Лорел Гамильтон - A Kiss Of Shadows

I'd grown up, and I was finally my father's daughter. Some choices you make with your heart, some with your head, but when in doubt choose head over heart—it will keep you alive.

I knelt over him, starting to move off his lap. His arms locked behind my back. He looked so hurt, so lost. "You really mean it."

I nodded. I watched his eyes try to make sense of it. Finally he asked, "Why?"

I touched his face, brushed my fingers through the edge of his curls. "Oh, Galen."

His eyes held sorrow now the way they could hold happiness, or puzzlement, or any emotion that he was feeling. He was the world's worst actor. "A kiss, Merry, to welcome you home."

"We had a kiss in the airport," I said.

"No, a real kiss, just once more. Please, Merry."

I should have said no, made him let me go, but I couldn't. I couldn't say no to the look in his eyes, and truthfully if I was never going to let myself be with him again, I wanted a last kiss.

He raised his face to mine, and I lowered my mouth to his. His lips were so soft. My hands found the curve of his face and cradled him as we kissed. His hands kneaded at my back, spilled lightly over my buttocks, slid along my thighs. He pulled my legs gently so that I slid down the line of his body again. This time he made sure there was no space between us. I could feel him pressed tight and hard against his pants, against me.

The feel of him pressed against me tore my mouth from his, brought a gasp from my throat. His hands spilled down my body, cupping my buttocks, pressing me harder against him. "Can we get rid of the gun? It's digging into me."

"The only way to get rid of the gun is to take off the belt," I said, and my voice held things that the words didn't.

"I know," he said.

I opened my mouth to say no, but that wasn't what came out. It was like a series of decisions: each time I should have said no, I should have stopped, and each time I didn't stop. We ended stretched across the long leather seat with most of our clothes and all of our weapons scattered on the floor.

My hands glided over the smooth expanse of Galen's chest. The thin braid of green hair trailed across his shoulder, curling across the dark skin of his nipple. I traced my hand across the line of hair that ran down the center of his stomach to vanish into his pants. I couldn't remember how we'd gotten here like this. I was wearing nothing but my bra and panties. I didn't remember taking off my pants. It was as if for minutes I was losing time, then I'd wake up and we'd be further along.

His pants were unzipped. I caught a glimpse of green bikini briefs. I wanted to plunge my hand down the front of his body. I wanted it so badly that I could feel him in my hand as if I were already holding him.

Neither of us had used power—it was just the feel of skin on skin, our bodies touching. We'd gone further than this years ago. But something was wrong. I just couldn't remember what.

Galen leaned over, kissing my stomach. He licked a thick wet line down my body. I couldn't think, and I needed to think.

His tongue played along the edge of my panties, his face burying against the lace, moving it aside with his chin and mouth, working lower.

I grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled his face up, away from my body. "No, Galen."

He spilled his hands up my body, forced his fingers under the wire of my bra, lifted it, exposed my breasts. "Say, yes, Merry, please say yes." He rolled his hands over my breasts, kneading them, massaging them.

I couldn't think, couldn't remember why we shouldn't be doing this. "I can't think," I said out loud.

"Don't think," Galen said. He lowered his face to my breasts, kissed them gently, licked the nipples.

I put a hand on his chest and pushed him away. He stayed over me, an arm on either side, his legs out behind him, half on top of mine. "Something's wrong. We shouldn't be doing this."

"Nothing's wrong, Merry." He tried to lower his face back to my breasts, but I kept both hands on his chest, kept him pushed away from me.

"Yes, there is."

"What? "he asked.

"That's just it, I can't remember. I can't remember, Galen, do you understand? I can't remember. I should be able to remember."

He frowned down at me. "There is something." He shook his head. "I can't remember."

"Why are we in the back of this car?" I asked.

Galen eased back off of me, sitting with his pants still undone, hands in his lap. "You're going to see your grandmother."

I slid my bra back in place and sat up, moving to my side of the car. "That's right."

"What just happened?" he asked.

"It's a spell, I think," I said.

"We didn't drink the wine or eat the food."

I looked at the black interior of the car. "It's here somewhere." I began running my hands along the edge of the seat. "Someone put it in the car, and it wasn't the car."

Galen ran his hands over the ceiling, searching. "If we had made love…"

"My aunt would have had us executed." I didn't tell him about Doyle, but I doubted seriously if the queen would let me defile two of her guards in as many days without being punished for it.

I found a lump under the black cloth of the floorboard. I raised it gently, not wanting to hurt the car. What I found was a woven cord tied with a silver ring. The ring was the queen's ring—one of the magical items that the fey were allowed to take away from Europe during the great exodus. The ring was a thing of great power, which is what had allowed the cord's magic to work without touching either of our skins or being invoked.

I held the thing up so he could see it. "I found it, and it's wearing her ring."

Galen's eyes widened. "She never lets that ring off her hand." He took the cord from me, touching the different-colored strands. "Red for lust, orange for reckless love, but why the green? That's usually reserved for finding a monogamous partner. You'd never mix those three colors."

"Even for Andais this is psychotic. Why invite me home to be an honored guest, but set me up for execution on the way to the court? It makes absolutely no sense."

"No one could have gotten that ring without her permission, Merry."

Something white was sticking out from between the seat and the back.

I moved closer to it and found it was half an envelope. "This wasn't there before," I said.

"No, it wasn't," Galen said. He picked his sweater up off the floor and slipped it on.

I pulled at the envelope, and it felt as if something was pushing from the other end; it was a flexing, as if of muscle. It brought my pulse in my throat, but I took the envelope. It had my name written across it in beautiful handwriting—the queen's handwriting.

I showed it to Galen as he continued to dress. "You'd better open it," he said.

I turned it over and found her seal set in black wax, unbroken. I broke the seal and pulled out a single sheet of thick white stationary.

"What does it say?" Galen asked.

I read it aloud to him. "'To Princess Meredith NicEssus. Take this ring as a gift and a token of things to come. I want to see it on your hand when we meet. She even signed her name." I looked at Galen. "This makes less and less sense."

"Look," he said.

I looked where he was pointing, and there was a small velvet bag sticking out of the seat now. It had not been there when I took the envelope out of the seat.

"What is going on?"

Galen pulled the bag into sight, carefully. It was very small, and the only thing in it was a piece of black silk. "Let me see the ring," he said.

I slipped the silver ring off the cord, holding it in the palm of my hand. The cold metal grew warm against my hand. I waited tensely for it to grow hot, but it was just a slight pulsing warmth. Either it was part of the ring's enchantment or… I held the ring out to Galen. "Hold it in the palm of your hand; see what you feel."