He gave a gruff nod. Creeda clapped her many hands together, those that had mates to clap, and bounced like a child on his lap.

I looked at Kitto. I asked him with my eyes if he was ready. He mouthed, Yes. I kissed him gently on the mouth, not as foreplay but as a thank-you, and as an apology for making him do something he didn't want to do.

I could feel the reluctance in his body and I was torn. I knew Kitto well enough to put him in the right mind-set quickly, but if I did it in front of the goblins they'd know how to do it, too. I knew how to make Kitto shine, because I was his lover and his friend. If I went slower and did more things, with the touches that were truly his favorites lost in many touches, then Creeda would not have the keys to his body. It would take longer, but I didn't want to help Creeda torment him. I would do my best to see that Creeda never got her hands on him, but I knew too much of royal politics to be certain I could keep him safe. You do not lightly refuse a queen, any queen.

I made my decision, and drew Kitto into my arms.

CHAPTER 4

I sat on the edge of the bed with Kitto in my lap, his legs straddling my body as if I were the boy and he the girl. His shorts were stretched tight across the firm roundness of his buttocks, and my hands cupped that firm flesh through the cloth. I held him in my lap while my mouth explored his face, his neck, his shoulders. I bit gently at his shoulder, and he shuddered against me. Even through the cloth, I felt him grow firm. I kept one hand on his buttock, to keep him from falling, but the other I trailed up his back. I played on the rainbow scales on his back and found the line of naked skin that traced up his spine. I caressed a fingertip up that long, smooth line of skin, and it brought his breath shivering, flung back his head, put his face up to mine with his eyes closed and his lips half parted. But still he did not shine.

He was beautiful as he sat in my lap, but there was only the magic of bare skin and delighted flesh. He did not glow with power.

"Make him glow, make him glow!" Creeda cried, as if she had waited as long as she could to exclaim.

At the sound of her voice, Kitto wilted, both with the slump of his shoulders and the lowering of his head, and the press of him against my stomach lessened. It was as if just the sound of her voice made him remember unpleasant things. The goblins do not see marriage vows the way we do, and both partners are allowed certain freedoms. Whatever child results from whatever liaison is raised by the married couple as their own. There's no shame or screams of being cuckold. Maybe that's why there's no hereditary monarchy. But whatever the custom, I hadn't known that Kitto had ever been Creeda's pet.

Kurag said, "Hush, Creeda." But the damage was done.

Kitto wrapped his legs around my waist like a child clinging for comfort. He hugged himself to me and buried his face against my shoulder.

I looked up at Kurag. "I didn't know your queen knew Kitto that well."

"She didn't."

I patted Kitto's back and wasn't sure I believed him, but I couldn't think of a good reason for him to lie. "Then I don't understand his level of fear around her."

"Creeda, like most of our women, is eager to try a goblin who is also sidhe. He will have his choice of females at the banquet." Kurag didn't look particularly happy about it, and I wasn't exactly sure why, but it didn't matter, not really.

"Goblins will rape an enemy, or a prisoner, but they do not rape each other," I said.

Kurag looked past me to Rhys. "Your pale prince knows just what we do to prisoners." He gave an ill-tempered leer, as if he was happy to be back on ground he enjoyed. He liked teasing Rhys.

Rhys moved on the bed behind me. He'd been very still during the scene with Kitto. "I know I was a fool, Kurag. The princess has told me that I could have saved myself a great deal of pain, if I'd known what to ask for."

Kurag's leer faded into a frown. "A sidhe admitting he is a fool, it's a miracle."

I glanced back just enough to catch Rhys's nod. "We are an arrogant race, but some of us can learn from our mistakes."

"And what have you learned, pale prince?"

"That before we arrive for any banquet at your court we'll be very clear on what can happen to us, and what can't. To all of us, including Kitto."

"Now, that's arrogant," Kurag said. "No sidhe can deny the goblins access to another goblin."

I added, "If Kitto doesn't want to be with the women, then he can say no."

"I will have a taste of him," Creeda said.

"Not if he says no," I said.

"I will have him," she said, leaning toward the glass.

Kitto cringed in against me. "Control your queen, Kurag," I said.

"Why, she's one of hundreds who feel the same, Merry."

I held Kitto closer. "He might not survive the attentions of hundreds of goblinesses."

Kurag shrugged. "We're immortal. We heal."

I shook my head, but it was Rhys who answered. "No, we won't give Kitto over to that."

"He is mine," Kurag said, that grumbling roar trickling into his voice. "I have given him to Merry, but he is still mine. I am his king, and I say what will and what won't happen to him."

"Kurag," I said, and when those nearly orange eyes were upon me, I continued. "I know your laws. You do not rape your own people, not unless they have broken some law and you have deemed it fit punishment for the crime."

"There is one exception to the rule, Merry."

I must have looked as puzzled as I felt. "I know of no exception to this rule." Silently, I thought, Except that to refuse your ruler is a dangerous thing.

"I thought your father made sure you were versed in our ways."

"So did I," I said, "but you do not force yourself on each other; there's no need. There is always some willing partner close at hand."

"But if one of us sells his body for safety and shelter, then he gives up the right to refuse his body to anyone. Only his protector can dictate who can touch him, and who cannot."

I was still frowning.

Kurag sighed. "Merry, did you not wonder how I was so sure Kitto would go with you, and do what you wanted?"

I thought about that, then answered, "No, if our queen had bid one of her guard go with me and do what I wanted, he'd have done it. It's not our law, but it's unhealthy to refuse the queen. I assumed that it was the same with your people."

"I gave you Kitto because I knew his protector had grown tired of him. We are a hard people, Merry, but I had no desire to watch Kitto be torn apart if he could not find someone to take him in. A good king watches over all his people."

I nodded. Kurag was crude, lecherous, ruled by his temper at times, but no one had ever accused him of not tending his people, all his people. It was one of the reasons that he'd never faced a serious challenge to his kingship. He was hard, but fair. Half his people feared him, and the other half loved him, because he kept them safe.

"I didn't know that any goblin needed that kind of protection," I said. Kitto went very still against me, and I could almost smell his fear. Fear of what I'd think of him now.

"The fate of a half-sidhe among us is not pretty, Merry. Most die young before they come into that famed sidhe magic. But there are many among us who long to have a sidhe in our bed. A lot of your half-breeds end up trading their flesh for safety."

He was talking about prostitution, a concept unheard of among the fey, at least in faerie itself. Outside faerie, well, an exile has to make a living, and there were a few who made it that way. But even then, it was more a way to make the fey's usual joys pay off. We are a traditionally lusty lot, and sex is sex to some of us. No judgment, just truth. But the goblins did not even have a word for prostitute. A more alien concept for their society would have been hard to come by.