The yard had been planted within an inch of its life like most yards in Southern California. It was an abandoned lemon tree grove, now. The small trees were covered in dark green leaves. It was too late in the season for blossoms. I mourned that. But the moment I walked between the close crowding trees and the dry, crumbling grass and leaves underfoot, I knew this was it. The trees whispered among themselves like elderly ladies talking of the past softly with their heads close together in the warm, warm sun. The eucalyptus that lined the street just outside the garden wall was a heavy spicy scent that rode the air to mingle with the smell of the warm lemon trees.
A large cotton blanket lay on the ground, waiting. Maeve had offered to bring silk sheets, but all we needed was something of the earth, animal or vegetable. Something thick enough to cover the unyielding ground but not thick enough to separate us from it. We still needed to be able to feel the earth under our bodies.
I lay down on the blanket as if I was going to sunbathe. I pressed myself to the blanket, arms and legs wide, letting myself sink into the soft fuzz of the blanket, then past it to the coverings of the grass, leaves, and sticks, a covering of small sharp things, and farther still to the hard-packed earth beneath. There was water here or the lemon trees would have withered and died, but the ground seemed bone dry as if it never felt the touch of rain.
Wind caressed my body, drew me back. The wind played against my skin, rustled the dry leaves and weeds outside the edge of the blanket. The leaves whispered and shushed together. The smell of eucalyptus coated everything with its warm, pine-wood scent.
I rolled onto my back so I could watch the trees moving in the wind, feel the heat of the sun on the front of my body. I don't know if I heard a noise or just felt him standing there. I turned my head, my cheek lying on a bed of my own hair, and there he was.
Galen stood lost in the tossing green of the leaves and the small whispering trees. His hair lifted in a halo of green curls around his face. That one thin braid that was all that was left of his long, long hair trailed over his bare chest.
As he stepped out of the trees I could see that he wore nothing. His skin was a flawless white with a shade of green to it like the gleaming underside of a seashell. His waist looked longer without clothes, a slender expanse of flesh and bone leading up to the swell of his shoulders, and down to the slenderness of his hips. He was bigger than I'd thought he would be, longer, thick, growing as I watched, as if he felt my gaze travel down his body. His legs were long and muscled as he moved toward me.
I think I stopped breathing for a second or two. I hadn't really believed that he would come. I had grown tired of hoping. Now, here he was.
I raised my eyes to his face and found his smile. Galen's smile, the one that had made my heart skip a beat since I was old enough to care. I sat up on the blanket, holding my hand out to him. I wanted to run to him, but I was afraid to move out of the circle of trees and wind and ground. Afraid almost to look away from him because if I blinked, he would seep away into the trees like a summer dream.
He stood at the blanket's edge just out of reach and slowly lifted his hand toward mine until our fingers brushed, and that small touch sent a fluttering like a cloud of butterflies inside my body. It drew a sigh from my lips. Galen dropped to his knees on the blanket, hands at his sides, making no effort to touch me again.
I came up on my knees to mirror him. We knelt staring at each other, so close that we almost didn't need hands to touch. His hand raised slowly and hovered over the bare skin of my shoulder. I could feel his aura, his power, like a warm breath coming from his body. His hand skated across the trembling energy of my own aura, and those two separate warmths flared, reaching for each other. I'd feared that it would be hard to raise the magic, but I'd forgotten. I'd forgotten what it truly meant to be fey, to be sidhe. We were magic, as the earth and the trees were magic. We burned with the same invisible flame that bound the world together. That warm flame swelled between us, filled the air around us with a shimmering, beating energy like the sound of wings.
We kissed through that rising energy. It flowed between our mouths as he bent over me, and I raised my face to meet his lips. He was velvet warmth against my mouth, inside my mouth as his power spilled down my throat inside my body. When we'd shared Niceven's power it had been sharp, hot, almost painful. This was so much more, gentle warmth, the first breath of spring after a long winter.
His hands found my body, spilling my breasts bare to the wind. He drew his lips back from mine and lowered his face to my breasts, taking first one then the other into his mouth, rolling the nipples in the warmth, spilling power. His hands cupped my breasts, fingers tightening, until I cried out. His hands slid down my back to my hips, fingers catching the edge of the bikini bottoms, sliding them down my thighs, stopped at my knees, trapped. He rolled me onto my back and slid the last bit of clothing away.
I lay naked before him for the first time with the wind spilling over my body, spilling over his body. He was propped up on one arm, the long naked line of his body so close to mine. I ran my hand down his chest, down his stomach, his waist, and finally touched the warmth of him. I cupped him in my hands, holding him solid and warm, and he shuddered, eyes closing. When he opened them his green eyes were full of a dark light, a dark knowledge that stopped my breath and made things low in my body tighten. I squeezed gently, caressed him, and his spine bowed with it, head thrown back so far I couldn't tell if his eyes were open or closed.
I moved down while he was staring up at the sky, as my hand fondled him. I rolled him into my mouth in a sudden complete movement that brought a deep sound from his throat. I rolled my eyes so I could see his face when he turned from the sky and looked down at me. His lips half parted, his face almost wild. His breath came in quick gasps that started in his stomach, spilled to his chest, and came out his lips in a word. He breathed my name like a prayer and touched my shoulders. He shook his head. "I won't last long."
