"That the power of the Goddess is inside you," he said, and the teasing softened as he said it.
"Maybe awed more than creeped out," I offered.
"You should be honored," Maeve said, hugging me.
"I am honored," I said, "but this particular honor almost killed me."
Maeve's face looked suddenly solemn. "Yes, and it would have been my fault."
"No," I said.
"I played you with my magic, Merry. I tried to seduce you because all the men keep turning me down for you." She kissed the top of my head. "I thought, If you can't beat them, join them." She hugged me tight enough that I couldn't see her face when she said, "I want sidhe flesh, Merry. I want a glow to match my own to throw shadows on the walls in the dark." Her voice was fierce.
"Will you settle for a kiss?" I offered, my voice muffled against her shoulder.
She leaned back enough to show me a smile. "If it comes with magic, yes."
"I guess if it doesn't come with magic, we won't know if the Goddess energy will remanifest."
She smiled and raised a perfectly arched eyebrow. "I suppose not."
"Was it a kiss with power that did Frost as well?" Doyle asked.
"Yes," Maeve and Galen answered in unison.
"Frost freed her from Maeve's power, and then it was as if he couldn't help himself." Galen looked out into the room, as if he were visualizing what had happened. "This look came over his face just before he bent down and kissed her." He blinked and looked back at Doyle. "He looked bespelled."
"Where is he now?" Doyle asked.
No one knew the answer. "Queen's curse take it," Doyle said, "Nicca, Galen, find him, bring him here."
Nicca turned for the door, but Galen hesitated. "What if Merry needs us?"
"Go," Doyle said, "now." And the way he said it brooked no argument.
Galen gave me a last glance then joined Nicca at the door, and they went through it at a jog.
"He just didn't want to miss the show," Rhys said.
"What show?" I asked.
He grinned at me. "Two of the most beautiful women I know locked in an embrace. There are people who would pay to watch."
I shook my head. Sitting by Maeve Reed, the epitome of Seelie beauty, I didn't feel beautiful. Something must have shown on my face because Maeve touched my chin, raised me to meet her eyes. "You are beautiful, Merry, and having once been a goddess of beauty, I should know."
"I look too human," I said softly.
"Why do you think our men have been stealing human women away for centuries? Because they're ugly?" She shook her head, and there was a soft chiding in her face. "Merry, Merry, know your worth." That gold light began to pulse inside her skin, as if someone had lit a candle deep within her and the light was growing closer, flowing through her body, until she glowed like the sun stretched inside her skin. The power shivered over me, sped my pulse, brought my own pale light gloaming through my skin so that I rose moon to her sun.
Her hair began to move in the wind, that warm wind. Her eyes filled with light, and again it was like staring into the heart of a spring storm, flashing with lightning, ripping the heavens apart, but instead of rain, it was her power that fell upon me. I turned my face up to that power as if it truly would rain down upon me.
Her hands curved over my bare skin, as if the bathing suit wasn't there. She held me in her arms, and I went willingly, my own hands sliding up the warm skin of her bare arms. It seemed wrong that she wore so many clothes. We needed to touch more skin than this. I realized that I was sensing Maeve's skin-hunger. Her need for sidhe flesh to cover her own. I remembered the hunger all too well, and it had only been satisfied for me four months back. So long, so lonely. I couldn't tell if it was my feelings or hers, and I knew that that was part of her magic. To project her needs and make them my own.
I reached for the buttons on her vest, but they were too small, too hard to open. I got two fistfuls of cloth and yanked. The buttons went flying, making small sounds as they hit the walls, the bed, and the men.
Maeve gasped, eyes wide, and drowning with need. Her breasts were pointed with large round nipples that seemed to shine as if they'd been carved of some thick, red jewel. I ran my hands over her bare stomach. The white glow of my hands made the golden glow of her skin pulse and fade, growing brighter at my touch, fading slightly as I moved my hands around the warmth of her waist. My hands slid upward until my thumbs and fingers rested just below her breasts. If a man had touched me here, my breasts would have hung over his hands, but Maeve's were small and tight, and still untouched.
