"Why?" Maeve asked, and she looked genuinely puzzled.

Galen raised his hand. "Ooh, I can answer this one."

Maeve turned puzzled eyes to him.

"Merry's creeped out that the Goddess climbed inside her."

"That's not it," I said.

"That the power of the Goddess is inside you," he said, and the teasing softened as he said it.

"Maybe awed more than creeped out," I offered.

"You should be honored," Maeve said, hugging me.

"I am honored," I said, "but this particular honor almost killed me."

Maeve's face looked suddenly solemn. "Yes, and it would have been my fault."

"No," I said.

"I played you with my magic, Merry. I tried to seduce you because all the men keep turning me down for you." She kissed the top of my head. "I thought, If you can't beat them, join them." She hugged me tight enough that I couldn't see her face when she said, "I want sidhe flesh, Merry. I want a glow to match my own to throw shadows on the walls in the dark." Her voice was fierce.

"Will you settle for a kiss?" I offered, my voice muffled against her shoulder.

She leaned back enough to show me a smile. "If it comes with magic, yes."

"I guess if it doesn't come with magic, we won't know if the Goddess energy will remanifest."

She smiled and raised a perfectly arched eyebrow. "I suppose not."

"Was it a kiss with power that did Frost as well?" Doyle asked.

"Yes," Maeve and Galen answered in unison.

"Frost freed her from Maeve's power, and then it was as if he couldn't help himself." Galen looked out into the room, as if he were visualizing what had happened. "This look came over his face just before he bent down and kissed her." He blinked and looked back at Doyle. "He looked bespelled."

"Where is he now?" Doyle asked.

No one knew the answer. "Queen's curse take it," Doyle said, "Nicca, Galen, find him, bring him here."

Nicca turned for the door, but Galen hesitated. "What if Merry needs us?"

"Go," Doyle said, "now." And the way he said it brooked no argument.

Galen gave me a last glance then joined Nicca at the door, and they went through it at a jog.

"He just didn't want to miss the show," Rhys said.

"What show?" I asked.

He grinned at me. "Two of the most beautiful women I know locked in an embrace. There are people who would pay to watch."

I shook my head. Sitting by Maeve Reed, the epitome of Seelie beauty, I didn't feel beautiful. Something must have shown on my face because Maeve touched my chin, raised me to meet her eyes. "You are beautiful, Merry, and having once been a goddess of beauty, I should know."

"I look too human," I said softly.

"Why do you think our men have been stealing human women away for centuries? Because they're ugly?" She shook her head, and there was a soft chiding in her face. "Merry, Merry, know your worth." That gold light began to pulse inside her skin, as if someone had lit a candle deep within her and the light was growing closer, flowing through her body, until she glowed like the sun stretched inside her skin. The power shivered over me, sped my pulse, brought my own pale light gloaming through my skin so that I rose moon to her sun.

Her hair began to move in the wind, that warm wind. Her eyes filled with light, and again it was like staring into the heart of a spring storm, flashing with lightning, ripping the heavens apart, but instead of rain, it was her power that fell upon me. I turned my face up to that power as if it truly would rain down upon me.

Her hands curved over my bare skin, as if the bathing suit wasn't there. She held me in her arms, and I went willingly, my own hands sliding up the warm skin of her bare arms. It seemed wrong that she wore so many clothes. We needed to touch more skin than this. I realized that I was sensing Maeve's skin-hunger. Her need for sidhe flesh to cover her own. I remembered the hunger all too well, and it had only been satisfied for me four months back. So long, so lonely. I couldn't tell if it was my feelings or hers, and I knew that that was part of her magic. To project her needs and make them my own.

I reached for the buttons on her vest, but they were too small, too hard to open. I got two fistfuls of cloth and yanked. The buttons went flying, making small sounds as they hit the walls, the bed, and the men.

Maeve gasped, eyes wide, and drowning with need. Her breasts were pointed with large round nipples that seemed to shine as if they'd been carved of some thick, red jewel. I ran my hands over her bare stomach. The white glow of my hands made the golden glow of her skin pulse and fade, growing brighter at my touch, fading slightly as I moved my hands around the warmth of her waist. My hands slid upward until my thumbs and fingers rested just below her breasts. If a man had touched me here, my breasts would have hung over his hands, but Maeve's were small and tight, and still untouched.

The glow of her magic pulsed under my hands, bright and brighter, as if she had started to burn just underneath her breasts. She moaned, "Please!"

I realized in that moment that I'd pushed clear of her need, no longer feeling it as my own. I was deep in power, but about this one thing I was clear. If I touched her, it would be my choice.

I gazed up at her, head thrown back, eyes half closed. Her need still rode the air like some musky perfume, but now I could breathe it in and not drown. I stared at the bright gold of the power under my hands, and wondered what it would feel like to have that much power brushed across my breasts. This much I could give her.

I said, "Kiss me, Maeve."

She opened her eyes enough to look in my direction, but she couldn't focus; she was already half gone from the touch of magic and skin.

I repeated, "Kiss me."

She lowered her head, and I waited, waited until our mouths touched, then I caressed my hands upward over the mounds of her breasts. She pressed her mouth harder against mine, and the kiss became something deep and urgent, then my hands slid to the hardness of her nipples, and it was as if the world exploded. Power rocked us backward onto the bed so that she fell on top of me and my hands were locked on her breasts, as if I'd put my hands on a live wire and now couldn't get free.

Part of me didn't want free. Part of me wanted to sink into the golden glow of her, and be lost. She rose above me, quivering, shrieking, jerking against my hands where they seemed melded to her flesh. She ground her hips against mine, and if I'd been male, she'd have hurt me. But I wasn't male, and some part of my magic kept her amazing orgasm from jumping to me. The power pulsed wave after wave through my body while Maeve danced above me, but that ultimate pleasure was hers and hers alone. Somehow it seemed right. She'd waited so long.

She opened her eyes in the midst of it all, and she must have seen my face, understood that I was giving to her, but not taking, and she didn't like that. She pressed her hand to my stomach, and my white glow intensified under her touch. It was like being touched by spring's warmth, something heavy and rich that shivered and throbbed against my skin. I had a moment to wonder if that's what my hands felt like on her breasts when she slid her hand down the front of my bathing suit, and slid her finger between my legs. The moment that throbbing, pulsing power thrilled along my flesh, the orgasm burst from my body in waves, as if her touch were a stone thrown into a deep lake, and each ripple was another ring of pleasure, and where the stone slid downward pleasure followed. It was like being caressed and mined with sex all at the same time.

I came back to myself still on the bed with Maeve collapsed on top of me. I couldn't hear her ragged breathing for the pulse in my own ears, but I could feel the rise and fall of her chest as she struggled to breathe, as we both struggled to breathe past the pounding of the pulses in our throats.