FIC: Gathering Gloom, 6/16, Act One Complete
Title: Gathering Gloom
Author: houses
Email: houses7177@gmail.com
Universes: Tir Alainn and Merry Gentry
Characters: Morag
Pairings: Morag/Sholto, Meredith/everyone else. No, I’m not kidding.
Narration: Morag, Merry, Taranis, Usna, Sholto
Rating: PG-13
Timeline: Post Tir Alainn trilogy, Post book 4 MG.
Disclaimers: Tir Alainn belongs to Anne Bishop, Merry Gentry belongs to Laurel K Hamilton
Summary: Taranis uses forbidden magic to call an assassin he believes will finally settle his Maeve Reed problem. Only thing is, said assassin has a mind of her own and isn’t particularly pleased to be back from the dead.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Sholto strode through the hallways of the sithen with arrogant grace. There were few in the Unseelie court that would challenge him, fewer still outside. But even that security didn’t ease the ache in his chest. He’d had his one night with the princess and sealed their alliance, but one night was only one night and now Sholto had a taste for sidhe flesh that his night hags couldn’t slake.
His time in Meredith’s bed had been more than he could have imagined, but it was all too short. He knew that Andais would never allow him another chance to impregnate Merry and gain the Unseelie throne, but his sidhe-starved skin didn’t care.
It wasn’t Meredith as Meredith he craved, and he knew it, but he couldn’t help himself when his feet took him to her wing of the sithen. It was what she represented-the only sidhe female to ever allow him the touch of her body-that he desired. She had the support of the Slaugh for as long as she needed it, and as their leader he had rights to Merry’s time.
But he was under no illusion that his visit was political when he sought entrance.
The guards at the door, the newly betrothed Biddy and Nicca-all glowing and nauseatingly happy-frowned at his arrival, but didn’t object to his request to see the princess. They stood aside and let him enter after receiving permission from the guards inside the room.
Sholto nodded at them, his long white hair sliding over his grey-cloaked shoulders, and entered with his typical cold expression firmly in place. The princess was seated on a settee on the far side of the room, discussing something in a low tone with Doyle. More guards littered the room in various states of dress and armament. They were to leave faerie for Los Angeles tomorrow and the arrangements to transport such a large number of guards were extensive.
The King of the Slaugh stood tall, his hands clasped in front of his body, hovering over his glamour-hidden tentacles. He waited impatiently for Meredith to acknowledge his presence and tried not to imagine what it would feel like to have her glowing beneath him once more.
Meredith finished speaking to Doyle and looked up, a question on her face. “Sholto, to what do I owe this honor?”
“Pretty words from a pretty lady,” he said, smiling. “I was coming to inquire as to whether you needed any of my people to escort you to the airport for your trip home?”
Home, Los Angeles, far from the court. It pained him in a way he couldn’t fathom that she was taking all that wonderfully warm sidhe flesh away from him with nary a thought. If there was anyone else for him, he wouldn’t care that the only sidhe skin he’d ever touched was leaving him far behind. But there wasn’t, and the thought of being sidhe-starved for the rest of his existence made him want to wail in rage.
But kings do not wail, no matter how much they want to, so Sholto remained silent.
Meredith’s face was smooth, blank, and he knew she was trying to find the right words. She always was a perceptive one, particularly in matters of sex-being descended from five fertility gods would do that to a person-and she looked as if she knew exactly why he was here.
“I’m not sure of the logistics since Doyle is coordinating the travel.” She nodded to the former captain of Andais’ guard, Doyle, who stood like a living shadow to her right. Merry smiled at Sholto, a soft smile, and caressed the back of his hand. He felt the feather-light touch like she was stroking his whole body, not just his hand. He wondered if she knew what she did to him; one look at her face confirmed it. She turned apologetic eyes his way, silently saying that this was the last time she would touch him, a gift to remember her by. Frustration howled through him like the roar of nightflyer wings and he squeezed his eyes shut.
He had to force himself to concentrate as she said, “I think some show of force would be appropriate so if you wouldn’t mind, Doyle would be best person to address this matter to.”
Merry withdrew her touch and glanced back at her guard. Doyle nodded his assent with narrow eyes and jerked his head to indicate Sholto should step aside and leave Merry be. Sholto’s hand burned where she’d touched him and he watched Meredith walk away with hungry eyes.
