A Caress of Twilight (Merry Gentry #2)(47)

His hands kneaded my back as he brought his face close, closer. We kissed, and this time he kissed me back, gentle at first, then his arms convulsed around my body and he thrust himself inside my mouth. It was as if his tongue, his mouth, were heat. Heat to fill my mouth, heat to spill down my throat, heat like a stream flowing through my body, spilling out, out to my fingertips, my toes, until I was full of it, until my skin ran hot with it.
It was Niceven's voice that brought me back. "You have your cure, Princess. Give it to your green knight before it cools."Sage and I pulled away from each other, bodies reluctant to part. Our hands slid down each other's arms as I turned from him to find Galen. Galen had moved up closer to us.
I went to him, slid my hot, hot hands over his arms, and even through the sleeves of his shirt I could feel his skin, feel the heat gliding over him. His breathing was fast and hard by the time he bent down to receive his kiss.
Our lips touched and it was as if the heat were hungry for him. Our lips sealed together, so that no drop of heat would be lost. Lips, tongue, even teeth fed at each other's mouths. The heat filled my mouth almost like liquid. I could feel the warm, sweet thickness of it like warm honey, warm syrup that filled my mouth and spilled into Galen. He drank at my mouth, drank the magic down.
He drew the heat out of me, pulled the magic from me with his mouth and his hands and his body. The magical heat fed on heat of a different kind, and with a small cry I climbed his body to wrap my legs around his waist. He cried out when my body touched his groin, and it wasn't pleasure.
He set me down quickly, not quite pushing me away. In a breathless voice, he said, "I don't feel healed."
"You will be healed two days hence by nightfall, or earlier," Niceven said.
I was still standing, half swaying, breath coming in ragged gasps. I could barely hear over the pounding of my own pulse in my ears. So it was left to Doyle to be sensible. "I want your word, Queen Niceven, that Galen will be healed two days from now."
"You have it," she said.
He nodded. "We thank you."
"Don't thank me, Darkness, don't thank me." Then she was gone, the mirror just a mirror once again.
Galen sat down heavily on the edge of the bed. He was still gasping, struggling to breathe, but he smiled up at me. "In two days."
I tried to touch his face, but my hand was shaking so badly I missed. He grabbed my hand and put it against his cheek. "Two days," I said.
He nodded, still smiling, my hand still pressed against his face. But I couldn't smile back at him; I could see Frost's face. Arrogant, angry, jealous. He seemed to notice me noticing him, and looked away. He hid his face because I don't think he could control his expression. Frost was jealous of Galen. It was not a good sign.
Chapter 31
That night was Frost's night, and he seemed determined to make me forget everyone else. I was licking down his stomach when Andais's voice came like an evil dream out of the empty mirror. "I will not be blocked from the sight I wish to see, not by my own Darkness. You have one minute, then I will clear my own way."
We froze, then rolled to our feet, got tangled in the sheets, and nearly fell. Frost said, "My Queen, Doyle is not here. We will fetch him for you, if you but wait." 
She made a low sound, almost a growl. "My patience is low tonight, my Killing Frost. I will give you two minutes to find him and free this mirror, or I will do it for you."
"We will make haste, my Queen."
I was already in the doorway. "Doyle, the queen on the mirror, now. She wants to see you." My voice must have carried the urgency I was feeling, because Doyle rolled off the couch, shirtless, wearing just his jeans. He was inside the bedroom, one hand outstretched, as Frost pleaded for just one more minute.
I climbed on the bed as the fastest way to make room for both of the men to stand in front of the mirror. Doyle touched the side of the mirror, and the glass flashed once with light, then cleared. Then there was something in the mirror. I couldn't see much of it around the two broad backs of the men, and what I could see made me half-glad my view was obstructed.
There was torchlight flickering, dark stone walls, and soft, hopeless moaning, as if whoever was making the sound had gone beyond the need to scream, beyond words, beyond anything but that utterly hopeless moaning. When I was little I'd always thought that the wailing of ghosts must be like the sounds in the Hallway of Mortality. Strangely, ghosts don't make noises like that. Or at least none that I've ever met.
"How dare you lock me out, Doyle, how dare you!"
