“You know what they say about icebergs, Princess Meredith?”
“No, what do they say?”
“Make sure the ship you’re riding in isn’t called Titanic.”
Several of the nurses laughed, but I didn’t. He’d made a joke because he was scared, truly scared. Soemthing made him believe that he couldn’t love both medicine and a woman. That he couldn’t do justice to both. Maybe he couldn’t, but then again….
Rhys moved up beside me, beside us. He put his arm across my shoulders, not too tight. “Faint heart never won fair maiden,” he said.
“What if I don’t want to win the fair maiden?” Dr. Sang asked.
“Then you are a fool,” Rhys said, with a smile to soften the words.
The two men stared at each other for a long moment. Some knowledge or understanding seemed to pass between them, because Dr. Sang nodded, almost as if Rhys had spoken again. He hadn’t, I would have sworn to that, but sometimes silence speaks between one man and another much louder than any words. One of the greatest differences between men and women is that certain silence that women do not understand, and men cannot explain.
Dr. Sang went for the door. Before he and Rhys had had their moment of understanding, I would have bet even money on whether the good doctor would call the woman in the flower shop. But something about what Rhys had said had tipped the scales somehow. Now all I wondered was whether he’d call first or simply go to her.
Rhys hugged me and kissed the top of my head. I turned my face up so I could look at him. His smile was casual, almost teasing, but that one clear blue eye held something that was not casual in the least. I remembered a moment when the queen’s ring had first come back to life on my hand. I had seen a ghostly baby before one of the female guards. Every man in the hallway had stared at her as if she were the most beautiful thing in the world. Every man except for four: Doyle, Frost, Mistral, and Rhys. Even Galen had stared at her. Later I’d had it explained that only true love would make you not gaze upon a woman that the ring had chosen. I had used the ring to see who among my guards would be the father of that almost-child, and given the female guard and the male guard to each other. It had worked. She had missed her period, and the tests were positive. It was the first pregnancy among the Unseelie since I was conceived. The ring, or something like it, had been the genesis for the Cinderella story. That moment when she stands upon the stairs and everyone stares at her. It was not mere beauty that captivated so, it was magic.
I truly loved Doyle, and Frost to a lesser extent. I couldn’t imagine being without either of them. Mistral had been my consort in the moment when the ring had come back to life, so the magic had not worked on him. Instead, he was part of the working of the magic. But Rhys, he should have looked at that guard. But he had only looked at me, which meant that he loved me, and he knew that I did not love him.
The people of faerie are not supposed to be jealous or possessive of their lovers, but to love truly and not have it returned is a pain that has no cure.
I raised my face to him, inviting a kiss. His face lost all trace of humor. He was as solemn as the look in his eye. He kissed me, and I kissed him back. I let my body grow soft and cling to him as our lips found each other. I wanted him to know that I valued him. That I saw him. That I wanted him. I felt his body respond even through our clothes.
He drew back first, a little breathless, a hint of laughter to his voice. “Let’s get our wounded home, and we can finish this.”
I nodded, because what else could I do? What can you say to a man when you know you are breaking his heart? You can promise to stop doing what is tearing him apart, but I knew that I couldn’t, wouldn’t stop loving Doyle and Frost.
I was breaking Frost’s heart a little, too, because he knew that Doyle had a bigger piece of my affections. If we had not been so intimate together, I might have been able to hide from Frost, but he had taken to being with Doyle and me whenever we were intimate. There were too many men now to not share. But it was more than that. It was almost as if Frost feared what would happen if he left me alone with Doyle for even one more night.
What do you do when you know you are breaking someone’s heart, but to do anything else would break your own? I promised Rhys sex with my kiss and my body. I meant it, but it wasn’t lust that prompted the offer. I suppose in a way it was love, just not the kind of love a man wants from a woman.
