“Big fellas,” Kitto said, affectionately.
But then an even bigger shape pushed his way through the door, and the hellhounds gave way to him, as everyone else had given way before them.
“No,” I whispered, “that’s the big fella.”
Spike was one of the biggest dogs I’d ever seen; he could nearly look me in the eye just standing, as tall as a modern Irish wolfhound with the same wiry coat, but broader, beefier. He was the true figure of the dogs that the Romans said could bring down the horses that pulled their chariots and then, if their masters didn’t call them off, could slay the charioteer, too. They’d been so fierce that ransoms had been paid in an exchange of dogs. The great dogs had been pitted against lions in the arena, and the dogs had won enough matches to make it a good sport.
Spike strode into the room with an attitude that wasn’t sight hound at all; they tend to be more uncertain, nervous, whereas he carried himself more like a German shepherd, and the way he sized up a room was more Doberman. He just had working guard dog in every purposeful pad of those great feet. In good light his coat was a wonderful mix of pale brindle stripes. He had a “sibling” that was short-haired to his wire coat, so that his brother looked like a pale tiger, which was what we’d named him, so it was Tiger and Spike.
“Aye,” Kitto said, “he is.”
The great dog came to me and I put both my hands on the big head and ruffled him. He gave a big tongue-lolling grin, as goofy and happy to be petted as any of the smallest terriers. I put my forehead against his rough, warm fur and whispered, “Did you hear us up, Spike?”
He snuffled me, as if to say yes, or maybe he was just taking a bigger hit of my scent.
Kitto had moved out of the circle of my arms so I could greet Spike. He wasn’t afraid of the smaller dogs, but the wolfhounds seemed to give him and all the goblins pause. I’d learned that the wardogs hadn’t just killed Romans, but had actually been used in the great wars between the sidhe and goblins, and they had been one of the few things that could bring true death to the immortals. They looked like dogs, but in effect they were living, breathing manifestations of the wild magic of faerie itself, so in effect they were magic made flesh, and that meant they could kill goblins, sidhe, all of us. I put my face over those gigantic jaws and trusted he wouldn’t crush my throat with one bite.
Kitto moved away, and some of the smaller dogs followed him, so that he knelt in a swirl of them, petting them, and the sounds of their happy panting, snuffles, snorts, and quiet dog noises filled the room.
The two big, black dogs walked to the cribs and began to sniff them. Kitto got up and went to them. “Hush, you’ll wake the babies.”
The big black dog put its nose resolutely against the crib bars and looked back at me. It wasn’t a dog look in those dark eyes, and as I gazed into them there was a spark of red and green like Yule fires banked and ready to come to life and fill a room with everything the holiday was meant to be, and so seldom was. I smelled roses, and then I smelled pine, like Christmas trees, and I wasn’t surprised when I looked back to find Frost coming through the door. When the wild magic had first come here in L. A. he had sacrificed himself, become a great white stag; for a time we thought we’d lost him forever to that form, not dead, but not human enough to know that I was pregnant with his child, not human enough to hold me or love me.
He came to hold my hand now, and I smiled up at him, so happy that he stood beside me now. He bent and kissed me, whispering, “The God called me to your side.”
I nodded.
Kitto came to stand on my other side but didn’t try to take my hand. I reached out to him, and the smile that flashed joyful across his face was so worth that small gesture. “What’s happening?” he whispered.
“Magic,” I said.
The black dog snuffled Bryluen’s onesie-covered body. She stared at him, eyes intent, not afraid, and then the big nose touched her bare face. The rush of magic washed over us in a skin-tingling, hair-raising wash of warmth that filled the world with the scent of pine and roses, and the scent of spring like a wash of fresh rain that brings the first flowers.
The black fur ran as if it were water moved by wind, and where that wind touched it the fur turned the green of grass and leaves, fur growing slightly longer, thicker, more wiry-looking. The shaggy green head was bigger than the baby it lay beside, but it raised that head and looked at us. Its tongue lolled out happily, and the overly wide eyes held both happy dog and something else, something more.
“Cu Sith,” Frost whispered, and it was, the great watchdogs that used to guard our faerie mounds, our sithens. One had appeared in Illinois and attached itself to the Seelie Court, and a second had appeared here in L.A. when the wild magic created new lands of faerie inside the walled estate. The first one had run away to take up its post among the Seelie and spent a lot of time protecting the servants from King Taranis’s rage. Taranis was afraid of their Cu Sith, partly because of what it was, and partly, I thought, because it didn’t like him, and a Cu Sith was the heart of any sithen it guarded. It was a way of saying that his faerie mound didn’t like him much.
Spike raised his head skyward and gave one long, deep baying howl. The other dogs joined him, one, two at a time, so that it was like a choir, each voice rising and blending with the next, so that we stood in the center of that beautiful, mournful, joyful noise. It reminded me more of the sound of wolves than dogs.