The glow of her magic pulsed under my hands, bright and brighter, as if she had started to burn just underneath her breasts. She moaned, "Please!"
I realized in that moment that I'd pushed clear of her need, no longer feeling it as my own. I was deep in power, but about this one thing I was clear. If I touched her, it would be my choice.
I gazed up at her, head thrown back, eyes half closed. Her need still rode the air like some musky perfume, but now I could breathe it in and not drown. I stared at the bright gold of the power under my hands, and wondered what it would feel like to have that much power brushed across my breasts. This much I could give her.
I said, "Kiss me, Maeve."
She opened her eyes enough to look in my direction, but she couldn't focus; she was already half gone from the touch of magic and skin.
I repeated, "Kiss me."
She lowered her head, and I waited, waited until our mouths touched, then I caressed my hands upward over the mounds of her breasts. She pressed her mouth harder against mine, and the kiss became something deep and urgent, then my hands slid to the hardness of her nipples, and it was as if the world exploded. Power rocked us backward onto the bed so that she fell on top of me and my hands were locked on her breasts, as if I'd put my hands on a live wire and now couldn't get free.
Part of me didn't want free. Part of me wanted to sink into the golden glow of her, and be lost. She rose above me, quivering, shrieking, jerking against my hands where they seemed melded to her flesh. She ground her hips against mine, and if I'd been male, she'd have hurt me. But I wasn't male, and some part of my magic kept her amazing orgasm from jumping to me. The power pulsed wave after wave through my body while Maeve danced above me, but that ultimate pleasure was hers and hers alone. Somehow it seemed right. She'd waited so long.
She opened her eyes in the midst of it all, and she must have seen my face, understood that I was giving to her, but not taking, and she didn't like that. She pressed her hand to my stomach, and my white glow intensified under her touch. It was like being touched by spring's warmth, something heavy and rich that shivered and throbbed against my skin. I had a moment to wonder if that's what my hands felt like on her breasts when she slid her hand down the front of my bathing suit, and slid her finger between my legs. The moment that throbbing, pulsing power thrilled along my flesh, the orgasm burst from my body in waves, as if her touch were a stone thrown into a deep lake, and each ripple was another ring of pleasure, and where the stone slid downward pleasure followed. It was like being caressed and mined with sex all at the same time.
I came back to myself still on the bed with Maeve collapsed on top of me. I couldn't hear her ragged breathing for the pulse in my own ears, but I could feel the rise and fall of her chest as she struggled to breathe, as we both struggled to breathe past the pounding of the pulses in our throats.
When I could hear again, it was her frantic breathing and ragged laugh that came first. Then it was Rhys's voice: "I don't know whether to applaud or cry."
"Cry," Galen said, "because we missed the entire show."
I turned my head, and it seemed to take a lot more effort than it should have. I ended up staring at the room through a mist of Maeve's pale blond hair. I swallowed and tried to speak, but that was still beyond me.
Galen, Nicca, and Frost were just inside the door. Rhys and Doyle were by the bed, but not close enough to be accidentally touche
d.
Maeve found her voice before I did. "I'd forgotten, forgotten. Goddess bless me, I'd forgotten what it could be like with another sidhe." She rolled off me slowly, awkwardly, as if her body wasn't working right. She turned to look at me, a smile on her face even as she struggled to focus her eyes. "You were wondrous."
I managed to whisper, "Remind me the next time I ask for a kiss to be more specific."
That made her laugh, which made her cough. "My throat is dry."
Funny, so was mine.
"Nicca," Doyle said, "go get the ladies some water."
As Nicca left the room, he walked wide outside the door as if someone were standing on the left-hand side of it. It was Galen who said, "There's a tree in the hallway. I think it's an apple tree. It burst through the stone floor just inside the pool area, and by the time we got upstairs it had made a hole in the floor up here."
Rhys walked over to peer at the tree in the hallway. "The blossoms are opening."
The smell of apple blossoms began to drift in through the door.
Doyle stared down at us, at me. "How do you feel?"
"Better. My throat doesn't hurt anymore."
