Kitto wrapped his arm around my waist, and I slid my arm across his shoulders. They were broader than when he’d first come to me, from Doyle’s insistence that the smaller man hit the weight room and even weapons practice. Kitto wasn’t expected to take his place among my guards, but Doyle wanted all of us to be able to defend ourselves. I had even joined the practice until I got too big with babies to move well, and the doctors started worrying that some of the training might cause premature labor. As soon as I healed I’d be back to it, because defending myself sounded awesome after my dream about Taranis. But then I had defended myself, hadn’t I?
“I swear to you, Merry, the babes have slept peacefully for hours.”
I hugged him. “You need to sleep, too, you know?”
He smiled up at me and then gazed at the babies, our babies. “I never thought I’d belong anywhere. I was tolerated among the goblins as long as I served a stronger warrior or his lady as their submissive toy, but if they tired of me, or one got jealous of me with the other, then they could cast me out, and masterless I was anyone’s meat.”
I put both my arms around him and held him close, resting my head on the top of his black curls; they were soft in texture, not like pure goblin hair, which ran to coarseness. “You’re ours now, Kitto.”
He hugged me back. “I have a family like I read about in books.”
“The goblins aren’t much for reading,” I said.
“Most are not, but my first mistress taught me how to read, and after that being able to read was an asset to my other masters and mistresses—as much as the sex sometimes.”
“So you read them to sleep?” I asked.
“Or read contracts to them, or modern newspapers.”
“I didn’t know the goblins cared about what was happening in the outside world.”
“Some do.”
I held him close, rubbing my cheek in the softness of his hair. I thought about all the long centuries that he had managed to survive in a culture that valued brute strength and power on the battlefield, and sex. It sounded like a desperate and lonely existence.
I tried to lighten the mood, because I needed it, too. “Good that you are learned, and fabulous at sex.”
“Sometimes I was too good at the sex,” he said.
I moved back enough to look into his face. “What do you mean? It’s not possible to be too good at sex.” I smiled when I said it, but he didn’t smile back.
“Several masters and mistresses became jealous that their lovers preferred me to them, and cast me out because of it.”
I gave him wide eyes and tried to think my way through that. I finally said the truth. “I’m amazed the jealous lovers didn’t just kill you for it.”
“Some tried, but the lovers that valued me stopped them, or even fought them in my defense.”
“You are very good in bed,” I said.
He smiled up at me. “But not that good, you’re thinking, not by goblin standards.”
“They like it very rough,” I said.
“In public, but in private many of them prefer gentler sex.”
I’d experienced that difference myself with Holly and Ash, the other goblins in our lives. If anyone knew they enjoyed gentle sex, their reputation would be damaged, so I said nothing, not even to Kitto.
“And if their secret got out that they’d enjoyed that with you, they would be ruined.”
“It would be seen as weakness, and that is always challenged among my people.”
“Your mother was sidhe, Kitto; we are your people as much as the goblins.”
He smiled, and it was a happier one this time. “I was not raised sidhe, Merry, so I will always think of myself as goblin. The sidhe were these impossibly beautiful, magical beings, and the fact that I carried their skin and hair appealed to the goblins that had a fetish for the touch of sidhe flesh.”
“It is a serious fetish among the goblins,” I said.
“It’s what led to so many rapes in the wars between the two races. The sidhe will not voluntarily share themselves with a goblin.”
I leaned over and kissed him softly, gently, but thoroughly. “This is one part-sidhe princess who volunteers eagerly.”
His face lit up, filled with happiness. “And I will serve you in any way I can for as long as you will have me.”
“Kitto, I’m not planning on casting you out, you know that, don’t you?”
His happy looks slipped a little around the edges. “If my goblin king calls me home, Merry, there is nothing you can do but let me go.”
“You are sidhe now; I have brought you into your power, which means the goblins can’t call you from my side, Kitto.”
He cuddled tighter against me, rubbing his cheek against the crook of my neck like a cat cuddling closer. He shivered, and not in a happy way.
