A Stroke Of Midnight   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

CHAPTER 28

THE BATH WAS STILL HOT WHEN I FINALLY SLID INTO IT, WHICH meant that Kitto had drawn it hotter than I liked. He had known that we would talk too long and had planned for it. He’d begun to anticipate my needs, not in the way of a lover or a friend, but in the way of a good servant. Unobtrusive, quiet, just there when needed. No friend or lover I’d ever had had been unobtrusive. Messy, joyous, heartbreaking, wonderful, but never unobtrusive.

I looked at him as Galen slid into the bath. Kitto was one of the oldest of my men, and the oldest among us don’t always liked being thanked, so I didn’t. “You drew the water too hot, so it would be just right by the time we got in the tub. You knew we’d talk too long.”

He ducked his head, not meeting my eyes. “There was much to talk of.”

I leaned against the edge of the marble tub, until I could touch his shoulder. “You always seem to know what I’m going to do before I do.”

He raised eyes that were unsullied by white, only a bright clear blue. I saw uncertainty there before he lowered them again. “What’s wrong, Kitto?” I asked, stroking my fingers up and down his bare shoulder. He’d stripped down to just a thong, as he often did when he did anything messy. To save his clothes, he said. I got the feeling that Kitto owned more clothes now, with me, than he’d ever owned in the goblin court.

He shook his head, sending the black curls of his newly grown hair brushing across his shoulders. A few inches longer and it would have been punishable by torture. Only the sidhe were allowed long hair. He was sidhe now, with his own hand of power. As with Nicca’s wings and Mistral’s reborn power, so Kitto’s sidhe magic had come after sex. With the new power should have come a new confidence, but it had not.

Galen leaned over the tub edge to touch Kitto’s other shoulder. “What’s up, Kitto, you can tell us.”

Kitto flashed him a rare smile. “You are both the kindest sidhe I’ve ever known.” He glanced behind at Nicca. “All of you.”

“You’re sidhe now, too, Kitto,” I said.

He shook his head. “I will never be truly sidhe, not to some.”

Nicca knelt behind him, his wings sweeping out along the floor. “Who has been saying such things to you?”

Kitto shook his head again, and Nicca’s arms came around from behind, hugging him. Kitto stiffened, as if afraid. I leaned up over the tub edge until I could lay a kiss upon his lips. When I drew back from the kiss, he raised frightened eyes to me.