A Lick of Frost

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  He pressed me in his arms so that I saw the glow on his shoulder, and that sign of power I had seen before as the vine on my arm. I realized that the tattoo that had first appeared in faerie was the same image as in his eyes.

  We stayed frozen a moment, pressed against the headboard. His heart beat so fast and so hard I felt it against the side of my face like a hand. He took us slowly to our sides so that we finally lay across the head of the bed on what pillows had not been knocked off.

  “I had forgotten how magnificent you could be, Frost.” The voice was not mine; it came from the mirror. Where a second before I could not have moved, fear made me sit up and grab for spilled sheets.

  “Don’t cover yourselves,” Andais said from the mirror.

  We drew the sheets over us.

  “I said, do not cover yourselves, or have I ceased to be your queen?” There was an evil tone in her voice that made us push the sheets back. She’d seen the end of our lovemaking; no reason to be shy now, I supposed.

  Frost kept himself pressed against me so that he was as hidden as he could manage. I found my voice first, and said, “My queen, what brings you to our mirror?”

  “I thought I would see Rhys with you, or was that a lie when you said you’d be with him?”

  “Rhys will have his turn, my queen.”

  She stared at Frost, as if I were not there. I looked at him, his body dewed with the sweat of his exertions, his hair a glorious tangle of silver, to decorate all that pale muscled strength. He was beautiful. Beautiful in a way that even among the sidhe not everyone could boast. Ironic that one who had not begun as sidhe would be among our most handsome men. But now that I knew that he had been shaped by love, not a desire for power, but selfless love, I understood. For love makes us all beautiful.

  “The look on your face, Meredith, as you gaze upon him, what are you thinking?”

  “Love, Aunt Andais, I am thinking of love.”

  She made a disgusted sound. “Know this, niece of mine. If the Killing Frost is not your king, I will have him back, and I will see if he is as good as he looks.”

  “He was your lover once, hundreds of years ago.”

  “I remember,” she said, but not like it made her happy.

  I didn’t understand the look on her face, or the tone of her voice. I didn’t truly understand why she had been so determined to catch me with Rhys—or, was she eager to catch me without him? Was she looking for an excuse to order Rhys back to faerie? If yes, then why? She had never treated him as one of her favorites, not in the memory of anyone I knew.

  “I see fear in your eyes, my Killing Frost,” she said.

  My arms tightened around him. I couldn’t help it. “Would you protect him from me, Meredith?”

  “I would protect all my people from harm.”

  “But this one is special to you, isn’t he?”

  “Yes,” I said, because anything else would be a lie.

  “Frost, look at me.” She ordered it.

  He raised his eyes to her.

  “Are you afraid of me, Frost?”

  He swallowed hard enough that it sounded painful, and said in a voice gone rough, “Yes, my queen, I fear you.”

  “You love Meredith, don’t you?”

  He answered, “Yes, my queen.”

  “He loves you, niece, but he fears me. I think you will discover that fear is a more potent threat than love.”

  “I don’t want to threaten him.”

  “One day you will. One day you will find that all the love in faerie is not enough to keep the man you love obedient. You will want fear on your side, and you are too soft to wield it.”

  “I am not frightening. I know that, Aunt Andais.”

  “I look at you and I see the future of my court and I despair.”

  “If love is the future of our court, Aunt Andais, then I am hopeful.”

  She looked once more at Frost, as if he was something to eat and she was starving. “I hate you, Meredith. I truly do.”

  I fought not to say what I was thinking, but she said, “Your face betrays you. Say what is in your mind, niece. I hate you, Meredith. What does that make you want to say to me?”

  “I hate you, too.”

  Andais smiled like she meant it. The bed behind her had been stripped down to its bare essentials. Apparently Crystall’s torture had produced too much blood even for her to sleep in. “I think I will have Mistral tonight, Meredith. I will do to that strong body what I did to Crystall earlier.”

  “I cannot stop you,” I said.