I hugged him tight. “What’s wrong, Kitto? What are you afraid of?”
“I am a goblin with a sidhe hand of power, but Holly and Ash have hands of power, too, and they have stayed in the goblin kingdom.”
“They would be insane to try to join the Unseelie kingdom with the queen so unstable,” I said.
“True, but the fact that they didn’t try to join the sidhe after coming into their magic means that magic alone may not be enough to keep me at your side.”
I buried my face in the softness of his curls. I breathed in the scent of him, felt the gentle strength of him, and thought about him not being here by my side. It was a painful thought.
“Has someone said something to you?”
“Have you asked what Holly and Ash are doing with the new hands of power that you helped give them?”
“No, should I?”
“Yes,” he said, with his lips soft against my neck.
“Tell me,” I said.
“If they find out that I told on them, they will not like it, and their hands of power are much stronger for combat than mine.”
He turned in my arms, so he could cuddle even closer to me. He shivered, and it wasn’t from happiness at being held. He was afraid of the twin warriors, and he should have been. It suddenly felt like Kitto wasn’t close enough to me; sometimes even a robe and pajamas kept the skin hunger and comfort from being fed.
I let go of him enough to open my robe and reach for his shirt. He helped me take it over his head with a smile I could see from the pale glow of the night light. We wrapped our naked upper bodies around each other, his arms wrapping around my waist inside the thin shelter of my robe. The front of him, still in shorts, pressed against my thigh. I could feel that just that much undressing had made his body start to react, but I knew I didn’t have to tell Kitto that there would be no sex tonight; he wouldn’t push, but be content that I wanted to touch him so closely.
“Now, tell me,” I whispered against his curls.
I felt his smile against my neck, and that made me smile in the dimness of the nursery where the babies lay content and safe, despite my dream.
“They are using their newfound magic to fight duels.”
“I thought Holly and Ash were so feared even among the goblins that no one would challenge them.”
“They are, but there are some insults that no goblin could allow to stand if he or she wanted to keep their reputation, and to lose your reputation is to sign your death sentence among us.”
“You mean they’re starting the fights,” I whispered.
“I mean, they are goading others into challenging them to duels, for they are not only fierce and ruthless warriors, but much craftier than most give them credit for.”
I held him in my arms, feeling the warmth and solidness of him, and was afraid for him. He felt so small, delicate as my own more mortal form, and I knew that I would have died quickly among the goblins if I’d had to defend myself from insults.
“They may be nearly as smart as they are strong,” I said.
Kitto’s breath was hot against my skin as he whispered, “Ash is; I’m not certain about Holly, but he follows where his brother leads and that is enough to save him from mistakes he would make otherwise.”
“Do you think they will challenge Kurag, Goblin King, and win the throne from him?”
“They could,” Kitto said.
“I have a treaty with Kurag, but not with the twins,” I said.
“Yes,” he whispered.
I moved back enough to look into his face. “You think they won’t honor the treaty agreement,” I said.
“I fear they might not.”
“Sex with me awakened their hands of power, gave them the blessing of the Goddess,” I said.
“Yes, and they are grateful, but I do not believe that Ash is ever so grateful that he would allow it to interfere with his own ambitions.”
I nodded. “I know they mean to seat one of them on the goblin throne.”
“Kurag knows it, too,” Kitto said.
“Why does he not challenge them and be done with it, then?” I asked.
Kitto studied my face. “You know the answer to that as well as I do.”
“He fears he will lose,” I said.
Kitto nodded.
I let that thought roll around in my head for a minute, and then said, “He’s right to be afraid.”
“I believe he will lose if he fights them fairly and openly,” Kitto said, voice still low so that we didn’t wake the sleeping babes.
“Goblin society allows only fair and open fighting. A king who lets someone else do his killing is soon a dead king,” I said.
“We must all fight our own battles, that is true; so a king could not hire an assassin, for to be found out would be a death sentence, and likely a long and painful death.”
“So what are you saying, Kitto?”
