Merry Gentry 03 - Seduced by Moonlight (46 page)

Sage said, "Queen Niceven says that one of the royals has knelt on the floor before the queen." He took in a breath, then said in an excited voice, "Now!"

Barinthus and Galen pushed the doors open, and the stronger light of the great hall spilled around us. We were moving as the doors opened. I walked a little in front of Rhys and Frost; then came Nicca and Sage, and beyond that everyone just picked a partner and followed me two by two, with Galen and Barinthus coming at our backs just ahead of the goblins.

Doyle stayed by the door, as planned, and we gave no acknowledgment of him, as if he'd angered us. The plan, as it were, was rolling along.

Gasps, furious whispers, and even one muffled scream met me at the door. I think for a moment the herald at the door didn't recognize me. The only part of me that wasn't pasted with blood were my eyes, and even the lashes of one eye were stiff with it. I'd spent my life being treated as lesser, as someone not of importance, and certainly not dangerous. I admit that a large part of me enjoyed that first moment when they watched me cross into the hall. I enjoyed their fear, their surprise, their worry. What had happened? What had changed? What did this mean? They were some of the best court politicians in the world, but now all their plans were thrown into the air simply because I walked into the throne room covered in blood.

Queen Andais sat on her throne, her white skin clean and pure where she'd scrubbed the blood away. Her dress was black and bared her shoulders and arms. Diamonds gleamed in her hair, hiding the metal of the tiara behind the dazzle of their light. A line of diamonds graced her neck and spilled across her chest as if the necklace were a rope, or a serpent, caught in midmotion. The diamonds were the only color to her simple black dress and the long gloves that covered her arms and hands. Though perhaps
color
wasn't the right word for the effect. It was more as if the jewels bent the light around her head and neck like a halo sliding down her body.

Mistral stood behind and to one side of her throne in his armor, with his spear resting against the dais. Mistral as her new captain did not surprise me, but her new second in command did. Silence was hidden behind his armor, only his long braid of pale brown hair showed from underneath his helmet. He was called Silence because he never spoke except to whisper in the queen's ear, or Doyle's. How can you command if you will not speak?

Tyler curled at her feet on the end of a bejeweled chain, his only clothing the shining of the collar. Eamon sat in the smaller throne just below hers, the consort's throne. He was dressed all in black except for a silver circlet at his pale brow.

We passed the empty table and throne where the sluagh sat, because the sluagh were behind the queen. Nightflyers like a cross among giant bats, tentacled horrors, and airborne manta rays clung to the stones at her back, going up and up like a living curtain of dark flesh. Things with more tentacles than flesh stood behind the throne. The hags, Black Agnes and Segna the Gold, were cloaked and waiting behind the queen, taller than the guards at her back. The hags normally stood at their own king's back, but Sholto had a new place to sit.

An empty throne that had once been reserved for the heir, but had become known as the prince's throne, awaited me. Sholto's throne had been placed on the dais, just below mine. For tonight, it was to be a consort's throne as well. My consorts, though, not the queen's. For me, it would be whomever I was going to sleep with that night.

Sholto, King of the Sluagh, Lord of That Which Passes Between, Lord of Shadows, sat on the dais for the first time, tall and pale, with moonlit skin to make any Unseelie sidhe proud. His hair was white as snow, long and silken, and, as was his wont, tied back in a loose ponytail. His eyes were tricolored; a circle of metallic gold like mine, then a circle of amber, and last a line the color of leaves in the autumn. He was as fair efface and body as any sidhe who graced the court, sitting there in black-and-gold tunic, black pants tucked into knee-high boots of softest black leather, with more gold edging the turned-down tops. His cloak was fastened with a gold brooch carved with the device of his house.

He looked every inch the sidhe prince, but I knew, better than most, that looks could be deceiving. Sholto was wasting magic to hide what lay under his clothes. Almost all his stomach, down to his lower abdomen, was a mass of tentacles. Without his glamour, it would have bulged under even the generous cloth of a tunic. Modern clothing was nearly unwearable without his magic to make everything lie smoothly. His mother had been Seelie sidhe. His father had been a nightflyer.

