I let some of my impatience with them show. «So, what, Kitto puts on a show for you, and we gain nothing from it? I don't think so.»
The queen's hands had found Kurag's groin through his pants. Kurag ignored it, as if nothing were happening. «I think all our talks have been for nothing. I still don't think the princess has the balls to do what you're pressing her to do, Darkness.»
«I am pressing her to do nothing, Kurag. Princess Meredith decided this path on her own.»
Kurag shook his head. «I know you would not lie outright, but I also know that a woman besotted with a man will do much from a hint. It doesn't have to be an order. A word here, a word there.» His eyes lost focus for a second, and he pushed the queen's hands away from his body. She struggled to keep her nest of hands on his groin. He squeezed her thin arms in his huge hands like a bouquet of flower stems. Only when pain crossed her face did she release him. He held the pressure for a second longer, as if he meant to crush her arms, then let her go.
She sat in his lap, rubbing her arms with some of her other hands. She looked sulky, like a child told, No. I'd have been angry. Creeda saved her anger for other things.
Doyle finally answered, «I have done nothing to persuade the princess, except remind her she will someday be queen.»
«It is not certain she will be queen. Cel could still be king.»
Doyle pushed away from the bed to stand straight and perfect, as he usually did. «Have you ever known me to stand at the side of the loser of such a contest?»
Kurag took in a great breath of air, then let it out slowly. «No.» He didn't look happy about it.
«Then enough stalling. We have offered you a fair bargain.»
Kurag's gaze flicked to me. «Is the Darkness your voice, Merry?»
«No, but when I agree with everything he's saying, I don't see a problem with letting him finish.»
«So he will finish the bargaining.»
I sighed. «No, that is not what I meant, and you know it. We will bring your warriors into their full power. Think of it, Kurag: Goblin warriors with sidhe magic in their veins.»
«There are those who fear goblins with such magic,» he said.
«I am not one of them.»
He frowned, then stared at me. I let the silence draw out. I learned long ago that most people can't abide silence. They feel compelled to fill it. I waited, and finally he spoke. «Why are you not afraid? All that has kept the goblins from conquering all of faerie is the magic of the sidhe. Give us that to match our strength in battle, and none will stand before us.»
«And if the goblins go to war on American soil, you will be cast out, not just from faerie, but from the last country that will tolerate you.» I shook my head. «Centuries ago when we warred one upon the other, then perhaps I would fear, but not now. You like it here, Kurag. You like it far too much to risk it all, especially when you can't guarantee victory.»
«There are those among the sidhe who will fear us gaining their magic.»
I nodded. «I know, but that is not your problem. That is mine.» Truthfully, I didn't think that bringing over half a dozen goblins to sidhe would tip the balance of power. Half-sidhe didn't usually survive to childhood among the goblins. When grown and in our power, we are hard to kill, but as children we are fragile things. Goblins come from the womb hard to kill.
He ran his big hands down the much smaller queen, the way you'd pet a dog. «You risk much, Merry.»
«How much I risk is my business, Kurag. I offer you a chance at what the goblins have been denied for millennia. I offer you sidhe magic. No one else can give you that. Cel cannot. Only me, and those who stand with me.»
«An extra month for each goblin you make sidhe is too much. A day extra.»
I leaned forward, forcing my own robe to gape, and knew that the red satin framed my breasts as if they were white jewels. I'd never have tried this on another sidhe. I was far too human to appeal to most of them, but for the goblins, I could be beautiful. «A day extra is insulting, Kurag, and well you know it.»
His gaze was solidly on my cleavage. He licked his thin lips with a large, rough tongue. «A week then.»
Creeda stroked his face, half of her eyes on me, half on Kurag. For whatever reason, I made the Goblin Queen nervous. Kurag had proposed marriage once upon a time, but I think it was desire for sidhe magic in the goblin bloodline more than true desire for me. Oh, Kurag would fuck me if I'd let him, but that wasn't much of a compliment. Kurag would probably have fucked anything if it held still long enough.
I sat up straighter and began to fuss with the robe as if I were hot. «Why not a year for each of the ones I bring over? Yes» — I looked up from undoing the sash of my robe—"yes, I like that. A year for each of them, and that includes Kitto.» I opened the robe to frame the rest of my body. To show clearly how little I was wearing.
«No, no year. If you stripped naked for me, you could not get a year.»
I smiled up at him, putting the shine into my tricolored eyes, two shades of green and a circle of gold. «And you cannot bargain me down to a day.»
He laughed then, a deep, rolling belly laugh. It held all the unfettered joy that the goblins had—and that the sidhe seemed to be missing these years. There was other masculine laughter from out of sight of the mirror. I knew Kurag and Creeda were not alone. I wondered whom he trusted enough to hear us bargain.
«You are your father's daughter, Merry, I'll give you that. You know your worth.»
I looked down, playing coy, because I didn't want him to see my face clearly. I was thinking too hard, and wasn't sure I could keep it off my face. I needed to get Kurag to agree to what we wanted. All he had to do to keep me from succeeding was simply say no. I needed him to say yes. The question was how to overcome his natural caution about interfering in sidhe business. How could I get him to agree to something he didn't want to do? Or maybe was afraid to want.
I let the robe fall to the floor. «How much can I be worth, if you will not sell sky and earth to see me nude? If I were truly beautiful, you would not have said it.» I gave him a face that was questioning, and I put the doubts that I had around the sidhe into my eyes. My own mother had been the worst of my critics. It had only been a few months ago that I'd realized she'd been jealous of me. That I realized my mother looked more human than I did. She had the height and the slenderness of figure, but her hair, her skin, her eyes, they were human. Mine weren't.
Kurag read the doubt in my eyes, and I watched his own gaze cloud over. «You do doubt yourself.» He sounded almost awed by it. «I've never met a sidhe woman who didn't believe she was Goddess's gift to males.»
«Those same women tell me I am too short to be beautiful,» I traced my hands across my breasts, «they say my breasts are too large,» I traced down my waist to my hips, «that I curve in places they do not,» I traced down my thighs. Sidhe women don't have thighs. I let my hair fall across my face as I moved, so that my eyes gazed at him half hidden behind the scarlet of my hair. «They tell me I am ugly.»
He spilled out of his chair, dumping his queen to the floor. He roared, «Who says these things? I will crush their jaws and see them choke on their own lies!»
The outrage on his face, the trembling rage of him—I took it for the compliment it was. I realized in that moment that Kurag might want me for more than just politics or supernatural bloodlines. In that heartbeat, I thought that maybe, just maybe, the Goblin King loved me, in an odd sort of way. I had expected many things today, but not love.
I don't know why, but I suddenly realized there were tears trailing down my face. Crying because some goblin had offered to defend my honor? I gazed up at Kurag, and I let him see what was in my face, my eyes, all of it. Because I realized that I still didn't believe I was beautiful. The guards wanted me because to be without me was to be celibate. They pursued me so they might be king. None of them wanted me, for me. Maybe that was unfair, but how would I ever know why they came to my bed? I looked at Kurag and knew that here was a man who'd known me since I was a child, and he thought I was beautiful, and worth defending, and he would never bed me, never be my king. Knowing that anyone adored me, just for me, meant something. Something I had no words for, but I let Kurag see that I valued it. That I valued him, and how he felt about me.
«Merry-girl, don't cry, Consort save me from that,» Kurag said, and his voice was softer, though still rough.