  “Not yet you can’t.” With that the mirror was blank again. I was left staring at my own startled reflection.

  Frost did not look at the mirror. He just crawled off the bed and started getting dressed. He didn’t even bother to clean up first. He just seemed to need to be dressed, and I guess I couldn’t blame him.

  He spoke without looking at me, all his concentration on getting his nakedness covered as quickly as possible. “I told you once that I would rather die than go back to her. I meant it, Meredith.”

  “I know you did,” I said.

  He started buckling on his weapons. “I still mean it.”

  I reached up to him. He took my hand, kissed it, and gave me the saddest smile I’d ever seen. “Frost, I….”

  “If you are going to be with Rhys before evening, I’d use another room. I would not want her as an audience again today.”

  “I’ll do as you suggest.”

  “I’m going to check on Doyle.” He had his clothes in place, and all his weapons. He was tall and handsome, and coldly beautiful. He was my Killing Frost, as arrogant and unreadable as when I’d first met him. But I carried with me the memory of his eyes wide and frantic as he plunged inside my body. I knew what lay inside that cool, controlled man, and I valued every glimpse of the real Frost. A glimpse of the man who had fallen in love with a peasant’s daughter, and given up everything he ever knew to be with her.

  He walked out of the room, tall and straight and, to most eyes, unmoved. But I knew why he left me there in the bed. He left because he was terrified that his queen would come back for a second peek.

  CHAPTER 17

  I TOOK FROST’S ADVICE, AND WENT TO ONE OF THE SMALLER guest rooms in Maeve Reed’s huge guesthouse. She’d offered us the main house while she was away in Europe, where she’d fled because Taranis had tried to kill her twice with magic. Maybe soon we could tell her that Taranis was no longer a threat to her, or anyone, but I still had to get through today. I’d have liked to have found a place of our own by now, but with nearly twenty men to house and feed I couldn’t afford it. I was still refusing to take aid from my aunt. I knew all too well how long and dangerous were the strings that she attached to all favors.

  The adrenaline had worn off, and I was more tired than when I had started the day. I was coming down with something. Damnit.

  I believed Frost would love me, but I wasn’t sure how I would feel aging while they all remained young and fair. There were moments when I wasn’t certain that I was a good enough person to be a good sport about that.

  The room was dark. Blackout curtains had been added to the room’s only window. The mirror over the dresser had been removed so that the wall was blank and peaceful. There would be no unexpected calls in here. It was one of the reasons I’d chosen the room. I needed rest, and I had had all I wanted of surprise mirror calls today.

  Kitto had joined me, and he lay curled beside me under the smooth softness of clean cotton sheets. His dark curls rested on the curve of one of my shoulders, his breath warm on the mound of my breast. His arm lay over my stomach, his leg over my thigh, his other arm up where he could play idly with my hair. He was the only man in my guard shorter than I was, short enough that he could curl around me as I curled around the taller men. He was one of the first men to join me in exile. In the weeks that he’d been away from faerie, Doyle had forced him to use the gym. There was muscle under the white smoothness of his moonlight skin now. Musc
le that had never been there before.

  He was 4'11" with the face of an angel that had never quite gotten through puberty. But then goblins don’t have to shave, and in that, his body had taken after that half of his heritage. I played with the soft curls of his hair, which had grown to touch the tops of his broadening shoulders. The hair was as soft as Galen’s, as soft as my own.

  My other hand was curled around his back. My fingers traced the smooth line of scaled skin that ran down his spine. The scales looked dark in dim light, but in brighter light his skin ran with rainbows. In the kissable mouth that rested against my breast were retractable fangs, connected to poison glands. His father had been a snake goblin. The fact that his father had raped his mother instead of eating her was unusual. Apparently snake goblins were a cold lot in every way. Passion did not move them, but something about Kitto’s mother had wakened heat in his father’s cold heart.