“Never again,” Doyle growled under his breath beside him. “You will never touch her again. Never feel her arch beneath you, glowing like she swallowed the moon. Pity. And tell me, how does that make you feel?”
Doyle’s expression was one of barely concealed distain and Sholto couldn’t help resting his hand on his sword hilt, tucked into the folds of his cloak. Sholto felt a flash of satisfaction when the Darkness’s eyes flicked to the sword. He may have used a magical ring to best Doyle before, but even that was a slight the former Captain of the Ravens could not ignore.
A few tense moments later, after it looked like Doyle might light his hands up with fire to eat away Sholto’s skin and Sholto would throttle Doyle with his tentacles again, Sholto deigned to speak. “How do you think it makes me feel, Darkness?”
Sholto’s eyes flicked to the points on Doyle’s ears and thought, not for the first time, that if he’d been a little more sidhe and a little less nightflyer, that he could be one of the guards vying for Meredith’s throne. “You’re no more pure that I am, but pointed ears are nothing compared to tentacles on your stomach, no matter how well hidden with glamour. Go back to Los Angeles with your precious gift, but do not think for a moment that there are not those willing to kill for what you possess.”
Doyle’s face softened a bit, and he eventually said, “You offer aid?”
“And you will accept,” Sholto’s voice was far from Doyle’s own emotionless rumble. He was not made of shadows and he had no reason to hide.
In the end, they managed to prepare an effective battle plan and both were satisfied that Meredith’s safety was taken care of. No one would debate that the Slaugh were an effective deterrent. When they were done, Doyle stiffly excused himself to see to the arrangements, but Sholto was loath to leave. He knew he had no real reason to stay-none of the guards would ever accept him, no matter how many hundreds of years he served in Andais’ Ravens-but he didn’t want to leave. To be around other sidhe in such a casual setting was both painful and wonderful.
He scanned the rooms again, seeing sidhe he’d known for years, all preparing to depart to Meredith’s court in Los Angeles. Even such initial doubters as Amatheon were eager to protect Meredith and restore the Unseelie court to its true glory. Nearly all of them were preparing to travel and it looked like all of Meredith’s original guards, plus Amatheon, Adair, Ivi, Hawthorne, Biddy and two more of Cel’s former Cranes were already packed and ready to go. The other chosen guards would remain here for the time being until a large enough estate was procured to house all of them. Sholto knew Mistral was quietly furious about this little development, but since his hallway stunt had not resulted in a pregnancy despite the magical light show, he was to remain with the queen.
Sholto sighed and made to move to the door when a flicker of movement caught his eye. Someone wrapped in a dark grey shawl sat in a recessed nook. The figure leaned forward, and he caught sight of a woman looking out at him, pale face shining in the darkness. He didn’t have any idea who she was. More surprising, she regarded him without fear or revulsion.
How novel, he thought to himself, as he turned in her direction. She watched him walk closer with curious eyes, but still no aversion. When he was only a few feet away, he stopped.
She tilted her head and narrowed charcoal eyes before saying, “You are not as you appear.”
Sholto started. “What do you mean?”
“You show the world a different face than you wear in private. I know it’s there, I can almost see through it, but it gets away from me if I try too hard. What is it?”
His face cold and distant, Sholto bit out, “A glamour.”
“Ah,” she said. “Glamour. Different from mine, I think. It feels like a cloak rather than a mirage.”
She did not seem disgusted, and despite his initial inclination to retreat, Sholto still stood in front of her. She gave a tentative smile and gestured at the seat near hers. “Sit with me? I promise I won’t bite. It’s just…I don’t have much occasion to talk to the others. They’re very busy and seem to find me unnerving.”
Intrigued despite himself, Sholto slid gracefully onto the loveseat beside her. The couch was soft, intimate, and he basked in the near magic of her skin. Her voice rolled with an accent he didn’t recognize and he noticed that her ears were pointed, just like Doyle’s.
She looked almost nervous for a moment and Sholto’s heart sank, but her words calmed his fears. “I am called Morag. I’m not sure if it is presumptuous for me to talk with you; the rules here are very complicated and I have only really seen those … persons … who come to the princess’s chambers.”
