Mistral's Kiss mg-5 Read online

  "I can't think of any intercourse position that isn't going to hurt you, and you don't like pain," I said.

  "I did not say I did not like pain, but not this much."

  I stored that away for future reference. "I know. There are limits for most of us beyond which pain is just pain."

  "I am sorry, Meredith, but I fear I have reached that point with these wounds."

  "We'll see," I said. I leaned back over his body until I could kiss the front of him. I drew him, gently, into my mouth. The only other time I'd had him in my mouth he had been long and hard, and eager. Tonight his body was quiet, loose, and still.

  At first, I was almost impatient, but I let that go. This was not a moment for impatience, or hurrying—this was Sholto's first time with another sidhe. This was one of his most treasured dreams, and he was coming to it hurt, and not at his best. He'd probably fantasized this moment, and now none of his fantasies was coming true. Reality was a harsher mistress than imagination.

  I let go of the impatience. I stopped wondering what Doyle and Frost and the others must be thinking. I let go the thought that my powers were growing and I had no idea what they would do next. I let all the worries go, and gave myself over to this moment. I gave myself over to the sensation of him in my mouth.

  I had been denied the chance to give oral sex to most of my lovers. They didn't want to risk spilling their seed anywhere but between my legs, wasting a chance to father the next heir to the throne—a chance to make themselves king to my queen. I didn't blame them, but I loved oral sex, and I'd missed performing it. The few times I'd been able to persuade anyone, he had already been excited—big, hard, which was a pleasure all its own—but I liked the feel of a man when he was small. So much easier to take all of him in my mouth. No straining, no fighting all that length or width.

  I rolled him in my mouth, sucking gently, at first. But I wanted to enjoy all the sensation I could while he remained small, so I increased in intensity. I could feel him moving in my mouth, the skin sliding, the meat of him so easy to work with. I sucked him fast and faster, until he cried out, "Enough, enough."

  I moved to the loose roll of his balls, licking along the skin, sliding all that silkiness between my lips and tongue. I watched him grow larger as I played with his balls. I rolled one testicle, carefully, into my mouth so I could play with all of it. He was too big for me to try to take both in at the same time; it would be too easy to injure such tender parts. The last thing I wanted to do was cause him any new pain.

  His eyes were wild as they looked down his body at me. The gold of his eyes started to glow—molten gold in the center, amber shot through with sun, then a pale yellow-gold like elm leaves in fall. One moment his eyes were all that glowed, and the next that light exploded down his body, as if white light were liquid running just under his skin. His skin glowed even underneath the red ruin, as if he were carved of rubies set in ivory, with the sun glowing through the white and red of his body.

  I moved over his body, not with him inside, but with a knee on either side of his hips. I gazed down at him, wanting to remember the beauty of him the first time. The glow had spread to the tips of his hair, as if every strand were dipped in moonlight. He was a thing of light and magic, but as I used my hand to help slide him inside me, he was all silken skin, and muscle.

  I slipped the head of him inside me, and found I was almost too tight. I'd performed all the foreplay on him, and received none for myself. I was wet from the pleasure, but tight, so very tight.

  He managed to gasp out, "You're not open enough."

  "Is it hurting you?" My own voice sounded whispery.

  "No," he whispered.

  "Then I want to feel you force your way into me. I want to feel each inch push inside while I'm this tight." I wriggled my hips a little lower, fighting for each delicious inch. I was so tight that he touched every bit of me, sliding heavy and slow over that spot inside me.

  I meant to have him inside me as deep as he'd go before my release, but my body had other ideas. It was as if my body being so tight around his made his body press just right, just exactly right against that one spot. One moment I was trying to be so careful, easing him inside me, and the next I was screaming my orgasm, my body bucking around his, the movement forcing more of me down the shaft of him faster than I would have managed without it. And as long as I could keep pushing him inside me the orgasm kept going. It kept on as I shoved him inside me, and somewhere before the last inch of him went inside, he started helping to push.