I lifted my mouth from his body, pushed him onto his back. I knelt over his legs and stared down at him. I'd wanted this for so long. I caressed his body with just my gaze, memorizing the way the color of his skin went from white to a pale spring green, the darkness of his nipples, tight against his chest. I rubbed my hand down the front of his body, feeling the skin like brushed velvet or suede, and still there was no word for how soft the skin, how hard and firm the flesh. But it wasn't just his flesh I'd been wanting all these years. It was his magic.
I called my power like a breathing warmth from my skin, and his aura raised like a warm sea and spilled into my power. Our magic flowed together like two currents of an ocean, mingling, drowning together.
I moved my body over his, taking him slowly inside me a tight inch at a time, until he was sheathed inside me. He whispered my name, and I bent over him until we kissed, kissed with the feel of him inside me, our bodies pressed in the most intimate of embraces.
The wind blew against my back like a cool hand. It raised me up, until I was sitting looking down at him. I could feel the trees again. Hear them whispering to one another, whispering to me of dark secrets locked deep underground, and I could feel the ground underneath us. I could feel the earth turning in a ponderous dance under Galen's body.
We became a part of that dance. Our bodies locked together, my hips moving back and forth, his hips raising up and down so that we formed a double rhythm that fed on each movement until I felt his body swell tight and firm and I squeezed him tight inside my body, holding him, holding him with hands, mouth, every part of me, as if he would vanish if I did not hold on tight. The warmth swelled between my legs rising up in a wave of heat that spilled up my body until it felt as if my skin let loose, and I flowed away into the wind and the whispering trees. The only thing that kept me anchored to the earth was the hard, hot point of Galen's body. I felt him slip his skin, felt his power spill outward, and for one shining moment we were neither flesh nor blood nor real. We were the wind, the trees as they tugged at their root
s like anchored kites, thinking both of deep earth and sunlight. We were the sweet evergreen smell of eucalyptus, and the thick warm scent of sunburned grass. When I could no longer feel my body and could barely remember who I'd been, I began to spill back into myself. My body re-formed and Galen was still inside me. His body re-formed underneath me, and we were left gasping for air, laughing into each other's arms. I slid off his body to lie beside him in the circle of his arms, my cheek pressed to his chest so that I could hear the fast, sure beat of his heart.
When we could walk, we got to our feet and walked back the way we had come to find Maeve Reed and her husband and give them the magic that we had found.
Chapter 36
It was Conchenn in all her glory who waited in my bedroom for her magic kiss. Gordon Reed seemed even more like a grey skeleton beside her glowing presence. The pain in his face as he gazed upon her was horrible to see. Even through the pulsing glow of the magic we held inside us, Gordon's pain was visible. I could not heal his illness, but I hoped to ease his pain.
"You smell of wilderness," Conchenn said. "The heart of the earth beats through you, Meredith. I can see it like a green glow behind my eyelids." She began to cry crystal tears, as if her tears should have been able to be held and set in silver and gold. "Your green man smells of sky and wind and sunlight. He glows yellow inside my head." She sat on the edge of the bed as if her legs couldn't hold her anymore. "Earth and sky you bring us, mother and father you bring us, goddess and god you bring us."
I wanted to say, don't thank us yet; we haven't given you a child yet. But I didn't say it, because I could feel the magic inside my body, could feel it in Galen as he held my hand. It was the raw power of life itself, the age-old dance of earth planted with seed bringing forth fruit. It could not be truly stopped, this cycle, because if it stopped, life itself would stop.
Maeve moved to sit beside Gordon and held one of his thin hands in both her shining ones. Galen and I stood in front of them. I moved to kneel by Gordon, as Galen moved closer to Maeve. We kissed them at the same time, our lips touching theirs like the last movement to some perfect dance. The power jumped from us to them in a rush that raised the hairs on our bodies and filled the room with that close hush like a lightning bolt ready to strike. The room was suddenly so full of magic that it was hard to breathe.
Galen and I moved back, and now I could see behind my own eyes that they both glowed, filled with earth fire and the gold of the sun. Maeve was already moving to kiss her husband's thin lips when we left them to it, closing the door quietly behind us. We felt the moment of release like a wind that poured from under the door and touched us all.
Doyle spoke into the sudden silence of us all. "You have succeeded, Meredith."
"You don't know that for certain," I said.
He looked at me, just looked at me as if what I'd said had been ridiculous.
"Doyle is right," Frost said. "Such power will not fail."
"If I have such fertility power, then why aren't I pregnant yet?"
There was a second silence, not awestruck this time, but awkward. "I do not know," Doyle said at last.
"We have to try harder, that's all," Rhys said.
Galen nodded solemnly. "More sex, we must have more sex."
I frowned at both of them, but couldn't keep it up. Finally I laughed. "We have more sex and I won't be able to walk."
"We'll carry you everywhere," Rhys said.
"Yes," Frost said.