“I am Sholto,” he said, deliberately leaving off his titles. She was peculiar, just a little bit off, and he wondered where she came from. “You are new to the princess’s entourage?”
She bit her lip before replying, “Yes.”
“I don’t believe I’ve seen you in the courts before. Where did you come from?” Such un-fey-like curiosity, but Sholto didn’t really care. Sometimes he just didn’t feel like playing the perfect sidhe lord. No matter how hard he tried, they’d never accept him anyway. Andais’ refusal to bed him was proof enough of that. Her proclivities were known far and wide and yet he was too freakish even for her. He was her Creature, nothing more.
The woman furrowed her brow and carefully said, “I was nowhere before.”
The Lord of That Which Passes In Between racked his brain for a response to that innocuous little comment. How could she have been nowhere? He glanced at her and recognized how profoundly lonely she looked. It was something he could relate to all too well, a feeling of disconnect and alienation, and he wondered where this lovely young woman came from.
“Are you to travel with the princess back to Los Angeles?” he asked, bizarrely hoping the answer was no, and he couldn’t help the sigh at her response.
“Yes, she’s going back to stay with Maeve Reed and I will be going with her.” Morag paused, “Meredith does not wish to leave me here alone, though she doesn’t truly understand.”
The way she said the name of Meredith’s host gave him pause. Her face was back to being neutral, but the clipped way she said the words was at odds with the rest of her demeanor. She looked at him with those grey eyes, so unlike the more flamboyant triple irises of most sidhe, and he felt a chill run along his skin. The grey was not the still almost-dark of dusk but roiling with winged shadows. There was something in that look that was profoundly alien, even to a freak such as him.
He spent his days surrounded by the oddities and nightmares of the faerie courts, the monsters that gave even the queen pause, yet something about this Morag’s expression was unnerving. Then she blinked and it was gone; she was a pretty, if mixed-blood, sidhe once again, the swirling shadows in her eyes settling down to solid soot-grey.
She bent forward and rested her chin her propped-up hands, a wistful expression her face. “Are there pets here? I have seen many of the wee ones, but they are not pets, no matter the creatures they mimic.”
Sholto arched an expressive eyebrow. “No, they’re not pets, and they would be rather put out to hear themselves regarded as such.”
“I know,” Morag said with a sigh. “No fae animals, either? I have seen no horses or hounds, no companions to ones even as noble as this princess.”
“There are a few faerie animals left, such as the terriers bred by Queen Andais’ head chef, but to answer you, no. Only a few animals remain, and those are usually part of the Wild Hunt.”
Morag sat up, her face alight. “Shadow hounds, then?”
He thought for a moment, watching the way the sithen lights brought out nearly indigo highlights in Morag’s hair. “There are the Gabriel Rachets, the hell-hounds. Is that what you mean?”
“Is it? I guess so.” Morag sighed. “I was to have a shadow-hound puppy, before. I would have named him Merle, though perhaps that would have been too confusing. To have two Merles.”
Sholto thought the idea of any sidhe lady keeping a hell-hound as a pet profoundly bizarre, and a little arousing if he were honest with himself. It made him look closer at this peculiar young sidhe.
She didn’t seem to notice, or care, that she was sitting close enough that their shoulders almost brushed when she leaned back. He thought it was charming the way she brushed her hair back behind those pointed ears, twisting it up in a bit of leather to keep it back.
He wrenched his attention away from her when she turned to face him and looked out at the busy activity of Meredith’s entourage. She was silent for a few minutes, and he was preparing to stand and leave, when he felt a touch on his leg, soft but unmistakably there. He looked down to find Morag’s pale hand on his knee, a tentative expression on her face, as if she was afraid he’d brush her away.
She spoke softly, so that he had to strain to hear it, “If you are ever in this Los Angeles, would you come to see the princess’s court? Usna is nice, but he belongs to the princess and it is pleasant to talk to someone who doesn’t treat me like a disconcerting relic.”
Sholto was so shocked he didn’t know what to say. She had to be delusional, or maybe damaged. It would be a shame if Cel had hidden her away somewhere and broken her like he had so many other lesser fey.
