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what you're agreeing to."
"I understand, Rhys. Thank you for telling me." I patted his cheek, squeezed
his hand, and walked past him back to the waiting goblins. I was walking
straight and upright, but there was a little turning inside my head that made
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me want badly to hold on to something. But when you're negotiating a war
treaty, you need to look strong, or at least not like you're about to faint
dead away.
"Kitto's flesh in my body, right?" I asked.
Kurag nodded, and he looked pleased with himself, as if he knew he'd already
won.
"I agree to take Kitto's flesh into my body."
"Agreed?" Kurag said, surprise dripping from his voice. "You would agree to
share flesh with a goblin?"
I nodded. "I agree, on one condition."
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His eyes narrowed. "What condition?"
"If the alliance between us is a season long," I said.
I felt Doyle step closer to me. The ripple of surprise spread through the room
in whispers and small movements.
"A season," Kurag said. "No, too long."
"Eleven moons from now," I said.
Kurag turned back to me. "My queen has saved us the trouble of opening my
vein."
"Then let's get on with it. I'm wasting blood," I said.
Galen still had his hands over my wrists, and I realized he was holding
pressure on my wounds.
I looked up at him. "Galen, it's all right." He kept his hands tight around my
wrists. "Galen, please, let me go."
He stared down at me, opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it
and slowly moved his hands back from my wrists. His hands came away stained
with my blood. But the pressure he'd applied had slowed the bleeding, or maybe
it was just Galen's touch. Maybe it wasn't just my imagination that made his
hands a cool, soothing presence.
He helped me to my feet. I had to push his hands away so I could stand alone.
I spread my legs to get as good a balance on the heels as I could, and faced
Kurag.
Standing, I came almost up to his sternum. His shoulders were nearly as wide
as I was tall. Most of the sidhe were tall, but the larger goblins were truly
bulky.
Fflur had moved to one side of me to join Galen, Doyle, and Rhys at my back.
Frost stood to one side, with the little goblin dangling from his hands. There
was a press of bodies all around us: sidhe, goblin, and others. But I had eyes
only for the goblin king.
"Though I do offer you my apologies for my man's rudeness," Kurag said, "I
cannot offer you my blood without gaining in return."
I held my right hand out to him, and my left hand to the red mouth on his
chest. "Drink then, Kurag, Goblin King." I raised my right wrist as close to
his main mouth as I could reach. Reaching so far above my head left me faintly
dizzy. I pressed my left wrist to the open mouth on his chest, and it was
those lips that closed around my wrist first, that tongue that worked over the
wound to get it to bleed afresh. The tongue in that mouth felt soft and human,
not at all like the little goblin's harsh cat tongue.
Kurag bowed his head over my wrist, careful not to use his hands to hold the
wound close to him. To use his hands would have been rude and taken as a
sexual overture. His tongue was rough like sandpaper, even rougher than the
little goblin's had been. It abraded the wound and brought a soft gasp from my
throat. The mouth in his chest had already formed a seal over the wounds,
sucking like a baby with a bottle. Kurag's tongue lingered until the blood
flowed fresh and easy. When he wrapped his lips around my wound, his mouth
took in almost all of my wrist. His teeth pressed against my flesh painfully
as the suction grew. The smaller mouth in his chest was much more polite.
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Kurag's mouth worked at my wrist, lips in a tight seal. Just as I grew
accustomed to his sucking, his teeth grazed the wound, his tongue flicking in
a sharp painful movement. He was staying at the wound a long time. It was sort
of like a beer-chugging contest: you took as much in at a time as you could
manage without throwing up.
But finally, finally, Kurag drew his head back from my wrist. I drew my left
hand from his chest. The lips placed a light kiss against my wrist as I pulled
away.
Kurag stretched his thin lips in a smile, showing the yellowed teeth stained
with blood. "Do better if you can, Princess, though I've always found the
sidhe a little too prissy for good tongue action."
"You must be entertaining the wrong sidhe, Kurag. I've found them all..." I
lowered my voice to a husky whisper and put a look in my eyes to match. "...
Orally talented."
Kurag chuckled, low and evil, but appreciative.
I swayed slightly, but I kept my feet and that was all that was required. But
I was going to need to sit down soon, before I fell down. "My turn," I said.
Kurag's grin widened. "Suck me, sweet Merry, suck me hard."
I'd have shaken my head if I hadn't been convinced that it would make the
dizziness worse. "You never change, Kurag," I said.
"Why should I?" he said. "No female I've bedded in over eight hundred years
has ever gone away wanting."
"Just bleeding," I said.
He blinked, then laughed again. "If there ain't blood, what's the point?"
I tried not to smile and failed. "Big talk for a goblin who hasn't offered up
his blood yet."
He shook his head. "Two moons."
"Ten," I said.
"Three."
"Be reasonable," I said.
"Five," he said.
"Eight," I countered.
He grinned. "Six."
"Done," I said.
Kurag stared at me for a heartbeat or two. "Done." He said it softly, as if
even at the moment he spoke
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he was sure it was the wrong thing to do.
I raised my voice so it would carry throughout the room, standing with feet
braced wide apart. It must have looked like an aggressive stance, but I wasn't
trying for aggressive. I was trying not to let my body sway to the swirling
inside my head. "The alliance is forged."
Kurag raised his own voice. "Forged only after you share flesh with my
goblin."
I held my hand out to Kitto. He laid his hand on top of mine, a light touch of
smooth flesh. I raised his hand up to my face. I tried to bend down and kiss
the back of his hand, but the room swam. I had to straighten up and raise his
hand with both of mine, spreading the small perfect fingers wide. I'd never
held a man's hand that was smaller than my own. Sucking a finger would have
been the most sexual thing I
could do, but I'd sucked the last piece of flesh I wanted tonight. I laid a
gentle but full kiss on his open palm. I didn't leave a lipstick print behind,
which meant I'd worn it all off sucking on Kurag's arm.
Kitto's strange eyes widened.
I raised my mouth away from his hand, slowly, so that I rolled my eyes at
Kurag as I came up over the goblin's hand, as if it were a fan. "We'll get
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around to sharing flesh, Kurag, don't worry. Now join me, Kitto. The queen
awaits me and all my men."
Kitto darted a glance at Kurag, then back to me. "I am honored."
I looked up at the tall king. "Remember this, Kurag, as I share flesh with
Kitto in the nights to come: that it was your own lust and cowardice that gave
him to me, and me to him."
Kurag's face changed from yellow to a dark orange. His great hands balled into
fists. "Bitch," he said.
"I spent many a night at your court, Kurag. I know that to have me share
myself with another sidhe is nothing to you. For only sharing flesh with a
goblin is true sex to you. Anything less is merely foreplay.
And you have given me over to another goblin, Kurag. The next time you try and
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