Meredith Gentry 6 - A Lick of Frost

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  "The goblins are not known for their patience, Meredith," Doyle said in a tight voice. "You must answer the call," He started off, and didn't fight Frost from helping him, which meant he was very hurt indeed. More hurt than he'd let on. The thought of my Darkness being this injured made my stomach and chest tight, not just because I loved him, but because he was the greatest warrior I had. Frost might be as good in battle, but for strategy it was Doyle. I needed him, in so many ways.

  It must have shown on my face because he said, "I have failed you."

  "Taranis tried to burn your face off," Rhys said. "You failed no one."

  The evil sound of swords filled the room again.

  "Go," Rhys said. "I'll stay with her."

  "You don't like goblins," Frost said.

  Rhys shrugged. "I killed the one that took my eye. That's got to be good enough revenge. Besides, I won't let you and Merry down by being a big baby. Go, rest, take your meds."

  "I'll take Doyle," Galen said.

  We all looked at him. "If Merry can't have Doyle by her side for this call, then she needs Frost," he said.

  Abe had managed to get off the bed on the other side. "I see that no one cares that I might need help."

  "Do you need help?" Galen asked, as he moved to take Doyle from Frost. He actually held his other hand out to Abe.

  Abe looked into his face for a breath, then shook his head, but stopped the movement as if it hurt. "I can walk, boy. The king's men jumped him before he could do his worst on my back." He moved toward the door slowly but surely.

  Doyle let Galen help him out of sight of the mirror and toward the door. Frost came to stand with me and Rhys. Rhys reached toward the mirror, then hesitated. "I hate that you are going to be with these two tonight."

  "We've had this discussion, Rhys. For every half-sidhe goblin whom we bring into his full power, our alliance with the goblins is lengthened by a month. We need their threat to keep us safe," I said.

  The mirror made its ugly sound again. "The goblins do not wait with patience," Frost said.

  "We need them, Rhys," I said.

  "I know. I hate it, but I know," Rhys said. A look passed over his face too quickly for me to read. "One of these days I'd like you to be able to do things just because you want to do them, not because you're forced to do them."

  I wasn't sure what to say to that.

  Rhys reached out toward the mirror. The metallic shriek rose to a crescendo. I fought the urge to cover my ears. I couldn't afford to show weakness in dealing with the goblins. The two high courts of faerie would use weakness to their advantage. Goblin culture simply saw weakness as a reason to abuse you. You were either prey or predator to the goblins. I was working very hard not to be prey.

  The mirror was suddenly a perfect window onto the goblin throne room. Their king was not there, though. Ash and Holly stood alone before the empty stone throne. It was Ash's hand on the glass when we saw them, his magic making the mirror sound like a battle.

  He blinked solid green eyes into the mirror. There was no pupil, only a blind expanse of perfect grass green surrounded by a little white. His hair was yellow, cut short, because only the sidhe are allowed long hair on their men, but his skin was gold kissed. Not sparkling with golden bits like Aisling's, but it was close. Both the twins had Seelie skin, sunlight skin. Moonlight skin like mine, and Frost's, was plentiful at both courts. That golden color, almost like a tan, was exclusively Seelie. The eyes were goblin except for the color. Holly strode to the mirror to stand by his brother. He was identical except that his eyes were the color of red holly berries, like his namesake. The red color with no pupil was not just goblin but Red Cap goblin.

  Rhys moved back from the mirror to stand on the other side of me so that I was sandwiched between him and Frost.

  "The bargain is over," Holly said, his handsome face contorted with rage. He was usually the one to lose his temper first.

  "To keep us waiting like this is to make us lose respect in front of all," Ash said. He didn't sound much more reasonable than his brother, which was bad, since Ash was the voice of reason for the two of them.

  "Queen Andais kept us overlong," Frost said.

  Rhys just moved closer to me, as if the twins' anger alone could hurt me.

  Their eyes flicked to him then back to me. "Is this true, Princess?" Ash asked.

  "The queen had much to show us," I said, and let my voice hold some of the upset I felt about Crystall and his fate in her bed.