CHAPTER 9
WE LEFT THE HOSPITAL TO FIND A BARRAGE OF REPORTERS. Someone had talked. We answered none of the yelled questions, although they got plenty of pictures of Doyle in a wheelchair. The fact that he’d accepted it at all proved how hurt he still was. Abe, on the other hand, had taken a wheelchair because he was lazy and liked attention, though he had to sit to one side to save his back. Hafwen had healed him, but again not completely. We weren’t in faerie, and our powers weren’t even close to their best.
The reporters knew what exit we were taking. Someone inside the hospital would take home money for either directing us to where the press waited or telling them where we were coming out. Either way, we were a moneymaking enterprise today.
Cameras blinded us. Hospital security had called the police before we even got outside, so there were other uniforms besides the two who still trailed us. Officers Kent and Brewer hadn’t liked me as much since I had done magic on the doctor. They seemed afraid of me. But they did their duty. They walked in front and helped their fellow officers keep the crowd back.
There was a moment when the reporters pressed forward and the line collapsed toward us. Then my guards moved forward and the line steadied. Some of the men put their hand on the shoulder or back of the security guard or cop nearest them. I watched the humans stand a little straighter. It was as if by touch some of my guard could give courage and strength. I couldn’t remember them ever being able to do that before, or was it just that the men who could do it had never been with me? What had I brought out of faerie with me into this modern world? Even I wasn’t certain.
I watched them give courage with a touch, the way I could wake lust, and wondered if the touch would give them luck and courage for their day, or if it would fade like the lust I could inspire. When we had some privacy I’d ask.
There were too many of us for just one limo. There were two limos and two Hummers. One of each was black, the other white. I had time to wonder if someone had a sense of humor, or if it was an accident. I tried to help Doyle inside a limo, but Rhys moved me back so that Frost and Galen could help their captain inside. It seemed to take a long time. My vision was ruined with the flashing of cameras. Someone screamed over the mass of noise, “Darkness, why did King Taranis try to kill you?”
Rhys’s hands tensed on my shoulders. Until that moment I, and probably he, had thought that some flunky had talked, but that one question said that whoever had talked to the press had known entirely too much. The only people who had seen what happened were security guards and lawyers, both professions that you were supposed to be able to trust. Someone had betrayed that trust.
We were finally inside the stretch limo. Abe was already lying on his stomach on the main seat. Doyle sat in one of the side seats, stiffly upright. I moved to sit with him, but he motioned me toward Abe. “Let him rest his head in your lap, Princess.”
I frowned at him, wanting to ask why he was pushing me away. My expression must have asked for me, because he said, “Please, Princess.”
I trusted Doyle. He had to have his reasons. I sat on the end of the big seat and eased Abe’s head into my lap. He rested his cheek against my thigh, and I stroked the heavy weight of his hair. I’d never seen it braided before, like a Goth version of a candy cane, black, gray, and white. I guess they’d had to keep his hair away from the wound on his back somehow.
Frost sat on the seat opposite Doyle. Galen moved to take a seat, but Doyle said, “Take the second SUV. Rhys will take the first. We have too many guards who know only faerie. Be their modern eyes and ears, Galen.”
Rh
ys patted him on the back. “Come on.”
Galen gave me an unhappy look, but he did as he was told.
It was Frost who said, “We need Aisling in here.”
“And Usna,” Doyle said.
Frost nodded as if that made sense to him. It didn’t to me, not yet. But then I hadn’t had centuries of battle to get me past that shock and disorientation that seemed to follow like a fog.
The door shut, and we had a few minutes while Rhys and Galen fetched the men they had asked for. “Why them?” I asked.
“Aisling was exiled from the Seelie because their sithen, their faerie mound, recognized him as the king in this new land, not Taranis,” Doyle said. His voice sounded normal, not even a hint of tightness. Only his arm in its sling tied tightly to his chest and the bandage across his face showed what his voice should have held.
“So he needs to know that Hugh is trying to give away his kingdom,” I said.
“No,” Abe said from my lap. “It is not Aisling’s kingdom now.”
“But the sithen used to choose the ruler,” I said.
