Лорел Гамильтон - A Caress Of Twilight

Doyle just looked at him.

Sage flew a little distance from him, doing a circle in the air like one might pace on the ground. "Now what good does my prowess do me? What good is it to see her in all her beauty but be unable to touch her?" He turned back to Doyle. "Oh, I have thought long these many years, Darkness, on how I didst torment you. Do not think the irony of it is lost upon me, simply because I am not sidhe." He got very close to Doyle's face, and though I knew it was a whisper, the hiss of it filled the room. "Irony enough to choke upon, Darkness, irony enough to die of, irony enough to kill to rid myself of it."

"Then fade, Sage, fade and be done with it."

The little fey winged backwards. "Fade yourself, Darkness. Fade and be done with you. I am here at Queen Niceven's command to act as her surrogate. If you wish cure for the green knight, then you must deal with me." His voice was thick with menace.

Galen came to the still-open door from the living room. "I wish to be cured, but not at any price." His usual smile was gone, his face somber.

"Enough of this," I said, voice soft, not angry.

They all turned to me. I glimpsed the rest of the men, including Nicca, crowding just outside the doorway. "I bargained with Niceven, not Doyle. And I alone bargained for Galen's cure. The price for that cure was my blood."

Sage fluttered over the bed, not quite over Kitto and me. "One drink of your blue blood, one cure for your green knight, as my queen has bid me." His voice wasn't the ring of bells anymore. It was almost normal, small, thin, but a man's voice.

His dark eyes had become flat and black like the eyes of a doll. There was nothing particularly friendly on that pretty toy-size face.

I held up a hand, and he alit upon it. He was heavier than he looked, more solid. I remembered Niceven being lighter, more bone than muscle. She felt as cadaverous as she looked. Sage was. . meatier, or rather his slender body held more substance than Niceven's seemed to.

His wings went still, showing them as huge perfect butterfly wings. They fanned softly as he stared at me. I wondered if the wings beat in time to his heart.

His butter yellow hair was shaggy, thick, straight, falling in careless strands around his triangular face. The hair brushed his shoulders in places. There was a time when Andais would have punished him for letting his hair grow so long. Only the sidhe men were allowed to have hair long as a woman's. It was a mark of status, royalty, privilege.

His hands were no bigger than the fingernail on my smallest finger. He put one of those hands on his slender waist, the other hanging by his side, one foot in front of the other, a defiant pose.

"If we are given privacy, then I will take payment and give you the cure for your knight." He sounded petulant.

It made me smile, and the smile made his face fill with hatred. "I am not a child to be looked upon with indulgence, Princess. I am a man." He made a sweeping gesture with both hands. "A small one by your reckoning, but I am still male. I do not appreciate being looked upon as you would smile upon a naughty child."

It was almost exactly what I'd been thinking, that he looked cute standing there so defiant, so tiny. I had been treating him like a doll, or a toy, or a child.

"I apologize, Sage, you are correct. You are fey and you are male, size notwithstanding."

He frowned at me. "You are royal and you apologize to me?"

"I was taught that true royalty lies in knowing when one is wrong or right, and admitting the difference; not in false perfection."

He turned his head to one side, an almost birdlike movement. "I have heard from others that you deal fairly with all, like your father before you." His thin voice sounded thoughtful.

"It is good to hear my father spoken of still."

"We all remember Prince Essus."

"I am always happy to share my father's good memory with others."

Sage watched me closely, though it wasn't the same as being watched by a larger person. His idea of eye contact seemed just that. His whole face seemed to stare at only my right eye, though he'd apparently seen my smile and judged it correctly, which meant he could see all my face. I simply was not accustomed to dealing with the demi-fey. My father had always been respectful of them, but I had not been taken to Niceven's court as I had been to Kurag's and others.

"Prince Essus had our respect, Princess, but time moves on and so must we." He sounded almost sad. He looked at me, face growing arrogant again, and I fought not to smile at this tiny figure looking so full of himself. It wasn't funny or cute; he was just as much a person as anyone else in the room. But it was hard to truly believe that.

"Let us have privacy to fulfill my queen's desires, then you will have your cure for the green knight."

I looked at Doyle and Galen inside the room, the others just outside. Frost was already shaking his head. "My guards do not allow me to be alone with any member of the courts."

"Do you think I should be flattered that they see me as a potential threat?" He turned on my hand and pointed a finger at Doyle. "Darkness knows me of old and knows what I am capable of, or thinks he does." Sage turned back to face me, his bare feet sliding strangely against my skin. "But I would still have privacy for this."

"No," Doyle said.

Sage turned back to him, fluttering inches from my hand. "You should understand this, Darkness. Doing my queen's bidding is all that is left me. Doing exactly what she says is all that I have. What I will do tonight in this room will be the closest I have come to knowing feminine delights in a very long time. I do not think privacy is too much to ask for that."

The guards weren't happy about it, but they finally agreed. Only Kitto stayed wound around my body, tangled in the sheets.

"That one, too," Sage said, pointing at the goblin.

"He faded today, Sage," I said.

"He looks well enough."

"His king, Kurag, has informed me that my body, my blood, my flesh, my magic is what sustains Kitto out here among the humans. He needs to stay in contact with my skin for a time longer."

"You would kick him out of your bed for one of your sidhe warriors."

"No." Kitto spoke softly. "I have been privileged to stay while they mate. I have seen their light cast shadows on the walls, so bright they glowed."

Sage fluttered down to hover over Kitto's upturned face. "Goblin, your kind eats mine in times of war."

"The strong eat the weak. It is the way of the world," Kitto said.

"The goblin world," Sage said.

"It is all I know."

"You are far from that world now."

Kitto cuddled under the sheet so that only his eyes showed. "Merry is my world now."

"Do you like this new world, goblin?"

"I am warm, safe, and she bears my mark on her body. It is a good world."

Sage hovered for a few moments more, then flew back up to my waiting hand. "If the goblin gives his word of most solemn honor that nothing he sees, hears, feels, or senses in any way will he repeat to anyone, then he may stay."

Kitto repeated the promise word for word.

"Very well," Sage said. He gazed down my body; and though he was no taller than my forearm, I shivered and had the most uncomfortable desire to cover myself. A tiny red tongue like a drop of blood licked across his pale lips. "First the bloodletting, then the cure." The way he said cure made me half wish I hadn't agreed to all the guards leaving me alone. He was smaller than a Barbie doll, but in that instant, I was afraid of him.

He fluttered down off my hand toward my breasts. I put my other arm between him and my body. He ended up on my other wrist, which I moved out from my body in order to see him more easily. I raised the sheet over my chest with my other hand.