A Caress of Twilight (Merry Gentry #2)(15)

"Did you really hire Julian and his people because of some overzealous fan?"
"Stop this," she whispered.
"Do you really believe that we will harm you?" I asked.
"No," she said, and she said it too quickly, as if she was relieved to finally be able to give a straightforward answer.
"Then why are you afraid of us?"
"Why are you doing this to me?" she asked, and her voice held all the sorrow of every maiden who had ever asked that question of a lover gone astray.
It tightened my throat to hear it. Julian looked stricken. "I think you've asked enough questions, Meredith."
I shook my head. "No, I haven't." I met those pain-filled blue eyes, and said, "Ms. Reed, you don't have to hide yourself from us."
"I don't know what you mean."
"That is entirely too close to a lie," I said softly.
Her eyes suddenly looked like blue crystal, and I realized I was seeing those blue-blue eyes through the shine of unshed tears. Then the tears slid slowly down her golden cheeks, and as they fell, the blue of her eyes blurred, changed, still blue, but tricolored like my own.
There was a wide outer edge of rich deep blue like a bright sapphire, then a much thinner ring of melted copper, and an equally thin circle of liquid gold around the dark point of her pupil. But what set her eyes apart even among the sidhe was that the gold and copper trailed out across her iris like streaks of color in a good piece of lapis lazuli, so that metallic glints shone out from that ring of faultless deep blue.
Her eyes were like a stormy blue sky shattered by colored lightning.
In the forty years she'd been a movie star, no camera had ever seen these eyes. Her real eyes. I'm sure some agent or studio head had long ago convinced her to hide the least human of her features. I'd hidden what I was and what I looked like for only three years, and it had killed parts of me to do it. Maeve Reed had done it for decades.
She kept her eyes averted from Julian, as if she didn't want him to see them. I took her hand from Julian's arm; she tried to fight me, and I didn't tug on her. I just kept a light pressure on her wrist until she raised the hand of her own accord. Then I took her hand full in mine, cradling it. I knelt in front of her and brought her hand to my lips. I laid the lightest of touches on that golden hand, and said, "You have the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen, Maeve Reed."
She took her other hand from Julian's grip and just stood there staring down at me, tears streaming like crystal drops down her cheeks. Slowly, she let the rest of the glamour go. The tan began to fade, or change, until she was no longer honey brown but an overall soft gold. Her hair grew paler, blond and blonder, until it was almost a white blond. I could not imagine why she'd changed her hair to the more standard yellow blond. Either color was well within human standards.
I held both her hands in mine while she stripped away a century of lies and stood before me a shining thing. Suddenly there seemed to be more colors in the room, a breath of sweet scented flowers that grew thousands of miles away from this desert place. She gripped my hands as if they were her only anchor, as if she might vanish into the light and sweetness if I let her go.She threw back her head, eyes closed, and her golden glow filled the room as if a small sun had suddenly risen before me. She glowed, and she cried, and she held my hands so hard it hurt. Somewhere during all of it, I found I was crying, too, and her glow had called my own, so that my skin looked as if it were filled with moonlight.
She came to her knees beside me, looking wonderingly at my hands and hers, one glow pressed against the other. She began to laugh joyously, a little hysterically.
Somewhere in all the laughter, I could make out her words, "And I... thought the men... were the danger."
She leaned into me suddenly and pressed her lips to mine. I was so startled by the kiss that I simply froze for a second. What I would have done if she'd given me time to think, I don't know, because she jerked away from me and ran back out the way she'd come.
Chapter 11
Julian had gone after Maeve. It left young Frank standing by the exit looking lost. His eyes were too large in his pale, startled face. I doubted Frank had ever seen a sidhe in her full power.
I was still kneeling, the glow beginning to fade from my skin, when Doyle came to stand beside me. "Princess, are you well?"
I looked up at him and realized I must have looked a little startled myself. I could feel the heat on my mouth where her lips had touched mine. It was like I'd taken a sip of spring sunshine.
"Princess?"
