Divine Misdemeanors (21 page)

“I am jealous of the power I see in the other men. That I will admit to, and the thought that without your touch I will never come back to my power is a hard thing.” He made certain to give me eye contact, but his face was a mask of arrogance, beautiful and alien. It was a look that I’d seen him give Andais. It was his unreadable face, and he’d never had to use it on me before.

“You flooded every river around St. Louis when Merry and you had sex only in vision,” Rhys said. “How much more power do you want?”

This time Barinthus looked away, and would not meet anyone’s eyes. That was answer enough, I supposed.

It was Doyle who stepped forward a step or two, and said, “I understand wanting to have all the old power back, my friend.”

“You have regained yours!” Barinthus yelled. “Don’t try to soothe me when you stand there full to bursting with your own power.”

“But it is not my old power, not completely. I still cannot heal as I did. I cannot do many things that I once could do.”

Barinthus looked at Doyle then, and the anger in his eyes had turned them from happy blue to a black where the water runs deep
and there are rocks just under the surface, ready to tear the hull of your boat and sink you.

There was a sudden splash against the side of the house. We were too far above the sea for the tide to find us, and it was the wrong time of day for it anyway. There was another slap of water, and this time I heard it smack into the huge windows of the master bathroom attached to this bedroom.

It was Galen who slid from the doorway and walked farther into the bathroom to check on the sound. There was another burst of water on the glass, and he came back, his face serious. “The sea is rising, but the water is like someone picked it up and threw it at the windows. It is actually separating from the sea, and seems to float for a moment before it hits.”

“You must control your power, my friend,” Doyle said, his deep voice going deeper with some strong emotion.

“Once I could have called the sea and washed this house into the water.”

“Is that what you want to do?” I asked. I squeezed Frost’s hand and then moved forward to stand with Doyle.

He looked at me then, and his face showed great anguish. His hands ground into fists at his side. “No, I would not wash away into the sea all we have gained, and I would never harm you, Merry. I would never dishonor Essus and all he tried to do by saving your life. You carry his grandchildren. I want to be here to see the babes born.”

His unbound hair writhed around him, and where most hair seemed to blow in wind, there was something of liquid in the way his hair moved, as if here in this room somehow the currents below touched and played with his ankle-length hair. I was betting that his hair didn’t tangle either.

The sea quieted outside, the noise drawing away until it was just the quiet hush of water on the narrow beach below. “I am sorry. I lost control of myself, and that is unforgivable. I, of all sidhe, know that such childish displays of power are pointless.”

“And you want the Goddess to give you back more power?” Rhys asked.

Barinthus looked up and that flash of black water showed for a moment, then was swallowed into something calmer, more controlled. “I do. Wouldn’t you? Oh, but I forgot, you have a sithen waiting for you, regained from the Goddess only last night.” There was bitterness to his voice now, and the ocean sounded just a little rough, as if some great hand stirred it with an impatient hand.

“Maybe there’s a reason the Goddess hasn’t given you back more of your powers,” said Galen.

We all looked at him. He leaned in the doorway looking serious but calm.

“You have no stake in this, boy. You don’t remember what I lost.”

“I don’t, but I do know that the Goddess is wise, and she sees further into our hearts and minds than we do. If this is what you do with only part of your power back, how arrogant would you be with all of it back?”

Barinthus took a step toward him. “You have no right to judge me.”

“He is father to my children as much as Doyle,” I said. “He is a king to my queen as much as Doyle.”

“He was not crowned by faerie and the gods themselves.”

There was a knock on the door. It made me jump. Doyle called out, “Not now.”

But the door opened, and it was Sholto, Lord of Shadows and That Which Passes Between, King of the Sluagh. He came in with his unbound hair, in a white-blond cloak over a black-and-silver tunic and boots.

He wasted a smile on me, and I got the full impact of his tricolored eyes: metallic gold around the pupil, then amber, then yellow like aspen leaves in the fall. His smile faded as he turned to the other men and said, “I heard you yelling, Sea Lord, and I have been crowned by faerie and the gods themselves. Does that make this fight more mine?”

“I DO NOT FEAR YOU, SLUAGH LORD,” BARINTHUS SAID, AND AGAIN
there was that angry sound from the sea outside.

