Free Merry Gentry 03 - Seduced by Moonlight by Laurell K. Hamilton Page A

Centuries of habit were hard to break.
    Doyle spoke as he moved to stand beside us. "What is your intention with this, Kurag?"
    Siun said, "I wanted to see the pretty sidhe."
    "Shut up, Siun." Kurag said it without looking at her, as if he just expected her to do it. Surprisingly, she did.
    "I felt Merry deserved to see what you were offering her up to." Something close to his usual leer crossed his face. "Besides, Darkness, it won't be Merry in Siun's bed."
    "It won't be anybody," Rhys said.
    Doyle touched his arm. "You cannot intend that she will bed either Rhys or Kitto again."
    "You volunteering?" Kurag asked.
    Doyle blinked at him, unreadable. "What are you saying, Kurag?"
    "If I agree to an extra month for every goblin you make sidhe, then you must agree to bring over every sidhe-side who wants to try it."
    Doyle's black gaze flicked to Siun, then up to Kurag. "Why are you fighting this, Kurag? Why don't you want magic in the veins of the goblins again?"
    "I'm not fighting it, Darkness, I'm agreeing to it, on certain conditions. I'm even giving Merry her month per goblin whom she brings over."
    Doyle made a small gesture toward Siun. "To insist that we bed all who come our way is an insult."
    "Would she be like this if one of your people hadn't raped one of ours?"
    "Her mother wasn't raped," Rhys said, and his voice was still empty, still horrible to hear.
    Kurag ignored the comment, but Doyle said, "What do you mean, Rhys?"
    "She bragged that her mother had raped one of us during the last war." His hands dug into my shoulders until it almost hurt. "Don't blame this particular horror on the sidhe, Kurag. The goblins did this to themselves."
    It was plain on Kurag's face that he had known the truth. "You have lied to us, Kurag," Doyle said.
    "No, Darkness, I said, Would she be like this if one of your people hadn't raped one of ours? I made it a question, not a statement of fact."
    "That is splitting the truth a wee thin," I said.
    Kurag looked at me. He nodded. "Perhaps I have learned from the sidhe just how thin the truth may come."
    "What's that supposed to mean?" Rhys said.
    Doyle held up his hand. "Enough of this. Either we are going to agree to Kurag's terms, or we walk away and have the goblins for another two months, and only two months."
    "I'll give you time to talk among yourselves," Kurag said. He raised a hand as if he'd wipe the mirror.
    "No," Doyle said, "no, if we give you time you'll come up with some other reason to avoid this agreement. We do it now, today."
    I looked at Doyle and could read nothing from his face, or his body. He was the untouchable Darkness, the left hand of the queen. The figure I'd feared as a child. Though admittedly I'd never seen him this unclothed. The Queen's Darkness wore clothes from his neck to his ankles to his wrists, all year, all weather. Once to see Doyle's bare arms had been tantamount to him being undressed in public, but here he stood wearing only the tiny black thong, and somehow clothes or no clothes, he was still the same untouchable, unreadable, frightening Darkness.
    "Which of you will bed Siun?" Kurag asked.
    "I will," Doyle said.
    I was the one who said, "No."
    "None of us touches her," Rhys said.
    "We will make this agreement, Rhys," Doyle said.
    Rhys was shaking his head. "No, I swore that I'd kill Siun when next we met. I swore blood price on it."
    "You swore blood price?" Doyle asked.
    Rhys only nodded.
    Doyle sighed. "We agree to trying to bring over all the half-sidhes you have, Kurag, but this Siun must answer to Rhys when we come to your court."
    "What if she kills him?" Kurag asked.
    "Then the blood price is satisfied. We will not seek vengeance for it."
    "Done," Kurag said.
    "And after I have killed Rhysss," Siun said, "I will have his trull, my Kitto. I will ride him till he shines underneath me." She glared at Rhys with her dozen eyes, all ringed with blue, sky blue, cornflower, and violet. The eyes were lovely, and belonged in a different body.