  I sat on top of him with our bodies wedded as close as man and woman could be, the orgasm dancing me above him. I was aware, vaguely, that my skin was glowing—a moon shine to match his own. The wind of my own power blew my hair around my face, garnets sparkling in fire. My eyes glowed so brightly that I could see the colored shadows of the green and gold of my own eyes at the edges of my vision. I screamed and writhed above him on wave after wave of pleasure. This had not been planned, or achieved with skill, but more by luck; a key sliding into a lock at the perfect moment. Our bodies took that moment and rode it.

  I heard him scream my name, felt his body buck under mine, felt him drive himself home as hard and as fast as he could. He hit the end of me, and that orgasmed me again. I threw my head back and screamed his name to the heavens.

  He went still underneath me, but I couldn't focus my eyes enough to see him, not really. My vision ran in streamers of colors. I collapsed forward, and forgot. Forgot that he was still hurt. Forgot that I was wearing the queen's ring on my right hand; the ring that had once belonged to a real fertility goddess.

  I had a second to realize that the skin of his stomach under my hands was no longer raw, but felt smooth and perfect. I blinked down, fighting through pleasure's afterglow to see him. His stomach was as flat and perfect as his illusion once had been, but this was no illusion. He had his tentacles back, but as a tattoo so bright and life-like that a glance made them seem real. They were a picture, drawn upon his skin.

  I saw all that in three blinks of an eye, but there was no next blink, for the ring suddenly came to life. It was like being plunged into water with an electric current in it. It was not enough to kill, but enough to hurt.

  Sholto yelled under me, and not from pleasure.

  I tried to take the ring away from his body, but my hand seemed glued to his newly decorated skin. The power blew out from us, as if the magic spilled away over the bare rock. I could breathe again.

  Sholto gasped, "What was that?"

  "The ring."

  He gazed down his body at me, and my hand pressed to his abdomen. His fingers touched the tattoo, a look on his face of wonder, and of loss. It was as if he'd been given his dearest wish, and in the same moment experienced a loss that would haunt him forever.

  I heard metal rolling along rock. The sound made me turn. The chalice was rolling toward us, though the ground was utterly flat. I looked to the other side and found the spear of bone rolling from the other side. They were going to touch us at the same time.

  "Hold on," I said.

  "To what?"

  "To me."

  He grabbed my arms, and my hand was freed from his stomach. I grabbed his arms without thinking, putting the ring against his bare skin, again. Sometimes Goddess pulls us by the hand down our path, and sometimes she gets behind us and pushes off the cliff edge.

  We were about to be pushed.

  CHAPTER 16

  WOOD, METAL, FLESH; ALL OF IT HIT US AT ONCE. WE WERE LEFT clinging to each other in the center of a blast of power that splashed the lake up over the island. We drowned for a moment, then the world literally moved. It felt as if the island bucked up and dropped down again.

  The water cleared, the earth stopped moving, and the chalice and spear were gone. We were left wet and gasping, huddled naked together. I was afraid to let go, as if our arms around each other—our bodies still wedded together—were all that kept us from falling off the face of the earth.

  Voices ca
me, yells, shouts. I picked out Doyle's voice, Frost, and Agnes's harsh call. The voices made us both turn, blinking water out of our eyes. On the shore, which was a lot farther away than it had been before, were all our guards. We were back in the dead gardens of the sluagh, but the lake was full of water now, and the Island of Bones was in the middle of it.

  Doyle dived into the water, his dark body cutting the surface. Frost followed him. The other guards did the same. Sholto's uncles discarded their cloaks and hit the water after my guards. Only Black Agnes stayed on the shore.

  I looked down at Sholto; I was still on top of him. "We're about to be rescued."

  He smiled up at me. "Do we need rescuing?"

  "I'm not sure," I said.

  He laughed then, and the sound echoed against the bare stone of the cavern. He hugged me tight, and laid a gentle kiss on my cheek. He breathed his words against my skin: "Thank you, Meredith."

  I pressed my cheek against his and whispered back, "You are most welcome, Sholto."

  He buried his hand in my wet hair and said, softly, "I have long desired you to whisper my name like that."

  "Like what?" I asked, face still pressed against his.

