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By Root 532 0

for the line of glittering, iridescent scales down his back, the tiny fold-away fangs in his mouth, and the huge slit-pupiled eyes in their sea of blue. All that proved that his father had been, or was, a snake goblin. His curling black hair, his white skin, and the magic that sex with me had awakened were from his mother’s bloodline. But Kitto had not known either parent. His sidhe mother had left him to die at the edge of the goblin mound. He’d been saved, because newborns are too small to make a good meal, and sidhe flesh is valued for food among the goblins. Kitto had been given to a female goblin to raise until he was big enough to eat, like a piglet being saved for Yule dinner. But the goblin female had come to…love him. Love him enough to keep him alive and treat him as another goblin, not as food on the hoof, as it were.

The other guards had not considered Kitto one of them. He was too weak, and though Doyle had insisted that he hit the gym along with the rest so there were muscles under that white skin, Kitto would never be a true warrior.

Doyle answered the question that must have been plain on my face. “Everyone I trusted more went into the faerie mound with us. Of those we left behind, who would have understood what those two locks of hair would have meant to you, our princess? Who but one of the men who had been with you since the beginning of this adventure? Only Nicca was left behind, and though a better warrior than Kitto, he is not stronger of will. Besides, our Nicca is soon to be a father, and I would not involve him in our fight.”

“It is his fight, too,” Rhys said.

“No,” Doyle said.

“If we lose, and Merry does not take the throne, our enemies will kill Nicca and his soon-to-be bride, Biddie.”

“They would nae dare harm a sidhe woman who carried a child inside her,” Gran said.

“I think some of them would,” Rhys said.

“I agree with Rhys,” Galen said, “I think Cel would rather see all of faerie destroyed than lose his chance to follow his mother onto the throne.”

Gran touched his arm. “Ya have grown cynical, boy.”

He smiled at her but it left his green eyes cautious, almost hurt. “I’ve grown wise.”

She turned to me. “I hate to think that any sidhe noble is so hateful, even that one.”

“The last I heard from my aunt, my cousin, Cel, had plans to get me with child, and we’d rule together.”

A look of disgust showed on Gran’s face. “You’d die first.”

“But now, I’m already pregnant, and it can’t be his. Rhys and Galen are right; he’ll kill me now if he can.”

“He’ll kill you before the babes are born, if he can,” Sholto said.

“What concern is my Merry to ya, King Sholto of the sluagh?” Gran didn’t even try to keep the suspicion out of her voice.

He moved closer to the bed, standing at the foot of it. He had let the other three men do most of the touching. I appreciated that since we were still more acquaintances than friends. “I am one of the fathers of Merry’s children.”

Gran looked at me. It was an unhappy, almost angry look. “I heard the rumor that the sluagh’s king would be a father, but I didnae credit it.”

I nodded. “It’s true.”

“He cannae be king of the sluagh and king of the Unseelie. He cannae sit two thrones.” She sounded hostile.

Normally, I would have been more diplomatic, but the time for diplomacy was past, at least among my inner circle. I was pregnant with Gran’s great-grandchildren; I might be seeing a lot of her. I did not want her and Sholto bickering for nine months, or longer.

“Why are you angry about Sholto being one of the fathers?”

It was a very blunt question, rude by any standard among the sidhe. The rules were a little less subtle among the lesser fey.

“One day of being the next queen and you would be rude to your ol’ granny?”

“I’m hoping to see a lot of you while I’m pregnant, but I’m not going to mess with bad will between you and my lovers. Tell me why you don’t like Sholto.”

The look in her lovely brown eyes was not friendly, not at all. “Did you nae wonder who struck the blow that killed your great-grandmother, my mother?”

“She died in one of the last great