A Caress of Twilight (Merry Gentry #2)(42)

His hands were no bigger than the fingernail on my smallest finger. He put one of those hands on his slender waist, the other hanging by his side, one foot in front of the other, a defiant pose.
"If we are given privacy, then I will take payment and give you the cure for your knight." He sounded petulant. 
It made me smile, and the smile made his face fill with hatred. "I am not a child to be looked upon with indulgence, Princess. I am a man." He made a sweeping gesture with both hands. "A small one by your reckoning, but I am still male. I do not appreciate being looked upon as you would smile upon a naughty child."
It was almost exactly what I'd been thinking, that he looked cute standing there so defiant, so tiny. I had been treating him like a doll, or a toy, or a child.
"I apologize, Sage, you are correct. You are fey and you are male, size notwithstanding."
He frowned at me. "You are royal and you apologize to me?"
"I was taught that true royalty lies in knowing when one is wrong or right, and admitting the difference; not in false perfection."
He turned his head to one side, an almost birdlike movement. "I have heard from others that you deal fairly with all, like your father before you." His thin voice sounded thoughtful.
"It is good to hear my father spoken of still."
"We all remember Prince Essus."
"I am always happy to share my father's good memory with others."
Sage watched me closely, though it wasn't the same as being watched by a larger person. His idea of eye contact seemed just that. His whole face seemed to stare at only my right eye, though he'd apparently seen my smile and judged it correctly, which meant he could see all my face. I simply was not accustomed to dealing with the demi-fey. My father had always been respectful of them, but I had not been taken to Niceven's court as I had been to Kurag's and others.
"Prince Essus had our respect, Princess, but time moves on and so must we." He sounded almost sad. He looked at me, face growing arrogant again, and I fought not to smile at this tiny figure looking so full of himself. It wasn't funny or cute; he was just as much a person as anyone else in the room. But it was hard to truly believe that.
"Let us have privacy to fulfill my queen's desires, then you will have your cure for the green knight."
I looked at Doyle and Galen inside the room, the others just outside. Frost was already shaking his head. "My guards do not allow me to be alone with any member of the courts."
"Do you think I should be flattered that they see me as a potential threat?" He turned on my hand and pointed a finger at Doyle. "Darkness knows me of old and knows what I am capable of, or thinks he does." Sage turned back to face me, his bare feet sliding strangely against my skin. "But I would still have privacy for this."
"No," Doyle said.
Sage turned back to him, fluttering inches from my hand. "You should understand this, Darkness. Doing my queen's bidding is all that is left me. Doing exactly what she says is all that I have. What I will do tonight in this room will be the closest I have come to knowing feminine delights in a very long time. I do not think privacy is too much to ask for that."
The guards weren't happy about it, but they finally agreed. Only Kitto stayed wound around my body, tangled in the sheets.
"That one, too," Sage said, pointing at the goblin.
"He faded today, Sage," I said.
"He looks well enough."
"His king, Kurag, has informed me that my body, my blood, my flesh, my magic is what sustains Kitto out here among the humans. He needs to stay in contact with my skin for a time longer."
"You would kick him out of your bed for one of your sidhe warriors."
"No." Kitto spoke softly. "I have been privileged to stay while they mate. I have seen their light cast shadows on the walls, so bright they glowed."
Sage fluttered down to hover over Kitto's upturned face. "Goblin, your kind eats mine in times of war.""The strong eat the weak. It is the way of the world," Kitto said.
"The goblin world," Sage said.
"It is all I know."
"You are far from that world now."
Kitto cuddled under the sheet so that only his eyes showed. "Merry is my world now."
"Do you like this new world, goblin?"
"I am warm, safe, and she bears my mark on her body. It is a good world."
Sage hovered for a few moments more, then flew back up to my waiting hand. "If the goblin gives his word of most solemn honor that nothing he sees, hears, feels, or senses in any way will he repeat to anyone, then he may stay."
Kitto repeated the promise word for word.
"Very well," Sage said. He gazed down my body; and though he was no taller than my forearm, I shivered and had the most uncomfortable desire to cover myself. A tiny red tongue like a drop of blood licked across his pale lips. "First the bloodletting, then the cure." The way he said cure made me half wish I hadn't agreed to all the guards leaving me alone. He was smaller than a Barbie doll, but in that instant, I was afraid of him.