I nodded. "I'm all right." But my voice came out hoarse, and I had to clear my throat before I said, "I've just never ..." I tried to put it into words. "She tasted like sunshine. And until this second I didn't know that sunshine tasted like anything."
Doyle knelt beside me and spoke softly. "It is always difficult to be touched by those who hold such elemental powers."
I frowned at him. "She said she thought it was the men she needed to be afraid of. What did she mean by that?"
"Think how you were after just a few years alone out here... and magnify that by a human century."
I felt my eyes widen. "You mean she's attracted to me." I shook my head before he could say anything. "She's attracted to the first sidhe she's touched in a hundred years."
"Do not underestimate yourself, Meredith, but I have never heard it said that Conchenn was a lover of women, so, yes, it is the touch of sidhe flesh that she craves."
I sighed. "I cannot blame her." And then another thought occurred to me. "You don't think she's invited us here to ask if I'll share one of you with her?"
Doyle's dark eyebrows raised over the top of his sunglasses. "I had not thought of such a thing." He seemed to be thinking about what I'd said. "I suppose it is possible." He frowned. "But it would be the height of rudeness to ask such a thing. We are not merely your lovers but potential husbands. It is not casual." 
"You said it yourself, Doyle, she's been alone for a century. A hundred years might wear down anyone's sense of politeness."
There was movement behind us; we turned to find Frost already on his feet facing the entrance. It was Rhys. "What have you guys been doing in here?"
"What do you mean?" I asked.
He gestured at Doyle and me kneeling on the floor. There was still the faintest of glows to my skin like a memory of moonlight.
I let Doyle help me to my feet; I was strangely unsteady. Maeve had caught me off guard, true, but I'd been touched a great deal more by other sidhe and not been this shaken.
I spoke. "Maeve Reed dropped her glamour."
Rhys's eye widened. "I felt it outside. You're telling me that all she did was drop her glamour?"
I nodded.
He gave a low whistle. "Sweet Goddess."
"And that is the point," Doyle said.
Rhys looked at him. "What do you mean?"
"We have all been worshipped in the past, but for most of us it is in the long past. For Conchenn it has been less than three hundred years. She was still being worshipped in Europe when we were asked to... leave."
"So you're saying that she's got more power because she was being worshipped?" Rhys asked.
"Not more power," Doyle said, "but more..."
"Oomph," I suggested.
"I am unfamiliar with the word," he said.
"More... jazz, more bite, more crack to the whip." I waved my hands in the air. "I don't know. Rhys knows what I mean."
He came down the three steps to the living room. "Yeah, I know what you mean. She's got more of a charge to her magic."
Doyle finally nodded. "I will accept that."
Frost came to stand with us. Doyle looked at him from behind dark glasses, and the bigger man hesitated, frowning. "I have an insight to add, my captain."
The two men carefully measured each other. I interrupted. "What's wrong with you two? If Frost has something to add, then let him say it."
Frost continued to look at Doyle, as if waiting. Finally, Doyle gave one quick nod. Frost gave a small bow. "I have watched movies on Meredith's television set. I have seen how humans react to these movie stars. Their adoration of the actors is a type of worship."
We all looked at him. It was Rhys who whispered, "Lord and Lady, if anyone could prove that she's been worshipped..." He let his voice trail off.
Doyle finished the thought for him. "Then there would be grounds to exile us all from this country. The one thing we were forbidden to do was set ourselves up to be worshipped as gods."
I shook my head. " She did not set herself up to be worshipped as a deity. She was just trying to earn a living."
The men thought about that for a few seconds, then finally Doyle nodded. "The princess is correct by law."
"I don't think Maeve intended to get around the law," I said.
He shook his head. "I do not mean to imply otherwise, but whatever her intent, she has the added benefit of having been worshipped by humans for the last forty years. A human movie star cannot take advantage of that kind of energy exchange, but Maeve is sidhe, and she will know exactly how to use such energy."
"What does that say about the models and actors in Europe that have sidhe blood in them?" I asked. "Or even the royal families of Europe? Sidhe had to marry into all the royal houses of Europe to cement the last great treaty. Are they all taking extra benefit from their human admirers?""It is not something I can speak to," Doyle said.