Sholto’s smile vanished completely, leaving his handsome face arrogant, starkly beautiful, and totally unfriendly. “You will,” he said, and his voice held an edge of anger. There was a sparkle of gold as his eyes began to shine.

The sea outside slapped against the glass again, harder, angrier. It wasn’t just that it was a bad idea for the men to duel; it was dangerous for all of us here by the sea. I couldn’t believe that Barinthus, of all people, was behaving so badly. He’d been the voice of reason for centuries at the Unseelie Court, and now … I’d missed some change in him, or maybe without Queen Andais, the Queen of Air and Darkness, to keep him in check, I was seeing the real him after all. That was a sad thought for me.

“Enough of this,” Doyle said, “both of you.”

Barinthus turned on Doyle, and said, “It is you who I’m angry at, Darkness. If you prefer to fight me yourself that will be fine.”

“I thought you were mad at me, Barinthus,” Galen said. That caught me off guard; I’d thought he would know better than to attract the big man’s anger a second time.

Barinthus turned and looked at Galen, who was still in the bathroom
doorway. The sea slapped against the windows behind him hard enough to shake them. “You didn’t betray everything by refusing the crown, but if you want a piece of this fight, you may have it.”

Galen gave a small smile, and moved away from the doorway. “If the Goddess had given me a choice between the throne and Frost’s life, I would have chosen his life, just as Doyle did.”

My stomach tightened at his words. Then I realized that Galen was baiting Barinthus, and the anxiety went away. I felt suddenly calmer, almost happy. It was such an abrupt change of mood I knew it wasn’t me. I looked at Galen walking slowly toward Barinthus, his hand out almost as if he was offering to shake hands. Oh, my Goddess, he was doing magic on us all, and he was one of the few who could have because much of his magic showed no outward sign. He didn’t glow, or shimmer, or be anything but pleasant, and you just felt like being pleasant back.

Barinthus didn’t threaten again as Galen moved slowly, carefully, smiling, hand out toward the other man.

“Then you are a fool, too,” Barinthus said, but the rage in his voice was less, and the next slap of ocean against the windows was also less. It didn’t rattle the windows this time.

“We all love Merry,” Galen said, still moving gently forward, “don’t we?”

Barinthus frowned, clearly puzzled. “Of course I love Meredith.”

“Then we’re all on the same side, aren’t we?”

Barinthus frowned harder, but finally gave a small nod. “Yes.” That one word was low, but clear.

Galen was almost to him, his hand almost touching his arm, and I knew that if his glamour was working this well from a distance, that one touch would calm the whole situation. There’d be no fight if that hand once touched that arm. Even knowing what was happening didn’t completely nullify the effects of Galen’s charm, and I was just getting the backwash of it. Most of it was concentrated on Barinthus. Galen was willing him to calm down. He was willing him to be friends.

A scream sounded from outside the room, but it was inside the house. The scream was high pitched and terror filled. Galen’s glamour was like most; it shattered with the scream and the adrenaline rush as everyone went for weapons. I owned guns, but hadn’t packed one for the beach. It wouldn’t have mattered, because Doyle pushed me to the floor on the far side of the bed, and ordered Galen to stay with me. He, of course, would go for the scream.

Galen knelt by me, gun out and ready, though not pointed, because there was nothing to point at yet.

Sholto had the door opened, staying to one side of the doorjamb so he didn’t make a target of himself. He was on the queen’s guard when he wasn’t king of his own kingdom, and he knew the possibilities of modern weapons, and a well-placed arrow. Barinthus was pressed to the other side of the flattened door, the fight forgotten, as they did what they had trained to do for longer than America had been a country.

Whatever they saw out there made Sholto move forward at a cautious crouch, gun in one hand, sword in the other. Barinthus spilled around the door with no visible weapon, but when you’re seven feet tall, more than humanly strong, nearly immortal, and a trained fighter, you don’t always need a weapon. You are the weapon.

Rhys went next, keeping low, gun in hand. Frost and Doyle glided through the door armed and ready, and just like that it was just Galen and me in the suddenly empty room. My pulse was thudding in my ears, pushing at my throat, not at the thought of what might have caused one of my female guards to scream, but at the thought of the men I loved, the fathers of my children, maybe never coming back through that door again. Death had touched me too early for me not to understand that nearly immortal is not the same thing as truly immortal. My father’s death had taught me that.

