“We don’t need much time,” I said.
“My condolences,” Jeremy said. He opened his mouth like he was going to add to that, then shook his head, tugged on the sleeves of his suit jacket, and went, very firmly, for the door.
The door shut behind him, and I looked down at the goblin. We weren’t going to do what Jeremy obviously thought we were going to do. I’d never had intercourse with Kitto, and didn’t plan to start now. I’d had to share flesh with one of the goblins to cement the treaty between them and me, but sharing flesh can mean a lot of things to a goblin. Technically, once I’d let Kitto leave a perfect imprint of his teeth in my shoulder, we’d shared flesh, and it was done. But what should have been a scar had faded, then vanished from my skin. I’d shown King Kurag the bite mark when it was fresh, and neither Kitto nor I had mentioned that it had faded. Without the scar there was no proof that I belonged to Kitto.
The pain of Kitto’s bite had been lost somewhere in the middle of sex with someone else, lost when my body had gone forward into that place where pleasure and pain are blurred. From a dead start, with no foreplay, getting a piece bitten out of you just hurts.
Kitto was within his rights, by goblin culture, to expect reassurance in the form of sharing flesh, whatever that meant for us. I was very lucky with my little goblin; he was subservient to me and liked it that way. My father had made sure I understood all the cultures of the Unseelie Court, and I knew what was true reassurance and what wasn’t for Kitto’s world. I had to play him fair, not cheat. I suspected, strongly, that Kurag would be upset that I had no visible mark of goblin on my body; and insult to injury, Kitto wasn’t getting intercourse either. So I was trying to be very careful about all the other cultural rules and taboos.
I needed to reassure Kitto and continue the day’s business. There were two other clients to see before we could go off to visit Maeve Reed. Ms. Reed, through Jeffery Maison, had been most insistent that we see her this afternoon, not this evening. If we couldn’t make it this afternoon, then tomorrow morning would be next best.
Kitto cuddled against me, his small hands kneading along my back and waist. It was a gentle reminder that he was still there, waiting.
The door opened. Rhys hesitated just inside the door, staring at us. A spurt of anger flashed through me. “Come in, Rhys, join us.” My voice was cold, distant, angry.
He shook his head. “I’ll get Doyle for you.”
“No,” I said.
He stopped in the doorway, and finally looked at me, met my eyes. “You know I don’t share you with the—” He caught himself, before he could say goblin, and finished awkwardly. “—him.”
“And what if I say you will share me with him?”
“I came in here to apologize, Merry. If I had injured Kitto, it could have jeopardized your treaty with the goblins. I’m sorry I lost my temper.”
“If this had been the first incident, I’d accept the apology. But it’s not the first. It’s not even the fifteenth. Words aren’t enough anymore.”
“What do you want from me, Merry?” He was looking angry and sullen again.
“Distract me while I reassure Kitto.”
He shook his head hard enough to send his white curls flying. He winced, and put a hand up to his neck. There was a bandage on it, but apparently it still hurt. The wound wouldn’t last long; a couple of hours and he’d be healed.
“I vowed never again to let goblin flesh touch mine, Merry. You know that.”
“He’s going to be touching me, Rhys, not you.”
“No, Merry, no.”
“Then pack your bags and go.”
His eye widened. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that I can’t risk you hurting Kitto and screwing up the treaty with the goblins.”
“I said I was sorry about that.”
“But not sorry enough to make friends with Kitto. Not sorry enough to behave like a bodyguard instead of a spoiled, bigoted child.”
He stood in the half-open doorway, staring at me. “You can’t mean that you’d kick me out in preference to this … goblin.”
I shook my head. “My enemies are the goblin’s enemies for three more months. That has kept me safer than any of you have managed to do. No one wants to risk facing the entire goblin army. The fact that you can’t see past your own prejudices to how important this is means you’re too flawed to be my guard.” I ran my hand down Kitto’s arm, pressed his head more firmly into my shoulder, forced Rhys to look at him.