Gwenwyfar began to cry, and the other black dog went to her crib and looked back at us whining, as the howls reverberated and faded in the small room. We lowered the crib and the big black dog sniffed her. She cried harder, striking out with tiny legs and waving small fists. The dog snuffled her harder, rolling her a little with its muzzle; one of her tiny fists must have touched the fur, because white began to spread from its nose backward like a white snow covered the bare earth, except that this snow was shaggy fur, and the dog turned huge saucerlike eyes upward. Its great jaws were full of razor-sharp teeth, and though it looked like a big, white dog, there was just enough different about its eyes and mouth to make you think, Not quite a dog. It was one, and it wasn’t.
“Galleytrot,” Kitto said. He was right, it was known as a ghost dog, something that chased travelers on lonely roads and haunted lonely places. As the Cu Sith was the bright, high court of faerie, so the galleytrot was the scary story told around the winter fire, and a warning to stay in groups, because alone, things that weren’t human could find you and steal you away. When the wild magic had come, the only other galleytrot had come to the hands of the goblin twins, Holly and Ash. There was no way for them to be Gwenwyfar’s fathers; they had come to my bed too late. Galleytrots weren’t exclusive to the goblins, but they were certainly more Unseelie than Seelie Court. Gwenwyfar might look perfectly Seelie, but her true heritage showed in the white dog at her side, as Bryluen’s showed in her green dog. If theGalleytrot had come to Bryluen, I’d have wondered more if her possible goblin heritage might come from the twins.
Kitto said, “There’s no dog for Alastair.”
The door opened, and it was Doyle with another black dog at his side. The dog went to Alastair’s crib, and Frost lowered it for him. I took his hand in mine again, and Doyle took his other one, so that Frost stood in the middle of us as the black dog sniffed the baby. Alastair stared into the big face like Bryluen had, and then the dog touched his face, gently. Alastair made a soft sound and then the fur ran with colors, but something was different with this one, because it wasn’t just the fur that changed, but the dog began to shrink, as if the big black body were being erased, or condensing down.
“What is it?” Kitto asked.
Doyle bent down and picked it up, ruffling its long ears. “A puppy,” he said.
“But a puppy what?” Kitto asked.
I touched the long, trailing ears; they were silky. “Hound of some kind,” I said.
The puppy began to whine and wriggle. Doyle put it on the floor, but it began to whimper and cry
. Alastair started to cry, too.
Doyle frowned for a moment, then picked the puppy up and set it in the crib. It licked Alastair’s face, and the crying stopped. It walked around him and settled on the other side, its white and red puppy body stretched the length of his, Alastair’s hand touching its back.
“He’s too little to have reached out for the puppy,” I said.
“Perhaps,” Doyle said.
“We can’t leave the puppy in with him, it’s not housebroken,” I said.
“It’s his puppy, Merry.”
“Do you know what kind of dog it is?”
“As you said, a hound.”
“The other two dogs are guard dogs; what can a puppy do?” Frost asked.
The puppy gave a contented sigh, and Alastair made a similar happy sound. “Maybe every boy needs a dog,” Doyle said.
“Did you have one when you were little?” I asked.
He smiled. “I did.”
I frowned at him. “What kind of dog?”
He shook his head. “Let’s say it was a present from one of my aunts.”
Since two of his aunts had been hellhounds, with no human form, I had to ask, “Are you saying that one of your cousins was your puppy?”
He smiled. “Dog was my other form; think of it as more a best friend than a boy’s dog.”
I looked down at our son and the “puppy.” “Are you saying that Alastair will be able to shapeshift?”
“I do not know, but let him keep the puppy, and we’ll see. It was once one of my symbols.” I knew he was referring to the fact that once he had been the god Nodens, a healing deity known for having dogs at his sanctuary that could lick a wound and heal it, among other things.
“Magical dogs; I assumed the dog was you, but you’re saying …”
“I was not the only dog in my temples,” he said.
We looked back down at our son and the puppy. The Cu Sith had lain down in front of Bryluen’s crib, and the galleytrot had done the same to Gwenwyfar’s.
My hounds bumped me and I stroked their silky heads. Spike put his head into the crib and sniffed both the baby and the puppy. It opened sleepy eyes and licked his nose. Spike rose back up and “smiled” at us, tongue out, so that he lost all his dignity and looked like the big, goofy hound he could be at times.
“Spike approves,” I said.
“He does,” Doyle said, smiling.
“He’s your son,” Frost said, sounding pleased.
Doyle took his hand in his and said, “Our son.”
Frost’s whole face lit up with the happiness of that shared phrase. “Our son,” he said.
I moved so that I could wrap my arms around both their waists, and we hugged my two men and me. There were other men in my life, and I loved them, but these were the two who made my heart sing the most. If I’d been human enough, I might have felt guilty about that, but I wasn’t, and I didn’t; it was just the truth of my heart.
Kitto petted the puppy and kissed the baby, then put the side of the crib back up. “Good night, little prince.”
