Merry Gentry 03 - Seduced by Moonlight (43 page)

"Wait," she said, again, and I saw something that I never thought I'd see, tears. The queen was crying.

"Heal Eamon first, and Tyler."

We all looked at her. I'd really thought she'd ask for her own injuries first. The queen did not share magic, she hoarded it. Taranis, the king of the Seelie Court, was the same way. It was almost as if they both feared that someday the magic would run out, and they knew that to rule here, you needed magic.

I wanted to say no, but Amatheon spoke before anyone else. "Yes, my queen." His voice was tired, and thick with something like grief. He walked, stiffly, to a point between the two groups of us, the queen with her injured lovers, and me with mine. Technically, Onilwyn and Mistral weren't mine, but somehow it felt very much as if everyone on this side of the room was not on her side.

Amatheon was still cradling the arm she'd cut open. The back of his coat was so blood-soaked it had glued itself to the back of his body like a second skin. "Bring the princess," he said.

"She is too injured to move," Galen said.

"As the queen bids," Amatheon said, "so we must do. Bring the princess." Perhaps he was too tired and in too much pain to control his face, because a fine, deep rage sparkled in those flower-petal eyes. But after the show Andais had just put on, it wasn't merely fear of losing his beautiful sidhe hair that made him willing to simply obey her.

Galen repeated, "Merry is too hurt to move."

"We can bring Eamon to the princess." Frost's voice was neutral, his face an arrogant mask.

"No," the queen said.

Galen bowed his head over me. He whispered, "No, no more."

Rhys looked at her with his renewed eye. "Merry needs a healer before she is moved."

"I know that," the queen said, and there were the first stirrings of anger in her voice. Old times, rearing their ugly head.

Galen leaned over me enough to hide my view. "I won't let her hurt you again."

He was too close for me to look in his eyes; I had to be content with the smoothness of his cheek, the fall of his hair. "Don't do anything foolish, Galen, please."

"My queen, do you need help?" This from Mistral.

Galen drew back enough so I could see. The queen who had looked small and dwarfed beside Eamon was standing with the larger man in her arms. Even hurt, she carried him easily, although he had to be almost twice her body weight. She was tall enough, long enough of arm, to cradle him. She was sidhe, and that meant she could have picked up a small car. It was that she was willing to carry him that made us all stare.

She spoke to no one and everyone. "Take Tyler down, gently, and bring him, too." She carried Eamon toward me, and cried as she came. If it had been anyone else I would have said,
She grieved.

She knelt beside me and stumbled as she did it, managing a wry smile. "You sliced me up, niece, and you did a good job of it."

I took it as the compliment I thought it was meant to be. "Thank you."

She knelt beside me, cradling Eamon in her arms. "Heal him for me, Meredith."

Eamon's body was a mass of bloody stab wounds, so many that his chest looked like tenderized steak. His heart had to have been pierced multiple times, but he was sidhe and his poor heart kept beating, even cut up. There didn't seem to be an inch of his chest undamaged, as if he wore a shirt of blood and meat.

She made a small sound, almost a sob. "Nuline came, and we shared wine, and she left, and I went mad."

I fought to keep my face blank, because Nuline was one of Cel's royal guards. To accuse the prince's guard was almost the same as accusing Cel himself of the poisoning. They did nothing without his orders, for fear of what he would do to them. If Andais was a sadist, then you needed a new word for Cel. None of them would dare risk Cel's displeasure. None of them would poison the queen without Cel's permission, or at least believing they had it. Had he given the order from his dark prison?

Doyle spoke carefully with his ruined mouth. "I smell no poison."

"There are other ways to use your nose, Darkness," she said.

He leaned in toward her face, slowly, painfully. When he was an inch or less from her face, he sniffed the air. "Magic," he whispered. He very carefully licked her cheek, but the movement seemed to hurt him. He drew back. "Bloodlust."

She nodded.

"If it was in the wine, then why isn't Nuline here, butchered or butchering?" Amatheon asked.

"She is a thing of spring and light. There is no bloodlust to call in her," Andais said. The queen looked at me, and those tri-grey eyes were full of a sorrow that I hadn't known Andais was capable of. "They were very clever." She said,
they.
Would she make that logic jump to Cel? Or would she do what she had always done, and find a way for it not to be his fault?