"I asked Doyle to block the viewing on the mirror," I said, speaking to the backs of both of the men.
"I hear our little princess, but I do not see her. If we are going to fight, then I wish to see her face-to-face." Her voice held anger like a cup filled to the brim with something hot and scalding.
The men parted so that I was suddenly visible, kneeling on the bed, in the tangle of sheets and pillows. Andais was suddenly visible, as well. She was standing in the middle of the Hallway of Mortality, where I'd known she was. The viewing mirror in the torture area was set so that you couldn't see any of the devices, but Andais had made sure that she was horrible enough.
She was covered in blood as if someone had thrown a bucket of it over her. Her face was speckled with little drying bits, and one side of her hair was caked with blood and thicker things. It took a minute of staring to realize that she was gore soaked and wore nothing else. She was actually so covered in blood and bits that I hadn't realized she was nude at first.
I took air in through my nose, out through my mouth for a few breaths while Doyle filled the silence.
"We have had many callers, my Queen. The princess grew tired of being caught unprepared for visitors."
"Who else has been calling you, niece?"
I swallowed hard, let out the breath I'd been half holding, and my voice came out just fine, not a tremble. Good for me. "Taranis's secretaries mostly."
"What does he want?" She nearly spit the word he.
"I was invited to the Yule ball, but declined." I added the last hastily. I did not want her to think I'd snub her court.
"How terribly high-handed, and how terribly typical of Taranis."
"If one may be so bold, my Queen," Doyle said softly, "you are in an exceptional mood, despite the fact that you have obviously been indulging yourself heartily. What has so displeased you?"
Doyle was right. I'd seen Andais come back from a torture session humming, covered in gore and humming. She should have been having a very good time by her standards, but she wasn't.
"I have taken those who I deemed capable of either releasing the Nameless or calling the old ones. I have questioned them all most thoroughly. If any of them had done these things, they would have talked by now." She sounded tired, the anger beginning to leak away."I am sure, my Queen, that you have been most thorough," Doyle said.
She looked at him, and it was a hard look. "Are you making fun of me?"
Doyle bowed as far as the mirror would allow. "Never, my Queen."
She rubbed her hand across her forehead, smearing blood across her white skin. "No sidhe in our court did this, my Darkness."
"Then who, if not our people?" Doyle asked. He did not rise from his bow.
"We are not the only sidhe, Doyle."
"You mean Taranis's court," Frost said.
Her eyes flicked to him, and they narrowed in a very unfriendly manner. "Yes, that's what I mean."
Frost bowed, mirroring Doyle. "I meant no disrespect, Your Majesty."
Doyle said, from his awkward position, "Have you informed the king of his peril?"
"He refuses to believe that anyone in his beautiful shining court could do such a thing. He says that none of his people would know how to raise the old dead gods, and that none would touch the Nameless, for it has nothing to do with them. The Nameless is an Unseelie problem, and the old gods are ghosts, and that is an Unseelie problem, as well."
"What exactly would be a Seelie problem?" I asked. I almost hated to have her attention back on me, but I wanted to know. If none of this was Seelie business, then what exactly was their business?
"That, niece, is an excellent question. Of late, Taranis seems unwilling to dirty his hands with anything of importance. I don't know what's wrong with him, but he seems to be living more and more in his own little dream haven, built of pretty illusions and his own magic." She crossed her stained arms, looking thoughtful. "It has to be one of his court. It has to be."
"What can we do to get him to see that?" I asked.
"I don't know. I wish I did." She waved her hands. "Oh, for pity's sake, get up, both of you. Go sit on the bed. Look comfortable."
Frost and Doyle stood and came to sit, one on either side of me. Frost was still nude, but his lovely body was no longer at the excited pitch it had been before the queen called. He sat with his hands in his lap, half hiding himself. Doyle sat on the other side of me, very still, like a prey animal trying not to draw the eye of the predator. I didn't often think of Doyle as a prey animal -- he was so assuredly a predator -- but tonight, the only predator was staring at us from the mirror.
"Move your hands, Frost. Let me see all of you."
Frost hesitated, the briefest of seconds, and then let his hands drop away to either side of his lap. He sat there nude, eyes downcast, no longer comfortable in his nudity.