Merry Gentry 03 - Seduced by Moonlight by Laurell K. Hamilton Read Free Book Online

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,