"I had not felt such a rush of battle madness for centuries. It felt so good. Every wound, every harm I caused made the bloodlust grow. I'd forgotten how amazingly good it felt to slaughter, not for effect, or information, or to invoke fear, but simply for the love of it. Whoever did the spell knew my powers, intimately," Andais reached out a bloodstained hand toward me. "Heal my Ravens, and I will slay Nuline."

"Only Nuline," I said.

"I will slay the one who did this to me." Her voice was firm, but there was a wariness in her eyes. She knew what I meant. "Heal my Ravens, Meredith." Her hand touched my arm, and that one touch echoed through me. Made the magic that the God had placed inside me ring like a great bell. Andais must have felt it, for she looked wide-eyed at me.

Galen whispered, "What was that?"

Doyle spoke carefully through his ruined mouth. "The God's call."

I heard the voice in my head:
All power comes from the head.
I understood then, or hoped I did. The reason that the Unseelie couldn't have children was that Andais couldn't have children. The reason our magic was fading was that Andais's magic had begun to fade. She was our queen, our head.

I looked up into her startled face, and said the words I had to say: "Come, Aunt, let us embrace."

She leaned over me, and the look on her face was almost unwilling, as if she was as caught up in the magic as I. She was my aunt, my father's sister, and had known me since birth, but in all those years she had never kissed me.

The press of her lips was like touching the skin of some delectable fruit, where the skin lies thin and ripe against your mouth. The scent of ripe plums filled my senses as if I could drink it out of the very air, or sip it from her lips. My mouth was pressed to hers, and I opened to it as if I would take a bite from the ripeness of her mouth.

The sweet taste of her stirred the magic, woke it like heat to rise up, up inside me, to spill shimmering and burning along my skin. The heat melded into the honeyed sweetness of the fruit, and I could feel the summer sun caressing the thick, glowing skins of the plums as they hung heavy on the tree. The heavy summer heat clung to our skin, filled the world with the drowning scent of fruit, so ripe, so heavy that it was ready to burst its thick silken skin, ready to give up its meat to the sun's caress and the drowsy hum of bees. The fruit held itself in a perfect moment of readiness, the breath of absolute perfection. One second more and it would fall from the tree, ruined; one second less and it would not be the sweetest thing to ever touch mortal mouth.

I came back to myself in the blink of an eye. I opened my eyes and found Andais like some silver dream, shining so bright that she made nests of shadows around everything in the room. And I realized that it wasn't just her who made shadows quiver through the room. I'd seen my skin glow like moonlight, but never like this. It was as if my skin were filled with a white, almost silver fire of burning magnesium. A flame so clear and pure that it would blind if you gazed too long.

Andais and I were like two entwined stars, one white and one silver, both bright enough to blind. But I wasn't blinded. The glow didn't hurt my eyes. I could see her face like a floating thing, eyes closed. I had to pull back to see her lips like carved garnets lost in the cool, silver fire.

Her eyes blinked open, slowly, as if she had been asleep. The moment she opened those eyes the swirling grey in them eased out, like the breath of a dragon, soft and clinging as mist. There were things in that mist, things I didn't want to see. The hair on my body raised with the nearness of half-seen images, my skin crawling, shivering with those fleeing shadows. Fear tightened my throat, and I realized in that moment that we were both kneeling beside each other. I couldn't see anyone else through the mist of her eyes. I held her in my arms while her eyes bled mist into the twin glows of our power.

The mist smelled damp, dank, but over it all I could still smell the scent of fruit, perfect, waiting. Waiting to yield its sweetness in that one perfect moment when the world held its breath and waited for the hand that would touch this perfect woman, this perfect offering, and give her the glory she was due. Even as I thought, I knew I was God-ridden. But with the God's power filling me, she was beautiful. Hair of raven's wings, eyes of mist and shadow, skin formed of starlight and moon's brightness, lips the color of heart blood. It was a terrible beauty, something that would call to your body and make your heart cry. I knew also that if my magic had been different, there would have been different fruit upon this tree, and I was glad that I could call the Seelie Court to my blood.

