Merry Gentry 03 - Seduced by Moonlight (49 page)

Miniver had been one of the last of the Seelie nobles to ask admittance to our court. She had waited a handful of days until she found which of the noble houses was most respected for their magic, then she had challenged them, one after the other, until five duels later they had given her their respect, and their allegiance.

As the challenged, I could choose weapons. Before I'd come into my hands of power I would have chosen knives, or guns if it were still allowed, but now I had a hand of power that was perfect for this challenge. Before we fought, we would each nick our body, and taste each other's blood. A small cut was all the hand of blood needed. The problem was, if I chose magic and Miniver didn't bleed to death fast enough, she would kill me.

I spoke with my face pressed against Doyle's skin. "The sidhe never call it a duel to the death. What blood does she call?"

Doyle's deep voice cut across the murmur of voices. "The princess asks to what blood does her challenger call?"

Miniver's voice rang out clear and strangely triumphant, as if we'd been silly to ask, "To third blood, of course, and if I could ask for a duel to the death, I would do it. But the immortal sidhe cannot die, unless tainted by mortal blood."

I stood up, one arm wrapped tight around Doyle's waist. The men moved back to make a sort of curtain through which I could see her. The guards around her had done the same, though she was not being hugged tight by anyone. No, she stood tall and straight and full of that awful arrogance, that surety that was always the sidhe's greatest weakness.

"You will drink of my blood, Miniver, and if my blood truly makes you mortal, then you risk true death."

"I am content either way, Meredith. If I kill you, as I believe I will, then you cannot take the throne and contaminate this court with your mortality. If you by some oddity slay me, give me true death, then my death will show the entire court what their fate will be if they take you as their queen and make blood oath to you. If by my death or my life, I can keep your mortality from spreading through the Unseelie like a curse, then I am more than content."

One of the nobles from her house called, "Lady Miniver, she carries the hand of blood now."

"If she is so bold as to choose magic against me, then she will die all the sooner. She cannot bleed me to death from three tiny wounds, not before I have slain her." She stood there, supremely confident, and if I had had only the first part of the hand of blood, she'd have been right. But I could widen those three tiny wounds, spilling her life's blood a hundred times faster. If I could survive long enough, I had her.

There are no seconds in a seelie duel. Once one of the combatants can no longer continue, the fight ends. There is no second to pick up the weapon and avenge you. But you can choose who wields the blade that draws your blood for the oath.

Doyle had borrowed a ribbon to pull his hair back from his face. He put the tip of his knife against my lower lip, the very point of his sharp knife against the soft skin of my mouth. He was quick, but it hurt anyway. It always did when you bled your mouth. It would be a kiss that sealed the blood oath: such a little bit of blood to mean so much.

If it had been only to first blood we could have worn armor, which was why the first cut was on the face. All you had to do was remove the helmet, and you could be cut.

He cradled my hand in his, baring the wrist to the point of his blade. Again, he was quick, but it hurt more this time, because it was a larger cut. Not too deep, but longer. Blood filled the wound and began to drip slowly down my skin.

Again, if it had been to second blood, someone could have kept a little armor on, but third blood meant no armor. No protection but your own skin and whatever clothes you were wearing.

Doyle touched his blade to the hollow of my throat, and made a tiny cut that stung. I could not see when blood filled it, but I could feel the first trickle of warmth as my blood began to slide down my neck.

All three cuts hurt, sharp and immediate, which was good. I knew from experience that if any of the cuts closed before the final part of the ritual, Miniver's blade wielder would get to redo my wounds. I did not want that. I didn't even have to know who it was, to know that you do not give your flesh over to your enemies' blades. I'd had Galen wield the knife once, and he'd been so squeamish about hurting me that two of the wounds had had to be redone. Cel's friends had damn near slit my wrist.

