Merry Gentry 03 - Seduced by Moonlight (28 page)

"That's not how the queen used it," Rhys said, "not for herself."

"No," Nicca said, softly, from behind us. "Once her own true love was killed in battle, she used the power of the ring to fill her bed. She was able with its help to make another sidhe elf-struck."

I turned and looked at him. He wore slacks that were so dark brown, they were nearly black, and boots that matched underneath. His hair spilled over his naked upper body, because his wings were even larger than Sage's, and though we'd tried to get a silk-and-spandex tee over them, in the end we'd been defeated. They were too huge, and too oddly shaped, all swirls and tail.

"I thought she would go mad when Owain died." Doyle's eyes were still tight shut, his hands gripping the chair arms, but his voice sounded normal enough.

"What no one had realized was that the ring had an added power," he continued in his calm voice. "Apparently, it acted as a kind of protective magic around the couples of its choosing. It guaranteed a happy ending, by making sure no tragedy befell them."

Rhys nodded. "The ring had begun to fade in power—we knew that because the great matchmaking ball had failed some decades before. A sidhe would come to the door of the ballroom, and no one would step forward. But we didn't understand that the ring had kept us safe, not just happy and fertile."

"Until the battle of Rhodan," Frost said, "where we lost two hundred sidhe warriors. Most of them had been wed to their love matches."

"It was the first time in our history that a single couple that the ring had brought together had not had a happy ending," Doyle said.

"It wasn't just one couple," Rhys said, "it was dozens." He shook his head. "I'd never heard such keening."

"Some of those left behind chose to fade," Doyle said.

"Suicide, you mean," Rhys said.

Doyle opened his eyes enough to glance at Rhys, then closed them again. "If you prefer."

"I don't prefer, it's just the truth," Rhys said.

Doyle shrugged. "Fine."

Galen had drifted up behind everyone. "Did the ring ever pick more than one person for anyone?" He was dressed all in pale spring green.

"You mean once someone was widowed, did the ring ever find them someone else?" Doyle asked.

"That, or literally pick more than one person for someone. I mean, you may get a child from every match the ring made, but to be truly happy, not just magically in love, did the ring ever have trouble choosing just one person for someone?"

Doyle opened his eyes again and actually turned to look full at Galen. "Do you not believe in soul mates, one perfect love for each person?" It would have seemed an almost silly question from anyone else.

Galen glanced at me, then forced himself to look away to meet Doyle's dark gaze. "I don't believe in love at first sight. I believe true love takes time to build, like friendship. I believe in instant lust."

He moved directly behind my seat. I could feel him like some warming fire, I wanted him to put his hands on the back of the seat, to be closer to that warmth. As if he'd heard me, he put his hands where I wanted them, and it was all I could do not to touch my head against his fingers. But somehow with the ring box sitting there, I wasn't sure I wanted to be touching him when I put it on. I was pretty certain that touching no one was the best idea, until we knew if the ring had been affected by the chalice.

"Could we get the queen's permission not to wear it until we're at the faerie mound?" I asked.

"No," Doyle said, "she was most insistent."

I sighed. We did not want Andais angry with us. We so didn't want that. "Fine, give me the box, and everybody stand back."

"It's not a bomb," Rhys said, "just a ring."

I frowned at him. "After what I've just heard, I'd almost prefer a bomb."
Almost,
I added in my head.

I didn't want my choices limited here and now. I was afraid of whom the ring would pick, and why. I didn't trust magic in matters of the heart. Hell's bells, I didn't trust matters of the heart at all. Love was an unreliable sort of thing, sometimes.

Rhys handed me the box, and after I repeated my need for privacy, all of them got up and walked away from me. Kitto remained at the back of the plane with a blanket over his entire body, hiding. Hiding from his fear of metal, and modern technology. He was afraid of so many things that it seemed less remarkable for him to be afraid of airplanes, than for Doyle, who feared almost nothing.

The rest of the men divided themselves into two groups. One stood around Doyle, who was still in his seat, though watching everything now. The other stood near the back of the plane.

"Open it," Rhys said, from near Doyle.

"She's scared," Galen said, and his voice held an edge of the nerves that were scrambling around my stomach.

"Scared of what?" Sage said. "Finding her perfect match? What a stupid thing to fear. Most would give their lives to have such a problem."

"Be quiet," Nicca said.

Sage opened his mouth to complain, then closed it, looking puzzled, as if he wasn't sure himself why he listened to Nicca.

