Kitto came up from the floor where he'd been sitting so he could lay his mouth against my cheek. His tongue flicked out, caressing my skin, the twin tips tickling along my cheek. When I didn't protest he licked my cheek, drinking in my tears. The goblins considered most body fluids precious and not to be wasted. I understood what he was doing, and frankly, just then, almost any touch would have done. I slid my arm across his shoulders and leaned into his body as he licked my tears away.
Rhys was behind me, on his knees, on the bed. He hugged me from behind. And because Kitto and I were so close, he was forced to hug Kitto as well. Only those of us in the room understood what a breakthrough it was for him to willingly come that close to Kitto. Just his willingness to do it made me feel better.
«Not a year, Merry, not even for your tears. Not even for that look on your face.» Kurag still stood, so wide that he seemed to fill the mirror. He loomed over us, partly because the mirror was raised, and partly because he was standing too close to the glass on his side.
Kitto had drunk me clean on that side of my face. He had to turn the front of his body more firmly against me as he tried to reach my other cheek. He was pressed tight in the circle of Rhys's arm and my body. I expected Rhys to open his arm enough to let Kitto move to the other side of my body, but he didn't. He kept us pressed together in the crush of his arms. The moment I realized we were effectively trapped, unless Rhys released us, my breath caught, my pulse speeding against my throat.
My voice breathed from my body full of that pulse, and that sudden awareness. «Are my tears worth a month, Kurag?»
Kitto twisted against the strength of Rhys's arms. It forced Kitto's body hard against mine, but it was Rhys's whisper against my hair, «Turn your face to him,» that made me turn so that he could reach the other cheek.
Kitto's tongue caressed my cheek, his breath almost hot against my skin. Rhys tightened his arms, and it was like being bound in chains of flesh and muscle. I couldn't concentrate, couldn't think.
«A fuck and a food to turn any goblin's head,» Kurag said, and his own voice was low, growling, but not with anger.
I whispered, «Rhys, please, can't think.»
He loosened his arms, but only enough to give the illusion of freedom. I knew the game, but the middle of political negotiations was not the time for it. Part of me wanted to tell Rhys to let us go, but part of me loved the feel of his arms around us, the solidness of his body pressed against my back, the whisper of his breath against my hair. I knew that Kitto liked few things better than being ordered around, being given no choices. It made him feel safe. It was comforting, but for me it wasn't safety I was seeking.
I managed to focus on Kurag, but I knew that my face showed some of what I was feeling. I kept waiting for Doyle to interfere, to stop this unseemly display, but it was as if the room held only Rhys, and Kitto, and me.
«Let me show you what a real goblin can do for you, Merry,» Kurag said. His gaze slid to Rhys. «Let me cut off a choice piece of flesh. It'll grow back if it's done right. For that I'd agree to almost anything.»
It was Rhys who said, «You left Kitto out of the bargaining.» His voice was almost husky.
«He is a goblin, and I can do to him what I choose, when I choose.»
«I don't think so,» I said.
«He's sidhe now,» Rhys said, in that deliciously low voice. «He was anyone's meat once, but that has changed.»
«He is still as he was. He still craves someone to dominate him. I fear no one who seeks a master.»
I found my voice, and it was almost normal again. «Yet you talk about cutting up someone who is his master. What logic is that, Kurag?»
«I do not need his permission to take what I want from Kitto. I can take what I like from any goblin if he has not the strength to keep it from me.» He pointed at Kitto. «And he is not that strong.»
I said, «There are many kinds of strength, Kurag.»
He stepped back from the mirror and sank into his chair once more. He was shaking his head. «No, Merry, there is only one kind of strength: the strength to take what you want.»
«And the strength to keep it,» a male voice said out of sight of the mirror.
Kurag flashed a frown in the direction of the voice, then turned back to me. «Let me fuck you, and taste the white knight, and I'll agree to a month for every goblin you make sidhe.»
Rhys let me go, slowly, almost reluctantly. If he'd had trouble touching Kitto so closely, it didn't show. Kitto had cleaned the last of the tears from my face and stood pressed against the front of my body.
«I can't help you break your marriage vows, no matter how loosely you hold them. Our laws forbid it. As for my guards, all my guards, they are not meat.» I kissed the top of Kitto's head.
«Then we can have no bargain.» For a second I saw the relief of that decision on his face.
Doyle's voice fell into the silence like some deep, heavy bell, the purring beat of his voice playing along my skin. «I was there when the goblins were stripped of their magic, Kurag. I remember your wizards. I remember that there was a time when the goblins' magic was as feared as their physical power.»
«And who slaughtered every wizard and witch among us?» There were the beginnings of anger again.
«I did,» Doyle said. I'd never heard two words so empty of emotion, so carefully nothing.
«And it was sidhe magic that sucked the magic from our veins.»
«That was not an Unseelie spell, Kurag. We meant to win the war, not to destroy you.»
«That bastard Taranis did not destroy us. Him and his shining folk who did the spell. They sucked our magic, and they kept it. Don't believe otherwise, Darkness. That shining bunch of hypocrites kept what they stole.»
«I put nothing past the King of Light and Illusion,» Doyle said.
Kurag stared at Doyle for a second or two, then spoke slowly, even though I could still see the anger on his face. «You helped take our magic. Why would you help give it back?»
«I did not agree that it should be taken the first time. I had no problem with killing your people. They were slaughtering us. If their spells had stayed in place, it might have gone badly for the sidhe.»
«We'd have won, and owned all your shining asses.»
Doyle shrugged. «Who can say what will happen in a war? But I say this now: We can offer you back some of the magic that was stolen away.»
I whispered against the curve of Kitto's ear, «Shine for him, Kitto.»
Kitto raised his head to meet my eyes with his own. His face was so solemn, as if he didn't want to do it. I wanted to ask why not, but I couldn't ask in front of Kurag because I didn't know what answer Kitto would give. I'd learned long ago that in the middle of negotiations, you never ask a question you don't know the answer to. The answer is so likely to hurt you.
Kitto said, in a small voice, «I'm afraid.»
I understood then. Anger, lust, all sorts of emotions could make the magic flare, but fear, strangely, could kill it. It depended on the kind of fear. If it was that mind-numbing, panic-inducing kind of terror, you just couldn't concentrate around it. But a little fear could help you bring it on, and sometimes your greatest fears could manifest your greatest powers. Still, especially at the beginning, when the magic was new, you never knew which way fear would work for you.
Kitto couldn't draw his magic because he was scared to death of Kurag and Creeda. He was too terrified to think clearly, let alone do magic.
I cupped his face in my hands. «I understand.» I glanced behind me at Rhys, and sighed. Rhys had played a good game up to now, but that one forceful hug was the most physical interaction he'd had with Kitto. Asking Rhys to help me do what amounted to foreplay with Kitto was asking too much. My white knight, as Kurag put it, had done his duty for the day.
With his face still cupped in my hands, I laid a gentle kiss on Kitto's mouth.
«What's this?» Kurag asked.
I raised my face enough to see his face. «I want Kitto to call his magic, but he fears you too much.»
«What use to the goblins is such frail magic?»
«In the beginning of your powers, you sometimes need help drawing them.»
Doyle added, «It is like any other weapon, Kurag. Someone new to the sword may hesitate in battle, or be unsure where to strike the blow.»
He frowned, settling into his big chair as if it were suddenly less comfortable. «I don't do magic, but if you say it's like a weapon, then so be it.» I could tell by his face that he'd gotten our meaning, though.