  "She's been entertaining the sidhe you left behind," Ash said.

  Holly actually looked uneasy, his anger fading, which was unusual for him.

  "Has the queen spoken to the two of you?" I asked.

  They exchanged a look. Ash answered. "Apparently, the queen enjoyed watching us lick her blood off of your skin. We didn't think that any sidhe, even Unseelie sidhe, would be so goblin in their tastes."

  Andais's blood had gotten on me in her most recent attempt to kill me. She'd been unhappy with me that day. Lately she'd been happier with me, so her murder attempts had stopped, and she was paying my legal bills.

  "She offered you her bed?" Frost asked.

  "We are not talking to you, Killing Frost," Holly said.

  I put a hand on Frost's arm, letting him know that it was all right. "I must weigh the pride of all the men in my life," I said. "Frost is one of those men, and if tonight comes to pass as we have all planned, you will be, too. I know you feel that we insulted you by ignoring your call, but all of us have to wait upon the queen's wishes."

  "We do not," Holly said.

  "You turned her down?" I made it a question.

  "We began the bargaining with what would be done and by whom," Ash said, "but she will not allow harm to come to her body. She only wishes to do harm to others."

  "She actually tried to bargain that she would torture the two of you during sex?" I asked.

  "Yes." Holly almost shouted it.

  "She did not know that it was the gravest of insults to offer that to you," I said.

  "But you knew," Ash said.

  I nodded. "I visited the goblin court many times over my childhood. It was one of the few courts in faerie where my father felt that it was safe to bring me as a child."

  "He would not have allowed you inside the Seelie Court," Ash said.

  "No," I said.

  "The goblins are not tamer than the sidhe," Holly said, his anger flaring again.

  "No, but the goblins are honorable and do not break their rules," I said.

  "Is it true that the queen tried to kill you when you were a child?" Ash asked.

  I nodded again. "It is."

  "So you were truly safer here with us than with your own kind," Ash said.

  "With the goblins and with the sluagh."

  Holly laughed, a harsh, unpleasant sound. "You were safer with us, and with the nightmares of faerie than with the pretty sidhe. I find that hard to believe."

  "The sluagh, like the goblins, have laws and rules and they abide by them. My father knew your ways and taught those ways to me. It is why we are here speaking today."

  "You have bargained most carefully, Princess," Ash said, and there was no lust when he said it, though it was sex we'd been bargaining over. No, there was respect in his face, in his eyes. I'd earned that respect.

  "I am not surprised to see Frost, for lately he is half of your constant companions, but it is not usually Rhys who holds your other hand," Ash said.

  "Where is the Darkness?" Holly asked.

  "Yes, Princess, he has become like your shadow," Ash said. "But today you have only Frost and Rhys by your side. And it is well known that Rhys does not like goblin flesh," Ash said. He made that last comment sound suggestive.

  Rhys tensed beside me, one hand going to my shoulder, but otherwise he held his temper.

  Did they know that we had been attacked? If they did know, would they see it as an insult if we didn't tell them? The goblins were our allies, but not our friends.

>   "If the goblins are your allies," Ash said, "then should you have secrets from them?"

  They knew. I made my decision. "Is the rumor mill traveling so fast in faerie?"

  "There are those among the goblins who watch the human news. They saw the Darkness in a wheelchair coming out of a human hospital. We did not see it, so gave it no credit, but now he is missing from your side. My brother and I ask again, where is your Darkness?"

  "He is healing."

  "But injured," Ash said. He seemed a little eager at the news.

  I fought not to lick my lips or show some other nervous habit. I spoke smoothly. "He is injured, yes."

  "It must be grave for him to leave your side," Ash said.

  "Darkness in a wheelchair like an invalid," Holly said. "I never thought I would see such a shameful thing."

  "There is no shame in taking care of an injury among the sidhe," I said.

  "A goblin so badly injured would either take his own life or others would take it for him," Holly said.