“I am saying that not all assassinations are paid killings.”
I frowned at him. “You’re being too obtuse for me, Kitto.”
He sighed and said, “Kurag is much smarter than he lets most see, and has used it to his advantage politically for years. I believe he might manipulate others into trying to kill the twins for him, and his hands would look clean of their blood.”
“But you say the twins are manipulating people into dueling them already; doesn’t that feed into what Kurag wishes?”
“No, for the twins are only finding fights with goblins they believe they can beat. They avoid the handful of warriors that they are unsure of on the battlefield.”
“You think Kurag might try to arrange a fight between the twins and someone who might be able to kill them,” I said.
Kitto nodded.
“Kurag is my ally only for another few weeks, and then the treaty with him ends,” I said.
“Unless you bring over more of the half-sidhe among the goblins, yes,” Kitto said.
“I am not allowed sex for six more weeks, according to my doctors,” I said.
“And by that time the treaty will be over and Kurag will not have to help you against your uncle, or your aunt, if they decide to attack you and yours.”
“Are you saying that I should support Kurag in his effort to get the twins killed, or the twins in killing him?”
“I am saying that Kurag fears your enemies and will escape the treaty as soon as he can, and that the twins may not honor a treaty with you. Two of those that insulted them so they had to stand challenge were also sidhe-sided goblins and had made it known that they wished to bed you and gain their own magic.”
“You’re saying that now that Ash and Holly have their hands of power, they may not want me to give such power to any other goblins,” I said.
He nodded. “They do not fear me, for my hand of power only allows me to bring someone through a mirror call against their will, and close the window at will. It is powerful, so I’m told, but it is mostly useless in a duel. Other sidhe-sided may gain other things that are more battle useful.”
I wrapped him closer in the circle of my arms, folding my silk robe over both of us. I think the robe would have tied around both of us, we were both so small.
“It is always a gamble which magic will come to a person,” I said.
“I’ve learned that some powers run in bloodlines, as you have the hand of flesh like your father before you.”
“True,” I said.
“If you had been able to keep fucking them, I think they would still be tied to you more, but when the doctor told you not to risk it with the babies …” I could feel him shrug in the circle of my arms.
“You think they want to be free of me?”
“Holly does,” Kitto said. “Ash will do whatever will give them the most power.”
“It will be six weeks before I can have sex with anyone, according to the doctors.”
“And longer before you would risk such roughness in bed as they or Mistral prefer,” Kitto said.
I petted Kitto and tried not to betray with even the stillness of my body the secret I’d been keeping. Holly and Ash were perverted by goblin standards. They actually liked gentle sex, and Ash enjoyed giving oral sex, which was a sign among the goblins that he considered himself subservient to me, or anyone he would go down on. It had taken me weeks to convince Kitto to allow me to go down on him, for he feared that it would hurt my reputation among the goblins, and we still needed their threat to keep our enemies in check, or at least to give them pause about attacking me. If the goblins learned the kind of sex that the brothers enjoyed, their reputations would be ruined. It could cost them their lives, because if you were perceived as weak, the challenges to combat could come so fast and often that eventually you would fail, and there was only one cure for failure in a duel among the goblins—death. I was lucky that the sidhe gave other options, or I would have died long before I escaped to Los Angeles.
Kurag, Goblin King, and Niceven, Queen of the Unseelie Demi-fey, had both agreed to forgo their price of treaty until after the babies were born. The goblins would have to wait until I was cleared for sex and had had it successfully with some of the fathers of my children, but Niceven could ask for her blood price to continue sooner. It was but a bit of blood offered to their tiny mouths, but the wild magic that had returned with my own late-blooming hands of power had given wings to the wingless among them, and given extra powers to some among them who had shared my blood and then my bed. Legend had said that some among the demi-fey could change to human size, but we had thought that lost with so much other magic among the fey, until we’d met demi-fey who could do it. I still thought they would be the perfect assassins, though Niceven said that they had never acted as such. I wasn’t sure I believed her.