The God rode over me, and I was back to the perfect moment when even a breath would spoil all, and there was only one thing to do. You honored the gift.

I kissed those crimson garnet lips, and found my own lips were like deep, red rubies, like melding two separate jewels. I felt my hands cupping the sides of her face, and found the bones of her face delicate, fragile under my hands. My hands were smaller than hers, they had to be, but for this moment they were large enough to cup her face and hold it, gently. I became for that moment the sun, all that was male, all that was the best of what it meant to be male, at his height of prowess, the Summer King, Lord of the Greenwood. I kissed her as she was meant to be kissed, gentle, firm, held in hands larger than my own, held in a strength greater than her own, and the more tender for that, the more careful for it. I kissed her as if she would break. Then she pressed into the kiss, her power spilling through my mouth, and the kiss grew into something less cautious, more sure of itself. At the invitation of her lips, her eager hands on my body, the power of the greenwood rode through her, pierced her. She tore her mouth from mine and cried out.

Our powers fell into each other, and for a few shining moments the glow of silver and white merged until there was but one glow, one fire. It wasn't her face I saw. This face was young, with thick brown hair and laughing eyes: the next face was red-haired and green-eyed; then hair like clean white cotton and skin almost as pale. Woman after woman slid before my eyes, and I felt myself change, too. Taller, shorter, broader, bearded, dark of hair, pale of skin, dark of skin. I was many men, all men, no man. I was the Lord of Summer and I had been always. And the woman before me was my bride, and always had been. It was the eternal dance.

The first thing I noticed that was of this world and not the next was that my knees hurt. I was kneeling on stones. The second was the woman who was holding me, stroking my hair. She held me so close that I could feel her smaller breasts pressed against mine.

Andais smiled down at me, and she looked younger, though I knew that wasn't exactly it. Her eyes were bright, and her dark red lips smiled down at me, because kneeling she was still taller.

"Are you healed?" she asked.

The moment she asked, I realized that I'd forgotten I was hurt, but I took a deep breath and felt . . . fine. No, better than fine. "Yes," I said.

Her smiled brightened into something close to a grin. Andais did not grin. "Look at what our magic has wrought." She gestured out at the room. Onilwyn knelt, eyes a little dazed, but his throat was white and perfect once more. Eamon was sitting up, and there were no more holes in his chest. Doyle turned a perfect face to me, and gave a nod, almost a bow.

"They're all healed."

Tyler, the human whom she had nearly killed, was laughing and crying beside Mistral. I think he spoke for us all when he giggled and said, "That was absolutely the most amazing feeling. It was like being light."

I looked back at Andais. There was a look in her eyes that was disquieting, calculating, and something else, something new. I realized she was still holding me very close. I tried to move back, and her arms tightened, kept our bodies pressed together. I was no longer God-ridden. I was no longer a match for her in strength, or anything else.

The smile she gave me was one I'd only had from lovers, and it prickled down my skin to see it on her face.

"If you were a man I would take you to my bed for this night's work."

I wasn't sure what to say, but knew I had to say something. "Thank you for such a compliment, Aunt Andais."

She cocked her head to one side like a hawk that's spied a mouse. "Reminding me that you are my niece will not keep you out of my bed, Meredith. We are like most deities, we often intermarry, or interfuck." She laughed then, and it was a better, more purely amused sound than any I'd ever heard from her. "The look on your face." She laughed again, and let me go.

She stood, and stretched, and even that small movement prickled power along my skin. "I feel so very much better." She looked down at me and offered me her hand.

I took it and let her help me to my feet. She kept my hand in hers, giving me very serious eyes. "Come, Meredith, let us go kill the traitor who tried to bespell her queen. Doyle tells me we have an assassin to find as well."

I wondered then how long I'd been insensible. All I said out loud was, "As my queen wills it."

She pulled me suddenly and roughly against her, putting my arm behind my back with her hand still holding it. "I am grateful, Meredith, very grateful for this gift of magic, but do not misunderstand. If I think that by bringing you into my bed I can recall that magic, I will. If I think that by sending you to anyone's arms, that level of magic can be reborn, I will send you. Is that clear?"