  She had then abandoned her baby beside a goblin mound when she realized what he was. Goblins have been known to eat their own young, and sidhe flesh is highly prized. His own mother had put him out to be killed. Instead, he’d been taken in by a goblin female who had meant to raise him to a bigger size to eat him. But something about Kitto had moved her, too, and she had not had the heart to kill him. There was something in him that did indeed bring out the desire to care, to take care of, to protect. He had offered his life to save mine more than once, yet I still could not see him as my protector.

  He raised huge almond-shaped eyes to me, a swimming pure blue the way Holly and Ash’s eyes were completely one color. Except Kitto’s eyes were wonderful clear blue like a pale sapphire, or a morning sky.

  “Who are you hiding from today, Merry?” he asked, voice gentle.

  I smiled at him from my nest of pillows. “How do you know I’m hiding?”

  “It’s why you come here, to hide.”

  I traced the edge of his cheek. But for a few chance genes he would have been like Holly and Ash, tall and sidhe beautiful with the extra strength and stamina of the goblins.

  “I told you, I’m not feeling well.”

  He smiled, and propped himself up on one elbow so that he was looking slightly down at me. “That is true, but there is a sorrow to you that I would lift if you only tell me how.”

  “Just don’t make me talk of politics. I need to rest if I am to do my duty tonight.”

  He traced his finger down the side of my face from temple to chin. It was a long, slow movement that made me close my eyes and catch my breath.

  “Is that how you see the goblins you will bed tonight, as a duty?”

  I opened my eyes. “It is not that they are goblins that makes them a duty.”

  He smiled, sliding his hand into my hair. “I know that. It is who they are, what they are, and you do not feel your best.”

  “They frighten me, Kitto.”

  His face was sober. “I fear them, too.”

  “Did they ever use you ill?”

  “They have not much liking for male flesh. I have serviced them a time or two when they came to bed my master.”

  Kitto had survived in a culture more violent than any in faerie by doing what some people have to do in prison to survive. They choose someone powerful, or are chosen, and become their property. It was looked down upon, but strangely was honored as a profession. On one hand, goblins like Kitto were the victims of cruel humor; on the other hand, they were highly valued by their masters. Master was not a sexist term in goblin nomenclature. It could be male or female. It was simply the term for one who owned a slave.

  “Serviced them?” I made it a question.

  “I believe in pornography I would be what is termed a fluffer. They do everything together, do the brothers. I helped keep one ready while the other finished.”

  He said it as if it were the most normal thing in the world. There was no condemnation, no anger, nothing. It was the way of his world once. The only world he’d known until his king gave him to me. I tried very hard to give Kitto choices in his new life, but I had to be careful, because too many choices made him anxious. His entire world had literally changed. He had never seen electricity or a television. He was now living on the estate of one of Hollywood’s leading actresses, though he’d never seen a single one of her movies. He was much more impressed that she had once been the goddess Conchenn—a secret that Hollywood did not know.

  “I will be with you tonight, Merry. I will help you.”

  “I can’t ask you….”

  He put his fingers against my lips. “You do not have to ask. None of your other men will know goblin culture as I do. I do not say that I could protect you from them, but I can keep you from falling into traps of custom.”

  I kissed his fingers and moved his hand away from my mouth so I could lay another kiss against the palm of his hand. I wanted to say, “I can’t let you because they abused you,” but he didn’t see it that way. To tell him it was abuse when he didn’t think it was seemed wrong. It was his culture, not mine. Who was I to throw stones after what I’d seen in Andais’s bed today? Poor Crystall.

  There was a soft knock on the door. I sighed, and snuggled deeper into the pillows. I did not want to deal with another crisis today. I had one all nice and scheduled for later tonight when the goblin twins arrived.

  Kitto leaned over and whispered against my hair, “You are the princess. You can tell them to go away.”

  “I can’t tell them to go away until I know what they want.” I called out, “Who is it?”

  “It’s Rhys.”

