A Caress of Twilight

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  I started struggling to get up off the ground, and Kitto finally stopped hindering and started helping me. Galen didn’t have a magic weapon of any kind; I had to do something. I walked forward and Kitto grabbed me back. I tried to jerk free, turning in my bare feet to order him to let me go, but I slipped on the bloody ground, falling butt first onto the slick grass. My hands came away covered in blood—fresh, crimson blood like rain on the grass that hadn’t soaked in yet. My left palm began to itch, then to burn. It was the blood of the Nameless, and it was as poisonous as the rest of it.

  I got to my feet, trying to scrape the blood off my hand with my dress, but it didn’t help. The burning had sunk into my hand, my skin, and it was flowing through my veins, feeling as if all the blood in my body had turned to molten metal, solid and burning hot, as though my own blood was boiling its way out of my skin.

  I shrieked in pain, and Kitto touched me, tried to help. He yelled and let go of me, staggered back. The front of his T-shirt bloomed red, fresh blood. He clawed at his shirt, raised enough for me to see the marks of my nails spilling blood everywhere, worse, so much worse than the original injury.

  My cousin Cel was Prince of Old Blood. He could call any injury to life no matter how ancient. But it was only ever as bad as the original hurt. This was something different. Doyle had told me once that I would have a second hand of power, but there was no way of knowing when it would manifest or what it would be. The pain in my own body was receding as Kitto bled. But I didn’t want Kitto to bleed. I wanted the Nameless to bleed.

  If I had to touch the Nameless for this new hand of power to work, I was going to die, but I was going to try with magic like you’d try with a gun. Shoot from far away before you’re forced to shoot up close. And as long as you have the ammunition, keep shooting.

  I pointed my left hand toward the creature, palm out, and thought, not the word blood but of blood. I thought about the taste of it, salty, metallic; the feel of it fresh and almost scalding hot in large doses, the way it thickened when it cooled. I thought of the smell of blood—that neck-ruffling scent—and the way enough of it freshly spilled always smelled like meat, like raw hamburger.

  I thought of blood and began to walk toward the Nameless.

  Chapter 44

  I’D TAKEN ONLY A FEW STEPS WHEN THE PAIN RETURNED, MY blood boiled in my veins, and I stumbled to my knees, hand still out toward the creature—but I was betting that Kitto had stopped bleeding. I screamed and watched one huge eye swivel to look at me, to truly look at me for the first time. The pain clouded my vision and finally stole my voice, my air. I was suffocating on pain. Then it eased, just a bit, then a bit more. When my vision cleared, blood was trickling out of the wounds in the mountain of flesh, trickling out not like blood should flow, but like water, faster, thinner. The last of my pain vanished as blood began to pour out of every wound the creature had sustained that day. Every bullet hole, every blade mark burst scarlet. The blood began to rain down the sides of the thing.

  The Nameless began to move toward me, ponderous, and unnerving like watching a mountain roll toward you. I knew if it reached me, it would kill me, so I had to stop that from happening.

  I thought not of blood alone, but of wounds; I thought not bleed but die. I wanted it to die.

  A wound opened like a new mouth, slashing down its side, then another, and another. It was as if some giant invisible blade was hacking at it. The blood flowed faster, until the Nameless was covered in a slick red coat from top to bottom, covered in a dress of its own blood. Then blood gushed out of it in a nearly black wave, like a lake being dumped out upon the grass. It spilled and flowed and billowed toward me, until I knelt in a hot pool of blood, and still it bled.

  The more it bled, the calmer I became. A stillness filled my body, almost a peacefulness. I knelt in the growing spread of blood, watching the thing quiver toward me, and I had no fear. I felt nothing, was nothing, but the magic. In that one instant I lived, breathed, and was one spell. The hand of blood rode me, used me, as surely as I had tried to use it. With the old magicks, who is master and who is slave is never sure.

  The Nameless rose above me like a great bloody mountain, one curl of its body reaching out, out toward me, and only a few yards away, I heard it take a breath, a sharp sound, almost a sound of fear, then it exploded, not its body, but as if every last ounce of blood in that vast shape had burst forth at one time. The air became blood, and it was like trying to breathe underwater. For a second I thought I would drown, then I was choking in air and trying to spit out blood at the same time.

