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a mind of its own.
The sluagh are wild magic, Meredith.
Yes, but wild sluagh and wild Seelie magic aren t the same.
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He turned my hand palm-up. You bear the hand of flesh and the hand of blood.
Those are not Seelie powers.
No. In combat I seem to be all Unseelie, but in sex magic it is the Seelie in
my blood that comes out.
Do you understand what that might mean for your sluagh?
All the light seemed to drain from his face, so somber now. If we have sex,
and the sluagh are reborn, you might remake the sluagh in your image.
Yes, I said.
He stared at my hand as if he d never seen it before. If I had taken your
life, then the sluagh would have remained what they are: a terrible darkness
to sweep all before us. If we use sex to bring life back to my people, then
they may become more like the sidhe, or even the
Seelie sidhe.
Yes, I said, yes. I was relieved that he finally understood.
Would it be so terrible if we were more sidhe? He almost whispered it, as if
he spoke to himself.
You are their king, Sholto. Only you can make this choice for your people.
They would hate me for making this choice. He stared at me. But what other
choice is there? I will not spill your life away, not even to bring life back
toall of my kingdom. He closed his eyes and let go of my hand. He began to
glow, soft, and white like the moon rising through his skin. He opened his
eyes, and the triple gold of his irises gleamed. He traced a glowing fingertip
across the palm of my hand, and it drew a line of cold white fire across my
skin. I shuddered from that small touch.
He smiled. I am sidhe, Meredith. I understand that now. I am sluagh, too, but
I am also sidhe. I want to be sidhe, Meredith. I want to be fully sidhe. I
want to know what it feels like to be what I am.
I drew my hand back from him, so I could think without the press of his power
against my skin. You are king here. You must make this choice. My voice was
a little hoarse.
It is no choice, he said. You dead, and lost to all of faerie or you in my
arms? It is no choice. He laughed then, and his laughter, too, echoed across
the lake. I heard chimes, or birds, or both. Besides, Darkness and Frost
would kill me if I took you as a sacrifice.
They would not slay the king of the sluagh and bring war to faerie, I said.
If you truly believe that their loyalties are still to faerie rather than to
you alone, then you do not see their eyes when they look at you. Their
vengeance would be terrible, Meredith. The fact that there are still
assassination attempts against you only shows that some of the sidhe do not
yet understand how short-leashed the queen has kept Darkness and Frost.
Especially Darkness, he said, his voice going low. His face looked haunted.
He shook the thought away and looked back at me. I have seen the
Darkness hunt. If Hell Hounds, Yeth Hounds, still existed among us, they would
belong to the sluagh, to the wild hunt, and the blood of that wild hunt still
runs through Doyle s veins, Meredith.
So you do not kill me for fear of Doyle and Frost?
He looked at me, and for a moment let the veil drop from those glowing eyes.
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such need, as if it should have been carved in letters across the air. It is
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not fear that impels me to spare your life, he whispered.
I gave him a smile, and the chalice still gripped in my hand pulsed once
against my skin. The chalice would be part of what we did. Let me wash some
of this blood away. Then I will put my glow against yours.
His own glow began to fade a little, his burning eyes cooling to as normal as
they ever got. It was hard to call his triple-gold irises normal, even by
sidhe standards, though. I am hurt, Meredith. I would have had our first time
together be perfect. I m not certain how much good I m going to be to you
tonight.
I m hurt, too, I said, but we ll both do our best. I stood up and found my
body stiff with injuries I
hadn t even realized I d suffered small wounds that I must have received in
the fight.
I will not be able to make love the way you wish it, he said.
How do you know what I wish? I asked as I made my way slowly across the
rough and smooth of the rock.
You had quite an audience for Mistral s turn with you. The rumors have grown,
but if even part of it is true, I will not be able to dominate you as he did.
I slid into the water. It found every small cut and scrape. The water was cool
and soothing, but at the same time it made the wounds burn. I don t want to
be dominated right now, Sholto. Make love to me let it be gentle between us,
if that is what we want.
He laughed again, and I heard bells. I think gentle is all I m capable of
tonight.
I do not always want rough, Sholto. My tastes are more varied than that. I
was shoulder-deep in the water now, trying to get the blood off me. The blood
began to dissolve in the water, washing away almost more easily than it should
have.
How varied are your tastes? he asked.
I smiled at him. Very. I dunked under the water in a bid to get the blood
off my face, out of my hair. I
came up gasping, wiping the runnels of pinkish water from my face. I went
under two more times until the water ran clear.
Sholto was at the edge of the island when I came up the last time. He was
standing, using the spear like a crutch. The white knife was tucked carefully
through the cloth of his pants, the way you d stick a pin through: in, then
out, so the point was exposed to the air. He offered me his hand. I took it,
though I
could have gotten out by myself, and I knew that bending over must hurt him.
He lifted me out of the water, but his eyes never got to my face. His gaze
stayed on my body, my breasts, as the water ran down them. There are women who
would have taken offense, but I wasn t one of them. In that moment he wasn t a
king, he was a man and that was just fine with me.
CHAPTER 15
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SHOLTO LAY NAKED BEFORE ME. I D NEVER SEEN HIM LIKE THAT,lying naked, and
waiting, knowing that we didn t have to stop.
The first and only time I d seen him completely nude he d still had extras.
But he had used his own personal magic then to make his stomach look like the
perfect six-pack abs. Even to the touch, I hadn t been able to feel what I d
known was there. He was very good at personal glamour, but then he d spent
years hiding that bit of deformity.
Now he lay back, using his own pants as some small cushion against the stone.
The Seelie had skinned him from just below his ribs to just above his groin.
I d seen the wound, but now it loomed larger. The pain must have been a
fearsome thing.
He had laid the white spear and the bone knife to one side of him. I had set
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the chalice on the other side of him. We would make love between the chalice,
symbol of the Goddess, and two symbols that were oh, so masculine.
The air above his body wavered, like heat off a road, and the next moment
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