I stared at the box in my hands, licked my lipsticked mouth that was suddenly dry, and couldn't for the life of me understand why I was so afraid. Why be afraid of finding out if my perfect match was here, among these men? No, that wasn't the fear, I realized. What if the ring didn't find my perfect match here and now? What if my perfect match wasn't any of them? What if that was why I hadn't become pregnant?

I looked up and scanned the faces around me. I realized that in a strange way, I loved them all. I certainly valued them all. I also wasn't sure how Frost or Galen would take it if the ring chose someone other than him. Both had shown a very un-fey-like tendency to be jealous. If Frost wasn't the chosen one, well, I doubt I'd seen pouting like that from him.

I looked up at Galen, and knew that he loved me, truly loved me, and had loved me when I had no chance of being queen. He was the only one, except Rhys, who had made it clear he wanted to be my lover when it would gain him nothing but my body, and maybe my love. Galen was such a romantic. I think he'd come to terms with not being my husband, not being king to my queen, if I got pregnant by someone else. But I think in his heart of hearts he believed that I was his soul mate. He could give me up, as long as he got to keep the ideal of what could have been.

I stared back down at the box. If the ring chose someone else, Galen would have to find a new dream, a new love, a new everything.

"Open it," Rhys said.

I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and opened it.

The ring was a heavy silver octagonal, not perfectly round, as if it molded to all the fingers it had encircled. It was actually a very plain, almost mannish-looking ring. Inside there were words carved, in an ancient form of Gaelic, too old for me to read, but I knew translated to read, "Insert."

There was nothing threatening about it. And yet . . . I touched its cool silver with a fingertip, and nothing happened. But then nothing ever did until it was on your finger. It was picky that way.

"You must put it on, Meredith," Doyle said. I'd almost broken them all of calling me anything but Merry. It was the beginning of the return to court formality. I hated it.

"I know, Doyle."

"Then hesitating is foolish. We must know what problem it represents before we land. There will be human police to hold back the press, but there will still be cameras and reporters to catch whatever befalls. Best that it befall us now, and here in private." He turned in his seat to face me more fully, forcing him to let go of one of the seat arms. I had some idea what that cost him. "Put it on, Meredith, Merry, please."

I nodded, and took it from its box. It was warm to the touch, but nothing more. I took a deep breath, and wasn't sure whether to pray before I slipped it on, or not. Prayers had taken on an entirely new meaning in the last twenty-four hours.

I slipped the ring on my finger. It was too big for me, but almost instantly I felt that first spark of magic. It would be exactly my size now. A small magic. I looked up at all of them. "I don't feel any difference in it."

"You stopped wearing it because it was giving us all shocks when we had sex," Rhys said. "It never did do much from a distance."

"Not on my finger," I said.

He grinned. "Can we try touching it to bare skin and see if that's changed?"

"I think that would be wise," Doyle said.

Rhys shrugged. "My idea. If no one objects I'll be the first guinea pig." He started forward, but Frost spoke.

"I object."

Rhys hesitated. He glanced at me, then at Doyle, and shrugged again. "Be my guest. We'll still have to try more than one of us with the ring, just to see."

"Agreed," Frost said, "but I want to be first."

No one argued with him, but Galen's face said plainly that he wanted to. It was a tribute to how much more grown up he was than Frost himself that he let it go.

Frost came to stand in front of me and gazed down at the ring on my hand. He held his own hand down toward me, and I raised my hand up to meet his. His hand closed over mine, his fingers brushing the ring.

It was as if some huge invisible hand caressed the front of my body, as if there were no clothes, nothing but my skin, for the magic to stroke. Frost collapsed to his knees, his eyes wide, lips half open in a movement caught between desire and surprise. His hand convulsed around mine, pressing his flesh harder into the ring. The magic responded in a second wave of desire more powerful than the first. It ended low in my body, throwing me back against the seat, bringing a cry from my lips. My body spasmed and my hands jerked against Frost's, breaking the ring's contact with him.

He half fell onto the floor, barely room for his broad shoulders between the seats. He was panting and weak, and I wasn't much better.

"I know Merry just had an orgasm," Rhys said, "a small one, but a real one. Did you, Frost?"

He shook his head, as if speech was too much. He finally managed a breathy, "Almost."

"The magic of the ring was distracting before," Doyle said, "but not this distracting."

"Is it just Frost?" Galen managed to sound neutral and worried at the same time.

Rhys grinned and climbed over the seats to wedge himself between the seats and my legs. "I don't think Frost can stand yet."

