I'd seen myself with my magic naked for all to see, but never like this. It was as if I truly burned with power this night.

«You don't want me, Merry,» Frost said. «I wasn't born sidhe. I'm not fit consort for a goddess.»

I turned and gazed at him with my burning eyes. I half-expected the movement to change my vision, but it didn't. It seemed like it should. «I saw you dancing across the snow. You were like some beautiful child.»

«I was never a child, Merry. I was never born. I was a thought, or a thing, a concept if you will. Yes, a concept given life by the gods. Given life by the very gods whose power now runs through my body. Their jealousy at watching me grow and become the Killing Frost was why I could not stay at the Seelie Court.»

I moved away from the mirror, toward him. «Are they so much less than the queen's Killing Frost?»

«That's just it, Merry, they were my equal. I might best them at weapons, but they looked at me and remembered a time when I was less, and they were more, and it hurt them.»

«So they turned you out,» I said.

He nodded.

I stood in front of him now, so close that I ran my fingers across his robe, so lightly that all I felt was the silk and not the body underneath. But I wanted the body underneath. I had a sudden image in my head, bright and immediate, of pressing my body along Frost's pale skin until he was smeared with that glowing wash of color. It was so real that it closed my eyes, arched my back, flung my hands outward.

Frost's hands caught my arms. «Merry, are you all right?»

I opened my eyes, found his face worried. I looked down at his hands where they held my forearms. It was one of the few inches of skin that held no color, so that his hands were still just white. «I'm better than all right, Frost.» My voice sounded strange, deeper, almost hollow, as if I had become an empty shell that my voice echoed out of. I drew my arms out of his hands and pulled on the sash of his robe. One firm tug and the sash unwound, the robe beginning to open.

Frost grabbed my hands this time. «I don't want to hurt you.»

I laughed, and it had a wild sound to it. «You won't hurt me.»

His grip on my hands tightened until it was almost painful. «You are power-ridden, Meredith, but that doesn't mean you aren't still mortal.»

«You can only get godhead once, and you've had your turn,» I said. «Now it's just extra magic that you have to learn to deal with. It's simply a matter of discipline, practice, and control.» I pulled on my hands, and he loosened his grip, enough for me to pull free. I reached into that open edge of robe, found the smaller tie that still held it closed, and pulled on it. The robe fell open, revealing a thin line of pale flesh. «And I know you are disciplined, Frost, controlled,» I slid my hands inside that silk, touched the skin underneath, «and if practice makes perfect, that is certainly you.»

He laughed then, abrupt and almost startling in its sudden joy. «Why is it that you can make me feel better? I almost killed you today.»

I ran my hands up his body, traced the edge of his chest, ran fingers over his nipples, made him catch his breath. «We all got surprised today, Frost. But I seem to be getting better at bringing godhead to the sidhe.» I spilled my hands to his shoulders, having to stand on tiptoe, to push the robe off his arms. He drew away from the wall enough for the robe to cascade to the floor, where it lay like a puddle of grey silk at his feet.

«I can see that,» he said in a voice that grew ever deeper, ever more breathless.

I gazed upon him nude, and found him as beautiful as the first time I'd seen him. The joy of Frost unclothed never diminished. He was almost too beautiful to gaze upon, as if it hurt my heart to see him.

I laid a kiss on his chest, over his heart. I licked his skin, then gave his nipple a quick flick of movement that made him shudder and laugh at the same time. I gazed up into that laughing face, and thought, this, this was what I wanted from him. More than the sex, more than almost anything, his joy.

He gazed down at me, his grey eyes shining with the edge of his laughter. «I look in your eyes and there's no difference.»

I began to kiss my way down his chest. «Difference?» I asked.

«You don't think less of me,» he said.

I traced my tongue along the edge of his belly button, bit softly into the skin on either side, let my mouth work lower until I could go no farther without bumping into him, straight and firm, and perfect, pressed against his stomach. I slid my mouth over the velvet tip of him, as I dropped my body to my knees. I fought to swallow along his length, to the base of him. He was really too long for this angle, but I managed. He threw his head back, and closed his eyes. I pulled free of him, just enough to say, «Oh, I think more of you, now, much more.»

I slid back over him, using my hands to guide him inside my mouth. I had closed my eyes, giving myself over to the thick, muscled feel of him in my mouth, concentrating on breathing, swallowing, when I felt his magic dance through his skin, jump inside my mouth. I knew without opening my eyes that his skin had begun to glow. I could feel it against my tongue, my lips.

He balled his hand into my hair and drew me back from him, forced me to gaze up and meet his eyes. «You don't think less of me for not being born sidhe.»

I tried to kiss his body, but his hand tightened, and drew a small gasp from my lips. It sped my pulse more than taking him into my mouth had. «You were breathed to life by a god, Frost. If that's not special enough, I don't know what is.»

He dragged me upward by my hair, pulling me to my feet so abruptly that it hurt, and almost scared me. Not real fear, but the fear that rides the edge of violent sex. He kissed me, and it was fierce, full of probing tongues, eager lips, and teeth; as if he couldn't decide whether to kiss me, or eat me. He pulled back from that kiss, and it left me breathless and dazed.

His eyes glinted like silver ice, and the tips of each strand of hair glittered like frost caught in sunlight. «I want you to cover me in this.» He ran his free hand up my shoulder, came away smeared with iridescent blue, green, purple. He smeared it down my face, across my lips, then kissed me again, messy, hungry. He drew back with his mouth and one cheek covered in glittering color, like bits of neon smeared across his skin.

I threw my arms around his neck, and he wrapped his around my waist, lifting me up so that our bodies slid along one another. The movement smeared the neon colors along his skin, and just the sight of it brought a soft moan from me. We kissed, and I wrapped my legs around his waist, pressing the hard length of him against me. The feel of him there made me grind my hips against the hardness of him, rubbing the wetness of me against him. His knees went weak, and only a hand on the bed caught us. He eased us back against the bed, and the moment my hips were solid against the mattress, he pushed himself inside me.

I screamed, head back, eyes closed, and a second scream echoed mine. It wasn't until Frost stopped moving, frozen above me, that I realized it wasn't him who was screaming.

I opened my eyes and saw that his face was turned away from me, looking over the foot of the bed. The scream sounded again, and it was close, masculine, and wordless in its pain.

Frost pushed off me, rolling over the foot of the bed. I scrambled onto all fours, crawling to the foot of the bed. Frost knelt near Doyle's head. Nicca knelt near his feet. Doyle's spine bowed, his hands scrambling at the air. It was as if every muscle in his body were straining at once in different directions. If he'd been human, I'd have thought poison, but you couldn't poison the sidhe, not with strychnine, at least.

Another shriek tore from his mouth, and his body rocked with the force of the spasms. «Help him!»

Frost shook his head. «I don't know what this is.»

I spilled over the foot of the bed. Before I could touch him, his skin seemed to split, and his body ran like water, if water could scream, and writhe, and bleed.