He was still staring at her hand on his leg when a shadow fell on the both. “Well, well, if it isn’t King Sholto.”
Sholto looked up to see Usna staring down at him, a wry little twisted grin on his lips. “Kitty cat.”
“You’re a king?” Morag asked, pulling her hand away and rubbing her fingertips together. “Is everyone here royalty of one sort or another? Kings, queens, princesses.”
Both Sholto and Usna blinked. Usna recovered first, his face kind. “There are two high rulers, one for both the Seelie and Unseelie courts. Taranis rules the Seelie court and Andais rules the Unseelie.”
At the mention of their names, Morag frowned. Sholto couldn’t blame her, but felt like he was missing something.
Usna continued. “There are other courts that owe fealty to either the Seelie or Unseelie courts. Sholto here is King of the Slaugh.”
At Usna’s questioning glance, Sholto elaborated. “The Slaugh are a collection of the darker elements of faerie. The nightmare court of beings too unlike the sidhe, creatures that give even the all mighty sidhe nightmares,” he added with a self-depreciating little smile.
Morag didn’t seem to get the joke, look of intense concentration on her face. She glanced between the two of them with a furrowed brow.
“After that, there’s the court of the Goblins ruled over by King Kurag and the demi-fey court ruled over by Queen Niceven.”
“Demi-fey, like the little ones with wings?” Morag asked, looking across the room where Sage was entertaining a less than amused pair of little ones.
“Exactly,” Usna answered. His multi-colored hair was tied back in a French braid that swung down almost to his hips and he flipped it out of the way as he sat on the arm of the loveseat. “Not that we’re not enjoying your company, Lord Sholto, but Doyle’s glowering in our direction.”
Sholto looked across the room to where Doyle was clumped with Frost and Adair. The dark man was indeed glowering, and Sholto stood, brushing the front of his pants flat beneath the glamour.
“It seems I’ve worn out my welcome, Lady Morag, Usna. Perhaps we’ll have another chance to chat in the future.”
Usna laughed and shook his head, but Morag looked sad to see him go. Sholto could feel her watching his back as he left Princess Meredith’s chambers and he knew he’d not seen the last of her. Not if he had anything to say about it.
Part 7
Author: houses
Email: houses7177@gmail.com
Universes: Tir Alainn and Merry Gentry
Characters: Morag
Pairings: Morag/Sholto, Meredith/everyone else. No, I’m not kidding.
Narration: Morag, Merry, Taranis, Usna, Sholto
Rating: PG-13
Timeline: Post Tir Alainn trilogy, Post book 4 MG.
Disclaimers: Tir Alainn belongs to Anne Bishop, Merry Gentry belongs to Laurel K Hamilton
Summary: Taranis uses forbidden magic to call an assassin he believes will finally settle his Maeve Reed problem. Only thing is, said assassin has a mind of her own and isn’t particularly pleased to be back from the dead.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Sholto strode through the hallways of the sithen with arrogant grace. There were few in the Unseelie court that would challenge him, fewer still outside. But even that security didn’t ease the ache in his chest. He’d had his one night with the princess and sealed their alliance, but one night was only one night and now Sholto had a taste for sidhe flesh that his night hags couldn’t slake.
His time in Meredith’s bed had been more than he could have imagined, but it was all too short. He knew that Andais would never allow him another chance to impregnate Merry and gain the Unseelie throne, but his sidhe-starved skin didn’t care.
It wasn’t Meredith as Meredith he craved, and he knew it, but he couldn’t help himself when his feet took him to her wing of the sithen. It was what she represented-the only sidhe female to ever allow him the touch of her body-that he desired. She had the support of the Slaugh for as long as she needed it, and as their leader he had rights to Merry’s time.
But he was under no illusion that his visit was political when he sought entrance.
The guards at the door, the newly betrothed Biddy and Nicca-all glowing and nauseatingly happy-frowned at his arrival, but didn’t object to his request to see the princess. They stood aside and let him enter after receiving permission from the guards inside the room.
Sholto nodded at them, his long white hair sliding over his grey-cloaked shoulders, and entered with his typical cold expression firmly in place. The princess was seated on a settee on the far side of the room, discussing something in a low tone with Doyle. More guards littered the room in various states of dress and armament. They were to leave faerie for Los Angeles tomorrow and the arrangements to transport such a large number of guards were extensive.
