[Merry Gentry 04] - A Stroke of Midnight

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  “Your bath is going to get cold,” Kitto said again.

  I stood up, and started peeling off the bloody clothes. “Everybody who isn’t getting in the tub, leave. The night isn’t getting any younger.”

  Frost winced. “Will that make time speed, or slow?”

  “I forgot,” I said, with my shirt in my hands, and the bra still to go. “I just forgot, it’s an expression.”

  “You cannot afford expressions,” Doyle said.

  “I’ll do my best, but it’s almost impossible to watch every word you say.”

  “You must try, Meredith, you must try.”

  “Let’s find out first if the goblins and the sluagh are moving at human time or our time before we panic Merry,” Rhys said.

  Doyle nodded. “Take some men of your choosing and go.”

  “Why am I the one who keeps having to go back and forth in the snow?”

  “Death does not feel the cold,” Doyle said.

  “No, but neither does the dark, and you get to stay nice and warm.” He went for the door. “I’ll leave more men than I take. This is more spying than fighting.”

  “But you might need to fight,” Doyle said.

  “Take at least two others with you,” I told him.

  “Aye, aye, Cap’n.” He did a mock salute, then walked out.

  I looked at Frost and Doyle, still standing on either side of the door. “Unless you’re staying to watch, it’s time to thin the number of people in here,” I said.

  “Do you wish an audience?” Doyle asked.

  The question caught me off-guard. I actually thought about it, then shook my head. “No, not really.” I looked at him, studied that dark face. “I didn’t know you enjoyed watching.”

  “I don’t. Very few among the guards enjoy voyeurism.”

  “The queen beat it out of us,” Galen said.

  Doyle nodded. “Almost literally.”

  “I, for one,” Frost said, “do not wish to watch whether you will it, or no.”

  “I would never ask anything of you, Frost, that I thought would hurt you, not if I had a choice.”

  He started to get offended, or to pretend he didn’t understand me, but then his face softened, and he even gave a little smile. “I know you would not. It is not Galen and Nicca with you tonight that bites at me. It is the demi-fey. I do not like him. I do not like a princess of the sidhe having to use her body as a bargaining chip.”

  “Frost,” I said, going to him, “a royal woman’s body has been a bargaining chip for thousands of years. At least I’m not bargaining myself away in marriage. That might be my fate if I were human.”

  “Married to that . . . thing.” The look on his face was so shocked it was funny. I laughed, I could not help myself. He jerked as if I’d struck him.

  I touched his arm, but he pulled away. I’d had enough. “First, the demi-fey are a part of this court. The way the sidhe treat them, the way everyone treats them, is a disgrace. They are either part of us or they are not.” I watched his face close down, watched that sullen arrogance close around him, but I didn’t stop just because his feelings were hurt. I couldn’t afford to keep stopping every time he got his feelings hurt, it happened too often. “Second, I’m tired of your acting as if your blood and body are too precious to be bargained with. I put my flesh and blood up for grabs a lot for you, all of you. You won’t feed anyone. You won’t even let a single demi-fey watch. Rhys won’t let goblins touch him, or the demi-fey either now.”

  “He fell to the power of Sage’s glamour,” Frost said. “He will not risk it again.”

  “Fine, but I’m risking it. Galen has more reason to be afraid of the demi-fey than either Rhys or you, and he’s going to do this for me, for us, tonight.” I moved closer to him, but didn’t try to touch him. I didn’t want to see him pull away. “I know you covered my body with yours, that you offered your life for mine today. But so did Galen. He nearly paid with his life tonight, yet here he stands ready to let a demi-fey touch him.”

  “What do you want of me?” Frost asked.

  “I want you to stop pouting about me sharing myself with the lesser fey, when you won’t let your so-white flesh be touched by them. I want you to stop making me feel as if I’m the whore and you’re too good for it.” I realized I was angry, really angry. But it wasn’t Frost I was angry with, I was just angry. And I hadn’t been able to be angry at the people I most wanted to be angry with, so suddenly this unreasoning anger flared. My skin ran hot with it, making me glow through the dried crust of blood and gore.

