Лорел Гамильтон - Seduced by Moonlight

«Good of you to remember that,» Doyle said.

Amatheon's eyes flicked to him, but came back to rest on me. «Trust me, Princess, I wouldn't be here if I had a choice.»

«Then go,» I said.

He shook his head, sending his hair sliding over the leather of his shoulders. The last time I'd seen him, the hair had been to his knees. Most sidhe took it as a point of pride to have hair that had never known a blade. In fact, fey who were not sidhe were forbidden from having hair to their ankles.

I gazed up at him. «You've cut your hair since last I saw you.»

«As you've cut yours,» he said, but his face was sullen.

«I sacrificed my hair to hide the fact that I was sidhe. Why did you cut yours?»

«You know why,» he said, and he fought to keep his face behind its arrogant mask.

«No, I don't.»

Anger broke through his mask, tore it away, and I watched something close to rage in his flower-petal eyes. He balled his hands into his shoulder-length hair. «I refused to come here today. I refused to be one of your men. The queen reminded me that refusing her anything is not wise.» He forced himself to relax, and the effort was visible and near painful to behold.

«Why is it that important that you get a chance in my bed?» I asked.

He shook his head, and the movement of his newly shortened hair seemed to bother him. He ran his hands through the thick waves, shook his head again, and said, «I don't know. That is the truth of it. I asked, and she told me I didn't need to know. I just needed to do what I was told.» The anger was mere sullenness now, showing the edge of fear that had been there all along.

He looked at me, and he wasn't angry with me; he just seemed tired and beaten. «So here I am, and the queen wishes me to touch the ring. If it does not react to my skin, then after we deliver you safely to the court, I am free to leave this guard detail, but if it sings to my touch.» He looked down at the floor, and his hair spilled around his face. He looked up abruptly, combing his fingers through the hair to keep it back. «I must touch the ring. I must see what happens. I have no choice, and neither do you.» He sounded so unhappy that it made me like him better than I ever had before. Not like him enough to take him to my bed, but I always had trouble hating people if they showed me something that wasn't hateable inside them. Andais had seen that as a weakness; my father had seen it as a strength. I still hadn't decided.

Without taking his gaze from Amatheon, Doyle asked, «Do you wish to allow it?»

Frost moved closer to me so that his coat enveloped me like a cloud.

«Allowing him to touch the ring means nothing, costs us nothing,» I said. «When I speak to the queen about him, I would rather have done everything she wished, up to that point.»

«She will not allow either of us to pass on this, Princess.» His hand went to his hair, and he stopped himself with a visible effort. «She will have us bed, if the ring knows me.»

I wanted badly to ask him again, why, but believed he knew no more of Andais's logic than did I. «What happens after will be a problem for another day.» I stepped up to touch Doyle's arm. «Let him pass.»

Doyle glanced at me, as if he wanted to argue, but he didn't. He simply stepped aside, allowing me to step forward, but Frost did not move back. He stayed so close that the line of his body touched mine.

«Frost,» I said, «we need a little more space.»

He glanced down at me, then at Amatheon, then he took a small step to the side, his face its best arrogant mask. Neither he nor Doyle liked Amatheon. Maybe it was something personal, or maybe, like me, they didn't like the idea of someone who was Cel's man being near me.

«Frost,» I said again, «what if the ring picks up on you, and not Amatheon? Give us enough room so we know that the reaction is for him alone.»

«I will give half an arm's length of room, but no more. He has been Cel's cat for far too long.»

Amatheon gazed up at the slightly taller man. «The princess is under the queen's protection, magically given. If I raised a hand to her, then my life would be forfeit, and the queen would make me beg for death long before she gave it.» His eyes looked haunted. «No, Frost, I would not go back under the queen's tender care, not even to keep this half-human mongrel off our throne.»

«Oh, nice,» I said.

Amatheon sighed. «You know how I feel, Princess Meredith. How I've always felt about you and your being in line to the throne. If I suddenly said you were wonderful and a perfect future queen, would you believe me?»

I just shook my head.

«The queen has. persuaded me that my beliefs are not so precious as my flesh and my blood.» His face seemed to crumble for a moment, almost as if he would cry. He regained himself, but the eyes that turned to me were raw with emotion. What had Andais done to him?

«You should have just agreed, like I did.» The other guard I could have done without seeing was Onilwyn. He was handsome, but there was a roughness to his face, an almost unfinished quality, so that although he was handsome by human standards, by sidhe standards he was coarse. He was broad of shoulder, and muscular; even just a glimpse of his clothed body framed by the long fur coat, and you had a sense of the power of him. He was so thick through the shoulders and chest that he seemed shorter than the others, but it was illusion. Onilwyn's thick wavy hair was tied back in a ponytail. The hair was a green so dark it held black highlights when the light touched it just so. His eyes were the color of green grass with a starburst of liquid gold dancing around the pupils. His skin was a pale green, but it wasn't a white-green like Galen's, where you were not sure whether it was white or green. No, Onilwyn's skin was a pale solid green in the same way Carrow's skin was brown.

«You would agree to anything that saved your hide,» Amatheon said.

«Of course I would,» Onilwyn said, as he glided toward us. I'd never understood how such a bulky man managed to glide, but he always did. «So would anyone with any sense.»

Amatheon turned to look at the other man. «Why are you Cel's man? Do you believe he should be king? Do you care?»

Onilwyn shrugged thick shoulders. «I prefer Cel king because he likes me, and I like him. He's promised me many things once he's on the throne.»

«He promises many things,» Amatheon said, «but that is not why I have been his follower.»

«Then why?» Doyle asked.

He answered without looking away from Onilwyn. «Cel is the last true sidhe prince we have. The last true heir to the bloodline that has ruled us for nearly three thousand years. The day that someone who is part human, and part brownie, and part Seelie takes our crown is the day we die as a people. We will be no better than the mongrels in Europe.»

Onilwyn smiled, and it was so full of spite that it hurt to see it. «But here you are, lover of the pure Unseelie blood, here you are.» He stood in front of the taller man, gazing at him with that cruel, satisfied smile. «Forced to bed one of the mongrel horde. Knowing that if you get her with child you, personally, will be responsible for placing her on the throne. Such delicious, thick, spreadable irony.»

«You're enjoying this,» Amatheon said in a strangled voice.

Onilwyn nodded. «If the ring is alive to our touch, we are free of our celibacy.»

«But only with her,» Amatheon said.

The other man shook his head. «What does it matter? She's a woman, and she's sidhe. This is a gift, not a curse.»

«She is not sidhe.»

«Grow up, Amatheon, grow up, before this naivete gets you killed.» He looked at me for the first time. «May I touch the ring, Princess?»

«What happens if I say no?»