  Something large hit the side of my head, and I fell to the bloody ground. Even in its death throes it had tried to take me with it. Kitto’s crimson-washed face with a blood-soaked Sage on his shoulder was the last thing I saw before darkness swallowed the world.

  Chapter 45

  I WOKE TO FLOATING. I WAS FLOATING IN MIDAIR, AND AT FIRST I thought it was a dream. Then I saw Galen floating just out of reach. I woke to find that all the fey in the yard were floating. Magic was everywhere, streaming through the air like multicolored fireworks, flying around us in flocks of fantastic birds that never knew mortal sky. Entire forests rose and fell before our eyes. The dead rose and walked and faded. It was like watching someone else’s dreams and nightmares march through the bright California sunshine. It was raw enchantment with no hand to contain it or order it about; it was simply magic, everywhere.

  And that magic was spilling into Rhys, Frost, Doyle, Kitto, Nicca, even Sage. I watched a phantom tree float over Nicca’s body and vanish inside him. Sage was covered by a flowering vine. The dead men all went to Rhys and marched into him while he screamed. Frost was hidden by what looked like snow. He hit at it with his good arm, but he couldn’t stop it. I caught a glimpse of Doyle half-hidden behind something black and serpentine; then the magic finally found Galen and me as we hung there only a few feet from each other. We were hit by scents and bursts of color. I smelled roses, and blood appeared on my wrist as if by the prick of thorns. I think the others were regaining what they’d given up to the Nameless, but neither Galen nor I had given anything to it. I thought it would pass us by because of that, but it turned out I was wrong. Wild magic had been freed, and it wanted to be somewhere in someone again.

  Something white like a great bird rose from the bloody mess and came for me like it had a purpose. Galen yelled, “Merry!” and the glowing shape smashed into me, through me, but not out the other side. For an instant I saw the world through crystal and mist. I smelled something burning, then darkness again.

  By the time Galen and I were conscious again, the others had bound the Nameless into the soil, into the water, into the very air. They had bound it as it was meant to be bound. It couldn’t be killed, but it couldn’t be allowed to heal and go free either.

  Maeve Reed had graciously allowed us to use some of her plentiful estate as the burial place, though that wasn’t exactly what we did. It was both buried on her land and not buried in any land. It was trapped in a place betwixt and between.

  Maeve offered us permanent use of her guest house, which was bigger than most people’s entire homes. It solved the problem of a bigger apartment, and kept us within reach in case Taranis thought up some new way to attack Maeve.

  I’d always thought that Andais was the crazy one, but I’ve changed my mind. Taranis is willing to do anything to save himself, anything. That’s not the way a good king thinks. Bucca-Dhu is in Unseelie protective custody. We’ve had to tell Andais everything. We have a witness to what Taranis did, but that’s not enough to overthrow a thousand-year reign. It will be a political nightmare to tiptoe around. But he cannot be allowed to remain in power.

  Taranis is still insisting I come for a visit to his court. I don’t think so.

  Rhys laid the hungry ghosts easily. He’s regained the powers that the Nameless had taken from him, and so have all the others. But what does that mean?

  It means that Rhys talks to empty rooms … but if th
ey are empty, why do voices answer him from the empty air? Frost can put a tracery of his namesake on my summer window, a spread of icy lace he uses to draw pictures for me. Doyle can vanish in plain sight, and none of us can find him. I am assured he is not invisible, but he might as well be. Nicca caused a tree to explode into blossom months off schedule … just by leaning against it. Kitto talks to snakes now. They slither out of the grass to greet him like you’d greet a king. It is positively unnerving how many snakes there are that you never see unless they wish you to see them. Sage has kept a single jasmine blossom alive and fragrant for two weeks with no water. The flower just sits tucked behind his ear and shows no sign of fading.

  As for Galen and me—touched by so much wild magic, none of it our own—we don’t know yet. Doyle thinks the new powers will come a little at a time. My second hand of power has well and truly come. All I need is a small wound and I can call all the blood from a being’s body. I am Princess of Flesh and Blood. The hand of blood hasn’t been seen as a power since the days of Balor of the Evil Eye. For those of you not up on pre-Celtic history, that’s thousands of years before the birth of Christ.