The rage in his face was raw. “They”—he pointed at Kitto—“made me flawed.” He tore his eye patch off and stalked into the room. “They did this to me.” He kept his finger pointed at Kitto as he advanced toward us. “He did this!”
Kitto raised his face enough to say, “I have never harmed you.”
Rhys’s hands trembled as he balled them into fists. He stood above us, looming, trembling with rage, with the need to strike out at something, at someone.
“Don’t, Rhys,” I said, my voice low, calm. I was afraid if I raised my voice, it would set him off. I really didn’t want to lose him, but I didn’t want Kitto hurt either.
I heard a sound behind us, though I couldn’t see the doorway through Rhys. Doyle’s voice came clear and deep. “Is there a problem?”
“Thanks to Rhys, I need to renew my vows with Kitto, so I told him he needed to distract me while we did it.”
“I would be happy to distract you, Princess,” Doyle said.
“Oh, yeah, you’re great at foreplay as long as there’s no follow-through, and let me just say that that’s really beginning to get on my nerves, too,” I said.
“Frost should be back from his assignment very soon. He’s told the starlet that she’ll have to find someone else to guard her from her would-be fans.”
We were still speaking around Rhys’s body. “I thought Frost’s bodyguarding gig lasted until the end of the week, at least.”
“I thought it prudent after last night’s attempt that we have him with us. I’ve sent him on ahead to scout Ms. Reed’s home.”
“Scout?” I made it a question.
“She is, after all, full Seelie Court sidhe, once a goddess, but yet no longer of either court. She might feel she is beyond the limits of our laws. I would be a poor guard indeed to simply allow you to walk into her home without some preparation.”
“So you just pulled Frost off a job for our agency and reassigned him, without asking Jeremy, or me.”
Silence.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” I frowned up at Rhys. “Move to one side, Rhys. The threat display is getting a little old.”
Rhys looked a little surprised, as if I was supposed to be quaking in my boots. Of course, maybe the show wasn’t for me. Kitto looked pale and very frightened.
“Move!” I said.
“Do as the princess bids,” Doyle said.
Only then did Rhys move, reluctantly, to one side. I stared past him at Doyle, who was just inside the door. “Either Rhys helps distract me while Kitto gets reassured, or he packs his bags and goes back to Illinois.”
Doyle looked completely surprised. You didn’t see that response too often in the Queen’s Darkness. It made me just a little happy. “I thought you enjoyed Rhys’s attentions.”
“I love having Rhys in my bed, but that doesn’t matter. If he can’t control himself around Kitto, then eventually he’s going to blow up and hurt him. You know Kurag didn’t want to join a treaty with me, Doyle. He tried to weasel out of it from the beginning. I forced an alliance on him, but if Kitto is injured, or worse, killed, then Kurag could use it as an excuse to break the alliance.” I stroked the side of Kitto’s face, turning him from staring at Rhys. “And do you really think that if Kurag has to send us a second goblin, it will be anyone as pleasant as Kitto? It’s my flesh and blood being offered up, not Rhys’s, not yours.”
“That is true enough, Princess,” Doyle said. “But if you send Rhys home, our Queen will also send a new guard to replace him, and the
re are many less pleasant guards she could send than Rhys.”
“It doesn’t matter. Either Rhys does this, or he’s out. I’m tired of the histrionics.”
Doyle took a deep enough breath that I could see the rise and fall of his chest from across the room. “Then I will stay and guard everyone’s safety.”
Rhys turned toward him. “You don’t mean that I have to do this.”
“Princess Meredith NicEssus, wielder of the hand of flesh, has given you a direct order. If you do not obey it, then the princess has already told you the penalty.”
Rhys walked toward Doyle, the anger fading. “You would cast me aside for this? I am one of your best guards.”
“I would hate to lose you in this fight,” Doyle said, “but I cannot go against the princess’s wishes.”
“That’s not what you said last night,” Rhys said.
“She is right, Rhys, you have endangered our alliance with the goblins. If you cannot control your rage at Kitto, then you are a hazard to us all. She is right to make you face this fear.”
“I am not afraid of him,” Rhys said, pointing again.