As King of the Sluagh he could have any female of his court in his bed. As a member of the queen's guard, no one at Andais's court could sleep with him but the queen herself. I don't think it would ever have occurred to her to take him to her bed. She called him
my perverse creature,
or sometimes simply
my creature.
Sholto hated the nickname, but you didn't complain to Queen Andais about nicknames, not even if you were the king of another court. If Sholto had been content with the females of his court, then I would have had nothing to bargain with, but he was not content. He wanted sidhe skin against his body. So our bargain was struck, and if not tonight, then tomorrow I would find out if I could stomach all the extra pieces he had growing from his body. I hoped I could, because like it or not, I would have to bed him for tonight's help.

Afagdu stood to one side of the dais. He'd been on his knees before the throne when the doors opened. He, too, was dressed in black, as most of the court was. Courtiers often dressed in their sovereign's favorite color, and black had been Andais's signature color for centuries. Afagdu's hair was so black it seemed to melt into his cloak, and the beard on his face made it seem as if his tricolored eyes floated in his face, lost in all that blackness. His voice carried through the hall, cutting across the whispers and gasps. "Princess Meredith, is that your blood, or someone else's?"

I ignored him and went to stand before the dais, directly below the queen. I bowed, but only from the neck. "Queen Andais, Queen of Air and Darkness, I come before you covered in the blood of my enemies, and my friends."

"Meredith, Princess of Flesh and Blood, join us."

There were more gasps at the new title. Doyle had wanted to keep my new power secret so we could surprise my enemies, but Andais had overruled. She wanted the court to fear me, as they feared her. She could not be persuaded from it, and she was queen.

Sholto stood and came down the two steps left him. He smiled and offered me his hand. I took it, and found his palm sweaty. Why would the King of the Sluagh be nervous?

I gave him a smile, and wondered if the effect was friendly, or frightening, from my mask of blood.

He led me to my throne, and once I was seated went back to his own. The others crowded around. Kitto took his place at my feet, and all we needed was a jeweled collar to mimic Tyler at the queen's. Rhys and Frost took their places on either side of my throne. The men whom I had taken to my bed spread out behind me and to either side. Barinthus had included himself in this list, and I could not protest. The queen had been both puzzled and intrigued, but left it for later. The others, hers and mine, filled out around the room. Andais wanted it clear that the guards were there not to protect us, but to be a threat to the rest of the Unseelie.

The nobles did not like the guards scattering throughout the room. They did not like it at all. Afagdu went back to his own throne to the left side, smiling, outwardly at ease. He was not one of Cel's toadies; nor was he a fan of the queen. He kept his own counsel, and made sure the nobles attached to his house did as well.

Two Red Caps strode forward. If the goblins were the foot troops of the Unseelie, than the Red Caps were the shock troops —stronger, bigger, more uniformly vicious than the goblins themselves. The Red Caps were eight and near ten feet tall, respectively. Small giants, even among the fey. You would expect creatures so tall, so wide, so muscular to move like a lumbering bull, but they didn't. They moved like huge hunting cats, eerily graceful. One was the yellow of old paper, and the other the dirty grey of dust. Their eyes were huge oblongs of red, as if they looked out at the world through fresh blood.

On their heads were the round scarlet caps that gave their people their name, but the cap of the tallest one was not merely scarlet cloth. Thin lines of blood ran from his cap down his face, to trail down shoulders as broad as I was tall. Blood ran from his cap in near-continuous rivulets, never quite reaching the floor, almost as if his body absorbed it, though there were dark lines in his clothes. Perhaps the cloth soaked it up?

I was betting that this one's hat had begun life as pure white wool. Once all Red Caps had had to dip their hats in blood to get that crimson color. The blood dried up, and you would have to have another battle to dip your hat in the blood of your enemies. The custom had made the Red Caps some of the most feared warriors among us; for sheer bloodthirstiness, it was hard to beat them.

Either the big grey one had dipped his hat freshly for the banquet, or he had that rarest of natural abilities: He could keep the blood fresh and flowing. Once, when the Red Caps had been a nation of their own and not part of the goblin empire, it was a prerequisite to be war leader among them.

The smaller one did not argue when the larger pushed his way in front and knelt first. Kneeling, he was as tall as I was sitting in the big chair, on steps above him. A very big boy indeed.

