Mistrals Kiss   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

Of the fifteen guards, most were on their knees, or worse. Some had fallen flat to the floor to writhe on their stomachs, as if they were trapped in the flowing golden liquid, as if it were liquid amber and they were insects about to be caught forever. And they fought against their fate.

Lines of blue, or green, or red, traced their bodies. I caught glimpses of animals, vines, images drawn over their skin, like tattoos that were alive and growing.

Doyle and Rhys stood in the growing tide and seemed unmoved. But Doyle stared at his hands and arms, at lines tracing those strong arms, crimson against that blackness. Rhys’s body was painted with palest blue, but he didn’t watch the lines; he watched me and Abeloec. Frost, also, stood in the writhing spill of liquid, but he, like Doyle, stared at the tracing of lines that glowed over his skin. Nicca stood tall and straight with his brown hair and the brilliant spill of his wings, like the sails of some faerie ship, but no lines covered his skin: He remained untouched.

It was Barinthus, tallest of all the sidhe, who had moved to the door. He stood pressed to it, avoiding the spill of mead that seemed to creep like a thing alive across the floor. He held on to the door handle as if it would not open. As if we were trapped here until the magic had its way with us.

A small sound drew me back to gaze at the bed, and Kitto still perched there, safe above the flowing mead. His eyes were wide, as if he was afraid, regardless. He was afraid of so much.

Abeloec rubbed his cheek across my thigh. It brought me back to him. Back to gazing into those dark, almost human eyes. The glow of his skin and mine had dimmed. I realized that he’d paused to let me look around the room.

Now his hands slid under my thighs, and he lowered his face, hesitating, as if he were coming in for a chaste kiss. But what he did with his mouth wasn’t chaste. He plunged his tongue thick and sure across me. The sensation threw my head back, bowed my spine.

Upside down, I saw the door open, saw the surprised look on the face of Barinthus as Mistral, the queen’s new captain of the guard, strode in. His hair the grey of rain clouds. Once he had been the master of storms, a sky god. Now he strode into the room and slipped on the mead, started to fall. Then it was as if the world blinked. One moment he was falling near the door; the next he was above me, falling toward me. He put his hands out to try to catch himself, and I put my arms up to keep him from falling on top of me.

His hand caught the floor, but my hand touched his chest.