Kitto cowered back against me at Rhys’s anger.
“All mindless hatred comes from a root of fear,” Doyle said. “The goblins hurt you long ago, and you fear ending up in their hands again. You can hate them if you like, and you can fear them, if you must, but they are our allies, and you must treat them as such.”
“I will not help that … thing sink its fangs into an Unseelie princess.”
“If you had behaved yourself,” I said, “I wouldn’t be forced to do this again so soon. You’re about to cause me pain, Rhys, and if I’m willing to endure it, then the least you can do is make it not completely unpleasant.”
Rhys went to the window, gazing out. He spoke without turning around. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“Just try,” I said, “but really try. You can’t just put a toe in, declare the water cold, and run home. You have to stay with it. If you truly can’t bear it, we’ll talk, but first you have to try.”
He leaned his head against the window glass. He finally raised his head, squared his shoulders, and turned to face the room. “I’ll do my best. Just make sure he doesn’t touch me.”
I looked down at the little goblin’s pale face and frightened eyes. “Rhys, I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think Kitto wants to touch you any more than you want to touch him.”
Rhys gave a small nod. “All right then, let’s do this. We’ve got clients waiting.” He managed a faint smile. “Mysteries to solve, bad guys to catch.”
I smiled at him. “That’s the spirit.”
Doyle closed the door behind him and leaned against it. “I will not interfere unless there is danger.”
For the first time Doyle was protecting me not from any outside force, but from one of my own guards. I watched Rhys as he walked toward Kitto and me. The bandage on his neck was almost as big as my palm. Maybe Doyle wasn’t around just to keep Kitto and me safe from Rhys; maybe, just maybe, he was also here to keep Rhys safe from me.
Chapter 5
RHYS LAID HIS SILK TRENCH COAT ACROSS MY DESK AND CAME to stand in front of us. Kitto curled into a tight ball in my lap, eyes staring up at Rhys the way small mammals watch cats. As though the cat won’t see them, if they stay still enough.
The shoulder holster was stylishly white against Rhys’s button-down shirt. The butt of the gun was like a black imperfection among all that cream and white. “Give your gun to Doyle, Rhys, please.”
He glanced at Doyle, who had gone back to his chair against the windows. “I believe you are making the little one nervous, Rhys.”
“Well, isn’t that just a pity,” he said, and his voice was cruel.
I glared up at him and felt the first stirrings of power. I didn’t fight the anger or the magic. I let it fill my eyes, knew there was a glimmer in my eyes of colors and light nowhere in the room but in my eyes.
“Be careful, Rhys, or you can leave now, without your second chance.” My voice was low and careful again. I was holding on to my magic the way you hold your breath, controlled or you start yelling.
I must have looked like I meant it, because he turned without another word and walked to Doyle. He handed the gun butt first to the dark man, then he stood there for a few seconds, shoulders squared, hands in fists at his sides. It was almost as if he felt more insecure without the gun. If he’d been facing true mortal danger, I could have understood it, but Kitto wasn’t that kind of threat to Rhys. He didn’t need the gun.
He turned toward us with a shaky breath, which I heard clearly from feet away. Some of the anger had been stripped away, and what was left was barely disguised fear. Doyle was right; Rhys feared Kitto, or rather, goblins. It was like a phobia for him. A phobia with a basis in reality; those are the kind that are almost impossible to cure.
He stopped just in front of us again, staring down at me, face diffident, but underneath was a vulnerability that made me want to say, no, you don’t have to do this. But I would have been lying. He did have to do this. If something wasn’t done, Rhys would lose his temper once too often and Kitto would get hurt, or worse. We couldn’t risk the treaty. And Kitto was mine to take care of. I wasn’t sure where my duties would lie if Rhys killed him in a fit of panic. I didn’t want to have to order an execution of someone I’d known all my life.
I wanted to reassure Rhys, tell him it was all right, but I didn’t want to appear weak, either. So I sat there with a very tense Kitto curled tight in my lap, and said nothing.
“I’ve always left the room when you deal with … it, him,” Rhys said, “What happens now?”