His voice was like rocks sliding against each other, a sound so deep that it made me want to clear my throat. "I am Jonty, and Kurag, Goblin King, has ordered me to protect your white flesh. The goblins honor the alliance between Princess Meredith and Kurag, Goblin King." Having said that, he leaned that great face toward me. His face was nearly as wide as my chest. I'd spent too much of my life around such giants to be afraid, but when he grinned and flashed teeth like jagged fangs, it did take a certain amount of trust to let him lower that mouth over the hand I held out for him.

"I, Princess Meredith, Wielder of Flesh and Blood, greet you, Jonty, and return the honor of the goblins by sharing the blood that I have spilt with them."

He did not touch me with his hands, as that was not necessary for this show of solidarity. He merely put his nearly lipless mouth against my skin, and touched the tip of his tongue against my hand. His tongue was sandpaper-rough, like some great cat. As that rough surface scraped the dried blood from my hand, the palm of my left hand pulsed. I'd had the hand of blood hurt, ache, fill me with so much pain that I screamed for release, but I'd never felt it just give a small pulse.

The goblin kept his mouth pressed to the palm of my hand, but he rolled his eyes up to look at me. It was a strangely intimate look, like the way a man looks up when his tongue caresses much more intimate things than the palm of a woman's hand. My palm felt warm, and wet. That warmth ran up my arm, spilled over my body in a wave of heat that left me gasping, and wet. Wet with blood, as if I'd just that moment rolled in it. The blood ran from my hair into my face. I raised a hand to keep the drips out of my eyes, but the other Red Cap was suddenly there. He ran his rough tongue over my forehead, making a sound low in his chest. I half expected Jonty to push him away, but he stayed kneeling over my hand, staring up at me with that intimate look in his eyes.

A voice came from behind them, "Kongar, away from her, now!"

The Red Cap grabbed my half-raised hand and licked it while he held it in his big hands. It was an insult to touch me. It implied sexual favors among the goblins. Hands closed on him and jerked him backward. Ash and Holly sent the much larger man spinning across the floor, sliding backward just in front of the doors.

"He lacks control, Kurag," Holly said, "I don't trust him around sidhe flesh."

Kurag's rumbling voice filled the hall: "Agreed." He motioned, and two other Red Caps went to fetch the fallen one from the floor. Kongar got to his feet before they reached him. Blood ran down his face. For a moment I thought Ash and Holly had injured him; then I realized his hat was bleeding. His hat, covered in dried blood, was bleeding like the blood on my body.

He raised a hand to touch the blood, put it to his tongue, and looked at me the way I'd look at a good steak. One of the other Red Caps tried to touch the blood, but Kongar pushed his hands away. He allowed the other two to lead him back to stand with the other goblin guards, but he wouldn't let them touch the fresh blood.

Ash said, "You've had your fill, Jonty."

Jonty gave me those strangely intimate eyes again, then rose smiling with blood smeared around his mouth. He licked his lips as he went to stand behind me, to join my guards. I heard him mumble to Ash as he passed, "Queen's blood."

Ash had dressed in a green that matched his eyes and looked good with his blond hair and golden skin. He dropped to his knees at my right hand, and if his blond hair had been longer, he could have passed for sidhe. Holly dropped to his knees at my other hand. The red that he wore did bring out his eyes, but as he lowered his face to my hand, rolling his eyes upward in anger, I was reminded forcibly of the Red Cap's scarlet eyes. I wondered if that was what his father had been.

The feel of Ash's mouth on my skin turned me to look at him. He licked the blood from my hand in a long, sure stroke. Holly echoed him on my other arm. Their tongues were soft and strangely gentle as they licked the blood from my skin. They each took one of my hands in theirs, at the same time, as if it were choreography that they had practiced together. I tried to move my hands, and both of them squeezed down at the same time, pinning my hands to the arms of the throne. The sensation made me close my eyes, catch my breath. When I opened my eyes, the fresh blood had leaked down, and I tried to raise my hands to wipe my eyes, but they wouldn't let me. They pressed down harder, and moved like two shadows, so that both of their mouths reached my face at the same time. They licked just above my eyes, drinking the blood from my forehead as if I were a plate covered in something too good to lose.