  The queen is pleased with me. She was in such a good mood that I got her to give me the men. Prince Cel has his own private guard; she has hers. Shouldn’t I have mine? Andais agreed, so everyone who comes my way is mine. I’m keeping them all.

  I promised Frost that I would keep him safe, that I would keep them all safe. A princess should always keep her promises.

  Andais is sending more guards to help ensure my safety. I asked to be allowed to choose who they will be, but she wasn’t that happy with me. I asked that Doyle be allowed to choose, and she refused that, as well. I think the Queen of Air and Darkness has her own agenda, and she will send who she wishes. I can do nothing about it but wait and see who shows up at my door.

  There are gentle nights with my green knight, Galen mine at last. My Darkness is still as dangerous as he ever was, but underneath I get glimpses of his pain and his resolution to better things for us all. Rhys has changed and is no longer my laughing lover, nor does he wish to share me with Nicca. It’s as if with Rhys’s returned powers he’s grown more serious, more compelling. There is simply more to him now, more magic, more desire, more force.

  Nicca is still just Nicca. Lovely, gentle, but not strong enough.

  Kitto, too, has grown and changed. He is more. I watch him grow into his power with something like awe.

  Then there is Frost. What can you say of love, for love it is, but I am still without a child.

  I performed a fertility rite that brought life to another sidhe’s womb, but my own remains empty. Why? If I was truly infertile, the spell would have failed, but it did not.

  I must be with child soon or none of the rest matters. Yule has come and gone, and we have only two months left of Cel’s imprisonment. Will he be insane when he is released? Will he throw all caution away and try to kill me? Best to be pregnant before Cel gets out. Rhys has suggested we hire an assassin to slay Cel the moment he gets free. If it weren’t for the Queen’s anger and grief, I might almost agree. Almost.

  I kneel at my altar and I pray. I pray for guidance, and I pray for luck, good luck. Some people will wish someone luck, but they don’t say which kind. Always be careful when you pray, because deity is listening and will usually give you what you ask for, not what you meant to ask for. Goddess grant us good luck and a fertile winter.

  Read on for an excerpt from

  SEDUCED BY MOONLIGHT

  by Laurell K. Hamilton

  I LAY BACK IN THE BEND OF RHYS’S ARM, NESTLED AGAINST THE curve of his shoulder, my head resting on the firm warmth of his chest. Nicca was propped up on his elbow, his body curved just behind mine. He wasn’t touching the length of his body to mine, but kept a fraction of a distance, so that all I could feel against my skin was the humming vibration of his aura, his magic. So close, so very close, but not, so that it made me want to ask him to close the distance between us, to slide his body along the back of mine. But I didn’t ask. I hadn’t invited him here for sex. It was Rhys’s night, and he’d stopped sharing me with Nicca after we defeated the Nameless and some of his powers returned. I’d assumed that with even more of his old power returned, he’d be even more reluctant to share me, so I hadn’t asked. Feeling Nicca’s warmth at my back made me want to ask.

  I nuzzled along Rhys’s chest, moving my head enough to look at his face. “I want Nicca to stay with us tonight.”

  “I’ll just bet you do,” Rhys said, but the smile was fading, starting to be replaced with that look, that serious look in a man’s eyes.

  I stroked my hand up his stomach, gliding to his nipple, and tracing lazy circles around the aureola until his nipple came to attention, and his breath came a little faster. He grabbed my wrist. “Stop that or I won’t be able to think.”

  “That’s the idea,” I said, and smiled at him, but he knew there was something more urgent than humor in my eyes.

  “I notice you don’t ask me to stay the night,” Sage said. He landed on the hard sculpted plane of Rhys’s stomach.

  “You are welcome to spend the night,” I said, “but not in my bed, not in my body.”

  Sage stamped his foot on Rhys’s so-solid flesh. “It is most unfair that I will use my glamour to make you feel such wondrous sensations, but I am denied the fruits of my labor. Especially since others will partake of that bounty.”

  “You’re the one that wanted two sidhe men, Sage. You know the effect your glamour has on me, and on others.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “Yes, yes, only myself to blame.” His face went instantly from a pout to a smile that was half lustful and half joyful. “I’ll make you a wager.”