  "Like a lover."

  I heard movement behind us, and Sholto released his hold on my hair. I kissed him on the lips, before I lifted my body to see who had made the island first.

  Doyle—of course it was Doyle—walked toward us. He gleamed black and shining, water dripping down his nakedness. The light caught blue and purple gleams from his skin as he moved toward us. The light seemed to dazzle on his skin and on the water—reflected brilliance. My skin was warm in the light. Sunlight, it was sunlight again. Like noonday come to this shadowy place.

  There was a green haze to the bare rock where Sholto and I lay. That haze took the shape of tiny stems, reaching out over the rock, anchoring themselves as Doyle came to stand beside us.

  His face struggled for an expression, and finally settled on that stern face, the one that had frightened me as a child when he stood at my aunt's side. Somehow the expression wasn't nearly as frightening with him naked, and given my now so intimate knowledge of him. The Queen's Darkness was my lover, and I could never again see him as that threatening figure, simply the queen's assassin, her black dog to fetch and kill.

  I stared up at him, still pressed tight in Sholto's arms. I sat up, and his arms fell away from me, reluctantly. Since I was still riding his body, it wasn't as if he stopped touching me. His hands slid down my arms, staying in contact. I glanced at Sholto's face and found him looking not at me, but at Doyle.

  Sholto's face was defiant, almost triumphant. I didn't understand the look. I glanced at Doyle, and saw behind that stern face a flash of anger. For the first time in weeks I remembered how they had both found me in Los Angeles. They had fought, both convinced that the queen had sent each of them to kill me.

  But there had been something personal about that fight. I couldn't remember what they had said to each other that made me think they had some kind of bad history, but I had felt it. The looks they gave each other now confirmed that I was missing something. Some disagreement, or challenge, or even grudge between these two men. Not good.

  Rhys came up the slope of the rock, dripping like wet ivory. He stopped short of us all, as if he also sensed, or saw, the tension.

  What do you do when you're naked with one lover, and another lover is standing there? Sholto was not my king, or husband. I took my hand from him and offered it to Doyle. Doyle hesitated a moment, his gaze on his rival and not on me. Then those black eyes moved to me. His expression never truly changed, but some breath of harshness left him. Or perhaps some touch of gentleness returned to him.

  There was movement behind him, and Frost and Mistral struggled up the slope. They were dressed, and weapons bulged everywhere. Frost actually caught Mistral's arm as the other man slipped. The clothes and weapons had slowed them down.

  Now they stood there, Frost's hand on Mistral's arm. Mistral was almost on his knees, from his slip, but they had frozen, staring at us. They hadn't just caught a whiff of tension. Their reaction said clearly that there was bad blood between Sholto and Doyle.

  Doyle took my hand in his. The moment he touched me the tightness in my chest, which I hadn't even known was there, loosened.

  He lifted me upward, off the other man. Sholto's hands, all of his body, let me go with such reluctance. The sensation of him drawing out of deep within my body shivered through me. Only Doyle's grip kept my knees from buckling.

  Sholto raised his arms to help catch me, his hands on my thighs. Doyle pulled me in against his body, half lifting me over Sholto's body. Sholto let me go; otherwise it would have been like a tug-of-war, not seemly behavior for a king.

  I stood there wrapped in Doyle's arms, staring up at his face, trying to decipher what he was thinking. Around me the tiny plants unfurled tiny leaves, and the world suddenly smelled of thyme, that sweet, green herb scent that Sholto had said he sensed when I was smelling roses.

  The delicate herbs tickled along my foot, as if reminding me that there were some things more important than love. Staring up into Doyle's face, I wasn't sure that was right. In that moment I wanted him happy. I wanted him to know that I wanted him happy. I wanted to explain that Sholto had been lovely, and the power had been immense, but that in the end, he meant nothing to me, not when I had Doyle's arms around me.

  But you can't say that out loud, not with the other man lying behind you. So many hearts to juggle, including my own.