We left the babies to sleep content with their new protectors, and new best friends, because Doyle was right; every child needs a dog.
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
TWO MORNINGS LATER I woke to magic breathing and prickling along my skin. I had a moment of staring into the darkened bedroom and then Frost had me around the waist and was lifting me out of the bed, holding me one-armed behind him, while he pointed a sword at the other side of the bed. I gripped his arm where he held me, but I couldn’t see the threat around his body, and where was Doyle? Why wasn’t he with us?
Frost said, “Doyle, Doyle, it’s me, it’s your Killing Frost, and our Merry.”
A low, deep growl came from the other side of the room. It was a sound to raise the hair on your neck and tighten your body, ready for fight or flight.
“Doyle, do you know me? I am your lieutenant, your right hand, your Frost, do you not know me?” Frost’s voice got lower as he spoke, a gentling voice.
The deep, bass growl came again, and I knew in that moment that Doyle was in the room with us. He was just in his dog form, a black dog the size of a small pony.
“Doyle,” I said, softly, hesitantly.
He growled again.
Frost leaned ever so slightly so my feet could touch the floor and he could turn himself full toward the threat that was our dearest love. He spoke very carefully as if he were afraid to even move his mouth too much. “Very slowly, we back to the door. When we reach the door, turn the knob carefully, and open the door slowly.”
“No sudden movement,” I whispered.
“Yes,” he said.
The door started opening behind us, and I hissed, “Stop.”
It was Usna’s voice that said, “What is that?”
“Doyle,” I whispered, because I knew that he would hear me. Usna’s mother had been cursed into cat form, and it had left him with a lot of very feline traits, including calico-colored hair and skin and extremely good hearing, especially for higher-pitched noises, like women’s voices.
“Why is he threatening you?”
“Hush. Usna, when I say so, open the door and grab Merry through,” Frost said carefully as he backed us closer to the now partially opened door. He changed our angle slightly to take advantage of the crack in the door.
“What about you?” I asked.
“I will come with you, but your safety is all.”
I wasn’t sure I agreed with that, but if Frost was actually going to have to fight Doyle in his hellhound/phouka form I wasn’t sure I could bear to watch. Why was Doyle still stalking us, growling? It was like a nightmare, and then I had an idea.
“He’s dreaming,” I said.
“What?” Frost asked, moving us agonizingly slowly closer to the door.
“Doyle is dreaming. He’s not awake.”
From the other side of the door, Usna said, “You mean he’s sleepwalking?”
“Yes.”
“He has never done that before,” Frost said, and that meant in centuries of friendship Doyle had never done such a thing, so why now?
“The king trapped me in dream,” I said. We were almost to the side of the opening. I touched Frost’s bare back gently, changing our angle slightly to leave room for Usna to open the door wide enough for us both to escape.
“You escaped,” Frost whispered.
“I had to fight, and my father’s sword came to me.”
“And we had to prevent you from attacking us with it,” he said, slowly.
“Shit,” Usna said.
“Yes,” Frost said.
That evil, frightening growl echoed along my spine, much closer this time. We had to wake Doyle, but how? What had brought me back to myself?
“You and Doyle touching me brought me back.”
“If you’re close enough to touch,” Usna said, “you’ll be too close.”
I agreed, but … I peeked around Frost’s body to see the great black dog. It took a moment for my eyes to distinguish it from the darkness of the room, and then it moved, and I could see the shape of the great beast like a piece of the night formed into something of muscle and skin and fur, and a slow, thundering growl. It stepped one paw closer, and the light from the door fell on it. The paw was bigger than my hand. Its lips curled back and teeth gleamed in the light from the hallway behind us.
I moved slightly out from behind Frost, and said, “Doyle, it’s me, your Merry.”
“Do not …” Frost began, and then the dog rushed toward us from less than four feet away, and there was no time for words.
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
FROST HAD A naked sword in his hand; he could have run the dog through, but he didn’t, and the great black shape smashed into him, driving them both against the door and slamming it shut with us trapped inside.
Usna was yelling and pounding at the door. Other voices were joining his, but they couldn’t help us, not in time. Frost
’s hands were holding the dog’s throat, keeping those huge, snapping jaws from his face, but even as I watched, the jaws got closer to him.
If it had been some monster sent by Taranis to kill us, I would have picked up one of the many guns in the room and shot it, but it was Doyle, and lead bullets can kill the fey, all of the fey, even the sidhe. I stood there like some helpless princess from one of those foolish stories, and watched the men I loved most locked in a death struggle.
I cursed under my breath and moved toward the bed and my weapons that were still in their nighttime sheaths on the headboard. Frost had moved me too fast for me to grab either my gun or my sword, and I needed one of them. I could wound Doyle to save Frost; I wasn’t sure I could kill him to do the same, but maybe lead would break this evil spell.
I moved slowly, not sure if it would attract the great dog, but he was too intent on killing Frost to notice me. I stopped going slow and bounced onto the bed, crawling toward my weapons.
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