  "Then glad I am that I am not goblin," I said, "for I injure all too easily." I'd mentioned my frailty on purpose. I hoped to turn their attention from Doyle and toward the sex we might be having tonight. Ash and Holly had never been with a human. They had never been with anyone who could be injured so easily, and death, true death, by accident, with no cold metal involved, was a novelty. Yes, Ash hoped to be king. Ash and Holly both hoped that I could bring them into their sidhe-sided magic as I had others. But it wasn't hunger for power that filled Holly's face with eagerness. It was hunger of a very different kind.

  Ash's face remained thoughtful, not caught up in his brother's lust. Holly would be the one who might lose control and hurt me by accident, but it was Ash who would hurt me on purpose. He was just a little less goblin in his thoughts and a little more sidhe. If I could awaken true magic in him, he would be truly dangerous. Kurag, Goblin King, would do well to watch him. The goblins do not inherit their throne. They take it by force of arms, and they keep it the same way. The King is dead, long live the king.

  "I will not be distracted, Princess," Ash said. "Not even by your white flesh."

  "Am I so poor a prize then?" I asked, and lowered my eyes. The goblins liked their partners either bold as brass or demure. I wasn't capable of their level of boldness, so demure it was.

  Ash gave an abrupt laugh. "You know exactly what you represent to us, Princess."

  Holly stepped close to the mirror so that his handsome face filled more of the view. There was no distortion as with a camera. It was always as if the glass only separated one part of a room from another. He pressed his fingers against the glass. He looked at me, and there was something in his eyes beyond sex.

  I shivered and looked away from him.

  "I wish I could smell your fear through this glass," he said in a voice gone low and rough with need.

  Frost moved closer to me. Rhys put his arm around my waist. I wanted the comfort, but we were dealing with goblins, and they would use it against us.

  "We agreed to Darkness and one other watching our fucking," Ash said. "But he is injured, so I say we have no audience."

  "No," I said, voice soft.

  "Then all our negotiations must be redone," Ash said.

  Frost started to say something, but I touched his arm. "You and Holly have the chance to bring magic, true magic, back to the goblins. You have a chance to be in the running for king of the Unseelie Court. You will not pass up such power because Doyle is too injured to watch us fuck. You will allow me to choose two other men to guard my safety, and to make certain we all have a care tonight."

  "We do not take orders from the sidhe," Holly said.

  "This is not an order. This is simply the truth." I looked at Ash, who was deeper into the room, farther from the mirror.

  "We have given you our word, Princess," Holly said. "The goblins, unlike the sidhe, keep their word. We will do only what has been bargained for, nothing more. We will do nothing that you do not agree to."

  "The guards will be there to see that in the midst of pleasure you do not get carried away, but they will also be there for another reason," I said.

  "And what would that be?" Ash asked.

  "To make certain that I do not lose myself to the moment."

  "Lose yourself," Holly said. "What does that mean?"

  "It means that we bargained that you would do nothing I did not agree to, or ask for. I fear that I may in the heat of the moment ask for things that my body cannot survive."

  "What?" Holly asked, frowning.

  "She's saying that she likes to be hurt, and she might ask for things that would damage her," Ash said.

  "Lying sidhe," Holly said.

  "I swear to you that I do not lie. I must have guards to keep me safe from myself."

  Holly hit the mirror hard enough to make it shake on his end.

  It made me jump. "You are afraid of us," he said. "The sidhe do not crave that which they fear."

  "I cannot speak for anyone but myself."

  "Do you want me to hurt you?" Holly said.

  I looked up then, gave him my gaze, full on, and let him see the truth. "Oh, yes."

  CHAPTER 14

  EVENTUALLY THE MIRROR WAS JUST A MIRROR AGAIN. THE GOBLINS would arrive tonight with a guard of Red Caps to make certain this was not sidhe treachery. With Doyle injured, I had to choose new guards to watch us, and frankly the ones I trusted most didn't want the duty.

  Frost would have stood with Doyle, if ordered, but he didn't really enjoy seeing me with other men. He was okay with Doyle and himself being in the same room at the same time with me, but he didn't share with anyone else. Rhys was more open-minded about the sharing thing, but it would have been a type of torture to ask him to watch the goblins with me. Being a prisoner of the goblins had been what had cost him one eye.

