«Let go, Galen, it's hurting me.»

He released me slowly, reluctantly.

I sat in the seat, taking deep even breaths, trying to work past the last vestiges of the power. «That hurt. I mean that really hurt.»

«You just don't like electricity,» Rhys said.

«I like it just fine in lamps, or computers, but not on my skin, thank you.»

«You're just no fun,» he said.

I frowned at him, but looked back at Galen, still kneeling before me and looking disappointed. I knew part of his look was from the ring not working for him as it had for the others, but that might not have been all of it. «How about you?» I asked him, gently. «Do you like electricity, too?»

He looked puzzled, but said, «I've never tried it in anything but small appliances.»

«Did what the ring do just now feel good to you?»

«Yes.»

I made a mental note. Even if I didn't like electricity as foreplay, if some of the men did, then things could be worked out. I was willing to use it on them for their pleasure, as long as I didn't have to experience it more than to check the strength of it. You never hook anything up to anyone else that you haven't let bite your own skin. Just a rule. You don't have to enjoy it yourself, but you do have to know what it's doing to the person who does.

«It would seem,» Doyle said, «that the ring has grown in strength in every way.»

I nodded. «I don't remember it ever giving that strong of a power surge before.»

«But it didn't do between us what it did with Rhys and Frost,» Galen said, sounding as unhappy as he looked. Whatever emotion flowed through Galen, you always knew it. It filled his face, his eyes. He'd begun to have moments when he could hide his feelings. I'd both been happy to see it and mourned the necessity of it. Galen with every thought clear in his eyes for all to read was damn near a political liability in the courts. He needed to master his outward emotions, but I had not enjoyed watching the process. It felt like we were stealing some of the innocent joy that made Galen, Galen.

I touched his face with my left hand, the hand I didn't wear the ring on. The queen had always worn the ring on her left hand, and I had first put it on the same hand, out of habit, and found the ring preferred being on my right hand. So it got to be on my right hand. I did not argue with relics of power any more than I could help it.

I pressed my hand against his cheek. He raised sad green eyes to me. «Rhys and Frost have come into their godhead. I think that's all the extra sensation between us meant.»

«I'd love to argue,» Rhys said, «but I agree with Merry.»

«You really think so?» Galen asked, the way a child would, trusting that if you said a thing, then it would be true.

I stroked my fingers down the side of his face, from the soft warmth of his temple to the curve of his chin. «I don't just think it, Galen, I believe it.»

«I believe it as well,» Doyle said. «So as long as Meredith touches the other guards only briefly, it should not be a problem. All of the Unseelie Court knows that the ring is alive once more on her hand. Though perhaps not how very alive it has become.»

«It was growing stronger even before the chalice returned,» I said.

He nodded. «That is why we put it away in a drawer, so it would not discomfort our lovemaking.»

Rhys did an exaggerated pout. «And I was having such fun.»

My hand was still touching Galen, but I said to Rhys, «Do you want to be strapped down and have me run electricity along your skin?»

Rhys reacted as if I'd slapped him. The reaction of just thinking about it shuddering through his body. Watching him respond that strongly to the idea of it made me want to do it. Made me want to give him that much pleasure. «That was a big yes,» I said.

He managed a breathy, «Oh, yes.»

Galen was laughing, softly.

Rhys frowned at him. «What's so funny, green man?»

Galen was laughing so hard that it took him two tries to say, «You're a death god.»

«Yeah, so what?» Rhys asked.

Galen sat flat on the floor, his knees tucked up in the smaller space, but turned so he could see Rhys. «I have this image in my head of you hooked up like Frankenstein's monster.»

Rhys started to get angry, then he couldn't manage it. He smiled, a little, and the smile just got bigger until he was laughing with Galen.

«Who is Frankenstein's monster?» Frost asked.

That got them laughing even harder, and spread the laughter through the plane to those who knew the answer. Only Doyle and Frost were left out of the joke. The others had embraced television and all it could offer while in California. Even Kitto was laughing from under his blanket in the back. I don't know if the joke was that good, or you just had to be there, or if it was tension. I was betting on tension, because when the pilot told us we'd be landing in fifteen minutes, it just didn't seem that funny anymore.