  I stepped back from him. “I am tired, Frost, and there is still much for my body to do tonight. By our bargain I must be with Royal, in some way. By the queen’s order I must be with Galen and Nicca tonight. And one other green man before dawn finds me.” I thought about it. “I need to bed Sholto before we go to the goblin court tomorrow night so we can count on the sluagh as our allies.” I shook my head. “I did it again, didn’t I?”

  “Before dawn finds you,” Doyle said, “yes.”

  “But there is too much to do, and the clock starts ticking again at dawn.”

  He nodded. “I would offer my blood in your place if it would satisfy Niceven.”

  I smiled at him. “I know you would, but the demi-fey don’t seem to like you. Later, when we have the time, I’d like to know the story behind that.”

  “No,” Doyle said, “you will not like the story, and I will not like telling it.”

  He looked so solemn, almost sad, that I touched his arm, and said, “Unless I need to know it, you may keep your secret feud with Niceven’s court a secret.”

  “Would you really let the little fey touch you?” Frost asked.

  Doyle looked at his friend. “Yes, if it was necessary.”

  “How can you let those things touch you?”

  “How can I ask of the princess what I would not give myself?” Doyle said.

  Frost bent his head, eyes closed. He took in a lot of air, as if he were trying to get enough breath for some long, deep dive. His breath came out in a shaky rush. He opened his eyes, and they were raw with emotion, like grey wounds. “I would never ask of you a thing that I would not do myself, Meredith. I am sorry.”

  I touched his arm, and this time he didn’t pull away. I leaned into him, and offered my face up for a kiss. There was enough height difference that if he didn’t bend down to kiss me, I couldn’t make him. Not without a chair to stand on. But I didn’t have to get a chair.

  Frost met me halfway, bending down, his hands on my arms, steadying me on my tiptoes. We kissed. I meant it to be a chaste kiss, a “good-bye for the night” kiss, but he had other ideas.

  His lips pressed against mine, hard, fierce. His tongue pushed at my mouth, and I opened to him, let him slide inside my mouth. His breath shuddered inside my mouth, as if he were breathing me in, and he crushed me against him. He lifted me off my feet and wrapped me around him. He fed at my mouth with tongue and teeth and lips, until I made small sounds at the force of his mouth, the near painful grip of his arms and hands. I melted against him; when he drew back from the kiss, I was light-headed, and tried to keep the kiss going. I’d forgotten where we were, what I was supposed to be doing. I forgot myself as I had at the press conference. I forgot everything but the taste of his mouth, the feel of his body. I forgot everything but Frost’s kiss.

  He drew away from me while I fought to kiss him again. I was making small, protesting noises as he tried to slide me down his body and set me on the floor. I wrapped my legs around his waist, and refused to be set down.

  “Meredith, Meredith.” I think Doyle’s deep voice had been talking to me for a while. I finally looked at him. He smiled and shook his head. “He has to go now, we both do.”

  I looked back to Frost, who had finally wrapped his arms back around me when I wouldn’t let him drop me. He looked terribly pleased with himself. “Now I can leave you to others.”

  I shook my head, because what I wanted to say was don’t
leave, but I couldn’t. It wasn’t that I didn’t want Galen, but . . . Frost seemed to always be able to make me want him.

  “If you are leaving, then you need to put her down,” Doyle said.

  He let me slide down his body, and I let him do it, this time I did. My knees were a little unsteady, and he had to keep his hand on my arm for a moment, before I could stand on my own.

  He laughed, a purely masculine laugh. “Goddess help me, but I do love you.”

  “Enough, Frost,” Doyle said, “we have other work to do tonight.” He motioned for the door, and this time Frost went where he was told. Doyle turned to me at the open door. “I will not try to compete with that.” He said it with a smile.

  I raised up on tiptoe, my hands on his chest, and said, “It isn’t a competition.”

  He lowered his face to mine. “In the mortal words of the human world, the hell it isn’t.” He kissed me, firm and thorough but chaste compared to what Frost had done, then he drew back from me. “Do you wish me to send in the demi-fey?”

