Merry Gentry 03 - Seduced by Moonlight Read Online Free PDF

him. Showing Kurag his wildest desire when he knows he can't have it, it'll drive him mad."
    "Or make him so angry he walks away from the negotiations," Frost said.
    "No, Frost, if we make Kurag lose control that badly, he won't walk away. He'll respect the fact that we beat him this round. He'll try to find something else to distract us for next time, but he won't hold it against us. Goblins love a good game of one-upmanship. He'll be flattered that we went to the trouble."
    "I do not understand the goblins," Frost said.
    "You don't have to," I said. "My father made sure I did."
    Frost looked at me, and there was something I couldn't read on his face. "Prince Essus raised you as if he was grooming you to rule the courts, yet he knew that Cel was heir, and not you. If Cel had produced even one child, the queen would never have offered you this chance."
    "You're right on that."
    "Why do you think he taught you to rule, if you were never going to mount the throne?"
    "My father was secondborn and never going to rule, yet his father raised him to be a ruler. I think he raised me the only way he knew how."
    "Perhaps," Frost said, "or perhaps, Prince Essus did not lose all his prophetic abilities when the rest of us did."
    I shrugged. "I don't know, and I don't have time to worry about it."
    Doyle came to the front of the hallway. "Kurag is willing to talk to you, Meredith, but he is not happy about it."
    "I didn't expect him to be."
    "He fears your enemies," Frost said.
    "That makes two of us," I said.
    "Three," Rhys said.
    "Four," Doyle said.
    Frost shook his head, his hair glittering like a curtain of Christmas tree tinsel. "Five. I fear for your safety. If we lose the goblins' threat, Cel's allies will move against us."
    "Then we're agreed," I said.
    Doyle was looking from one to the other of us. "What have we agreed to?"
    "I'm going to play hors d'oeuvre for the Goblin King," Rhys said.
    Doyle's black-on-black eyebrows raised up nearly to his hairline. "I have missed something."
    "Rhys is going to help me negotiate with Kurag," I said.
    "Help how?" Doyle asked.
    Rhys dropped the robe off one pale shoulder, flashing down to one tight nipple. He grinned and shrugged back into the robe.
    Doyle raised dark eyebrows. "Do not take this in a spirit in which it is not meant, but you have been a stumbling block to our work with Kurag. He has chided you, fully clothed, and you have practically foamed at the mouth like an ill-used dog. What makes you believe you can do . . ." He seemed to be searching for a word. He finally settled for, "What makes you believe you can stand up to Kurag's teasing on this day?"
    "Today, I'll be teasing back. Merry said that Kurag is like a schoolyard bully, and she's right. Besides, if Merry can do it, so can I." He looked suddenly fierce again. All the humor had gone, leaving his face bleak. "Though I'd much rather kill goblins than negotiate with them."
    "Funny," Doyle said, "that's exactly what King Kurag said about the sidhe only moments ago."
    "Perfect," I said. "Let's all go and irritate each other."
    Doyle led the way down the hallway. He looked terribly nude from the back. I realized that Kurag would have more than just Rhys and I to ogle. I wondered if Doyle thought of himself as a potential sex partner, or as a meal? I guess that all depended on how Kurag felt about sidhe men, and if he preferred dark meat to light.

CHAPTER 3
    I heard Kitto's voice in the hallway long before we got to the bedroom. I couldn't hear everything he said, but the tone was pleading, and the voice that answered him wasn't Kurag's. It was Kurag's queen, Creeda. Over the last month I'd learned to truly dislike her.
    Kitto stood in front of the mirrored dresser, drawn up to every inch of his four-foot height. He was the only man I'd ever taken to my bed who made me feel tall. The bare back he showed us was perfectly masculine, with a swell of shoulders, chest, a narrow waist, just done small. From the front he looked human