I’d had enough, and I suddenly didn’t feel sorry for Rhys. I looked down at Kitto. “I offer you small flesh or weak blood.” Small flesh was goblin slang for light foreplay. Weak blood meant barely breaking the skin, or even just raising welts. There was every possibility that Kitto would choose something I wouldn’t need any distraction for. I’d slowly been teaching Kitto new definitions of petting and foreplay, definitions that were a lot less stressful to all concerned.
He looked down, not meeting anyone’s eyes, and whispered, “Small flesh.”
“Done,” I said.
Rhys frowned. “What just happened?”
I looked up at him. “You always negotiate with goblins before sex, Rhys. If you don’t, you end up hurt.”
He frowned down at me. “I was a prisoner for a night. I had no ability to negotiate.”
I sighed, and shook my head. Most sidhe, Seelie or Unseelie, knew very little about cultures outside their own. It was a type of prejudice that believed nothing but sidhe culture was worth knowing. “Actually, according to goblin law, you did. If they’d tortured you, then, no, you’d have simply had to endure what they did to you, though truthfully there is some room for negotiation even in torture. For sex, though, you always have room to negotiate. It’s custom among them.”
The frown deepened. That single eye was so confused, so pain-filled. I spilled the small goblin to his feet and stood in front of Rhys, putting Kitto almost between us. For once Rhys didn’t seem to notice how close the goblin was to him.
“The goblins will rape, and there’s no saving yourself from it, but you can dictate terms, things that can be done and cannot be done.”
His hand rose slowly toward his scars, then stopped before he touched them, his hand just hanging in midair. “You mean …” And he left the rest of the sentence unfinished.
“That you could have forbidden them from permanently disfiguring you, yes.” My voice was very, very soft, as I said it. I’d been half wanting to tell Rhys, and half dreading, since I found out a few months ago how he’d lost his eye.
He turned to me with such horror in his face. I touched his cheeks, rose on tiptoe, and leaned his face down toward me. I laid a gentle kiss on his lips, a bare touch from my mouth to his, then stretched until my body leaned full against his, stretching as tall as I
could, my hands still on his face, bringing him closer to me. I laid the same gentle kiss on his scar.
He jerked back, making me stumble. Only Kitto’s arm around my waist kept me from falling. “No,” Rhys said, “no.”
I held my hands out to him. “Come to me, Rhys.”
He just kept backing away. Doyle had moved up behind him without either of us noticing. Rhys stopped backing away when he smacked into his captain’s body. “If you fail her here, Rhys, then you must go back to faerie.”
He glanced at Doyle, then at me. “I haven’t failed, I just … I didn’t know.”
“Most sidhe don’t know anything about goblin culture,” I said. “It’s one of the reasons that the goblins are such feared warriors, because no one understands them. We might have won the goblin wars centuries sooner if anyone had taken time to study them. And I don’t mean torture them. You don’t learn a person’s culture by torture.”
Doyle put a hand on either of Rhys’s shoulders and began walking him back toward us. Rhys didn’t look afraid anymore, more shell-shocked, as if a piece of his world had broken away and left him hanging with his feet on thin air.
Doyle walked him back to us, and I touched his face gently. Rhys blinked, startled, as if he’d forgotten I was there. “You’re not ruined, Rhys. You’re beautiful.” I lowered his face toward me, but the six inches of difference hampered my intentions. I could kiss his mouth, but not his eye. I went back on tiptoe, which stretched my body along the length of Rhys’s. Kitto’s arm had still been around my waist, and now his arm was pressed between our bodies, trapped with the pressure of our flesh. Rhys didn’t scream about it, so I let it go. I would finish what I’d started.
I kissed slowly up the edge of his face, until I touched the edge of the scar. He jerked, and I think only Doyle’s hands on his shoulders kept him from running again. He closed his eye tight like a condemned man who didn’t want to see the bullet coming. I kissed my way across the scars, until I felt the rough, slickened skin under my lips. I laid a gentle kiss over the empty socket, where the other beautiful eye should have been.
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