Chapter 27 begins with the group gathering outside the black
doors that lead to the queen’s bedroom. There were two of her guards standing
outside the door, which is apparently odd in this world, as typically the guards
stand on the INSIDE of the doors, because Andais enjoyed having audiences while
she fucks. Both of the guards are naked, and both of them are plant deities.
One is Adair, which apparently means ‘oak grove’, and his hair has been cut
super short like Amatheon’s had been. Amatheon tells Merry that he was not the
only of the guards to express reluctance in being sent to Merry, and that Adair
was the first to be made an example of.
I'm glad that we're being introduced to these two new guards. We definitely needed more characters in these books.
They then begin talking about Adair as if he’s not in the
room. Merry wonders why Adair would not want to sleep with her, like she’s the
most priziest of ass, and Amatheon tells her that he wishes, above all, to be
left alone, to be neutral, but Merry scoffs at that because the only truly
neutral entity in the world is Switzerland. Yep.
The other guard is Briac, who for some dumb reason goes by
Brii. Brii seems happy to see Merry but realizes that the other two guards (Ivi
and Hawthorne) haven’t fucked Merry yet. Doyle tells them of the assassination
attempt and they try to enter the queen’s room, but Adair gets in the way,
telling them that the queen’s orders were very specific. They are to fuck Merry
if she has not fucked Ivi or Hawthorne. Doyle and Co keep trying to push their
way through, but Adair and Brii are very insistent about following the queen’s
orders. So, Doyle gets all pissy about this.
“I
am captain here, Adair, not you.”
“It is good to have you back, Captain,”-
Adair made that last word an insult- “but whatever your rank, it is not greater
than the queen’s. She is our master, not you. She made this very clear to me,
Darkness, very clear.”
They were almost touching, so terribly close, almost too close to fight. “You
refuse my direct order?”
“I refuse to disobey the queen’s direct order, yes.”
“I ask you one last time, Adair, will you step aside?”
“No, Darkness, I will not.”
I don’t even understand why they’re making such a huge issue
over this. Word count ++, I guess.
So, Merry orders Doyle to stand down, which of course he
won’t follow because HE’S THE CAPTAIN NOT HER or whatever, and no one actually
ever follows Merry’s orders. After more arguing, Merry finally gets everyone to
agree – she will let Adair “taste” the ring if he lets some guards into the
queen’s room to inform her of the events that have passed. She places the ring
against his skin and it flares to life. Doyle asks Merry what she’s going to
do, and she responds that she’ll do “whatever Adair wants her to do”.
OoooOooooooh.
Merry moves over to Adair and the ring instantly explodes
into power, and it washes over them. The air around them is resonating with
strong magic, and Adair mistakes this for an attack. He shoves Merry back into
the stone wall so that he can protect her, and Doyle is like “Dude, wtf, no,
the walls are just moving.” Somehow, right as the ring burst to life when Merry
touched Adair, the wall opposite them transformed from a flat wall to a deep
alcove with a pool of water.
Apparently at one point in time, this alcove existed in the
sithen. It had been a bubbling spring with a fruit tree behind it, and behind
the tree was a great meadow. With the reduction in power of the sidhe, the
meadows and trees that once lived in the sithen disappeared. Which is somewhat
confusing to me, because hadn’t the sidhe’s power diminished before they came
to the US? I mean, they only came to the US in the early 1800s (during the
Presidency of Thomas Jefferson), and they all talk about how it had been many,
many years since they had the levels of power they’re now being returned to. So
does the sithen travel with the fey when they move from country to country?
Adair and Merry begin exploring the alcove. Merry reaches
out to touch Adair’s back, and his skin flares up with color. Adair asks what
Merry did to him. Merry’s fingers are glowing and she is somehow able to draw
the light all over the room. She feels the urge to paint that light all over
Adair’s skin, but instead she moves to the tree and dry spring of water. She
finds a small, cracked wooden cup in the leaves under the tree, so she picks it
up and places it at the dry mouth of the spring.
“There
is no water to be had from this place, Princess,” Adair said.
I ignored him and held the cup against the rock. I sent the power on my fingers
into that small dark opening, spread it on the crack like invisible jam, so
think, so rich. I knew in that instant that it had been meant for another more real liquid to be spread upon it.
But this would do; this, too, was part of Adair’s essence. Part of his power,
his maleness. Male energy to touch the opening in the rock, like the opening of
a woman. Male and female to bring forth life.
Emphasis on the OBVIOUS REFERENCE TO JIZZ mine.
Anyway, water starts to trickle from the spring mouth and at
that exact moment, someone tells them all that the queen is coming to see what
all the commotion is about. Adair flips out, yelling that Merry has tricked him
for some reason? Merry ignores this and begins playing with the water and the
cracked wooden cup. She manages to fill the cup, and Doyle asks her who the
water in the cup is for.
The chapter ends with Merry rising to meet the queen, unsure
if the queen will drink the water from the newly revived spring.
Labels: book review, Seduced by Moonlight