  I raised up from Rhys’s chest enough to shake my head. “No.”

  “What kind of wager?” Rhys asked.

  “Don’t do it, Rhys.”

  He looked down at me. “Why not?”

  “You haven’t felt Sage’s glamour, I have.”

  A touch of Frost’s arrogance mingled with Rhys’s humor. That was unfair, not Frost’s arrogance, sidhe arrogance. It was our racial Achilles heel, no mythological mixing intended. Our arrogance had been our undoing more than once.

  “I think three sidhe should be proof against demi-fey magic.”

  I touched his face. “Rhys, you should know by now not to underestimate the fey just because they aren’t sidhe.”

  He jerked away from my hand. I hadn’t meant to touch his scars, hadn’t meant to imply what his face said he’d taken as my meaning. He was angry now, as he always was when he was reminded of what the goblins had done to him. “I think it is you who forgets what we are.” The blue rings of color in his eye began to glow with a soft, pulsing color; winter sky, robin egg blue, and cornflower blue, all throbbing in time to his anger, and his power.

  “If I am Cromm Cruach again, Merry, then Sage can’t touch me.”

  I wanted to say, But what if you aren’t, but something in his face stopped me. What do you say to a man’s pride? Yes, maybe, no? What do you say? “I’ve never been a god, Rhys. I don’t know what it means to be that untouchable.”

  “I do,” he said, and there was a fierceness to him, almost a franticness that I’d never seen. I recognized it though. I recognized fear when I saw it. Fear that he wouldn’t be what he had been. Fear that he might never again regain what he’d lost. I’d seen the fear too many times in too many other sidhe faces, not to know it. It was the fear of my people, that we were failing as a race, that we had already failed, and would all fade, and die. It was a fear that we’d carried so long, it was almost a national phobia.

  If I said no to his wager with Sage, then it was as if I were saying he wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t what I meant, but he was male, and no matter what flavor of male, they have some of the same failings; and I was female, and no matter what flavor we are, I had some of the same failings. His failing was the fragility
of his ego; mine was that I was about to stroke his ego at the expense of nearly everything else. I knew it was a mistake when I opened my mouth and said, “Do what you want to do, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “So, white knight, do we have a wager?” Sage asked. “I use my glamour to bespell you all, and if I can work magic on three sidhe at once, then I gain my heart’s desire.”

  “Rhys,” Nicca said, “have a care.”

  “I’m not that stupid,” Rhys said. “What is your heart’s desire? I need to know that before I can agree to it.”

  “To fuck the princess,” he said.

  Rhys shook his head. “I can’t bargain what I do not own, and it’s her body, not mine.”

  “No intercourse,” I said. “I will not let you have a bid for the throne, Sage.”

  He shrugged his tiny shoulders. “Fine, if not the act itself, then what?”

  I had to admit that weeks of feeling Sage’s glamour poured over my mind, my body, had made me curious. His personal glamour for seduction was the best I’d ever felt. I’d lived in the high courts most of my life, but no one’s glamour had ever made me feel the way Sage could. Just from a small bite on my hand, and with his magic, he could bring me to the point of orgasm. It would be a lie to say I hadn’t wondered if it would be even better if I allowed him to touch me. But it wasn’t that alone that suddenly made my body go still and quiet.

  I had the most amazing lovers in the world, but there were things that they denied me, and themselves. We were trying to get me pregnant, which meant that all sex ended in one way, and only one way. If it couldn’t get me with child, we didn’t waste the seed. I had persuaded more than one of the men to let me take him in my mouth, but none of them would finish there, no matter how much I begged, or how much they wanted to. It hadn’t just been intercourse that they’d been forbidden for centuries; it had been any release, even their own touch. There were so many things besides intercourse that they missed. They would talk about it, but not do it, because it was a wasted opportunity. A waste of seed to plant inside me. A waste of chance to be king. I realized, suddenly, that I was beginning to feel like a broodmare. Something you married only to beget a child, not because you wanted to be there. I knew they wanted me, but not truly that they would want me if there was anywhere else they could go. Would my handsome men still want me if there was no throne to win?