The King of the Slaugh stood tall, his hands clasped in front of his body, hovering over his glamour-hidden tentacles. He waited impatiently for Meredith to acknowledge his presence and tried not to imagine what it would feel like to have her glowing beneath him once more.
Meredith finished speaking to Doyle and looked up, a question on her face. “Sholto, to what do I owe this honor?”
“Pretty words from a pretty lady,” he said, smiling. “I was coming to inquire as to whether you needed any of my people to escort you to the airport for your trip home?”
Home, Los Angeles, far from the court. It pained him in a way he couldn’t fathom that she was taking all that wonderfully warm sidhe flesh away from him with nary a thought. If there was anyone else for him, he wouldn’t care that the only sidhe skin he’d ever touched was leaving him far behind. But there wasn’t, and the thought of being sidhe-starved for the rest of his existence made him want to wail in rage.
But kings do not wail, no matter how much they want to, so Sholto remained silent.
Meredith’s face was smooth, blank, and he knew she was trying to find the right words. She always was a perceptive one, particularly in matters of sex-being descended from five fertility gods would do that to a person-and she looked as if she knew exactly why he was here.
“I’m not sure of the logistics since Doyle is coordinating the travel.” She nodded to the former captain of Andais’ guard, Doyle, who stood like a living shadow to her right. Merry smiled at Sholto, a soft smile, and caressed the back of his hand. He felt the feather-light touch like she was stroking his whole body, not just his hand. He wondered if she knew what she did to him; one look at her face confirmed it. She turned apologetic eyes his way, silently saying that this was the last time she would touch him, a gift to remember her by. Frustration howled through him like the roar of nightflyer wings and he squeezed his eyes shut.
He had to force himself to concentrate as she said, “I think some show of force would be appropriate so if you wouldn’t mind, Doyle would be best person to address this matter to.”
Merry withdrew her touch and glanced back at her guard. Doyle nodded his assent with narrow eyes and jerked his head to indicate Sholto should step aside and leave Merry be. Sholto’s hand burned where she’d touched him and he watched Meredith walk away with hungry eyes.
“Never again,” Doyle growled under his breath beside him. “You will never touch her again. Never feel her arch beneath you, glowing like she swallowed the moon. Pity. And tell me, how does that make you feel?”
Doyle’s expression was one of barely concealed distain and Sholto couldn’t help resting his hand on his sword hilt, tucked into the folds of his cloak. Sholto felt a flash of satisfaction when the Darkness’s eyes flicked to the sword. He may have used a magical ring to best Doyle before, but even that was a slight the former Captain of the Ravens could not ignore.
A few tense moments later, after it looked like Doyle might light his hands up with fire to eat away Sholto’s skin and Sholto would throttle Doyle with his tentacles again, Sholto deigned to speak. “How do you think it makes me feel, Darkness?”
Sholto’s eyes flicked to the points on Doyle’s ears and thought, not for the first time, that if he’d been a little more sidhe and a little less nightflyer, that he could be one of the guards vying for Meredith’s throne. “You’re no more pure that I am, but pointed ears are nothing compared to tentacles on your stomach, no matter how well hidden with glamour. Go back to Los Angeles with your precious gift, but do not think for a moment that there are not those willing to kill for what you possess.”
Doyle’s face softened a bit, and he eventually said, “You offer aid?”
“And you will accept,” Sholto’s voice was far from Doyle’s own emotionless rumble. He was not made of shadows and he had no reason to hide.
In the end, they managed to prepare an effective battle plan and both were satisfied that Meredith’s safety was taken care of. No one would debate that the Slaugh were an effective deterrent. When they were done, Doyle stiffly excused himself to see to the arrangements, but Sholto was loath to leave. He knew he had no real reason to stay-none of the guards would ever accept him, no matter how many hundreds of years he served in Andais’ Ravens-but he didn’t want to leave. To be around other sidhe in such a casual setting was both painful and wonderful.
