cover us all with its deadly scream. The white stag leaped. It made a graceful arc, and put itself in the way of the spear. Cel couldn’t stop the blow, so the spear buried itself in the white stag’s side, and was jerked from Cel’s hands as the stag tried to run.

  Doyle and the rest were running, closing on Cel. I had eyes only for the stag as it collapsed to its knees. The Red Caps and the brothers ran for the fight, except for Jonty. He scooped me into his arms, as he had that one night when he’d run across the fields to get me to a different battle in time. Now he ran like the wind was at his back to get me to the stag. To get me to Frost’s side before he breathed his last.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  THE FIGHT WAS BETWEEN US AND THE DYING STAG. AS ALWAYS, Cel was between me and what I loved. Jonty sat me on the ground. My body was splattered with the warm blood of the Red Caps’ magic. He looked carved of blood from holding me so close. He drew his own sword to wade into the fight, but I realized that the reason the fight was taking so long was that they were trying not to kill Cel. He wanted them dead, and even as I watched he opened a wound in Galen’s arm that sprayed blood, and made him retreat.

  There was blood on Rhys’s face and a wound in Mistral’s side that he was favoring, which meant he was hurt. Cel was no match for them, but if they only wanted to disarm him and he was willing to kill them, it put even the best warrior at a disadvantage. Holly and Ash were actually not fighting, because a goblin does not fight except to kill. It raised again the idea that the Red Caps had
once been their own kingdom with its own customs.

  Doyle sprang backward just in time to avoid a sword thrust. He had not drawn his sword. I think he didn’t trust what he would do to Cel with a blade in his hand. It had been ingrained in them for centuries that they were not allowed to harm Cel, no matter what he did. The queen would have killed them for it. But Andais was no longer queen.

  I yelled, “Kill him! Do not die to protect him!”

  Galen looked my way, and got a cut across his chest that made him stumble. Cel came in for the kill, and only Doyle’s sword kept the blow from falling. He’d drawn his sword at last. He drove Cel back with whirring swordwork so that his blade moved too fast to follow with the eye, like the blade of some handheld electric thing. No one was that fast, no one but Doyle.

  Cel actually kept the blade at bay, his own swordwork an answering blur. In that moment, I saw for the first time that Cel wasn’t just a mamma’s boy. There was a warrior in all that spoiled prince. Few could have withstood Doyle, even for a few moments, but Cel managed. He made no progress, but he kept the blade from touching him or disarming him.

  The field had gone utterly silent; there was nothing but the ring of blade on blade, and the grunts of effort from Cel. Doyle worked in silence, except for the slither of his feet on the ground as he moved, and the hiss of his blade along Cel’s.

  It was too fast for me to follow, but Andais was a goddess of war, and she saw more. She yelled out across the cold air, “Darkness, please, spare him!”

  I saw a hesitation, a moment in Doyle’s whirring movements. Cel tried to press the advantage, but suddenly his blade was spinning through the air, and Doyle’s blade was at his throat, as he lay on the ground, panting up at the other man.

  Cel was breathing hard, but he was smiling. He was smiling up at Doyle with that same arrogance I’d seen him wear all his life. His mother had saved him again. The Queen of Air and Darkness had that power.

  Doyle stood with Black Madness pressed to Cel’s throat, but did not drive it home. Andais was walking across the field toward us. “No, not again” was all I thought.