I looked up into Doyle's darkly handsome face. I wanted to say so many things. I wanted to kiss him good-bye, but didn't dare. We stood in a magic circle that the queen had traced upon the stones of the main court. Inside this circle was a sacred place, and one touch of mortal blood could contaminate, as I'd proven in other duels. But the last duel that I'd managed to kill someone in, I'd been armed with a handgun. They'd been outlawed after that duel. I thought that was unfair, since the gun had acted as the equalizer it was meant to be. The sidhe who'd died had outweighed me by more than a hundred pounds, and had had more than double my reach of arm and leg. He'd been a great swordsman, and I was not. But he hadn't been much of a marksman. Most of the sidhe weren't, the Queen's Ravens being the exception. Most sidhe still treated firearms as if they were some sort of human trick.

But there would be no guns today. No swords, no weapons. I'd chosen magic, and Miniver was more confident than ever of her victory. I was hoping she would be overconfident. She was Seelie enough for it.

She stood across the stones from me, in her dress of gold. Blood had begun to trace a thin dark line on the front of that dress, as her neck wound bled. The cuff of her dress was scarlet with her blood. Her blood was only a little darker red than her mouth, and it only showed crimson as it began to spill down her chin.

I fought the urge to lick my own lip as I felt the blood seep down my chin, but we were supposed to save that blood for each other.

"Are the wounds satisfactory?" the queen asked from the throne where she sat to watch.

We both nodded.

"Then make oath to each other." Andais's voice was neutral, but not perfectly so. Her voice betrayed a niggling sense of anger and unease.

Doyle stepped to one side, and the noble who had wielded the blade for Miniver did the same on the opposite side of the circle. It left Miniver and I facing each other over a space of stone floor.

We stayed unmoving for a heartbeat or two, then she started forward, striding in her full skirt like a confident golden cloud. I walked to meet her. I had to be more careful, because the high heels I was wearing were not meant for striding over old stones. It would ruin so much if I twisted an ankle. My skirt was too short to do anything, and all my clothes were still blood-soaked. Nothing about me billowed or floated like a cloud.

Her full skirts seemed to wrap around my nearly bare legs. She looked down at me for a moment, as if she expected me to finish it, but she was a foot taller than I was, and there was no way for me to close that distance without her help.

She stood there, blood running down her chin. Hands at her sides. I wasn't sure what was wrong at first; then I realized where she was looking. She was staring at my throat, at the blood that welled there. She was trying to stare as if she were horrified by the barbarity of it, and most of her face succeeded, but her eyes . . . those beautiful blue eyes like three circles of perfect sky . . . those eyes held something close to hunger. I remembered what Andais had said: that whoever crafted the spell had understood her battle madness, her bloodlust. Whoever had made the spell had understood Andais's magic. How do you best understand something, except by experiencing it yourself.

Miniver's eyes stared at the wound in my throat as if it was something wondrous, and fearful. She wanted the blood, or the wound, or the harm; something about it fascinated her. But she feared that fascination.

I'd spent my share of time being on the wrong end of Andais's hobbies. I knew that for her blood and sex and violence were all intertwined to the point that where one left off, and the others began, had blurred.

Miniver had never by action or word given hint that her power held anything akin to the queen's. If she was filled with the same hungers that Andais fed, then Miniver had the control of a saint. Of course, it's easy to be a saint when you are so terribly careful never to be tempted.

Miniver had spent my lifetime leaving the court when the entertainments were too bloody. She was too Seelie to enjoy such blood sport, so she'd said. Now I saw the truth in her eyes. She hadn't left because she was horrified; she'd left because she did not trust herself. Just as she did not trust herself at this moment.

I knew what it was to deny your true nature. I'd done it for years among the humans, cut off from faerie and from anyone who could have given me what I craved. I knew what it felt like to have that craving answered after so very long. It had been overwhelming. Would it be the same for Miniver?

I closed the distance between us, wading into that stiff gold cloth until I could feel her legs, her hips, against my body. She watched the blood at my throat, as if the rest of me were not there. I finally moved close enough that I had to put my hands around her waist to keep steady on my high heels.