  "You meant that about wanting them to hurt you, didn't you?" Rhys asked.

  "Yes," I said.

  "Do you know how disturbing that is?"

  I thought about it, then nodded. "You either get it, or you don't."

  "I do not get it either," Frost said.

  I kept quiet because Frost actually got it more than he thought he did. He didn't like causing me pain, but a little "tie me up, tie me down" worked just fine as foreplay for him. But since he didn't consider bondage the same thing as causing pain, I didn't argue with him.

  "Doyle gets it," Rhys said.

  I nodded.

  "You enjoy normal sex, right?" Rhys asked.

  "Normal is a judgment. The kind of sex I like is just the kind of sex I like, Rhys."

  He took a deep breath and started over. "I don't mean to sound judgmental. What I mean is, do you have less… bondage sex with the rest of us because you think we won't do what you want? I guess I want to know that you really enjoy being with me."

  I put my arms around him, but kept us far enough apart so I could gaze up into his face. "I love being with you, all of you. But sometimes I like something rougher. I wouldn't want to have the goblins' idea of sex every night, but the thought does excite me."

  He shivered, and it wasn't from pleasure. No, it was definitely fear. "I know now, thanks to you, that only my ignorance of goblin culture cost me my eye. If I hadn't been just another arrogant sidhe, I'd have known that their culture allows even prisoners to negotiate sex. I could have forced them not to maim me. But I saw the sex as torture, and you can't bargain with torture."

  "When a goblin tortures you, you'll know it."

  He shuddered again.

  I hugged him, trying to squeeze that haunted look from his face. "We need to decide who's going to guard my back tonight."

  He hugged me tightly. "I'm so sorry, Merry, but I can't. I just can't do it."

  I whispered into his hair, "I know, and it's all right."

  "I will do it," Frost said.

  I turned in Rhys's arms so I could see Frost. His face was at its arrogant best, coldly handsome. What I saw was that it wasn't his
lack of enjoyment of what would be happening that would hamper his ability to guard me, but rather just how much he might secretly enjoy it. That would hamper him. He had a tendency to let his emotions cloud his judgment. Tonight would push too many of Frost's buttons for him to guard me well. If Doyle had been there to help force him through his emotional baggage, then maybe, but Doyle wouldn't be there tonight. Who could I ask to do this?

  The mirror suddenly showed the queen's bedroom. We had put a spell on the mirror to keep anyone else from simply peeking in, but the queen had taken that badly. So she had ready access to the mirror. It meant we had no privacy, but it kept Andais's anger to a more manageable level.

  It also meant that I'd started sleeping in some of the smaller rooms in the house. My excuse that sex exhausted us and we just fell asleep elsewhere was holding so far.

  The queen was covered in blood from about mid-arm to her lower body. It was hard to tell with the black she was wearing, but the cloth seemed to be stuck to her body with the wetness of it. She held the blade in one hand, so covered in blood that I knew it must be slippery.

  I didn't want to look at the bed, but I had to. I stayed in Rhys's arms and we both looked at the bed, in that slow-motion way you do when you both want to see and never want to see.

  It had to be Crystall, but he was just a bloody form in the shape of a man. Only his shoulders and the width of his hips made me sure of the man part. He was still on his stomach, still where we'd last seen him. One arm lay half off the bed, the hand hanging in midair. The hand twitched involuntarily as if something she'd done to him had affected the nerves.

  Tears simply spilled down my face. I couldn't stop them. Rhys pushed my face against his shoulder so I wouldn't have to see. For once, I let him. I'd seen what Andais wanted me to see, though I had no idea why she wanted me to see it. What she'd done to Crystall was usually reserved for traitors, enemies. People she meant to get information out of, or prisoners who were to be tortured for crimes. She had reduced him to a red ruin for what? For what! I wanted to scream it at her.

  Rhys's arms tightened around me, as if he had read my intent.