Лорел Гамильтон: Seduced by Moonlight

Doyle squeezed my shoulder, brought me back into my head a little. I was still shaky and had trouble focusing on his face. «I think we have had enough of a show for one day.» He laid one of the towels across my stomach. He handed the other one to Rhys.

Rhys looked up at him, and I saw the thought to argue cross his face, but in the end he simply began to get up, spreading the towel as he moved so that the cameras didn't get a glimpse of the bikini bottoms. I'd half expected him to flash the camera, show the joke, but he didn't. He very carefully covered me with the towel, while the helicopter swirled overhead and the wind beat our hair around us. On his knees, he was fully exposed, and I wondered if there'd be photos with him politely fuzzed out, or whether they'd sell them to the European papers and not worry about it.

When I was covered completely, from thighs to just under the red bikini top, he scooped me up in his arms.

I had to shout to be heard above the sound of wind and machinery. « I can walk.»

«I want to carry you.» He seemed so serious when he said it, and it cost me nothing to let him do it.

I nodded.

Rhys carried me toward the house with Doyle walking a little behind and to one side of us. Doyle was being a good bodyguard, bringing up the rear, but he was also walking to one side, instead of directly behind us, so that he didn't ruin the photo opportunity.

He stopped at his chair and scooped up a third towel, then moved smoothly toward the house. I caught a glimpse of the gun wrapped in that towel. The helicopter circling overhead never knew that any of us was armed. They also couldn't see Frost standing just inside the sliding glass doors, hidden by a spill of drapes. He was fully dressed, and very fully armed. I think the reason I didn't mind the media games so much was that if no one tried to kill me, it was a good day. When that's your criterion for a good day, what's a few helicopters and some racy photos? Not much.

Frost watched Rhys carry me inside with angry grey eyes. Frost had been the one guard who voted against our treaty with the press. He would guard us while we did such foolish things, but he would not participate. His dignity would never have stooped so low.

He was handsome in his anger, but he was always handsome. Goddess had made it so that he couldn't be anything else. He was all cheekbones and flawless lines that would make a plastic surgeon cry with envy. Skin like snow, hair like silver frost glittering in moonlight, broad of shoulders, slim of waist, narrow-hipped, long of leg and arm. Clothed he was handsome; nude he was breathtaking.

He watched us walk across the cool tile floor with a look like a petulant child. He was the moodiest of the guards. The first to anger, the last to forgive, and he pouted. It seemed the wrong word for a warrior who had defended his queen for more than a thousand years, but it was the right word. Frost pouted, and it made me tired to see it. He was amazing in bed, a wondrous warrior, but shoveling his emotional shit was nearly a full-time job. There were days when I wasn't sure I wanted the job.

«The Goblin King has called on the mirror,» he said in a voice as sullen as his eyes.

«How long ago?» Doyle asked.

«He's talking to Kitto now.»

Doyle started toward the far bedroom, then stopped and glanced down at what he was wearing—or rather wasn't wearing. He sighed, heavily, then padded barefoot across the tiles. He remarked over his shoulder, «If Meredith were dressed thus, it might gain us some advantage, but Kurag does not care for a man's flesh.»

«That is not true,» Rhys said, and the bitterness in his voice made me turn and look at him. I was still in his arms, so that just turning my head was somehow intimate. «The goblins love a bit of sidhe flesh.»

Doyle stopped long enough to frown at him. «I did not mean to feast upon.»

«Neither did I,» Rhys said.

That stopped Doyle firmly on his bare feet, so dark against the white and blue tiles. «What are you saying, Rhys?»

«I am saying that there were many goblins who had never tasted the pleasure of sidhe flesh, male or female, and there were those who did not care that it was male.» He rubbed the side of his face against my neck and shoulder, a comfort gesture.

«Kurag.» Frost began, but he couldn't finish the sentence. The anger at Rhys, or the reporters, or whatever, was gone. His face displayed the outrage they were probably all feeling.

I stroked Rhys's curls, so soft, and molded myself more tightly in his arms. I drew my fingers down the curve of his neck and shoulder. When the fey are anxious, we touch each other. I think humans would do it if their culture didn't confuse touch with sex so often. Touch can lead to sex, but at that moment I just wanted to hold Rhys and take that look off of his face.

Doyle came back a few steps, one hand on a slender hip. «Are you saying that Kurag. outraged you.»

Rhys raised his face from the curve of my neck. «He never touched me, but he watched. He sat on his throne and ate snacks as if it were a show.»

«We have all had to sit through entertainments at our own court, Rhys. No one speaks of it, but how many of our fellow guards have agreed to a little one-on-one together for the queen's pleasure, if it would free them of the celibacy even for an hour or two?»

«I never did it.» His hands convulsed around me, fingers digging in painfully.

«Nor I,» Doyle said, «but I did not fault those who did.»

«Rhys, you're hurting me,» I said softly.

He put me down, gently, carefully, as if he didn't trust himself. «It would be one thing to choose it. It is another to be bound and.» He shook his head.

I let the towel fall to the floor and touched his arm. «Rape is always ugly, Rhys.»

He gave a smile so bitter that it made me hug him, to comfort him and so I wouldn't have to see that look on his face.

«A lot of the guards don't agree with that, Merry. You're too young, you don't remember what we're like during a war.»

I stayed clinging to him, trying to will him happier just by pressing my skin against his. I didn't want to know that my guards had done horrible things. No, that wasn't it. I didn't want to know that the men I shared my bed with had done horrible things. Then I remembered a conversation that I'd overheard months ago.

I pulled back enough to look into Rhys's face. «I remember this conversation, Rhys. You said you'd never touched a woman who didn't welcome your touch. Doyle said, outright, that the penalty for the queen's guards to touch any woman but the queen still applied to rape. You go to any other woman and it's death by torture, for you and the woman.»

Rhys's face was suddenly paler even than normal.

It was Frost who said, «Not all the Unseelie sidhe warriors are members of the Queen's Ravens.»

I looked at him. «I know.» I felt like I was missing something. I stepped back from Rhys completely, so I could look at all three of them easily. «What am I not understanding here?»

«That nothing of which Rhys is accusing the goblins is something that members of the Unseelie have not done,» Doyle said. He shook his head. «I must go and speak with Kurag.» He seemed about to say something, then stopped and simply turned and walked toward the hallway and its string of bedrooms.

I looked at both the other men, still feeling as if they'd stopped the conversation early, as if there were secrets they would all keep to the death. The sidhe are a big one for secrets, but I was their princess, and perhaps one day their queen. That they kept secrets from me seemed a bad idea.

I let out a breath, and even to me the sound was impatient. «Rhys, I told you once that the goblin culture may not give you a choice on sexual contact, but they do let the 'victim' set the rules. They can demand intercourse, but you can dictate how much damage they can do to you.»