He offered me a hand, and I took it, let him lift me from Maeve's bed. My knees wouldn't hold me, and only his arm around my waist kept me from the floor. He picked me up, cradling me against his bare chest. I was too spent to do much more than lie there. I had an urge to play with the silver ring in his nipple, but it seemed too much effort. I was suddenly tired. Tired in a good way, but tired nonetheless.
He carried me out into the hall, past the pink-and-white mass of blossoms that almost filled it. I was drowning in the scent of apple blossoms again, and for a moment power flared through me, a strong pulse that made Doyle stumble.
"Be careful, Princess, I do not wish to drop you."
"Sorry," I mumbled, "didn't mean to."
I noticed the unevenness of the stairs, and got a glimpse of the grey tree trunk before we got to the sliding glass doors, but the last thing I remembered was a flash of blue water and sunlight from the pool. Then I closed my eyes, snuggled against Doyle's chest, and gave up the fight. Sleep swept up and over me, as complete and deep as any I could remember. Do the gods sleep well at night? I think, maybe, they do.
CHAPTER 8
I dreamed. I stood on a hill with a rounded top and gazed down upon a vast open plain. There was a woman beside me, but I couldn't see her face. She wore a grey cloak; or it was black, or perhaps green. The harder I tried to see her, the thicker the shadows around her grew, until I knew that I wasn't meant to see her. Her face was hidden in the shadows of the cloak's hood. I couldn't tell her age, though I thought she was not young. She had the feel of someone who had seen much, and not all of it happy. One thing I was sure of: I did not know her.
She held a staff in her hand, so ancient that it was black and shiny with use. She motioned outward with her empty hand toward the plain. Doyle strode across the grass with hounds roiling around him, huge black hounds with eyes of fire. The Gabriel Ratchets, Hell Hounds, curved like shadows and smoke around him. They gathered close to him so he could rub an ear, stroke a head, thump a chest bigger around than I was. He was smiling and at ease, and in a breath they vanished. Galen was there, and where he walked trees sprang up, entire forests spread, and children appeared in the woods, chasing after him, tugging on his arms. He touched their heads, chucked them under the chin, played tag among the trees and flowers. One of the little boys touched a tree, and his palm glowed golden. Nicca stepped out of the trees, and wherever he walked flowers sprang up. He met Galen, and the children, and they played. Far across the plain, away from the happy scene, Rhys appeared. He was at the head of a vast army, and somehow I knew that the warriors at his back were dead. But when he looked at me he had two good eyes; the scars were gone. Somehow I knew this wasn't glamour, that he'd been healed. He had a hammer in his hand, and it shone with a light of its own. There were bodies on the ground, wounded. He touched them with the butt of the hammer and they rose, healed.
The lady turned me to face away from all of that, to find Kitto. He was shining, and fully sidhe, but it was a group of goblins at his back. He raised his hand and light so white and pure that it blinded like lightning shot from his palm to rake through the army they faced. The goblins chanted his name like a prayer. I saw from a great distance, but still could see snakes in the grass among the opposing army. Poisonous snakes struck the enemy, and I knew that they did so at Kitto's bidding. The enemy broke apart, fleeing in panic, and the goblins gave chase to cut down those who remained.
The woman moved, brought my attention back to her. Her staff stood in the middle of the hill, stuck into the earth, and as I watched, it grew into a great spreading tree, so old and ancient that its trunk had split and it had died. She put her hand in the opening of the trunk, and when she withdrew it, she held a shining cup; a chalice formed of silver and set with precious stones. The chalice began to shine the way the skin of a sidhe shines when power is running through him. The shine became a glow, until the chalice was like a star sitting in her hands, a glowing, pulsing star. Light seemed to spill out of it, as if light could be liquid and held in a cup.
She held the cup out to me. "Drink." That one word echoed through the plain. It never occurred to me to say no. It never occurred to me to question her. I put my hands over hers where they held the cup, and found her skin soft, and fragile with age. She was old, much older than I'd thought. We raised the cup to my lips together, and the light inside it was so bright that for a moment I could see nothing but golden light, so warm, so comforting, so perfect. I drank from the cup, and it was like drinking power, drinking light.
