Lupi 04 - Night Season

her nose, you know, if not her build.” He touched the tip of that nose with one finger. “And her generous mouth, as I can see in spite of all that fancywork you’ve put on your pretty face. And something of her stubborn chin, too, I think. Though I flatter myself it’s my eyes you’ve got, aren’t they, now?”
    Cynna felt herself nodding. Yes, those were her eyes in his face. Though he saw his eyes in her face, and wasn’t that funny? Because they each had their own eyes, after all.
    He heaved a great, meaningful, gusty sigh. “We’ve much to say to each other, but not, I suppose, all at once, or while standing out here in the cold. And my lord councilors wish to meet you.”
    One of the gnomes—not Bilbo—said something unintelligible, reminding Cynna of her charm. She closed her hand around it, and the whisper told her the gnome wanted Daniel to let their guests come inside and rest before some big meeting, and he could escort his daughter to her chambers.
    Daniel glanced down at the gnome, nodded, and said something in the other language that the charm translated as polite agreement, then switched back to English. “Come, come inside. We will talk while we can, before you must…ha! It’s hard, but you’re here for more than the easing of my heart.”
    She was here because she’d been kidnapped. Reminded of several things, she took a step back and glanced around. Cullen stood beside her, his face as expressionless as she’d ever seen it. Usually he hid with smiles or words. Ruben was beside him, in a wooden wheelchair she hadn’t noticed until that moment. One of the gray-dressed guards stood behind it. He was as large as Tash and the same color, but lacked the tusks.
    â€œWe would all appreciate a chance to rest and refresh ourselves before the meeting with your council,” Ruben said. “But we will go to our rooms together. You have given us rooms near each other, as I asked?”
    â€œBut of course,” said Bilbo. “We wishing for you all comforts. We—”
    A laugh drifted out from the open door…followed by a woman. “Honored Councilor,” she said in clear English in a voice like bells and fog, “their notion of comfort probably doesn’t involve being dragged through a gate and thrown down into the snow to provide dinner for the dondredii.”
    â€œThat,” Bilbo said with some dignity, “was not being as we intending to happen.”
    â€œBut they are here,” she said indulgently as she floated down the steps. “Perhaps they will forgive, since your need is so great.”
    She was slightly less than Cynna’s height and much more slender, her bones as delicate as a child’s. Her skin was dusky, her eyes dark, her hair pure white. It was short in front and curled wildly around her face, but in back it bubbled below her hips like a frothy waterfall. She wore a long white dress, sleeveless, loose, and gathered at the waist by an embroidered sash the color of the sky at twilight. Her feet were bare, and she wore no underclothes…. which Cynna knew for certain because the dress was transparent.
    Her face was exotic and beautiful and shaped like a cat’s—wide at the eyes and cheeks, narrowing to a delicate, pointed chin. Her ears were long and pointed.
    â€œI have long wished to meet a lupus,” the elf-woman said, and she walked straight up to Cullen, stopping much too close. She put her hands on his chest and tilted her head to one side as she smiled into his eyes. “Hello.”

SIXTEEN
    C YNNA’S chambers consisted of two rooms. The bedroom was tiny, more like a nest than a room, being mostly bed. A huge, thick mattress overflowing with a whole rainbow’s worth of pillows and blankets covered almost all the floor.
    The sitting room was bigger, but no less colorful. Ocher walls extruded themselves to form a bench that made a U out of one end of the room. The wall-bench was wide enough for a human tush, but less than a foot above the floor—a good height for a gnome, she supposed. It, too, was crowded with cushions in many colors. There were two straight wooden chairs built for a human-size person—one orange, one purple. No cushions. Both looked uncomfortable.
    The whole place was uncomfortable, and it wasn’t just the colors.
    At the other end of the room was a round table a lot like the one in her hotel room back