He scanned the rooms again, seeing sidhe he’d known for years, all preparing to depart to Meredith’s court in Los Angeles. Even such initial doubters as Amatheon were eager to protect Meredith and restore the Unseelie court to its true glory. Nearly all of them were preparing to travel and it looked like all of Meredith’s original guards, plus Amatheon, Adair, Ivi, Hawthorne, Biddy and two more of Cel’s former Cranes were already packed and ready to go. The other chosen guards would remain here for the time being until a large enough estate was procured to house all of them. Sholto knew Mistral was quietly furious about this little development, but since his hallway stunt had not resulted in a pregnancy despite the magical light show, he was to remain with the queen.
Sholto sighed and made to move to the door when a flicker of movement caught his eye. Someone wrapped in a dark grey shawl sat in a recessed nook. The figure leaned forward, and he caught sight of a woman looking out at him, pale face shining in the darkness. He didn’t have any idea who she was. More surprising, she regarded him without fear or revulsion.
How novel, he thought to himself, as he turned in her direction. She watched him walk closer with curious eyes, but still no aversion. When he was only a few feet away, he stopped.
She tilted her head and narrowed charcoal eyes before saying, “You are not as you appear.”
Sholto started. “What do you mean?”
“You show the world a different face than you wear in private. I know it’s there, I can almost see through it, but it gets away from me if I try too hard. What is it?”
His face cold and distant, Sholto bit out, “A glamour.”
“Ah,” she said. “Glamour. Different from mine, I think. It feels like a cloak rather than a mirage.”
She did not seem disgusted, and despite his initial inclination to retreat, Sholto still stood in front of her. She gave a tentative smile and gestured at the seat near hers. “Sit with me? I promise I won’t bite. It’s just…I don’t have much occasion to talk to the others. They’re very busy and seem to find me unnerving.”
Intrigued despite himself, Sholto slid gracefully onto the loveseat beside her. The couch was soft, intimate, and he basked in the near magic of her skin. Her voice rolled with an accent he didn’t recognize and he noticed that her ears were pointed, just like Doyle’s.
She looked almost nervous for a moment and Sholto’s heart sank, but her words calmed his fears. “I am called Morag. I’m not sure if it is presumptuous for me to talk with you; the rules here are very complicated and I have only really seen those … persons … who come to the princess’s chambers.”
“I am Sholto,” he said, deliberately leaving off his titles. She was peculiar, just a little bit off, and he wondered where she came from. “You are new to the princess’s entourage?”
She bit her lip before replying, “Yes.”
“I don’t believe I’ve seen you in the courts before. Where did you come from?” Such un-fey-like curiosity, but Sholto didn’t really care. Sometimes he just didn’t feel like playing the perfect sidhe lord. No matter how hard he tried, they’d never accept him anyway. Andais’ refusal to bed him was proof enough of that. Her proclivities were known far and wide and yet he was too freakish even for her. He was her Creature, nothing more.
The woman furrowed her brow and carefully said, “I was nowhere before.”
The Lord of That Which Passes In Between racked his brain for a response to that innocuous little comment. How could she have been nowhere? He glanced at her and recognized how profoundly lonely she looked. It was something he could relate to all too well, a feeling of disconnect and alienation, and he wondered where this lovely young woman came from.
“Are you to travel with the princess back to Los Angeles?” he asked, bizarrely hoping the answer was no, and he couldn’t help the sigh at her response.
“Yes, she’s going back to stay with Maeve Reed and I will be going with her.” Morag paused, “Meredith does not wish to leave me here alone, though she doesn’t truly understand.”
The way she said the name of Meredith’s host gave him pause. Her face was back to being neutral, but the clipped way she said the words was at odds with the rest of her demeanor. She looked at him with those grey eyes, so unlike the more flamboyant triple irises of most sidhe, and he felt a chill run along his skin. The grey was not the still almost-dark of dusk but roiling with winged shadows. There was something in that look that was profoundly alien, even to a freak such as him.
He spent his days surrounded by the oddities and nightmares of the faerie courts, the monsters that gave even the queen pause, yet something about this Morag’s expression was unnerving. Then she blinked and it was gone; she was a pretty, if mixed-blood, sidhe once again, the swirling shadows in her eyes settling down to solid soot-grey.
She bent forward and rested her chin her propped-up hands, a wistful expression her face. “Are there pets here? I have seen many of the wee ones, but they are not pets, no matter the creatures they mimic.”
