Лорел Гамильтон - Seduced by Moonlight

«Ah, but that would not be obeying the queen's directive.»

I bent down just the little bit I needed to be face to face with him, and I felt an unpleasant smile cross my face. «Oh, but it would be. Corpses routinely have one last orgasm just as they die. The queen's exact orders are not to come before her without your seed upon my body. She didn't specify where or how that happens, now, did she?»

The triumph was gone, the mockery faded as I watched, until the only thing left in those dark green eyes was fear. It didn't make me happy to see him fear me, but it did give a certain satisfaction.

He licked his lips as if they'd suddenly gone dry, and said, «You are your aunt's bloodline.»

«Yes, Ivi, I am, and it would be best if you did not forget that» — I leaned in close above his lips —"ever again.» I laid a gentle kiss upon his mouth, and he flinched.

As I raised my hand to cup Ivi's face, Barinthus grabbed my wrist and pulled my hand away from the other man's flesh. «Perhaps the queen should know of other events before we use the ring again.»

We all had a moment of exchanging glances. Hawthorne said, «What else has happened?»

«Let us say, that the ring has risen in power,» Barinthus said, «and I am no longer certain of what will happen when the princess presses it to anyone's flesh.»

Ivi gave a dark laugh. «I see what happened when she touched you, Lord Barinthus.» He was staring at the other man's groin, and the stain that had set into the front of the leather pants.

Abloec pushed to the front, to stand near Ivi. He knelt down beside the other man. It was the steadiest I'd seen him, as if the cold had sobered him. «I am soaking wet, freezing, and sober. I don't want to be any of those three things. You are going to shut up, and we are all going to go to the queen.» He looked up at the rest of us. «When she hears about the flooding, she'll want to make sure that the princess is in a secure area before the ring is used.»

«Flooding?» Hawthorne said.

«Every river in the area,» Abloec said.

Hawthorne glanced up at Barinthus. «You mean touching Lord Barinthus flooded the area?»

Doyle and Barinthus said in unison, «We believe so.»

Galen and Rhys said in unison, «Yes.»

Usna pushed through us all, still nude, and getting angry. «We're going to see the queen now, because I want to be warm again.»

«Would you risk your life for a little comfort?» Frost said.

Usna gave him a wide grin. «What else is there to risk one's life for these days? Haven't you heard, Killing Frost, the days of myth and magic are gone. The days when there was anything worth fighting for are over.» He looked at Barinthus as he finished, then his grey eyes found me, and he gave me a lingering look. It wasn't sexual, or food, or anything that I would have expected from Usna. It was a considering look. A look that held far too many guesses that were far too close to the truth.

The moment passed and his eyes were simply full of good cheer. He clapped Abloec on the shoulder. «Let us go forth and beard the queen in her den of iniquities.»

Abloec got to his feet frowning. «You would help bear such news, knowing what she may do?»

«She'll hate the assassination attempt, someone will bleed for that one, but the rest» — Usna threw his arm across the other's shoulders—"the Queen will love the other news.» He started moving Abloec down the hallway, and the rest of us began to trail after. Usna called back over his shoulder at me, «If I were you, Princess, I'd be worried that she does not put you in a magical circle like an animal in the zoo, and just send one of us after another to see how many of us you can bring back to.» He put his sword pommel over his lips as you'd place a finger to say, Shhhh. «Save that for the queen's ears, eh.» And he glided down the hallway ahead of us, his nude body in its calico colors leading the way, with Abloec still pressed to his side.

The only doors in the entire sithen that were black were the doors leading to my aunt's chambers. They were a shining improbable black stone that stood taller than the tallest guard, and wider than that semi the first hallway could hold.

The doors were their usual ominous selves, but the two men who stood at attention before the doors were not usual. One, there were rarely guards on this side of the doors. The queen enjoyed an audience, especially if that audience could not participate, no matter how much they wanted to. Sometimes you'd find guards outside if they were waiting to escort people away once the queen was finished speaking with them. But somehow I didn't think that was it. Call it a hunch, but I was betting the guards were there waiting for me. What was my first clue? They were nude except for enough leather belts and straps to hold swords and daggers, and boots that came to their knees.

«I'm sensing a theme,» Rhys said.

So was I. Because not only were they more nude even than Hawthorne and Ivi had been, but they were also vegetative deities. Adair still bore the name of what he had been once, for adair means «oak grove.» His skin was the color of sunlight through leaves, that color more common among the Seelie than the Unseelie, the color we call sun-kissed. His ankle-length brown hair had been butchered short, shorter than Amatheon's by nearly half a foot. Someone had shorn him, so that there was almost nothing left to remind the eye what beauty once framed that golden body.

Amatheon spoke as if I'd asked, «I was not the only one who was reluctant, Princess. She began her. example with Adair.»

Adair's eyes were three circles of gold and yellow, like staring into the sun. Those eyes held nothing as he watched us come toward the doors. He had been cast out of the Seelie Court for speaking too strongly against their king, and to avoid exile from faerie he had joined the Unseelie. But he had never truly taken to the dark court's way of life. He existed among us, and tried to be invisible.

I spoke low: «I know why you do not want my bed, but Adair and I have no quarrel.»

«He wants to be left alone, Princess. He wants to not be involved in this fight.»

«Unless you're Switzerland, there is no neutrality,» I said.

«So he learned.»

The other guard still stood in a cloak of his own pale yellow hair. That hair framed a body that was a pale whitish-grey, not moonlight skin like mine, but a soft, almost dusty color. His eyes gleamed out of a narrow, high-cheekboned face, eyes the color of dark green leaves, with an inner star of paler green like some sort of starred jewel. His lips were the reddest, ripest, prettiest in the courts, either court, if you asked me. The ladies envied him that mouth, and only the brightest, most crimson of lipsticks came close to producing it. His name was Briac, though he preferred to be called Brii. Briac was just another form of the name Brian, and had nothing to do with plants or agriculture. I knew that Brii was some sort of plant deity, or had been, but beyond that his name kept its secrets.

He smiled as we came nearer—those red, red lips, distracting from the jewels of his eyes, the curtain of his hair, and even the long naked lines of his body. As if he felt me looking, his body began to respond, as if my approach was enough to whet his anticipation and bring him partially erect.

Adair's body was as empty of reaction to my approach as his eyes. He was lucky I was not my aunt, for she sometimes took lack of response on an involuntary level as a personal insult. I did not. Adair had, at the very least, had his pride cut away with his hair. I had no idea what other pains my aunt had put him through to make him willing to stand at this door and await me. He was angry, on that I would have bet a great deal. Anger and embarrassment are not always the best aphrodisiac. My aunt has never truly understood that.