“Yes,” Abe said, “as the Lia Fail stone did once for the kings of Ireland. But the sithen can be a fickle thing. It liked Aisling more than two hundred years ago. He’s not the same man who was exiled. Time has changed him. The Seelie mound may not want him now.” Abe’s voice sounded tired, trailing off around the edges.
I put my hand against his cheek. That one small touch made him smile.
“Usna’s mother is still a favorite at the Seelie Court,” Frost said, “and she still speaks to her son.”
“So Usna might know if Hugh was part of a plot to get rid of Taranis,” I said.
Frost nodded. Doyle said, “Yes.”
I looked at both their faces, so distant and cold. It reminded me of the way they had been when they first came to me. Why were they being like this? I was royal, so I shouldn’t show weakness by asking. But I was also in love with them, so while there was only Abe to witness it, I asked, “Why are you both being so distant?”
They exchanged a look, and even through the bandages on Doyle’s face I didn’t like that look. It promised nothing that I would want.
“You are not with child, Meredith,” Doyle said, voice still so controlled. “You are beginning to make it clear that you have chosen us. But if you are not pregnant then we are not your king. You must look at the other men with more favor.”
“You get badly hurt and you go all crazy on me,” I said.
Doyle tried to turn his head and look directly at me, but apparently that hurt too much, so he had to turn his whole body. “It is not crazy. It is sanity. You must not give your heart where your body does not go.”
I shook my head. “Don’t make decisions for me, Doyle. I am no longer a child. I choose who comes to my bed.”
“We fear,” Frost said, and he didn’t look happy saying it, “that your caring for us is making it difficult for the other men.”
“I’m sleeping with them. Considering that we’ve only been back a few weeks, I think I’ve given them plenty of attention.”
Frost gave a small smile. “Sex is not all that a man craves, even after a thousand years of abstinence.”
“I know that,” I said, “but I only have so many hearts to give.”
“And that,” Doyle said, “is the problem. Frost told me how you behaved when I was injured. You cannot play favorites, Meredith, not yet.” A look of pain crossed his face, but I didn’t think it had anything to do with his injuries. “You know I feel the same, but you must be with child, Meredith. You must, or there will be no throne, no queenship.”
Abe spoke, his hand resting on my leg beside his head. “Hugh didn’t say Merry had to breed to be queen of the Seelie. He just offered her the throne.”
I tried to remember exactly what Sir Hugh had said. “Abe’s right,” I said.
“Perhaps magic is worth more to them than babies,” Frost said.
“Perhaps,” Doyle said, “or perhaps Hugh plays some other game.”
The limo door opened, and we all jumped, even Doyle and Abe. Abe allowed himself a small pain sound. Doyle was silent, only his face showing the pain for a moment. By the time Usna and Aisling had climbed into the car, it was back to its usual stoic expression.
The two new men found seats. Usna sat beside Frost, Aisling beside Doyle. Doyle said, “Tell them to drive.”
Frost hit the intercom button. “Take us home, Fred.”
Fred had been driving for Maeve Reed for thirty years. He’d grown gray and older, while she remained beautiful and untouched by the years. He said, “Do you want the cars to stay together, or do you want me to try to outrun the press?”
Frost looked at Doyle. Doyle looked at me. I had had more experience than any of them in being pursued by the press. I hit the intercom button above me, though I had to stretch for it. “Fred, don’t try to outrun them. Today they’ll hound us. Just get us home in one piece.”
“Will do, Princess.”
“Thanks, Fred.”
Fred had been dealing with the “royalty” of Hollywood for decades. He seemed unimpressed with real royalty. But I guess when you’ve been driving the Golden Goddess of Hollywood around, what’s a princess to that?
CHAPTER 10
USNA RELAXED HIS TALL, MUSCLED FRAME AGAINST THE SEAT, AS if we were on a pleasure drive. A sword hilt poked out of his long, loose hair, which fell around him in a riot of red, black, and white. The hair was patched, not striped like Abe’s. Usna’s eyes, though large and lustrous, were the plainest shade of gray that any of my guards could boast. But those shining gray eyes stared out through a veil of hair.
