Creeda stroked his face, half of her eyes on me, half on Kurag. For whatever reason, I made the Goblin Queen nervous. Kurag had proposed marriage once upon a time, but I think it was desire for sidhe magic in the goblin bloodline more than true desire for me. Oh, Kurag would fuck me if I'd let him, but that wasn't much of a compliment. Kurag would probably have fucked anything if it held still long enough.

I sat up straighter and began to fuss with the robe as if I were hot. "Why not a year for each of the ones I bring over? Yes" —I looked up from undoing the sash of my robe—"yes, I like that. A year for each of them, and that includes Kitto." I opened the robe to frame the rest of my body. To show clearly how little I was wearing.

"No, no year. If you stripped naked for me, you could not get a year."

I smiled up at him, putting the shine into my tricolored eyes, two shades of green and a circle of gold. "And you cannot bargain me down to a day."

He laughed then, a deep, rolling belly laugh. It held all the unfettered joy that the goblins had—and that the sidhe seemed to be missing these years. There was other masculine laughter from out of sight of the mirror. I knew Kurag and Creeda were not alone. I wondered whom he trusted enough to hear us bargain.

"You are your father's daughter, Merry, I'll give you that. You know your worth."

I looked down, playing coy, because I didn't want him to see my face clearly. I was thinking too hard, and wasn't sure I could keep it off my face. I needed to get Kurag to agree to what we wanted. All he had to do to keep me from succeeding was simply say no. I needed him to say yes. The question was how to overcome his natural caution about interfering in sidhe business. How could I get him to agree to something he didn't want to do? Or maybe was afraid to want.

I let the robe fall to the floor. "How much can I be worth, if you will not sell sky and earth to see me nude? If I were truly beautiful, you would not have said it." I gave him a face that was questioning, and I put the doubts that I had around the sidhe into my eyes. My own mother had been the worst of my critics. It had only been a few months ago that I'd realized she'd been jealous of me. That I realized my mother looked more human than I did. She had the height and the slenderness of figure, but her hair, her skin, her eyes, they were human. Mine weren't.

Kurag read the doubt in my eyes, and I watched his own gaze cloud over. "You do doubt yourself." He sounded almost awed by it. "I've never met a sidhe woman who didn't believe she was Goddess's gift to males."

"Those same women tell me I am too short to be beautiful," I traced my hands across my breasts, "they say my breasts are too large," I traced down my waist to my hips, "that I curve in places they do not," I traced down my thighs. Sidhe women don't have thighs. I let my hair fall across my face as I moved, so that my eyes gazed at him half hidden behind the scarlet of my hair. "They tell me I am ugly."

He spilled out of his chair, dumping his queen to the floor. He roared, "Who says these things? I will crush their jaws and see them choke on their own lies!"

The outrage on his face, the trembling rage of him—I took it for the compliment it was. I realized in that moment that Kurag might want me for more than just politics or supernatural bloodlines. In that heartbeat, I thought that maybe, just maybe, the Goblin King loved me, in an odd sort of way. I had expected many things today, but not love.

I don't know why, but I suddenly realized there were tears trailing down my face. Crying because some goblin had offered to defend my honor? I gazed up at Kurag, and I let him see what was in my face, my eyes, all of it. Because I realized that I still didn't believe I was beautiful. The guards wanted me because to be without me was to be celibate. They pursued me so they might be king. None of them wanted me, for me. Maybe that was unfair, but how would I ever know why they came to my bed? I looked at Kurag and knew that here was a man who'd known me since I was a child, and he thought I was beautiful, and worth defending, and he would never bed me, never be my king. Knowing that anyone adored me, just for me, meant something. Something I had no words for, but I let Kurag see that I valued it. That I valued him, and how he felt about me.

"Merry-girl, don't cry, Consort save me from that," Kurag said, and his voice was softer, though still rough.

Kitto came up from the floor where he'd been sitting so he could lay his mouth against my cheek. His tongue flicked out, caressing my skin, the twin tips tickling along my cheek. When I didn't protest he licked my cheek, drinking in my tears. The goblins considered most body fluids precious and not to be wasted. I understood what he was doing, and frankly, just then, almost any touch would have done. I slid my arm across his shoulders and leaned into his body as he licked my tears away.

Rhys was behind me, on his knees, on the bed. He hugged me from behind. And because Kitto and I were so close, he was forced to hug Kitto as well. Only those of us in the room understood what a breakthrough it was for him to willingly come that close to Kitto. Just his willingness to do it made me feel better.

"Not a year, Merry, not even for your tears. Not even for that look on your face." Kurag still stood, so wide that he seemed to fill the mirror. He loomed over us, partly because the mirror was raised, and partly because he was standing too close to the glass on his side.

Kitto had drunk me clean on that side of my face. He had to turn the front of his body more firmly against me as he tried to reach my other cheek. He was pressed tight in the circle of Rhys's arm and my body. I expected Rhys to open his arm enough to let Kitto move to the other side of my body, but he didn't. He kept us pressed together in the crush of his arms. The moment I realized we were effectively trapped, unless Rhys released us, my breath caught, my pulse speeding against my throat.

My voice breathed from my body full of that pulse, and that sudden awareness. "Are my tears worth a month, Kurag?"

Kitto twisted against the strength of Rhys's arms. It forced Kitto's body hard against mine, but it was Rhys's whisper against my hair, "Turn your face to him," that made me turn so that he could reach the other cheek.

Kitto's tongue caressed my cheek, his breath almost hot against my skin. Rhys tightened his arms, and it was like being bound in chains of flesh and muscle. I couldn't concentrate, couldn't think.

"A fuck and a food to turn any goblin's head," Kurag said, and his own voice was low, growling, but not with anger.

I whispered, "Rhys, please, can't think."

He loosened his arms, but only enough to give the illusion of freedom. I knew the game, but the middle of political negotiations was not the time for it. Part of me wanted to tell Rhys to let us go, but part of me loved the feel of his arms around us, the solidness of his body pressed against my back, the whisper of his breath against my hair. I knew that Kitto liked few things better than being ordered around, being given no choices. It made him feel safe. It was comforting, but for me it wasn't safety I was seeking.

I managed to focus on Kurag, but I knew that my face showed some of what I was feeling. I kept waiting for Doyle to interfere, to stop this unseemly display, but it was as if the room held only Rhys, and Kitto, and me.

"Let me show you what a real goblin can do for you, Merry," Kurag said. His gaze slid to Rhys. "Let me cut off a choice piece of flesh. It'll grow back if it's done right. For that I'd agree to almost anything."

It was Rhys who said, "You left Kitto out of the bargaining." His voice was almost husky.

"He is a goblin, and I can do to him what I choose, when I choose."