  The herbs touched me again, wound around my ankle. I glanced down at the greenery, and thought of my favorite thymes. My gran had grown them in the herb garden behind the house where my father raised me—so many varieties. Lemon thyme, silver thyme, golden thyme. At that thought, the plants around my ankle were suddenly tinged with yellow. Some of the leaves on some of the plants turned silver, others became pale yellow, and some that bright sunny yellow. There was a scent of faint lemon on the air, as if I had crushed one of the pale yellow leaves between my fingertips.

  "What did you do?" Doyle whispered, his deep voice thrumming along my spine so that I shivered against him.

  My voice was soft, as if I didn't want to say it too loudly: "I just thought that there is more than one kind of thyme."

  "And the plants changed," he said.

  I nodded, staring at them. "I didn't say it out loud, Doyle. I only thought it."

  He hugged me. "I know."

  Mistral and Frost were with Rhys now. They did not approach us, and again I wasn't sure why. They waited, as if they needed permission to come closer—the way they would have waited to approach Queen Andais.

  I thought it was me they waited on, but I should have known better. Sholto said behind me, "The sidhe do not usually stand on ceremony, but if you need permission, then I give it. Come closer."

  Mistral said, "If you could see yourself, King Sholto, you would not ask why we stand on ceremony."

  The comment made me look back at Sholto. He was sitting up, but where he had been lying was an outline of herbs. Peppermint, basil—as I recognized them, I smelled their perfumes. But the herbs spreading out from where he had lain, where we had lain, wasn't what made the men stop. Sholto was wearing a crown; a crown of herbs. Even as we watched, the delicate plants wove like living fingers through his hair, creating a wreath of thyme and mint. Only the most delicate of the plants, entwining themselves as we watched.

  He raised a hand, and the moving plants touched his fingers as they had touched my ankle. I was wearing an anklet of living thyme, gold-flecked leaves, smelling of green life and lemons. The tendril wrapped around his fingers like a happy pet. He lowered his hand and stared at it. The plant wove itself into a ring as we watched—a ring that bloomed on his hand, the delicate spray of white blossoms more precious than any jewel. Then his crown burst into bloom, shades of white, blue, lavender. Finally, the blooms spread across the island, so that the ground was nearly solid with tiny, a
iry flowers, moving not in a breeze—for there was none—but nodding as if the flowers were speaking to one another.

  "A crown of flowers is not a crown for the king of the sluagh!" Agnes shouted, harsh, from the shore. She was on hands and knees, hidden completely under her black cloak. I saw the flash of her eyes, as if there was a glow to them; then she lowered her head, hiding from the light. She was a night-hag. They didn't travel at noon.

  Ivar spoke, but I couldn't see him. "Sholto, King, we cannot approach you in this burning light."

  His uncles were half-goblin—which, depending on the type of goblin, might make sunlight a problem. But they were also half-night-flyer, and that definitely made sunlight a problem.

  "I would that you could come to me, Uncles," Sholto said.

  Doyle's arms tightened around me, a warning. "Be careful what you say, Sholto; you do not understand the power of the words of someone whom faerie itself has crowned."

  "I do not need advice from you, Darkness," Sholto said, and again there was bitterness in his voice.

  The sunlight faded, and a soft twilight began to fall. There was the sound of splashing, then Ivar and Fyfe came up upon the island. They were nude except for enough clothing to hold their weapons. They fell to one knee before him, heads bowed. "King Sholto," Ivar said, "we thank you for sending the light away."

  Sholto said, "I didn't…"

  "You are crowned by faerie," Doyle said again. "Your words, perhaps even your thoughts, will shape what will happen this night."

  I said, "I thought—only thought—that there is more than one variety of thyme, and it changed the herbs. What I thought about became real, Sholto."

  Agnes called from the shore, "You have freed us from the light, King Sholto. You have given us back the Lost Lake and the Island of Bones. Will you stop there, or will you give us back our power? Will you remake the sluagh while the magic of creation still burns through you, or will you hesitate and lose this chance to bring us back into ourselves?"

  "The hag is right, Your Highness," Fyfe said. "You have brought us back the magic of making, wild magic, creation magic. Will you use it for us?"