He’d had three reactions to his first time in the big city: one, he carried more weapons than he ever had in faerie; two, he seemed to hide behind his hair. He was always peering out of it, like a cat hiding in the grass until it springs on an unwary mouse. Three, he had joined Rhys in the weight room and added some bulk to that slender frame. The cat analogy came from the fact that he was spotted like a calico cat, and that his mother had been changed into the form of a cat when pregnant with Usna. She’d been pregnant by another Seelie sidhe’s husband, and the scorned wife had decided that her outside should match her inside.
Usna had grown up, avenged his mother, and undone the spell, and his mother was living happily ever after in the Seelie Court. Usna had been exiled for some of the things he had done to avenge her. He’d thought it was a fair trade.
But it was Aisling, from his seat beside Doyle, who asked, “Not that I am complaining, Princess, but why are we in the main car? We all know that you have your favorites, and we are not among them.” His comment about favorites echoed what Doyle and Frost had said earlier. But damnit, wasn’t I entitled to have favorites?
I looked into Aisling’s face, but could only truly see his eyes because he wore a veil wrapped around his head as some women did in Arabic countries. His eyes were spirals of colors that reached out from his pupil, not rings, but true spirals. The color of those spirals seemed to change, as if his eyes couldn’t decide what color they wanted to be. He wore his long yellow hair in complicated braids at the back of his head so the veil could be securely tied.
Once, looking into Aisling’s face had caused anyone, male or female, to fall instantly in lust with him. The legend said love, but Aisling had corrected me: It was lust unless he put effort into the magic; then it could be love. Once, even true love could have been broken by Aisling’s touch. It had worked outside and inside faerie, once upon a time. We’d proven that he could still make someone who hated him fall madly in love, give up all her secrets, and betray every oath because of his kiss. It was why I had yet to bed Aisling—he and the other guards weren’t sure if I was powerful enough to resist his spell.
His veil today was white, to match the old-fashioned clothes he wore. There hadn’t been time to make new clothes for the newest guards, so they wore the tunics, pants, and boots that would have looked perfect in about fifte
enth-century Europe, maybe a little later. Fashion moved slowly in faerie unless you were Queen Andais. She was fond of the latest and greatest designers, as long as they liked black.
Usna had borrowed jeans, T-shirt, and a suit jacket from someone. Only the soft boots that peeked from the leg of the jeans were his own. But then a cat is less formal than a god.
“Talk to them, Meredith,” Doyle said, and there was the tiniest bit of strain in his voice. The limo was a smooth ride, but when you have second-degree burns that started the day as third-degree burns, well, I guess there’s no such thing as a truly smooth ride.
His comment had sounded too much like an order, but the strain in his voice made me answer. The strain and the fact that I loved him. Love makes you do all sorts of foolish things.
“Do you know who attacked us?” I asked.
“I know Taranis’s handiwork when I see it,” Aisling said.
“The other guards said Taranis went mad and attacked you all,” Usna said. He drew his knees up tight, arms laced around them, so that his eyes were framed with his jeans and his hair. It was a frightened child’s pose, and I wanted to ask if being among all this man-made metal was hard on him. Some of the lesser fey would eventually die locked inside metal. It made prison a potential death sentence for faerie folk. Lucky that most of us didn’t break human law.
“What prompted the attack?” Aisling asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “He just went crazy. I actually don’t know what happened in the room, because I was buried under a mound of bodyguards.” I looked at Abe still lying in my lap, and glanced at Frost and Doyle. “What did happen?”
“The king attacked Doyle,” Frost said.
“What neither will say,” Abe said, “is that only Doyle throwing up his gun to deflect the spell saved him from being blinded. Taranis tried for his face, and he meant it to either kill or permanently maim. I haven’t seen the old fart use his power that well in centuries.”
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