Taranis had tried to make me his queen, but I was already pregnant. I already had my kings. Taranis had failed in every way. If the rape kit came back positive, though positive seemed the wrong word, then I would see King Taranis, King of Light and Illusion, in jail for rape.
The press were going to eat him alive. Charged with the abduction, beating, and rape of his own niece. The Seelie Court had been the shining star of the human media. That was about to change.
It was the Unseelie Court’s time to shine, even if it was with a darkling light. We would be the good guys this time.
The Seelie had offered me their throne, but I knew better. Hugh and others might want me, but the golden throng would never accept me as queen. I carried babies whose fathers were Unseelie lords. I’d been the child of an Unseelie prince, and they had treated me as worse than nothing.
There would be no golden throne for me. No, if throne there be, then it would be the throne of night. Maybe the throne needed a new name? Throne of night sounded so sinister. Taranis sat on the Golden Throne of the Seelie Court. It sounded so much more cheerful. Shakespeare said that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but I didn’t believe it. Golden throne, throne of night. Which throne would you rather sit on?
I’d survive tonight. I even knew I was trying to think of anything, everything, to keep from dwelling on what Taranis had done, and the fact that Frost wasn’t going to be waiting for me at the hospital. I was finally pregnant, and I couldn’t be happy about it. For political reasons the rape kit coming back positive would be good. It meant we owned Taranis. But for my own reasons, I hoped he’d lied. I hoped he hadn’t had his way with me while I was unconscious. Had his way with me, nice euphemism. I hoped he hadn’t raped me while I was unconscious. I hoped he hadn’t raped me while I bled into my skull from the blow he had dealt me.
I started to cry, hopelessly, helplessly. Doyle bent over me, whispering my name and that he loved me.
I buried my hand in the warmth of his hair, drew him close so I could breathe in the scent of his skin. I buried myself in the feel and smell of his body, and wept.
I had won the race to sit on the throne of the Unseelie Court, and it was bitter ashes on my tongue.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LAURELL K. HAMILTON is the New York Times bestselling author of the Meredith Gentry novels: A Kiss of Shadows, A Caress of Twilight, Seduced by Moonlight, A Stroke of Midnight, and Mistral’s Kiss, as well as fifteen acclaimed “Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter” novels. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri. Visit the author’s official website at www.laurellkhamilton.org.
By Laurell K. Hamilton
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
A KISS OF SHADOWS
A CARESS OF TWILIGHT
SEDUCED BY MOONLIGHT
A STROKE OF MIDNIGHT
MISTRAL’S KISS
A Lick of Frost is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2007 by Laurell K. Hamilton
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group and A.P. Watt Ltd. for permission to reprint an excerpt from “A Dialogue of Self and Soul” from The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, Volume I: The Poems, Revised edited by Richard J. Finneran, copyright © 1933 by the Macmillan Company, copyright renewed 1961 by Bertha Georgie Yeats. Rights outside the United States administered by A.P. Watt Ltd., London. Reprinted by permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group and A.P. Watt Ltd. All rights reserved.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Hamilton, Laurell K.
A lick of frost : a novel / Laurell K. Hamilton.
p. cm.
1. Gentry, Meredith (Fictitious character). 2. Women private investigators—Fiction. 3. Supernatural—Fiction. 4. Faeries—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3558.A443357L53 2007
813'.54—dc22 2007027388
www.ballantinebooks.com
eISBN: 978-0-345-50223-0
v3.0
A Lick of Frost Page 27