  “Let us get the blood off of us first. I’ll send Nicca or Kitto for Royal.”

  “As you wish.” His eyes flicked behind me, then he touched my face, and closed the door behind him.

  I turned around to find that two of the other men in my life had undressed while I was preoccupied. Galen’s body was covered in patches of dried blood. It wasn’t lust that made me go to him and wrap myself around his nude body, it was fear. Later there’d be time for lust, but in that moment I just wanted to hold him, wanted to feel him warm and alive in my arms. My hands couldn’t seem to avoid feeling the dried scratchiness of blood. It was everywhere on the smooth perfection of his skin. My hands found the still-healing wound in his back. I shivered.

  He hugged me. “Are you cold?”

  “A little,” I said aloud. To myself I acknowledged that it wasn’t the kind of cold that a coat or a bath would help.

  “Let’s get in the water then.” He smiled down at me as he said it, as if a little hot water would solve everything. If only life were that simple.

  Something must have shown on my face, because he frowned at me. “Are you all right?”

  I nodded and sighed. So much to do, so many alliances to forge and strengthen, so many enemies to find. I should have been hurrying, should have had my list of goals and been breaking my back to get through them. But in that moment I couldn’t think of anything that seemed more important than holding as much of Galen against me as I could manage. Naked in a bathtub doesn’t solve everything, but naked with someone you love doesn’t hurt anything either.

  CHAPTER 28

  THE BATH WAS STILL HOT WHEN I FINALLY SLID INTO IT, WHICH meant that Kitto had drawn it hotter than I liked. He had known that we would talk too long and had planned for it. He’d begun to anticipate my needs, not in the way of a lover or a friend, but in the way of a good servant. Unobtrusive, quiet, just there when needed. No friend or lover I’d ever had had been unobtrusive. Messy, joyous, heartbreaking, wonderful, but never unobtrusive.

  I looked at him as Galen slid into the bath. Kitto was one of the oldest of my men, and the oldest among us don’t always liked being thanked, so I didn’t. “You drew the water too hot, so it would be just right by the time we got in the tub. You knew we’d talk too long.”

  He ducked his head, not meeting my eyes. “There was much to talk of.”

  I leaned against the edge of the marble tub, until I could touch his shoulder. “You always seem to know what I’m going to do before I do.”

  He raised eyes that were unsullied by white, only a bright clear blue. I saw uncertainty there before he lowered them again. “What’s wrong, Kitto?” I asked, stroking my fingers up and down his bare shoulder. He’d stripped down to just a thong, as he often did when he did anything messy. To save his clothes, he said. I got the feeling that Kitto owned more clothes now, with me, than he’d ever owned in the goblin court.

  He shook his head, sending the black curls of his newly grown hair brushing across his shoulders. A few inches longer and it would have been punishable by torture. Only the sidhe were allowed long hair. He was sidhe now, with his own hand of power. As with Nicca’s wings and Mistral’s reborn power, so Kitto’s sidhe magic had come after sex. With the new power should have come a new confidence, but it had not.

  Galen leaned over the tub edge to touch Kitto’s other shoulder. “What’s up, Kitto, you can tell us.”

  Kitto flashed him a rare smile. “You are both the kindest sidhe I’ve ever known.” He glanced behind at Nicca. “All of you.”

  “You’re sidhe now, too, Kitto,” I said.

  He shook his head. “I will never be truly sidhe, not to some.”

  Nicca knelt behind him, his wings sweeping out along the floor. “Who has been saying such things to you?”

  Kitto shook his head again, and Nicca’s arms came around from behind, hugging him. Kitto stiffened, as if afraid. I leaned up over the tub edge until I could lay a kiss upon his lips. When I drew back from the kiss, he raised frightened eyes to me.

  “What did they say to you?” I asked. I was really worried now. I’d never seen him quite like this, and I didn’t like it.

  He dropped his gaze again, and wouldn’t look at me as he said it. “They said that I would never be anything but a filthy goblin. That only a whore would share her bed with me.” He looked up then, and his face was so hurt, so confused. “I didn’t think any fey called another whore. It is not our way.”

