Laurell K. Hamilton MD 03 Seduced By Moonlight

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anxious. "I thought for a moment, Merry " He shook his head, and bit his lip,
before he could finish. " I thought we'd lost you." He leaned over me, as if
he'd kiss me, but was careful not to touch. "I thought I'd lost you."
I raised my hand to touch his face, and Doyle called from across the room.
"Not yet, Princess. Let's be cautious until I've heard Galen's half of the
story."
I lowered my hand reluctantly. I didn't like it, but it wasn't worth the risk,
not yet. "Fine."
Galen smiled at me as he slid off the bed. "Just for now, Merry, just for
now." He walked across the room toward the huddled group. He had a way of
walking as if he danced, danced to some music that only he could hear.
Sometimes when he held me, I could almost hear it; almost.
Nicca came to stand at the foot of the bed. He'd regained his breath, but he
still looked scared.
Intellectually, I knew he was centuries older than Galen, but he seemed
younger than the other guards.
Age in years doesn't always tell the tale. He looked very young, and very
worried as he leaned his six-foot frame against the edge of the bed. His hair
fell in a shining brown curtain nearly to his knees.
He'd left it loose, and his deep brown dress slacks and suit jacket peeked
through the richer brown of his hair. The hair framed the moss green of his
T-shirt, so that I was more aware than normal of how nice his chest was. The
T-shirt was silk, a gift from Maeve. She'd given all the men silk tees in
varying colors to complement their skin tone. She'd given me a shopping spree
at her favorite stores, on the theory that as a woman I'd be happier picking
out my own clothes, and the men would rather have the choices made for them.
She was half right. Though everyone had taken the gifts, they then traded the
colors around among themselves until everyone was happy.
The moss-green shirt had originally been Galen's, but it looked better on
Nicca, brought out the rich brown of his skin. It had just made Galen look
green. That rich brown body in its tailored suit sat down on the far edge of
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the bed. He flipped his hair out of the way without thinking about it, the way
a woman would. "You look better than you did a few minutes ago." His voice
held an edge of shakiness.
"How did I look?"
He blinked at me and turned away as if he knew how easily his thoughts played
across his face. "Pale, very, very pale." He looked back at me with what I
think was supposed to be a poker face, but wasn't.
There was too much tightness around his eyes, too much worry in their
perfectly brown depths. He glanced toward the far side of the room. The huddle
had broken up, and everyone was walking this way.
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Doyle looked down at me, his face inscrutable darkness. I'd have played poker
with Nicca or Galen any day, but never Doyle. When he didn't want me to read
his face, I couldn't.
"Meredith, Princess, we need to understand what is happening, but I cannot
think of a way to guarantee your safety and still explore this problem."
I tried to read something from his dark face, and couldn't. "What does that
mean, exactly, Doyle?"
"It means that we must experiment, and I do not know what will come of those
experiments."
"Experiment how?" I asked.
"Maeve believes that you have reawakened the true magic within her her
godhead, for lack of a better term. She was once a goddess in truth, so you
have only returned what was lost. But Frost was not a deity, and to him you
have given powers that never flowed within his body." He managed to look grim
without ever having changed expression.
"She told me the theory. She even mentioned a goddess name to go along with
it, but Doyle, I am not
Danu. I am so not a deity. How could it possibly be true?"
"When we fought the Nameless and it spilled wild magic on all of us, I believe
there were powers that needed a goddess-shaped vessel to hold them. Maeve had
been taken to safety by the time the fight ended. You were the only
goddess-shaped vessel, Meredith. You were the closest the power could find to
what it needed."
I blinked up at him. I was tired of lying on the bed. If I was going to have
to listen to tricky philosophical theories, the least I could do was not be
flat on my back. I tried to sit up, winced, but kept at it. Nicca started to
help me, but Doyle waved him back, then seemed to think better of it and
motioned him to help me.
Nicca touched my arm, helped steady me, and it was just a warm touch. There
was no magic to it, except the touch of skin to skin. Nicca fluffed pillows
behind me so that I could sit propped up. When nothing happened at that first
touch, he touched me where he needed to, until I was comfortable, or as
comfortable as I was going to get.
"If Nicca's touch had caused another gathering of power, I don't know what we
would have done, but if
Nicca can touch you with impunity, then I think we should see how safe the
rest of us are." He motioned, and Maeve stepped up beside him.
"Touch her."
Maeve looked at him as if she weren't accustomed to being ordered around. Then
she took a deep breath and had to crawl on the edge of the bed to reach me.
Maeve was not a short woman, and that spoke to how truly large the bed was.
She hesitated, a moment, searching my face.
"Do it," I said.
She did. The palm of her hand was warm and dry and soft, but nothing more.
There was no pull of
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magic to it. We both looked at Doyle, with her hand still pressed to my
shoulder. "Nothing's happening,"
she said.
"Try a little flare of power," Doyle said.
"Do you think that's safe?" Rhys asked.
"We need to know," Doyle said.
"She's been through a lot today. As long as we can all touch her, I think we
can wait on experimenting with power."
Doyle turned so that they were facing each other beside the bed. "It is your
night with the princess tonight, Rhys. Do you really believe you can be with
her and it not be a thing of power?"
Rhys glared up at him, the hand without the gun forming a fist. He was quiet
for almost a full minute, then finally, reluctantly, he said, "No."
"None of us can be with her without it being a thing of power, Rhys. We must
know now, while there are more of us to help, if our magic will bring this on
again. Whatever it is."
"I have told you what it is, Doyle," Maeve said. "Why will none of you believe
me?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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