Sholto arched an expressive eyebrow. “No, they’re not pets, and they would be rather put out to hear themselves regarded as such.”
“I know,” Morag said with a sigh. “No fae animals, either? I have seen no horses or hounds, no companions to ones even as noble as this princess.”
“There are a few faerie animals left, such as the terriers bred by Queen Andais’ head chef, but to answer you, no. Only a few animals remain, and those are usually part of the Wild Hunt.”
Morag sat up, her face alight. “Shadow hounds, then?”
He thought for a moment, watching the way the sithen lights brought out nearly indigo highlights in Morag’s hair. “There are the Gabriel Rachets, the hell-hounds. Is that what you mean?”
“Is it? I guess so.” Morag sighed. “I was to have a shadow-hound puppy, before. I would have named him Merle, though perhaps that would have been too confusing. To have two Merles.”
Sholto thought the idea of any sidhe lady keeping a hell-hound as a pet profoundly bizarre, and a little arousing if he were honest with himself. It made him look closer at this peculiar young sidhe.
She didn’t seem to notice, or care, that she was sitting close enough that their shoulders almost brushed when she leaned back. He thought it was charming the way she brushed her hair back behind those pointed ears, twisting it up in a bit of leather to keep it back.
He wrenched his attention away from her when she turned to face him and looked out at the busy activity of Meredith’s entourage. She was silent for a few minutes, and he was preparing to stand and leave, when he felt a touch on his leg, soft but unmistakably there. He looked down to find Morag’s pale hand on his knee, a tentative expression on her face, as if she was afraid he’d brush her away.
She spoke softly, so that he had to strain to hear it, “If you are ever in this Los Angeles, would you come to see the princess’s court? Usna is nice, but he belongs to the princess and it is pleasant to talk to someone who doesn’t treat me like a disconcerting relic.”
Sholto was so shocked he didn’t know what to say. She had to be delusional, or maybe damaged. It would be a shame if Cel had hidden her away somewhere and broken her like he had so many other lesser fey.
He was still staring at her hand on his leg when a shadow fell on the both. “Well, well, if it isn’t King Sholto.”
Sholto looked up to see Usna staring down at him, a wry little twisted grin on his lips. “Kitty cat.”
“You’re a king?” Morag asked, pulling her hand away and rubbing her fingertips together. “Is everyone here royalty of one sort or another? Kings, queens, princesses.”
Both Sholto and Usna blinked. Usna recovered first, his face kind. “There are two high rulers, one for both the Seelie and Unseelie courts. Taranis rules the Seelie court and Andais rules the Unseelie.”
At the mention of their names, Morag frowned. Sholto couldn’t blame her, but felt like he was missing something.
Usna continued. “There are other courts that owe fealty to either the Seelie or Unseelie courts. Sholto here is King of the Slaugh.”
At Usna’s questioning glance, Sholto elaborated. “The Slaugh are a collection of the darker elements of faerie. The nightmare court of beings too unlike the sidhe, creatures that give even the all mighty sidhe nightmares,” he added with a self-depreciating little smile.
Morag didn’t seem to get the joke, look of intense concentration on her face. She glanced between the two of them with a furrowed brow.
“After that, there’s the court of the Goblins ruled over by King Kurag and the demi-fey court ruled over by Queen Niceven.”
“Demi-fey, like the little ones with wings?” Morag asked, looking across the room where Sage was entertaining a less than amused pair of little ones.
“Exactly,” Usna answered. His multi-colored hair was tied back in a French braid that swung down almost to his hips and he flipped it out of the way as he sat on the arm of the loveseat. “Not that we’re not enjoying your company, Lord Sholto, but Doyle’s glowering in our direction.”
Sholto looked across the room to where Doyle was clumped with Frost and Adair. The dark man was indeed glowering, and Sholto stood, brushing the front of his pants flat beneath the glamour.
“It seems I’ve worn out my welcome, Lady Morag, Usna. Perhaps we’ll have another chance to chat in the future.”
Usna laughed and shook his head, but Morag looked sad to see him go. Sholto could feel her watching his back as he left Princess Meredith’s chambers and he knew he’d not seen the last of her. Not if he had anything to say about it.
Part 7