Page 19 of Midnight in the Garden of Okay and Meh
“You can’t,” I answered with a smile. “Not unless you have exceptional vision. It’s too dark to see anything but an outline of your shape. Why were you in this area? Was it to place entrances to your domain near the Court?”
The change of subject took him by surprise, but he didn’t answer it. Instead, he pulled me to him again, his mouth hot on mine as his tongue swept into my mouth. He tasted of spices, and heat, and a passion so strong it came close to melting me. I sagged against him again, my hands clutching his shoulders as he thoroughly plundered, probed, and teased me to the point where I started sweating. I took his groan of pleasure and wiggled against him, my body suddenly wide-awake and ready to indulge in as much bedsport as he could handle in his frostbitten state.
“Sovereign? What—gods and goddesses, what is going on?”
I sighed into Desi’s mouth, pulled myself (with much reluctance) from him, and turned to face the round shape that stood behind me, having dipped an unlit rush torch into the fire before holding it high so she could see us. “Just as it appears—I am kissing Desi.”
“I was under the impression I was kissing you,” he said mildly, but there was amusement rich in his voice. It sent another sensual shiver down my back.
Mags—one of the two women who helped me manage the Court, frowned at the mention of his name. “Desi?”
“Desislav of Abaddon,” he said, making a lopsided bow. I had to grab him to keep him from tumbling into the fire, but he managed to straighten up without incident. The light from Mags’s torch gilded one side of his face, highlighting his cheekbones, long, narrow nose, and blunted chin. My fingers almost itched to touch the short whiskers beginning to show on his jaw.
“Merciful gods!” Mags gasped, then tried to push her way between Desi and me, her arms spread. “Move back, my Sovereign. I shall protect you from this foul one!”
“Mags,” I said in as gentle a tone as I could rally given that Desi’s chin and jaw and arms and chest held my attention. “Don’t be silly. This is the same man we worked so hard over yesterday. He’s not evil—”
“I am, a bit,” Desi admitted with a half-smile that seemed to do something to my insides.
“—and if he was,” I continued with a gimlet glance at the man beside me, “it would be our duty to try to bring him out of the darkness. Is that not so?”
“We serve members of the mortal world,” Mags said, glowering at Desi. He just smiled at her in return. I had to stiffen my knees at the sight of the smile, my insides feeling extremely disturbed. So potent was the effect of his smile that I wondered if I might not lose what I’d eaten hours before.
“We also have a responsibility to those in the Otherworld who need our help,” I pointed out, the bread in my belly threatening to somersault when Desi took my hand in his. “And if anyone needs help, it is the man who heads up such a foul place.”
“It’s not foul,” Desi said, rubbing his hand over his face. “All right, perhaps it’s not as tidy as your compound, and there’s an imp problem that, no matter what we throw at it, refuses to go away. And Hath, one of the other two princes, has an addiction to brimstone that tends to make Abaddon smell like a privy that’s sat out in the noon sun for many days, but other than that, there’s no foulness.”
“And the tormented souls you lure to your place of abandonment?” Mags asked, looking like she was ready to strike him. “You do not consider those foul? Of course you do not! You are evil, and thus must be destroyed. Sovereign, I will do thy bidding. Shall I destroy this vermin for you so that the air in our house can return to its untainted sweetness?”
I sniffed. Desi sniffed. In unison, we looked over to where the sheep and pigs were still residing on one side of the roundhouse.
“‘Sweet’ isn’t quite the word I’d use for the air,” Desi said with another quirk of his lips.
“Mags, you know full well I don’t like to kill beings unless they’ve done something worthy of such an act, and given that Desi is the founder of Abaddon, I have serious doubts if I could even do so should I want to. Which I don’t.”
Desi fingered a chain worn around his neck. “You have clarity worthy of one in your position,” he told me. “But lest I drive your woman to a fit, I will take my leave of your pristine Court.”
“And go where?” I asked when he started looking around for his clothing. We’d stripped all but his undergarments when we tucked him into the pallet, since the stones from the fire and furs had a better chance of warming him. “Mags, do you still have his things?”
“Yes, in a basket, although now I realize we should have burnt then,” she said with a curl of her lip. “Not unlike the man himself.”
“Ignore her complaints,” I told Desi in a low tone when Mags went off to find his garments. “She is very protective of the Court. She was much devoted to the previous Sovereign, and has not looked upon me with copious amounts of favor. Where do you plan on going?”
He gave me a long, long look that made me feel as if I were sunk neck deep in a tub of warm water. “Does it matter?”
“Yes, of course. Evidently, you are my archenemy, and thus I should monitor your comings and goings,” I said, a bit breathless under the effect of his eyes and jaw, and—gods and goddesses—that chest. “It’s only right and proper that I do so.”
He pulled me against him again, his lips whispers on mine as he said, “Will you come with me?”
“To Abaddon?” I asked, both scandalized by the question and intrigued. “As your prisoner?”
“I was thinking more as my consort,” he said, his lips burning on mine as I moaned into his mouth.
He took charge of the kiss, the fleeting touches of his tongue building a fire in my nether parts that made me worry a little. Should nether parts feel this hot? I’d been with men before, and although I enjoyed myself, never had anyone inflamed my women’s area.
“I am the Sovereign of the Court of Divine Blood,” I reminded him. “I doubt if being your consort at the same time is going to work.”
He looked thoughtful for a moment. “You’re right. I should probably make it a rule that no member of Abaddon can also be a Sovereign.”
