One large lump on his right shoulder held an eye. A wandering eye, the goblins called it, because it wandered away from the face. Kurag's other eyes were a yellow that bordered on orange, but the eye at his shoulder was lavender, with a spill of black lashes to frame it. There was a mouth on his chest, to one side, that matched that lavender eye, lovely lips, and straight, almost human-looking teeth. The small pair of arms on the side of his body near the eye and mouth waved at me.
I waved back and said, "Greetings, Kurag, Goblin King. Greetings also to Kurag's twin, Goblin King's Flesh." The stray bits were part of a parasitic twin trapped in the goblin's body. The mouth could breathe, but not speak. The eyes and hands moved independently of Kurag. When I was a child, I'd played cards with the hands while my father and Kurag did business. I was sixteen before I realized that it was a whole separate person trapped inside the other male's body. At sixteen Kurag had shown me both his own manhood and that of his twin. He'd thought the idea of two penises would impress me. He'd been wrong.
I'd never truly been comfortable around Kurag after that. The thought of one thinking being trapped in the body of another, unable to speak or choose his own way, or even his own sexual partners, had filled me with a horror that no other trick of genetics among the fey had ever quite exceeded.
From the night I'd realized that the extra bits were a different person, I'd greeted them both. To my knowledge, I was the only person who did so.
"Greetings, Merry, Princess of the Sidhe." He looked at his queen, and she scampered clown from the great wooden chair. She made sure he didn't have to look at her twice. Kurag was not above hitting her if she was slow to do his bidding. In fact, he wasn't slow to hurt anyone who displeased him. The goblins feared him, and they feared little.
He settled himself into the chair. It creaked under his thick bulk. I don't mean to imply that Kurag was fat; he was not. He was just solid. "We have talked and maneuvered this last moon span, but it was Creeda who said it. If Kitto is not truly sidhe, then we talk for nothing."
"We have told you he is sidhe. The sidhe may try to trick, but we are forbidden to lie outright."
"Let us say we wish to see it with our own eyes." He wore that look that said he was a lot smarter than he appeared, and a lot less ruled by his desires. There was a shrewd mind in that powerful body. Most of the time he hid it, but today he seemed strangely serious, business-like. I wondered what had happened to take the teasing out of Kurag.
I almost asked, then knew it would have been a mistake. One fey does not admit to another that he is so easy to read. It simply isn't done, especially if one of them happens to be king. It is never wise to let any king know that you see too deeply into him.
"What did you have in mind, Kurag?"
His gaze switched from me to Rhys, who had moved up to stand to one side of me. "I see our white knight." This was usually Rhys's cue to say, I'm not your white knight. Today he just smiled.
Kurag frowned. I don't think he liked his insult being ignored. He held out a great yellow hand, and his queen came to him. He picked her up one-handed as if she were light as air, and sat her on his lap. "Creeda longs for a taste of sidhe flesh. She didn't get to f**k the white knight when he was here."
I felt rather than saw Rhys stiffen beside me. He wasn't going to be able to pull this off. I'd asked too much of him. Damn it.
But I'd underestimated Rhys.
He sat down on the bed. I glanced behind to see that he sat leaning forward, making the top of the robe gape, framing his chest, white surrounding white like a piece of smooth ivory wrapped up in a cloud. He propped his heels on the underpart of the bed so the robe parted in the middle, not showing much flesh, but giving the promise that only a little more movement would flaunt his legs, his thighs, all of him.
A small sound drew me back to the mirror. Creeda was making a high, thin noise in her throat. I think it was supposed to be provocative. It came out as an animal sound, but not a sound of any animal that had ever worn fur. There was something definitely insect-like about the noise.
"You gonna flash us?" Kurag asked.
Rhys just smiled.
Kurag's eyes narrowed. I watched the first flush of anger start across his face. In that moment, I realized that Rhys's teasing could backfire, badly.
Doyle stepped into the heavy silence. He pushed away from the post of the bed where he'd been leaning, watching the show. He came to stand on the far side of Rhys, even though there was room to stand on my other side. He was far less dressed, damn near naked, but neither Kurag nor his queen teased Doyle. He was still the Queen's Darkness or, simply, Darkness. The goblins can say what they like, but they were afraid of the Dark, just like everyone else.
"The time for our trip grows near, Kurag, Goblin King, and we need to know if we are visiting your sithen. Is Princess Meredith to grace the goblins' court, or not?" He leaned his long, dark body against the dark wood of the bedpost. He usually stood at attention, but I think he, like Rhys, was playing with the goblins. His arms were crossed over his chest so that the nipple ring glittered against his arm. Even his legs were crossed at the ankle. The bathing suit was so close to the color of his black skin that he looked nude. I knew just how much more compelling he looked with that last bit of cloth gone, but the goblins didn't.
Creeda was making that high-pitched noise again. She reached out with three of her hands, as if she'd try to touch the Darkness.
Kurag pulled her hands back, hugging her to him. A set of her hands moved to caress him. It might have been a nervous gesture, or she might have been so moved by the sight of the men that she needed sex. In goblin culture if you needed sex, you just took it, wherever you happened to be or whatever you happened to be doing. It made business meetings with them, odd.