She backed up then, and made a show of not wanting me to embrace her, but it hadn't been that, or at least not just that. I'd stepped so close she couldn't see the blood flowing.

"You are a foot taller than I am, Miniver. I cannot share oath with you, unless you help."

She stared down that perfect nose at me. "Too short to be sidhe at any court."

I nodded, and winced, made a show of touching my throat. It hurt, but not that much. She watched me touch the wound, watched me tug at the neck of my blouse. If she'd been male, or a lover of women, I'd have accused her of enjoying the flash of clean white breast I gave her, but I don't think it was anything as simple as flashing the top of my breast at her. I think it was the sight of clean white flesh with fresh blood on it.

I offered her my hand, the one with the cut wrist. "Come, Miniver, help me make this oath."

She could not refuse me, but the moment her hand touched mine, felt the slick play of blood, she jerked back. It must have been torture to her to watch first the goblins feed, and then the demi-fey.

"If you wish to call this duel off, I will not argue," I said, and my voice sounded utterly reasonable.

"Of course you wouldn't, because I am about to end your life."

"Will you bleed me?" I asked, raising the wrist so she could see how much blood was welling out of it. "Will you spill my body open across these stones?"

The first bead of sweat marred that perfect forehead. Oh, yes, she wanted to do just that. She wanted to slaughter as she'd made Andais do. She had filled that wine with all her own most fervent and hidden desires. If I stripped her of her pretense late in the fight, she would slaughter me. But if I could strip her now, immediately, if I could make her attack me during the kiss, then I could strike without any ceremony, too. I could open that white throat from end to end, and maybe, just maybe, I'd live through this.

She had two hands of power. The first worked from afar, and I didn't want that one. She could shoot a bolt of energy from a great distance, and one direct hit might be enough to stop my heart, but she had a second hand. The hand of claws. She had to put those slender fingers against my body, and it would be as if invisible claws shot out from those manicured nails. Invisible claws that cut through flesh like knives, and could be wrenched through the body without the resistance of metal. Doyle and Rhys had both seen her use it. It was her left hand, and it was the one I could survive. So it was the one I needed her to use.

I'd been afraid, but now there was no time for fear. Panic would get me killed, and what would happen to my men if I died? Frost had said he would die before going back to Andais. I was all that stood between them and returning to the queen's mercy. I could not leave them, not like that. Not helpless to protect themselves.

I needed to survive. I had to survive, and that meant that Miniver had to die.

I walked back into the rough embrace of her gold cloth, and as before when I was close enough to feel her body through the dress, I put my hands at her waist for balance.

This time she pulled me roughly against her, as if she'd make it all as quick as possible.

I raised my left hand, the one with its fresh wound, as if I meant to touch her face, but she grabbed my wrist to stop me. It didn't really hurt, her hand on the cut, but I made a small pain sound anyway.

Her eyes were just a little wider, and she pressed her hand into my wrist.

I obliged her, making another small sound.

I could see her pulse in her throat jumping under her skin. She liked the sounds. She liked them so much that she ground her hand into my wrist, and the next sound was real.

My voice came out breathy, and it wasn't pretend. "You're hurting me."

She pulled me in tight against her body, twisting my arm behind my back so that she could keep digging at the wound. She jerked my arm upward, sharp and hard as if she meant to pull it out of its socket.

I cried out, and her eyes were wild. She put her other hand against the back of my head, balling her hand into my blood-soaked hair. A sound came low in her throat, and I watched her fight against herself, watched the battle rage in her eyes from inches away. If I had misjudged this, I was about to die, and it was going to be slower and a great deal more painful. The thought brought fear in a rush over my skin, thundering my pulse in my head. I didn't fight it, and it was as if Miniver could smell it on me, could smell my fear, and liked it.

Her mouth hovered over mine, a breath from closing the space and sealing our oath. She jerked my arm again, and I screamed for her. A sound came out of her that was almost a laugh, but had nothing to do with laughter. I'd never heard anything like it. If I'd heard it in the dark, I'd have been afraid.