A Caress Of Twilight   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

Where a larger lover would have smoothedthem with his mouth or fingertips, Sage played with them as if he was making music along my skin — soundless music that only he could hear, but I could feel it. It played along my skin, my arm, as if it were all larger, more than was actually happening.

I flung him sharply into the air, where he buzzed at me like an angry bee. "Why did you do that? We were having so much fun."

"No glamour, remember," I said, scowling up at him, clutching my sheet.

"Without glamour the feeding will not be nearly so pleasant for you." He shrugged his thin shoulders, the movement making him dip in midair. "For me it is much the same, for Niceven's purposes it is much the same, but for you, fair princess, it is not the same. Let me save you some pain and discomfort, and let this be a friendly sharing."

If he'd caught me on another day when Kitto's bite didn't still ache, I might have told him no, just to take his queen's blood and be done with it. Goblins could not do glamour of any kind, so Kitto had had no choice; without the natural glamour of sex to soften his feeding, there was nothing he could do magically. Sage was offering me a choice.

I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then nodded. "Just enough glamour to make it pleasant, but that's all, Sage. If you try for more than that, I'll call for the guards and you won't like what they'll do to you."

He made a sound that would have been rude, except that it came out like a tiny trumpet, as if a butterfly could make an ass's bray. "Darkness has been waiting centuries for me to put a foot out of line, Princess. I know well, perhaps better than you, what he owes me."

"I noticed it seemed personal between you, more than with the others."

"Personal? You could say that." He smiled, and it managed to be pleasant and evil at the same time, as if he was imagining terrible things that would be a great deal of fun to do.

I could have asked Sage what was so personal, but I didn't. Either Doyle would explain or I would never know. I didn't think Doyle would take kindly to me prying his secrets from a fey he hated. It was one thing to gain information from one friend about another friend, but you didn't talk to people's enemies about your friends, and you didn't let those enemies talk to you behind your friends' backs. It just wasn't kosher.

"You may feed, Sage, and you may use a little glamour to keep it from being so unpleasant. But mind your manners."

"Do you need to look so far for protection? You have your goblin there beside you.