Лорел Гамильтон - A Kiss Of Shadows

Anger played across her face like candlelight inside glass.

"You know who did it," I said.

"I do not, but I do know who knew that you were going to be named coheir."

"Cel," I said.

"I had to prepare him," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"He did not do this," she said, and for the first time there was something in her voice—the same protest you'll hear in any mother's voice when defending her child.

I simply looked at her and kept my face blank. It was the best I could do, because I knew Cel. He would not simply give up his birthright on the whim of his mother, queen or no.

"What did Cel do to anger you?" I asked.

"I tell you, as I told him, I am not angry with him." But there was too much protest to her voice. For the first time tonight Andais was on the defensive. I liked it.

"Cel didn't believe that, did he?"

"He knows what my motives are," she said.

"Would you care to share those motives with me?" I asked.

She smiled, and it was the first genuine smile I'd seen on her tonight. An almost embarrassed movement of lips. She wagged a gloved finger at me. "No, my motives are my own. I want you to choose someone for your bed tonight. Take them back to the hotel with you, I don't care who, but I want it to begin tonight." The smile was gone. She was her royal self once more, unreadable, self-contained, mysterious and absolutely obvious all at the same time.

"You never have understood me, Aunt."

"And what, pray, does that mean?"

"It means, Auntie dearest, that if you had left off that last order, I would probably have taken someone to my bed tonight. But being commanded to do it makes me feel like a royal whore. I don't like it."

She settled her skirts so the train glided behind her and walked toward me. As she moved, her power began to unfold, flitting around the room like invisible sparks to bite along my skin. The first two times I jumped, then I stood there and let her power eat over my skin. I was wearing steel, but a few knives had never been enough for me to withstand her magic. It had to be my own newfound powers that kept it from being so much worse.

Her eyes narrowed as she came to stand in front of me. With me standing on the small raised platform, we were eye-to-eye. Her magic pushed out from her like a moving wall of force. I had to brace my feet as if I were standing against wind. The small burning bites had turned into a constant ache like standing just inside an oven, not quite touching the glowing surface, but knowing that one tiny shove and your skin would burn and crisp.

"Doyle said your powers had grown, but I didn't quite believe it. But there you stand before me, and I must accept that you are true sidhe, at last." She put her foot on the lowest step. "But never forget that I am queen here, Meredith, not you. No matter how powerful you become, you will never rival me."

"I would never presume otherwise, my lady," I said. My voice was just a touch shaky.

Her magic pushed at me. I couldn't draw a good breath. My eyes blinked as if I were looking into the sun. I fought to stand and not to give ground. "My lady, tell me what you wish me to do and I will do it. I have not offered challenge in any way."

She came up another step, and this time I did give ground. I did not want her to touch me. "Simply by standing in the face of my power you challenge me."

"If you wish me to kneel, I will kneel. Tell me what you want, my queen, and I will give it to you." I did not want to get into a contest of magic with her. I would lose. I knew that. It left me with nothing to prove.

"Make the ring have life on my finger, Niece."

I didn't know what to say to that. I finally held my hand out to her. "Do you want the ring back?"

"More than you will ever know, but it is yours now, Niece. I wish you joy of it." That last sounded more like a curse than a blessing.

I went to the far edge of the table, gripping it to steady myself against the growing pressure of her magic. "What do you want from me?"

She never answered me. Andais made a gesture with both hands toward me and that pressure became a force that shoved me backward. I was airborne for a second until my back met the wall, and my head hit a heartbeat later. I kept my feet through a shower of grey and white flowers on the edge of my vision.

When my vision cleared, Andais was standing in front of me with a knife in her hand. She pressed the tip of it against the small hollow at the base of my throat, pressed the tip of the blade until I felt it bite into my skin. She put her finger against the wound and came away with a trembling drop of my blood clinging to her leather-clad finger. She held her finger upside down so the drop fell quivering to the floor.

"Know this, niece of mine. Your blood is my blood, and that is the only reason I care what happens to you. I do not care if you like what I have planned for you or not. I need you to continue our bloodline, but if you will not help do that, then I do not need you." She withdrew the knife very slowly, drawing it back an inch or two. She laid the flat of the blade against my face, the point dangerously close to my eye.

I could taste my pulse on my tongue, and I'd forgotten to breathe. Looking into her face, I knew that she would kill me, just like that.

"That which is not useful to me is discarded, Meredith." She pressed the flat of the blade into my flesh so that when I blinked the tip of the knife brushed my eyelashes. "You will pick someone to sleep with tonight. I don't care who. Since you have invoked virgin right, you are free to go back to Los Angeles, but you will have to pick some of my Guard to take with you. So look at them tonight, Meredith, with those emerald-green-and-gold eyes of yours, those Seelie eyes of yours, and choose." She put her face next to mine, so close that she could have kissed me. She whispered the last words into my mouth. "Fuck one of them tonight, Meredith, because if you don't, tomorrow night you will entertain the court with a group of my choosing."

She smiled, and it was the smile that touched her face when she had thought of something wicked, and painful. "At least one that you choose must be enough my creature to spy for me against you. If you go back to Los Angeles."

My voice came out the barest of whispers. "Must I sleep with your spy?"

"Yes," she said. The blade point moved a fraction closer, so close it blurred in my vision, and I fought not to blink, because if I did the point would pierce my eyelid. "Is that all right with you, Niece? Is it all right with you that I make you sleep with my spy?"

I said the only thing I could say. "Yes, Aunt Andais."

"You'll choose your little harem tonight at the banquet?"

My eyes weren't fluttering. They were twitching with the need to blink. "Yes, Aunt Andais."

"You'll sleep with someone tonight before you fly back to your western lands?"

I widened my eyes and concentrated on her face, on looking at her face. The knife was a blur of steel taking up most of my right eye's vision, but I could still see, still see her face looming above me like a painted moon.

"Yes," I whispered.

She drew the knife from my face and said, "There. Was that so difficult?"

I sagged against the wall, eyes shut. I kept them closed because I couldn't keep the rage out of them, and I didn't want Andais to see it. I wanted out of this room, just out of this room, and away from her.

"I'll call Rhys to escort you to the banquet. You look a bit shaken." She laughed.

I opened my eyes, blinking to clear the tears that had gathered from being forced not to blink. She was walking down the steps.

"I'll send Rhys to you, though perhaps with the spell in the coach you might need another guard. I will think on who to send to your side." She was nearly to the outer door when she turned and said, "And who shall my spy be? I shall try to pick someone beautiful, someone who is good in bed, so that the chore may not be too onerous."