She lowered the cup, and my hands were still upon hers. Her hands had changed. They were young, strong, with clean, delicate fingers. Wind spilled across the hilltop, rustling in the leaves. I looked up and found the dead tree thick with summer leaves. The trunk had healed except for a small knot that my hand would barely have fit inside. A bird began to sing high up in one of the branches. A squirrel scolded us from nearer the ground.
She squeezed my hands, and I caught a glimpse of her face. For a moment it was me, then she smiled, and I knew it wasn't my face inside the hood, yet it was.
I woke gasping in a strange bed in the dark, my heart thudding. I felt good, refreshed, and frightened all at the same time.
Rhys turned to me, his white hair gleaming in the moonlight. "Merry, are you all right?"
I started to say yes, then felt something beside my hip. I reached under the covers and touched something hard and metallic. I jerked the sheet back and there, gleaming softly in the moonlight, was the chalice from my dream.
CHAPTER 9
Thirty minutes later we'd all gathered in the kitchen, including Sage. If he'd been larger than a Barbie doll he'd have been handsome, if your taste ran to the slender yellow-skinned variety, but I had to admit the yellow-and-black swallowtail wings were pretty. He could make himself nearly my height, a form of shape-shifting less surprising than those of us who could take animal form, but it was a rarer gift to change from tiny fey to human-size fey. He was what you might call an ambassador for the Unseelie demi-fey, and their queen, Niceven. I'd struck an alliance with them. They'd agreed to stop spying for my cousin Cel and his allies, and start spying for me. They still spied for my aunt, Queen Andais, but then she was supposed to be my ally, too. There were days when I wondered about that, but not tonight. Tonight we had enough problems without worrying about who Andais really wanted to be her heir.
The chalice sat in the middle of the tiled kitchen table, looking terribly out of place in the stark white modern kitchen. Doyle had brought a silk pillowcase to spread on the table, but even the bit of black silk wasn't enough to make the chalice look at home. It sat in the glow of the overhead lights looking like what it was, an ancient relic of power that just happened to be sitting on a breakfast nook table barely big enough for the four chairs that framed it. The cup needed
at the very least a large dining room table, with acres of gleaming hardwood and shields and weaponry mounted on the walls. The cat clock on the wall with the moving tail and eyes didn't match the cup, but it did match the white canisters with black-and-white kittens painted on top of them. Maeve had never owned a cat, but I'd bet her decorator did.
Galen had made coffee and tea, and hot chocolate. We all sat huddled around our respective hot liquids and stared at the gleaming cup. Nobody seemed to want to break the silence. The ticking of the clock just seemed to emphasize the quiet.
"Once it was a cauldron," Doyle said, and I wasn't the only one who spilled tea down the front of his or her robe. Galen fetched paper towels for everyone who needed one. Frost cursed softly but with feeling under his breath as he mopped at the front of his grey silk robe. We all had silk robes, monogrammed with our initial. They'd been gifts from Maeve. We'd go out to work for the day, and we'd come home to packages.
Sage didn't get presents. I think it was half that he was demi-fey, and most sidhe treated them as if they were the insects that they resembled. It was one of the reasons they made such excellent spies: No one really paid them much attention. The other was that Maeve didn't know he could make himself bigger. She was hungry enough for fey flesh that she might have thought better of him if she'd known. She might not have cared, for the Seelie are pickier about the fey they call lovers. But the fact that some of Niceven's people could shift larger was a very closely guarded secret. As far as we knew, those of us in this room were the only sidhe who were aware of it.
Sage sat on the end of the kitchen cabinet, swinging his tiny legs in the air. His wings fanned slowly behind him, as they often did when he was thinking. He lowered his tiny, handsome face carefully over the mug beside him, being careful not to get his nearly shoulder-length butter-yellow hair in the foam of the hot chocolate. All the little fey seem to have a sweet tooth. He was wearing a tiny skirt made out of what seemed to be pale blue gossamer, as if it had been sewn by spiders, so fine was the cloth. Sage didn't wear many clothes, but what he did was of finer weave than any silk.
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