  Kitto and I exchanged a look. He widened his eyes, his version of a shrug. He was right. It would have to be something important for Rhys to willingly see me in bed with a goblin, any goblin. He even liked Kitto, or at least had sat up late with him introducing him to marathon film noir movie sessions. He’d gone along with Galen when the two of them took Kitto shopping for modern clothes. But Rhys always left if it got physical with Kitto.

  Whatever would bring Rhys willingly into this room had to be important. Important today meant bad. Shit. Out loud I said, “Come in.”

  Kitto started to move away from me as if he were going to leave, but I grabbed his arm and kept him propped on his elbow above me. “This is your room. You don’t leave.”

  Kitto looked doubtful but he stayed where I wanted him. He was good that way. He followed orders beautifully, which was more than I could say for most of the other men.

  Rhys walked in, closing the door quietly behind him. I studied his face, and he looked peaceful enough. “Doyle is a very stubborn man even for a sidhe.”

  “You’re just figuring that out?” I asked.

  Rhys grinned. “Fair enough. I knew it already.”

  “He still won’t let Merry sit by his side?” Kitto asked. He looked perfectly at ease beside me now, as if he had never considered moving away.

  Rhys moved farther into the room as he spoke. “He says, ‘I am to protect her, not she me.’ He further says that you need your rest for tonight, not to sit and worry over him.”

  “I would have cuddled him while we both slept,” I said.

  “His loss, our gain,” Rhys said, grinning again. He took off his jacket.

  “Our loss,” Kitto said, a lilt of surprise in his voice.

  Rhys paused, jacket in one hand. His shoulder holster was very stark against the pale blue of his shirt. Though the shoulder holster implied that it was just for guns, that wasn’t true at all. All the men who had been with me for a few months had custom rigs made, I suspect by one of the leather workers inside faerie. No human could have made them so quickly and so perfectly. There were also intricate designs worked into the leather, and nearly ingenious ways to carry as many weapons as possible and still be able to slip modern jackets over them all.

  Rhys stood there with a gun under one arm and a knife on the other. A second gun rode at his waist. There was also a short sword belted somehow across his back so that the hilt stuck a little out from behind his back on one s
ide. He could grab it sort of like a gun worn at the small of the back.

  “I touched you in the lawyer’s office, and didn’t feel all the weapons,” I said. “There’s a spell that affects sight and touch.”

  “If you didn’t pick up on it, then it’s as good as promised,” Rhys replied.

  “Why did I see the swords at Frost and Doyle’s back?”

  “The enchantment only works if you don’t break the line of the clothing covering the holster. They keep insisting on huge swords that show around the edges of the jackets, so you see the swords. It also makes it more likely that people will notice their guns and other weapons. Once you draw attention to what amounts to an illusion, it begins to break down. You know that.”

  “But I didn’t realize that that was what the leather rigs were, bespelled.”

  He shrugged.

  “It must have cost a pretty penny.”

  “They were gifts,” he said.

  I gave him wide eyes. “Not this much magical work.”

  “You made yourself pretty popular among the lesser fey when you gave your little speech in the hallway, about how most of your friends were below stairs when you were a child, not among the sidhe.”

  “It’s true,” I said.

  “Yes, but it also helped win them to you. That and you being part brownie.”

  “A lesser fey did the leatherwork?” I asked.

  He nodded. “While the sidhe have lost most of their magic, the lesser fey have held on to more than we knew. I think they were afraid to point out to the sidhe that the lesser fey hadn’t faded as much as the greater fey.”

  “Wise of them,” I said.

  Rhys was at the foot of the bed now. “Not that I don’t like my nifty new leather rig, but are you delaying so you can think of a polite way to send me away, or is there a question you don’t want to ask?”

  “Actually, I am interested in the magic on the leather. We may need all the magical help we can get soon. But this is the first time you’ve willingly come into Kitto’s room when I’ve been with him. We’re wondering what’s up.”