He leaned over and kissed me with lips that were the soft pink of sunrise to the ruby glow of my own. I saw his hand held above us; there was red shining on his fingers as if the color of my lips had been spread like slick fire across his hand. It was my blood from bringing life into the world, and it glowed like every other part of us, thick with magic and the grace of Goddess.

He lifted away from the kiss and there were afterimages of the colors of our lips like a Doppler effect that you could see with your na**d eyes. My hands fell back to the bed, all of me limp; my eyes fluttered back into my head with the pleasure of it, and I could see the light of my own irises inside my nearly closed eyes, so that when I tried to open them the world was edged with emerald and molten gold fire. The term afterglow had a whole new meaning for the sidhe.

The bed moved, but I couldn’t see past my fluttering eyelids and the radiance of my own eyes and skin, as if my own magic blinded me.

Someone kissed me, and I knew from that first touch that it was Galen, because the sky didn’t glow the pale green of spring leaves, but that was the color that joined mine, so that the greens of my eyes and the green of his seemed to blend and flow together as we kissed. Where his hands touched me the light flared. I couldn’t see it, I could feel it, so that a thrumming warmth followed at his touch, and when he slid his body cuddling close to mine, that warmth pulsed between us, until I couldn’t breathe for a minute, and when I did it was a gasp, as if I were already putting my mouth around things much deeper than his kiss could ever be.

He whispered against my lips, “I want to feel your mouth around me.”

I breathed out, “Yes … please.”

He got up on his knees beside me. The fire was beginning to fade so that he looked less magical and more just Galen, but that had been magical enough to me since I was fourteen. My own glow was fading so that I could see him without the shine of my own eyes clouding my vision. He smiled down at me, and I gazed up the long length of him. The one thin braid spilled down the side of his body, the tip of it curling around his groin, so that I reached for the braid first.

“I miss when all your hair was this long,” I said.

“I’d grow it long again for you.”

I smiled up at him. “I would like to make love to you just once with all that wavy green hair surrounding us.”

He grinned. “Did you have a crush on me, or my hair, when you were young?”

“You, but the hair was beautiful. Why did you keep just the one tiny braid?”

“Because the queen’s commandment was worded in such a way that I could cut all the rest, so long as I kept some of it this long.”

“It was still a horrible risk, Galen. She could have found a reason to punish you for cutting that long hair that she’s so fond of.”

“And that proves we are high court sidhe; that’s really why we grow our hair out, Merry, and why anyone not of the court is forbidden long hair. It’s just another way to say we’re better than everyone else.”

“The custom didn’t even start until after the Unseelie began to lose their powers,” Rhys said, as he walked toward the bed, a towel folded in his hand.

“I thought it was older than that,” I said, still running Galen’s braid through my fingers.

“No, the queen decreed it to make sure that at least visually we would be different from the rest of the Unseelie Court.”

“You’re all sidhe, tall, elegant, gorgeous, and that’s true no matter what hair you have,” I said.

“True, but the nobles were afraid, Merry. Our power, our magic was what made the rest of the fey, the ones who called themselves Unseelie, let us rule them. Without that our rule was in jeopardy.”

“Forbidding the non-sidhe from growing their hair past their shoulders didn’t change that,” I said.

“People, even the fey, are very concerned with appearance, Merry. We looked different. We were allowed a privilege that the common folk were not. I believe it did help set us apart.”

“Just having long hair doesn’t make us sidhe,” Galen said.

“No, but it was a visual reminder of power. People are more likely to follow you if you look impressive.”

“True leaders can rule if they are in rags, my father always said.”

“Essus was always wise, and correct, but since not all nobles of the court were true leaders it helped for all of us to look impressive and powerful.”

“Even if we were not,” Galen said.

Rhys nodded. “Even if some of us were not.”

I noticed he said “some of us.” I was betting he didn’t consider himself one of the powerless ones. Rhys had been one of the lesser lights in the court during my lifetime, but I was learning that once upon a time he had been very major indeed.

“What’s the towel for?” Galen asked.

“In case we want to bring Merry again, while she screams her pleasure around our bodies.”

Galen had a look that was almost pain. “In case, why wouldn’t we?”

“We don’t want to make her sore.”

Galen nodded. “Oh, right, sorry, I’m a little distracted.”

“A little,” I said, and slid my hand over his balls to cup them loosely in my hand.

He went very still and then looked down at me, eyes slightly wide.

“I want you more than a little distracted,” I said, and moved in toward his body, letting the braid drop to his side. I leaned in toward the soft, waiting part of him, my eyes rolled upward so I could watch his face. His body was already partially erect before I got a lick along the shaft of him. His body gave that involuntary quiver that I loved, because it was something that they couldn’t control, a sign of pure eagerness.