Лорел Гамильтон - A Caress Of Twilight

I frowned, because I couldn't feel magic being used against me. Usually when another sidhe uses magic, you know it.

I glanced behind me at the guards. Doyle and Frost were standing, but they were unreadable now, imperious even. Kitto was still standing beside the couch where I'd left him. One small hand had a death grip on the white back, as if touching anything was better than standing untouched.

I wondered if he was feeling things I couldn't. I was only part fey; I was always willing to believe that I'd missed parts by that mixed heritage. I'd gained things, too — being able to do major magic surrounded by metal, for instance — but with every gain there can be a loss.

"Ms. Reed, I'll ask you one more time, did you hire Kane and Hart to protect you from my guards?"

"What I told Julian and his men was that I had some overzealous fans."

I didn't bother to look at Julian for confirmation. "I believe that's what you told Julian, Ms. Reed. Now, what's the real reason that you hired them?"

She stared at me with mock horror, or maybe it was real. She glanced at Frost and Doyle, and said, "Have you taught her no manners?"

"She has what manners she needs," Doyle said.

A look flickered through Maeve's eyes, fear, I think. She looked back to me, and down in those softly glowing blue eyes, that flicker remained. She was afraid. Very, very afraid. But of what?

"Did you really hire Julian and his people because of some overzealous fan?"

"Stop this," she whispered.

"Do you really believe that we will harm you?" I asked.

"No," she said, and she said it too quickly, as if she was relieved to finally be able to give a straightforward answer.

"Then why are you afraid of us?"

"Why are you doing this to me?" she asked, and her voice held all the sorrow of every maiden who had ever asked that question of a lover gone astray.

It tightened my throat to hear it. Julian looked stricken. "I think you've asked enough questions, Meredith."

I shook my head. "No, I haven't." I met those pain-filled blue eyes, and said, "Ms. Reed, you don't have to hide yourself from us."

"I don't know what you mean."

"That is entirely too close to a lie," I said softly.

Her eyes suddenly looked like blue crystal, and I realized I was seeing those blue-blue eyes through the shine of unshed tears. Then the tears slid slowly down her golden cheeks, and as they fell, the blue of her eyes blurred, changed, still blue, but tricolored like my own.

There was a wide outer edge of rich deep blue like a bright sapphire, then a much thinner ring of melted copper, and an equally thin circle of liquid gold around the dark point of her pupil. But what set her eyes apart even among the sidhe was that the gold and copper trailed out across her iris like streaks of color in a good piece of lapis lazuli, so that metallic glints shone out from that ring of faultless deep blue.

Her eyes were like a stormy blue sky shattered by colored lightning.

In the forty years she'd been a movie star, no camera had ever seen these eyes. Her real eyes. I'm sure some agent or studio head had long ago convinced her to hide the least human of her features. I'd hidden what I was and what I looked like for only three years, and it had killed parts of me to do it. Maeve Reed had done it for decades.

She kept her eyes averted from Julian, as if she didn't want him to see them. I took her hand from Julian's arm; she tried to fight me, and I didn't tug on her. I just kept a light pressure on her wrist until she raised the hand of her own accord. Then I took her hand full in mine, cradling it. I knelt in front of her and brought her hand to my lips. I laid the lightest of touches on that golden hand, and said, "You have the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen, Maeve Reed."

She took her other hand from Julian's grip and just stood there staring down at me, tears streaming like crystal drops down her cheeks. Slowly, she let the rest of the glamour go. The tan began to fade, or change, until she was no longer honey brown but an overall soft gold. Her hair grew paler, blond and blonder, until it was almost a white blond. I could not imagine why she'd changed her hair to the more standard yellow blond. Either color was well within human standards.

I held both her hands in mine while she stripped away a century of lies and stood before me a shining thing. Suddenly there seemed to be more colors in the room, a breath of sweet scented flowers that grew thousands of miles away from this desert place. She gripped my hands as if they were her only anchor, as if she might vanish into the light and sweetness if I let her go.

She threw back her head, eyes closed, and her golden glow filled the room as if a small sun had suddenly risen before me. She glowed, and she cried, and she held my hands so hard it hurt. Somewhere during all of it, I found I was crying, too, and her glow had called my own, so that my skin looked as if it were filled with moonlight.

She came to her knees beside me, looking wonderingly at my hands and hers, one glow pressed against the other. She began to laugh joyously, a little hysterically.

Somewhere in all the laughter, I could make out her words, "And I… thought the men. . were the danger."

She leaned into me suddenly and pressed her lips to mine. I was so startled by the kiss that I simply froze for a second. What I would have done if she'd given me time to think, I don't know, because she jerked away from me and ran back out the way she'd come.

Julian had gone after Maeve. It left young Frank standing by the exit looking lost. His eyes were too large in his pale, startled face. I doubted Frank had ever seen a sidhe in her full power.

I was still kneeling, the glow beginning to fade from my skin, when Doyle came to stand beside me. "Princess, are you well?"

I looked up at him and realized I must have looked a little startled myself. I could feel the heat on my mouth where her lips had touched mine. It was like I'd taken a sip of spring sunshine.

"Princess?"

I nodded. "I'm all right." But my voice came out hoarse, and I had to clear my throat before I said, "I've just never …" I tried to put it into words. "She tasted like sunshine. And until this second I didn't know that sunshine tasted like anything."

Doyle knelt beside me and spoke softly. "It is always difficult to be touched by those who hold such elemental powers."

I frowned at him. "She said she thought it was the men she needed to be afraid of. What did she mean by that?"

"Think how you were after just a few years alone out here. . and magnify that by a human century."

I felt my eyes widen. "You mean she's attracted to me." I shook my head before he could say anything. "She's attracted to the first sidhe she's touched in a hundred years."

"Do not underestimate yourself, Meredith, but I have never heard it said that Conchenn was a lover of women, so, yes, it is the touch of sidhe flesh that she craves."

I sighed. "I cannot blame her." And then another thought occurred to me. "You don't think she's invited us here to ask if I'll share one of you with her?"

Doyle's dark eyebrows raised over the top of his sunglasses. "I had not thought of such a thing." He seemed to be thinking about what I'd said. "I suppose it is possible." He frowned. "But it would be the height of rudeness to ask such a thing. We are not merely your lovers but potential husbands. It is not casual."

"You said it yourself, Doyle, she's been alone for a century. A hundred years might wear down anyone's sense of politeness."

There was movement behind us; we turned to find Frost already on his feet facing the entrance. It was Rhys. "What have you guys been doing in here?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.