"Help him up," Doyle said.

Nicca came forward, but his wings got in the way so badly that he gave it up and stepped back. Galen helped Frost into one of the nearby seats, clearing the aisle and giving Rhys room to drop to one knee beside me.

"Not so far to fall," he said, grinning.

"You never have far to fall," Galen said.

Rhys gave him a look but didn't rise to the bait. "You're just jealous because I get to go next."

Galen tried to make another joke, but finally just stepped back and said, "Yeah, I am."

Rhys touched my shoulder, bringing my attention from Galen's somber face back to him. "I like to know a girl's at least looking at me during sex."

I gave him a look. "You know how it is, Rhys, a man gets as much attention during sex as his skills deserve."

"Oooh," he said, holding a hand over his heart, "that one hurt." But his tri-blue eye sparkled with more than humor. "If I didn't think I'd knock out a tooth, I'd kiss your hand instead of just holding it."

It made me laugh, and I was still laughing when his hand closed over mine, where it lay in my lap. All laughter ceased, all breathing ceased, and for one frozen moment there was nothing but a wash of sensations, as if one sensual pulse built into the next, and the next. It wasn't until someone's voice said, "Breathe, Merry, breathe," that I realized I hadn't been.

My breath came back in a harsh gasp, and my eyes flew open. Only when I opened them did I realize I'd closed them.

Rhys was half collapsed against the seat in front of me, with a near-drunken grin upon his face. "Oh yeah, that was a lot of fun."

"It's not just Frost," Nicca said.

"No." Doyle didn't look entirely happy about that, though I wasn't sure why. "Galen, next," he said.

There were some protests, but Doyle waved them away. "No, we must know if this reaction is only to those who have godhead, or if it's going to be everyone. If everyone, then Merry cannot touch the guards on the ground in St. Louis, not in front of the reporters or the police."

"Tell me again why we have human policemen waiting for us in St. Louis," Rhys said. His eyes were still unfocused, but his voice was almost normal.

"One of the tabloids ran a picture of all of us rushing into the main house last night, with guns drawn and very few clothes. The ambassador to the courts did not believe the queen's assurances that it was not an assassination attempt on the princess, but simply a misunderstanding. I believe, and the queen believes, that the rulers of St. Louis do not wish to be seen as being careless of the princess's safety. If something goes wrong, they want to be able to say they did their best."

Rulers of St. Louis,
Sometimes I forgot for days at a time how old Doyle and the rest were. Then they'd say something like that, and you knew their thoughts and vocabulary were formed in a time before mayors, or Congress, or anything remotely modern.

"The humans are no longer content with some of the queen's stories," Doyle continued. "The ambassador to the courts is most unhappy that they will not show him Prince Cel. He doesn't believe that Cel is merely away."

The tabloids had been the first to speculate why Prince Cel, who had been fairly visible in St. Louis and Chicago attending hot nightspots, had suddenly decided to stay home. Where was the prince? Why had he vanished now that Princess Meredith was back in the land of faerie? That last headline had been a little too close to the truth, but there was nothing we could do about it. Because the truth—that Prince Cel was being tortured for six months as an alternative to a death sentence — could not be shared with the human press, or even the politicians.

Among other crimes, Cel had set himself up as a deity to a human cult in California. I think he'd thought it was far enough from home that he wouldn't get caught. Unfortunately for him, I was in Los Angeles and working as a private detective. If Cel had known that, he would have put his scheme somewhere else, and he'd have tried to kill me sooner. One of the rules that President Thomas Jefferson's government insisted on was that if the sidhe ever set themselves up as gods in the United States, we would all be expelled from American soil. For that reason alone, any other sidhe would have been executed. But Cel also gave the human wizards the ability to magically ensnare, magically rape fey women. Mostly to humans with fey blood in their ancestry, but you do not give the power of faerie to humans to be used expressly to harm the fey. It isn't done. He was also sucking the magical energy of the women in question. He shared some of the power with his human followers, but he ate most of it. Magical vampirism is a crime among us. A crime punishable by death, and a nasty death at that. The only exception to the law is a duel. During a duel, or a war, you can do whatever you can get away with, as long as it doesn't breach your honor. Though some of the fey have an interesting view of honor. Cel should have died for all that, but he was the queen's only child, coheir to the throne. Most of the court had no clue as to the extent of Cel's treachery. They thought he was being punished for trying to kill me. Nope. The queen didn't like me that much.