  “Oh, Kitto,” I said.

  “I should not be here if it hurts your chances of being queen.” He started to bend down, as if he would make himself smaller, but Nicca’s arms wouldn’t let him do it. Nicca held him tightly but gently against his body.

  “They are jealous,” Nicca said.

  Kitto looked over his shoulder at the other man. “Jealous of what?”

  “Of you,” Galen said.

  Kitto blinked at him, and shook his head. “No, not of me.”

  “You are the first non-sidhe to be brought into his power in centuries,” Galen said. “No matter how common it used to be, it isn’t now. They are jealous that Merry could do it, and you could become it. They’re afraid of you and what it might mean if more of the sidhe-sided goblins could be made sidhe.”

  I looked at Galen.

  “What?” he said. “It’s true.”

  “Yes, but I . . .”

  “Didn’t think I’d noticed,” he said.

  I had the grace to look embarrassed. “Let’s say, I didn’t think you’d noticed so much, and so well.”

  He smiled, a little sadly. “I’m learning just how stupid everyone thought I was.”

  I touched his shoulder. “Not stupid, never that.”

  “Foolish then, or oblivious.”

  “Oblivious,” Nicca said. “Can’t truly argue that one.”

  I had to smile. “You did seem oblivious to most of the politics.”

  Galen nodded. “I was, maybe I still am, but we all have to keep our wits about us. We all have to see what there is to see, or we are going to die.” He gripped my arms, sloshing the water against our bodies. “When it was just my life and there was no chance that I would ever be in your bed, I didn’t care that much.” He hugged me against him. “There’s too much to lose now, and I don’t want to lose any of it.”

  I wrapped my arms around him, held him as tight as I could. My hands traced the patches of dried blood, covering all of him that hadn’t gone in the water. I trailed my hands down and found that even in the water, the blood still clung. So much blood, so terribly much.

  “I’m sorry that I didn’t pay attention before,” he said, his cheek against my hair. “I didn’t see a point to it, if I couldn’t have you. I don’t see everything, not the way Doyle does, or Frost, or even Rhys, but I do see some things, and I’m trying to see more.”

  There was a lump in my throat so big I couldn’t swallow past it. My chest felt tight, and it was hard to breathe. My eyes wer
e suddenly hot, and I knew I was about to cry only a second before it started. I didn’t want to cry. He was safe. We were safe. But feeling the dried blood made me remember the moment I’d seen him lying on his back in a lake of his own blood. That heart-stopping moment when I’d thought he was gone. Thought I’d never hold him warm against me again. Thought his arms would never press our bodies together again. That I’d never see his smile or hear his voice or gaze into his living eyes.

  Galen stroked my hair and raised my face up to his. “Merry, are you crying?”

  I nodded, because I didn’t trust my voice.

  “Why?” he asked.

  Nicca said it for me. “She thought she’d lost you today, Galen.”

  Galen stared down into my face. “Is that why you’re crying?”

  I nodded again, and buried my face against his chest. He leaned back into the water, cradling me against his body. He stroked my skin, petted my hair, and whispered, “It’s all right. I’m all right.”

  “But what about next time?” I asked.

  “The queen made it clear that I might be the key to bringing babies back to the sidhe. I don’t think they’ll want to hurt me now.”

  “Cel’s people will,” Kitto said.

  We looked at him.

  “I hear things because no one notices me.”

  I felt a twinge at that because I’d done it, too. He’d accused me once of talking over him like he was a dog or a chair. That was before he had become my lover, but even now it was easier not to notice him than the rest. He had survived in the goblin mound by being unobtrusive, as invisible as he could make himself. He still had the habit of it.

  “I heard some sidhe saying that they did not believe that anyone of Andais’s line would be able to bring life back to the Unseelie.”

  “Who said this?”

  “They saw me, after they had spoken. I think they would have tried to hurt me, but King Sholto came down the hallway. He had some of his sluagh with him.”

  “Was this today?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “If he was here, I wonder why he didn’t come to the throne room.”