A Lick Of Frost   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

He raised huge almond-shaped eyes to me, a swimming pure blue the way Holly and Ash's eyes were completely one color. Except Kitto's eyes were blue, a wonderful clear blue like a pale sapphire, or a morning sky.

"Who are you hiding from today, Merry?" he asked, voice gentle.

I smiled at him from my nest of pillows. "How do you know I'm hiding?"

"It's why you come here, to hide."

I traced the edge of his cheek. But for a few chance genes he would have been like Holly and Ash, tall and sidhe beautiful with the extra strength and stamia of the goblins.

"I told you, I'm not feeling well."

He smiled, and propped himself up on one elbow so that he was looking slightly down at me. "That is true, but there is a sorrow to you that I would lift if you only tell me how."

"Just don't make me talk of politics. I need to rest if I am to do my duty tonight."

He traced his finger down the side of my face from temple to chin. It was a long, slow movement that made me close my eyes and catch my breath.

"Is that how you see the goblins you will bed tonight, as a duty?"

I opened my eyes. "It is not that they are goblins that makes them a duty."

He smiled, sliding his hand into my hair. "I know that. It is who they are, what they are, and you do not feel your best."

"They frighten me, Kitto."

His face was sober. "I fear them, too."

"Did they ever use you ill?"

"They have not much liking for male flesh. I have serviced them a time or two when they came to bed my master."

Kitto had survived in a culture more violent than any in faerie by doing what some people have to do in prison to survive. They choose someone powerful, or are chosen, and become their property. It was looked down upon, but strangely was honored as a profession. On one hand, goblins like Kitto were the victims of cruel humor; on the other hand, they were highly valued by their masters. Master was not a sexist term in goblin nomenclature. It could be male or female. It was simply the term for one who owned a slave.

"Serviced them?" I made it a question.

"I believe in pornography I would be what is termed a fluffer. They do everything together, do the brothers. I helped keep one ready while the other finished."

He said it as if it were the most normal thing in the world. There was no condemnation, no anger, nothing. It was the way of his world once. The only world he'd known until his king gave him to me.