Maybe if I’d been queen enough to sacrifice Frost for the crown, I would have been more worried about the other women, but I was honest with myself. I’d only been trying to be friends with them for a few weeks, I loved the men, and for someone you love, you will sacrifice
much. Anyone who says otherwise has either never truly loved or is lying to themselves.

I heard voices, but they weren’t yelling, just talking. I whispered to Galen, “Can you understand what they’re saying?”

Most of the sidhe had better-than-human hearing, I did not. He cocked his head to one side, gun now pointed at the empty doorway, ready to shoot anything that came through it.

“Voices, women. I can’t understand what they’re saying, but I can tell that one is Hafwyn, one of them is crying, and Saraid is pissed. Now Doyle, and Ivi, he’s upset but not angry. He sounds panicked, as if whatever’s happened bothered him.”

Galen glanced down at me, frowning a little. “Ivi sounds contrite.”

I frowned, too. “Ivi is never contrite about anything.”

Galen nodded, and then was suddenly all attention at the door. I watched his finger begin to pull. I couldn’t see anything around the corner of the bed. Then he raised the gun toward the ceiling and let out a breath in a low
whoosh
, which let me know how close he’d come to pulling that trigger.

“Sholto,” he said, and got up, gun still in one hand, and held his other hand down for me. I took it and let him help me stand.

“What’s happened?” I asked.

“Did you know that Ivi and Dogmaela had sex last night?” he asked.

I nodded. “Not exactly, but I knew that Ivi and Brii took lovers among the women who were willing.”

Sholto smiled and shook his head, his face halfway between amused and thinking about something far too hard. “It seems that after last night Ivi assumed he could give her a little cuddle, and something he did seems to have terrified her.”

“What did he do to her?” I asked.

“Hafwyn was witness and agrees with Ivi about what he did and did not do. Apparently, he merely came up behind Dogmaela, wrapped his arms around her waist, and picked her up off the floor, and she began to scream,” Sholto said. “Dogmaela is too hysterical to make
much sense. Saraid is being physically restrained from attacking Ivi, and the man seems honestly puzzled by the turn of events.”

“Why would just being picked up make her scream?” I asked.

“Hafwyn says that it was something their old master, the prince, would do, but he would then fling them on the bed or hold them for someone else to do very bad things to them.”

“Oh,” I said, “it’s a trigger event.”

“A trigger what?” Sholto asked.

Galen said, “It’s something usually innocuous that reminds you of abuse or violence, and suddenly it brings it all back up.”

We both looked at him, both of us surprised, and unable to hide it. Galen gave me a sour look. “What, I couldn’t know that?”

“No, it’s just that”—I hugged him—“it was just unexpected.”

“That I was that insightful is that big a surprise?” he asked.

There was nothing polite I could say to that question, so I hugged him a little more tightly. He hugged me back, and kissed me on top of my head.

Sholto was standing beside us now, and his eyes were all for me. There was that look that men get when they see a woman who is their lover and more. It was partly possessive, partly excited, and partly puzzled, as if something out in the other room was still on his mind. He held his hand out to me, and I left Galen’s hand to go to him. Galen let me do it; we shared well most of the time, and even if we didn’t, Goddess had decreed that Sholto was one of the fathers of the babies I carried. The fathers all got privileges. I just think that none of us had expected the genetic miracle of six fathers for two babies.

Sholto drew me into his arms, and I went willingly. He was the newest to my bed of all the fathers. We’d actually only had sex once I got pregnant, but as the old saying goes, once is enough. The newness meant that I wasn’t in love with him. I didn’t actually love him at all. I was attracted to him, I cared for him, but we hadn’t had enough conversations to let me know if I loved him, or could love him. We liked each other, though; we liked each other a lot.

“I’ve seen the traditional King of the Sluagh’s greeting to his
queen,” Galen said, “so I’ll leave you to it. Maybe I can be insightful for Dogmaela.” He sounded a little disgusted, but I let him go, because he had surprised me by being smarter than I’d given him credit for and that was my lack of insight.