women at the table were less resistant. Any look, any word, and they practically melted with lust.
In fact, many other people in the room also seemed to melt with lust. Very explicitly so. During and after dinner, I watched as people-couples usually, but sometimes more-touched each other brazenly. It was like being in junior high again. Some of it was just kissing. Some of it was heavy groping-a hand fondling the breast or sliding up the thigh. And some of it was…more. Across the room, I saw one woman climb on top of a man and straddle him, moving up and down. I was pretty sure they had nothing on beneath the voluminous folds of her skirt. At a table nearby, one woman was on her knees in front of a man, and she was I hastily averted my eyes, turning back to my own table. I found Dorian’s gaze on me and knew he scrutinized my every reaction. Through some unspoken command, a blond slip of a woman slid into the empty seat beside him, the one I had refused. She draped a leg over his lap and wrapped her arms around him, kissing his neck. He moved one hand up her leg, pushing up the skirt to reveal smooth flesh, but he otherwise seemed oblivious to her as he regarded me and the other guests.
Aside from the free love and utterly medieval setting, there was almost something, well, normal about this place. The gentry I’d run into were always causing trouble in my world. Luring humans. Using magic indiscriminately. But this was like any other social occasion or party. People knew each other and regarded their friends with warmth. They discussed love and children and politics. True, they were still foreign and other to me, but I could also almost see them as human. Almost.
Needing to do more than sit there and stare, I reached into my coat and pulled out one of the two Milky Way bars I’d brought along. It was also a utilitarian move, seeing as how I was so hungry from watching all the feasting around me. Dorian immediately became intrigued.
“What is that?”
I held it up. “It’s a Milky Way. It’s…candy.” I didn’t really know what else to say about it. I wasn’t even sure what was in it. Nougat? I had no idea what the hell that foamy stuff was, save that it was delicious.
He eyed it curiously, and I broke off a piece, tossing it over to him. He caught it deftly.
“Your majesty,” exclaimed one of the men, “don’t eat it. It’s not safe.”
“It won’t hurt me here,” rebuked Dorian in annoyance. “And don’t even start in about poison or I’ll let Bertha the cook have her way with you again.”
The man promptly shut up.
Dorian popped the piece into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. Watching the expressions his face went through was almost hilarious. It took him awhile to work through all that gooey scrumptiousness, and I fostered a compelling image of him with saltwater taffy.
“Entertaining,” he declared when he’d finished. “What’s in it?”
“I don’t know. Some chocolate and caramel. A bunch of stuff sort of fused into other stuff.”
One woman, her hair curly and brown, fixed me with a combative look. “That’s so typical of them. They twist nature and the elements for the sake of their perverted creations until they no longer know what it is they do. They are an offense to the divine, bringing forth monstrosities and abominations they cannot control.”
A snappy retort rose to my lips, but I bit it off. Volusian had warned me to be nice. In light of their relatively civilized behavior at dinner, I could do no less, so my voice stayed calm. “Our monstrosities do great things. We can fix injuries you can’t. We have plumbing and electricity. We have transportation that makes your horses look like dinosaurs.”
“Like what?” asked one of the men.
“Bad analogy,” I replied.
Shaya shook her head. “We can achieve many of the same results with magic.”
“Magic couldn’t do much against my gun earlier.”
“Our people survived. Only a human would brag about her ability to wield death.”
“And you in particular would have good reason to,” pointed out Rurik. “No other human in memory has killed as many of our kind-spirits or shining ones-as you. You would have killed me last week if you’d had the strength. You would have killed our people in the woods today if you could have.”
“I don’t always kill. I even avoid it if I can. But sometimes I have to, and when I do…well, then, that’s the way it goes.”
Glowers regarded me all around the table. Only Dorian’s face stayed politely curious.
“Rumor has it you’ve killed your own kind too,” he noted. “Doesn’t it keep you up at night to have so much blood on your hands?”
I leaned back in my chair, as always trying to keep my emotions off my face. It did bother me sometimes, but I didn’t want them to know. I hadn’t killed many humans-only a handful, really-and most of it had been self- defense. They’d been humans working with gentry or other creatures to do harm in my world. That had justified the kills in some ways, but I could never ignore that I was taking a life. A human life. A life like my own. The first time I’d seen the light fade out of someone’s eyes-wrought by my hand-I’d had nightmares for weeks. I’d never told Roland about that, and I certainly wasn’t going to tell this group.
“Actually, Dorian, I sleep very well, thank you.”
“It’s King Dorian,” hissed a plump man across from me. “Show respect.”
Dorian smiled. The others glared further.
“The gods will punish a murderer like you,” warned one of the women.
“I doubt it. I don’t murder anyone. I defend. Everyone I’ve killed was doing damage to my world or-in the case of those humans-helping your kind cause harm. Those who merely trespass, I don’t kill. I just send them back. It’s not your world, so I protect my own. That’s not a crime.”
Dorian sent the blonde away with a quick motion of his hand and leaned over the couch so he could speak closer to me. “But you know it was once our world too.”
“Yes. And your ancestors left it.”
Shaya eyed me, cheeks flushing. “We were driven out.”
Dorian ignored the outburst. “You gave us no choice. Once we were all one people. Then your ancestors turned away from the power within and sought it without. They built. They subdued nature. They created things with their hands and the elements that we had only thought magic capable of. Some even surpassed what magic could do.”
“So what’s wrong with that?”
“You tell me, Odile. Has it been worth it? You can’t have it both ways. The ability to force ‘magic’ from the world killed the magic within. Your lives shortened as a result compared to ours. Your sense of wonder disappeared, short of anything that can be proven by numbers and facts. Your people will soon have no gods but their machines.”
“And despite all this,” observed Shaya bitterly, “humans continue to flourish. Why haven’t they been cursed? Why do they spawn like cats and dogs while our numbers suffer? They are the abominations, not us.”
“Their short lives, their burning need to create before they die, drive that. Their bodies can’t help but produce life so readily. We do not feel that urgency.” Dorian grinned. “Well, physically we do, but subconsciously…our souls know we have time.”
“That’s another wonder of modern medicine. We can help the infertile.”
Dorian frowned, again more curious than angry. “Enlighten us.”
I hesitated, suddenly regretting my comment. In as brief a way as I could, I explained artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization.
Even Dorian had trouble stomaching that one.
“This is how your numbers grow?” asked a woman near Shaya. Her voice was an awed whisper.
“Only for some,” I told her. “Most don’t need it. If anything, I think we have too many babies.”
Seeing their shocked faces, I felt a little bad about upsetting them with all this. After all, I was a big advocate of respecting cultural diversity. Yet that core belief of mine wavered around these people. Maybe that was unfair, but I had spent my life being taught that they were not human. They might seem so now, but I didn’t think one dinner could truly alter my ingrained views.
Shaya shook her head, face pale. “This, then, is what has displaced us from our homeland. These are the things that forced us from the place we came from and into the world of spirits and lost souls. We lost to twisted creatures who breed easily, who rape and pillage the earth in homage to their metal gods.”
“Look, I’m sorry it upsets you all so much, but that’s how it is. You guys lost. You have to deal. You did an
