When I came to myself, Sage was lying curled on his side, trapping one of my arms. Nicca was collapsed across my lower body, on his stomach, his wings curving over his back, his bu**ocks, his thighs, and one long graceful curve of winged tail ran off the bed and nearly touched the carpet.
I couldn't hear anything but the thundering of my own blood in my veins. My hearing came back slowly, and the first thing I heard was Sage's shaky laughter. I think he said, "How do you sidhe survive the sex? It would kill me in a month." He turned his head enough for me to see his face, and his eyes. There was a ring of glittering black on the outside of his pupils but inside that was a ring of charcoal grey, and inside that was a ring of palest white-grey. I stared into his tricolored eyes, and wondered what he'd say when he saw a mirror.
Chapter 14
Sage stood on tiptoe, gazing into the bureau mirror, as close to the glass as he could get. He was gazing at his new eyes, which seemed utterly fascinating to him. I seemed unduly fascinated with him. If he was in my line of sight, I stared at him. I couldn't seem to stop myself. The soft yellow of his skin looked as if his body had been drenched in a small piece of sunlight. His body was one long line from his feet - raised high on their toes - to his calves, his thighs, the curve of his bu**ocks, the smooth plain of his back, the swell of his shoulders, and over all of it his wings, held tight over his back. The broad band of golden yellow with its fusion of brilliant blue and splashes of red, and orangey red, was clearer than I'd ever seen it. The black veins that held the butter-yellow tissue of his wings together seemed thick and black as miniature roads, as if I could trace my way across his wings and find myself somewhere else. Some magical place where winged lovers came at my beck and call, and there were no responsibilities. No throne. No assassins.
I frowned and put my hands over my eyes to block the seemingly gorgeous view of Sage at the mirror. This wasn't what I really wanted, but of course, that wasn't entirely true. Wasn't my deepest desire to have a life where whoever came to my bed came out of lust, or true love, or at least friendship, and not because I was daughter of Essus and heir to a throne? The best glamour, the best enchantments feed off your own needs and desires. The more personal, the more secret, the harder it is to resist.
I concentrated on my breathing in the cool darkness of my closed eyelids. Not being able to see Sage helped. I could think about something other than the sex we'd just had, wanting more of it, and wanting to touch his wings, wanting to see if the thick, black veins were truly paths that led to my heart's desire.
Stop it, Meredith, stop it. I tried not to think, but only to count my breaths. I took air deep into my body, and let it out slowly. When my pulse was calm, I started to count not the deep, even breaths, but just to count. When I reached sixty, I lowered my hands slowly.
I was staring into washboard abs so sculpted they looked artificial. I knew that stomach. I gazed up and found Rhys's chest, and finally his face. "Are you all right, Merry?"
I shook my head. "I don't know." My voice was only a whisper, as if I was afraid to talk louder. It wasn't until that moment that I realized I was afraid. But afraid of what?
I felt the bed move a moment before I felt Nicca's presence behind me. He wasn't a burning heat now, but it was as if he were the warmth of the earth itself. The warmth that lives down in the rich brown soil, and keeps all the seeds, and all the small creatures safe and warm through the winter. When his hands touched my shoulders, it was like being wrapped up in the warmest, softest blanket in the world. So safe, so warm, as if you could snuggle down and sleep for months, and wake refreshed, whole, and the earth would be made new again. The magic of spring itself was in the touch of his hands.
Something must have shown on my face, though whether it was fear, or longing, or something else, Goddess alone knew, because I surely didn't. Rhys asked again, "Are you all right, Merry?"
I whispered, "Get Doyle." It was all I had time to say before Nicca turned me in his arms, and planted a kiss on the bend of my neck. I was suddenly drowning in the scent of fresh-turned earth and the rich, green scent of growing things. His mouth tasted like fresh rain. My hands slid over his shoulders, and found the arch of his wings. It made me open my eyes and pull back from the kiss enough to gaze down his back at the newness of them.
When the wings had been only a pattern on his back, the details had been blurred. Now the sweep and color of them spread over his body like twin cathedrals. The main color was a pale buff tan, like the fur of some pale lion, and the tips of the forewings looked as if they'd been dipped in pink and violet-red. The deep violet-red wove down the edges in a scalloped pattern that mixed with white and purple, and was edged on one side with a reddish brown, like a braid of auburn hair laid across all that golden tan. That line of rainbow colors - violet-red, white, purple, and reddish brown - traced a second scallop on his lower wings, with a line of more golden tan on the other side of that run. There was an eyespot with a blue-green center larger than my hand in his front wings, edged with black, and a yellow that was almost an echo of his overall pale buff, then an edge of brilliant blue, and that violet-red repeated above that pool of eye color like some psychedelic eyebrow. The second eyespot on his hind-wings was larger than my face, like a pool of blue-green iridescence, with that outline of black around every color as if to emphasize every shade. The pale yellow ring around the pool of sparkling blue-green, the thin gleaming line of blue and reddish violet arching over all that color. There was a heavier black ring around the larger eyespot, so that the thick velvet black that surrounded all that color sat in a pool of pinkish orange. The scalloped line of colors flowed down the edge of the rear wings as it did the front - red-violet, white, purple, and reddish brown tracing the edge of all his wings downward past the brilliance of pink and orange to spill on long curved tails so that that last grace of wing was thick with dark stripes of color.