I looked at all of them slowly. I was pretty sure they were kidding, pretty sure.
Chapter 37
We were finishing lunch the next day when Taranis called back.
I bolted the last of my fruit salad and fresh bread while Doyle spoke with him. Maeve was pregnant; the magic had quickened inside her. Taranis couldn't know that yet, but I feared what he would do when he found out. It added one more little stress to dealing with the king.
I'd chosen a royal purple sundress with a scoop neck and one of those little ties in back. It was very feminine, very nonthreatening, and a style that had been in vogue for a very long time. The only thing that had changed was the hem length. Sometimes when dealing with the Seelie Court, you wanted to go slow into the twenty-first century.
I sat on the freshly made bed, and it wasn't accidental that the purple of my dress complemented the burgundy bedspread and matched the purple pillows scattered among the burgundy and black ones.
I had refreshed the red lipstick and left the rest alone. We were going for dramatic natural. I had my ankles crossed, even though he couldn't see them, and my hands folded in my lap. It wasn't formal, but it was about the best I could do without a formal answering room.
Doyle stood on one side and Frost on the other. Doyle wore his usual black jeans, black T-shirt. He'd added black boots that reached to his thighs, then folded them down to just above his knees. He'd even pulled the spider necklace out of his shirt so that it gleamed in plain sight on his black shirt. The spider was part of his livery, his crest, and I'd once seen him cause the skin of a human magician's body to split as the spiders depicted in the jewels poured out of the man until he'd become nothing but a writhing mass of them. The unfortunate victim had been the man Lieutenant Peterson thought I had killed.
Frost had gone more traditional, dressed in a thigh-length tunic of white, edged with silver, white, and gold embroidery. Tiny flowers and vines were sewn in such detail that you could tell the vines were ivy and roses, with some harebells and violas embroidered around them. A broad belt of white leather, with a silver buckle, fastened at the tunic's waist. His sword, Winter Kiss, Geamhradh Pog, hung at his side. He left the enchanted blade at home most days because it couldn't stop modern bullets; it didn't possess that kind of magic. But for an audience with the king, the sword was perfect. Its handle was carved bone, inset with silver. The bone had a patina like old ivory, rich and warm, like pale wood polished from all the centuries of being handled.
They both did their best to stand to one side and not overwhelm me physically, but it was hard work. Even if I'd been standing up, it would have been hard work; sitting down it was nearly impossible, but we were trying to have me seem friendly. They would do the unfriendly parts if it needed doing. It was a sort of good cop, bad cop, but for politics.
Taranis, King of Light and Illusion, sat on a golden throne. He was clothed in light. His undertunic was the movement of sunlight through leaves, soft dappled light, with pinpoints of bright yellow sunlight, like tiny starbursts appearing through the light and shadow. The overtunic was the bright, almost blinding yellow of full summer sunlight on bright leaves. It was both green and gold, and neither. It was light, not cloth, and the color changed and moved as he moved. Even the rise and fall of his breathing made it dance and flow.
His hair fell in waves of golden light around a face that was so bright with light that only his eyes shone out of the dazzlement. Those eyes were three circles of brilliant, livid blue, like three circles of three different oceans, each drowning in sunlight, each a different shade of blue; but like the water they were borrowed from, they changed and shifted as if unseen currents boiled within.
So much of him moved, and not in complementary ways. It was like looking at different kinds of light on different days in different parts of the world but having them be forced together. Taranis was a collage of illumination that flashed and flowed and fluttered, and never in the same direction. I had to close my eyes. It was dizzying. I felt I'd grow sick if I looked at it long enough. I wondered if Doyle or Frost were feeling a little motion sick, or if it was just me.
But that wasn't something I could ask aloud in front of the king. Aloud I said, "King Taranis, my part-mortal eyes cannot behold your splendor without feeling quite overwhelmed. I would beg you lessen your glory so that I might look upon you without growing faint."
His voice came in a rush of music, as if he was singing some wondrous song, but he was only speaking. In my head, I knew it wasn't the most beautiful sound I
'd ever heard, but my ears heard something beyond beguiling. "Whatever you need to make this conversation pleasant will be given to you. Behold, I am more easy upon mortal eyes."
I opened my eyes cautiously. He was still as bright, but the light didn't move and flow so rapidly. It was as if he'd slowed down the play of light, and his face was not quite as dazzling. I could see more of the outline of his jaw, but there was still no hint of the beard that I knew he wore. His golden waves were more solid, less radiant. I knew what color his hair was, and this wasn't it. But at least it didn't make my head spin to look at him anymore.
Well, except for the eyes. He'd kept his eyes that swimming blue play of light and water. I smiled, and asked, "Where are those beautiful green eyes that I remember from childhood? I had looked forward to seeing them again. Or has my memory deceived me and it is some other sidhe's eyes that I thought were yours? These eyes were the green of emeralds, the green of summer leaves, the green of deep, still water in a shaded pool."
The men had given me tips on dealing with Taranis, from centuries of doing it themselves and seeing the queen do it. Tip number one had been: You never went wrong flattering Taranis; if it was sweet to the ears, he tended to believe it. Especially if a woman said it.
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