Лорел Гамильтон - Seduced by Moonlight

I fell into that kiss, those trembling wings, the velvet caress of the powder falling along my body, and I saw Nicca standing in a meadow, bright with summer flowers. It was night, but Nicca shone so bright that the flowers had opened before him as if he were the sun. The air was suddenly full of demi-fey, not the mere dozens that I knew, but hundreds. It was as if the very ground had opened up and spewed them into the sky. Then I realized that it was the flowers; the flowers had grown wings and filled the sky.

Nicca rose into the air as if he were walking on the tops of the grass, and I realized he was flying, flying upward through a cloud of demi-fey.

Then I was falling, almost as if I fell back into my body. I was still standing pressed against Nicca's body, one hand still entwined in his hair, but it was Doyle's face that I gazed into. His eyes widened and he opened his mouth as if to speak, but it was too late. He wasn't touching me, but he was touching Nicca, and so was I.

It was night in a forest that I had never seen before. A huge oak spread like a roof above my head, its great gnarled trunk big as a house. The branches were bare with late fall. Somehow I knew it wasn't dead, but only resting, preparing for winter's cold. As I watched, a thin line of light crossed the bark of the tree. The light widened, and I realized it was a door, a door in the trunk of the tree, swinging open. Music spilled out into the darkness in a wash of golden light. A black-cloaked figure appeared in the door, stepped out into the autumn night, and the door closed behind him. It seemed darker than it had before, as if my eyes had been dazzled by the light. He threw back his cloak, and I saw Doyle's face looking up through the branches, looking up at the cold light of the stars. The shadows under the trees on every side began to grow thicker, more solid, until things moved, and formed, and turned and looked at me with eyes that burned with red and green fire. They opened mouths full of dagger-like teeth, and one by one they set their great dark heads toward the sky and bayed. Doyle stood in the dark listening to that fearful music, and smiled.

I heard Frost's voice, distant as a dream. «Meredith, Meredith, can you hear me?»

I wanted to say yes, but I couldn't remember how to speak. Couldn't remember where I was. Was I in the summer meadow brushed by a thousand wings, or was I in the dark with the music of hounds belling around me? Was I still standing pressed to Nicca's body, still staring into Doyle's startled face? Where was I? Where did I want to be?

That was an easier question. I wanted to be in the bedroom. I wanted to answer Frost's frantic voice. The moment I thought it, I was there. I stepped back from Nicca, who was still kneeling on the floor. Doyle staggered back against the wall. Nicca fell forward onto all fours, as if he'd barely caught himself from falling.

Doyle gasped, «Merry,» but it was as if what had happened had drained them both. With Maeve and Frost, I had been drained and weak, but not this time. I turned toward Frost, and he was staring at me with a mixture of fear and wonder.

«I don't feel tired this time,» I told him. I moved toward him, leaving the other two men gasping on the floor behind me.

Frost backed away from me, and he must not have been thinking clearly, because he backed between the bed and the dresser, trapping himself. He was shaking his head over and over again. «Look at yourself, Meredith. Look at yourself.» He pointed toward the mirror.

The first thing I saw was color. My skin was brushed with swaths of tan, pink, violet-red, purple, and a white that was almost lost against the shining white of my skin. Reddish brown like shining ribbons of dried blood traced down the sides of my body. A crush of vibrant blue-green touched each shoulder, and lower down along my legs. Black and yellow smeared around that iridescent blue-green, and a stroke of blue so bright it looked as if it should move glowed at shoulder and calf. With magic upon me, my skin shone like a pearl with a candle trapped inside it, but the color acted like prisms, so that my magic burned up through every drop of color, so that I was left a gleaming rainbow, as if Nicca's wings had exploded along my skin. My eyes burned with tricolored fire, molten gold, jade green, and an emerald to shame the brightest gem. But my eyes weren't just glowing. Each individual line of color looked as if it were on fire, as if flame licked around my eyes. I remembered the gold and green shadows that my eyes had cast when I was making love with Sage and Nicca, and realized this must have been what my eyes looked like: The colored flames bled into one another so it was more like a true fire, first one color, then the next, ever moving. I peered into the mirror, stretching up on tiptoe to look closer, and realized I was standing as Sage had stood earlier. My hair was like rubies, but tonight it was as if every strand held ruby fire, so that my hair burned around my face, caressing my shoulders.

I'd seen myself with my magic naked for all to see, but never like this. It was as if I truly burned with power this night.

«You don't want me, Merry,» Frost said. «I wasn't born sidhe. I'm not fit consort for a goddess.»

I turned and gazed at him with my burning eyes. I half-expected the movement to change my vision, but it didn't. It seemed like it should. «I saw you dancing across the snow. You were like some beautiful child.»

«I was never a child, Merry. I was never born. I was a thought, or a thing, a concept if you will. Yes, a concept given life by the gods. Given life by the very gods whose power now runs through my body. Their jealousy at watching me grow and become the Killing Frost was why I could not stay at the Seelie Court.»

I moved away from the mirror, toward him. «Are they so much less than the queen's Killing Frost?»

«That's just it, Merry, they were my equal. I might best them at weapons, but they looked at me and remembered a time when I was less, and they were more, and it hurt them.»

«So they turned you out,» I said.

He nodded.

I stood in front of him now, so close that I ran my fingers across his robe, so lightly that all I felt was the silk and not the body underneath. But I wanted the body underneath. I had a sudden image in my head, bright and immediate, of pressing my body along Frost's pale skin until he was smeared with that glowing wash of color. It was so real that it closed my eyes, arched my back, flung my hands outward.

Frost's hands caught my arms. «Merry, are you all right?»

I opened my eyes, found his face worried. I looked down at his hands where they held my forearms. It was one of the few inches of skin that held no color, so that his hands were still just white. «I'm better than all right, Frost.» My voice sounded strange, deeper, almost hollow, as if I had become an empty shell that my voice echoed out of. I drew my arms out of his hands and pulled on the sash of his robe. One firm tug and the sash unwound, the robe beginning to open.

Frost grabbed my hands this time. «I don't want to hurt you.»

I laughed, and it had a wild sound to it. «You won't hurt me.»

His grip on my hands tightened until it was almost painful. «You are power-ridden, Meredith, but that doesn't mean you aren't still mortal.»

«You can only get godhead once, and you've had your turn,» I said. «Now it's just extra magic that you have to learn to deal with. It's simply a matter of discipline, practice, and control.» I pulled on my hands, and he loosened his grip, enough for me to pull free. I reached into that open edge of robe, found the smaller tie that still held it closed, and pulled on it. The robe fell open, revealing a thin line of pale flesh. «And I know you are disciplined, Frost, controlled,» I slid my hands inside that silk, touched the skin underneath, «and if practice makes perfect, that is certainly you.»