Chapter 28
He fluttered down off my hand toward my breasts. I put my other arm between him and my body. He ended up on my other wrist, which I moved out from my body in order to see him more easily. I raised the sheet over my chest with my other hand.
He looked disgusted. "Will you deny me heart blood?"
"I saw what your kind did to my knight. I would be foolish to let you near such tender flesh before I see exactly how gently you feed."
He sat down on my wrist, ankles crossed, hands on either side to steady him. He seemed to weigh more sitting down; not much more, but it was noticeable.
"I would be ever so gentle, fair lady." His voice was the sound of chimes in a warm summer breeze. Had his lips been like a tiny crimson flower but a moment ago? He touched that flower-soft mouth to my hand, his body reclined along my arm as I would have reclined upon a couch. He ran his tiny mouth and hands over the minute hairs on my arm. Where a larger lover would have smoothed them with his mouth or fingertips, Sage played with them as if he was making music along my skin -- soundless music that only he could hear, but I could feel it. It played along my skin, my arm, as if it were all larger, more than was actually happening.
I flung him sharply into the air, where he buzzed at me like an angry bee. "Why did you do that? We were having so much fun."
"No glamour, remember," I said, scowling up at him, clutching my sheet.
"Without glamour the feeding will not be nearly so pleasant for you." He shrugged his thin shoulders, the movement making him dip in midair. "For me it is much the same, for Niceven's purposes it is much the same, but for you, fair princess, it is not the same. Let me save you some pain and discomfort, and let this be a friendly sharing." 
If he'd caught me on another day when Kitto's bite didn't still ache, I might have told him no, just to take his queen's blood and be done with it. Goblins could not do glamour of any kind, so Kitto had had no choice; without the natural glamour of sex to soften his feeding, there was nothing he could do magically. Sage was offering me a choice.
I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then nodded. "Just enough glamour to make it pleasant, but that's all, Sage. If you try for more than that, I'll call for the guards and you won't like what they'll do to you."
He made a sound that would have been rude, except that it came out like a tiny trumpet, as if a butterfly could make an ass's bray. "Darkness has been waiting centuries for me to put a foot out of line, Princess. I know well, perhaps better than you, what he owes me."
"I noticed it seemed personal between you, more than with the others."
"Personal? You could say that." He smiled, and it managed to be pleasant and evil at the same time, as if he was imagining terrible things that would be a great deal of fun to do.
I could have asked Sage what was so personal, but I didn't. Either Doyle would explain or I would never know. I didn't think Doyle would take kindly to me prying his secrets from a fey he hated. It was one thing to gain information from one friend about another friend, but you didn't talk to people's enemies about your friends, and you didn't let those enemies talk to you behind your friends' backs. It just wasn't kosher.
"You may feed, Sage, and you may use a little glamour to keep it from being so unpleasant. But mind your manners."
"Do you need to look so far for protection? You have your goblin there beside you. Will he not reach up and snatch me from the air and grind my bones if I play you false?"
"Goblins have little chance against strong glamour, and well you know it."
He put his hands on his chest, widened his eyes. "But I am but a demi-fey. I cannot have the glamour of a sidhe lord. Why should any goblin fear the likes of me?"
"The demi-fey of every description have powerful glamour and well you know that. They have led travelers and the unwary astray for centuries."
"A little swamp water never hurt anyone," Sage said, hovering closer toward me.
"Unless there happens to be quicksand or sucking mud under that water. You are Unseelie fey, which means if the traveler falls through the murk to his death, so much more the fun."
He crossed his arms, which were thinner than a pencil was round, over his chest. "And what happens when a Seelie will-o'-the-wisp guides travelers into marshy land, and they fall to quicksand? Do not tell me that they then run for help and grab a rope. They may weep pretty tears for a poor mortal, but as soon as his last breath bubbles up from the swamp, they're away, giggling to themselves, looking for another traveler to lead astray. They may avoid that particular patch of swamp, but they won't stop their game simply because it led to some unfortunate's death."