Merry Gentry 03 - Seduced by Moonlight (15 page)

Frost frowned. Then something very like fear flashed through his eyes, before he gained control of it and gave a handsome blank face to Doyle. "Does she know the rest?" His voice was more uncertain than his eyes.

"That Meredith seems to have brought Maeve back into her godhead, and perhaps given you godhead for the first time? Or the part where Meredith almost died doing it? Or do you mean have I told her that the princess seems now to have the gift of magical dreaming? Or maybe you wonder if the queen knows we have the chalice. Which of those things are you wondering about, Frost?"

"He didn't mean to make you angry," I said.

"I don't need you to defend me," Frost said.

"What is wrong with you, Frost? You've been acting mad at me since I woke up."

He looked down at the kitchen island in front of him. He hadn't come closer to us than that, or perhaps it was me he avoided.

"How can you ask me that? I am your guard, your Raven, sworn to protect you from all harm, and I nearly killed you today."

I walked over to stand beside him. I reached out to touch him, and he jerked away. "I don't want to hurt you again."

"You saw the end of what Maeve and I did together, Frost. I think I can touch your hand and be safe."

He shook his head, using his long silver hair to hide his face and most of his body from me. His hair had always been the incredible color of Christmas tree tinsel, but tonight it seemed even shinier than normal. I reached out to touch that shining hair and found that it was damp.

He pulled back again, stepping away so that I couldn't touch him. He put his back to the kitchen cabinets and hugged himself. "When your cries woke us, I was covered in ice." He shook his head. "No, not ice, frost. I woke up covered in a rime of frost. It melted almost immediately, but it was thicker in my hair. My hair crackled like frozen tree branches when I first moved." He looked frightened.

I reached out to him again, and he moved away. "No, Meredith, I don't have control of these powers. It's not a matter of relearning what I knew once. These aren't my magicks." He looked at me with wide, frightened eyes. "I don't know how to be a god, Meredith. I've never been one before."

"We'll teach you," Rhys said.

"What if I don't want to learn?" Frost asked.

"That is a different problem, my old friend," Doyle said. "The Goddess gives where She will, and it is not ours to question why or where."

The fact that Doyle had been doing that very thing a few moments ago seemed to have escaped his notice—or maybe Doyle was the only one allowed to express doubts about the Goddess. Whatever the logic, or lack of it, no one pointed it out to him.

"We have to tell the queen that we have the chalice," Rhys said.

"No." Doyle shook his head hard enough to set the heavy braid of his hair swinging.

"She will be pissed if we keep this from her, and I for one do not want to spend another night in the Hallway of Mortality." The Hallway of Mortality was the torture chamber for the Unseelie Court. Christians once thought the Unseelie were demons from hell. If any part of our court was the punishing hell that came to be after Dante's
Divine Comedy,
it was the Hallway of Mortality.

"Nor I," Frost said.

"Me, either," Galen said.

"No," Nicca said, "no."

I leaned against the kitchen cabinets and looked at Doyle. He had been the Queen's Darkness for more than a thousand years. Her left-hand man. Her ultimate assassin. He was loyal to her, though lately he'd begun to be loyal to me. But it still wasn't like him to keep something this big from the queen, especially since eventually she would find out. She was the Queen of Air and Darkness; everything said in the dark would eventually float back to her. And words like
cauldron, chalice,
and such would prick her interest. It was just too big a secret to keep forever.

"Why don't you want to tell the queen?" I asked.

"Because this is not our relic. This cauldron belonged to the Seelie Court. We nearly went to war over its disappearance centuries ago, when Taranis suspected us of stealing it. What would he do if he knew we actually had it?"

"The queen would never tell him," Galen said.

Doyle gave him a look of such withering scorn that Galen took a step back. "Do you truly think that there are no spies among us? We certainly have spies at the Seelie Court; I must assume that Taranis has the same among us." He motioned at the gleaming cup, sitting so innocently on the table. "This is simply too large a thing to keep secret. It will get out once it is known outside this room. We must think what to do when that happens."

"What do you mean?" Frost asked.

"Taranis will demand the cup back. Do we give it to him? And if we don't, are we willing to go to war for it?"

"We cannot give it to Taranis," Nicca said.

We all turned and stared at him. It was so unlike him to be adamant about anything, and totally out of the question for him to say something so decisive and so potentially disastrous.

"Even if it means war?" Doyle said.

Nicca paced closer to the table. "I don't know, but I do know this: Taranis has broken our most sacred taboos. He's been hiding his own infertility for at least a century, because he exiled Maeve for refusing to marry him on the grounds that he was infertile. He has knowingly condemned his own court to a fading of their power, their fertility, and everything they are. When he feared Maeve would reveal his secret to us, or had already, he freed the Nameless. He set loose our most feared powers to stalk the land, yet he didn't have the power to control it. Innocents died because of that, and Taranis seems not to care. We were here to save Maeve and slay the Nameless, but without us here, she would be dead, and the Nameless might have laid waste to Los Angeles. If the humans found out it was sidhe magic that did it, the consequences could have been devastating for us. Who knows how the human government would have reacted. This is the last country that will accept free sidhe, without restricting our culture, our magic, us." Nicca had a small glow to him as he spoke, as if his words had power to them.

"We all agree that what Taranis has done was selfish and not deeds fit for a king," Doyle said, "but he is king. We cannot accuse him of his crimes, and see him punished."

"Why not?" Kitto asked, still huddled in his chair, sipping his hot chocolate.

"He is king," Doyle repeated.

"Among the goblins, if you know the king has broken our laws, you can confront him in open court. It is our way, and our law."

"The sidhe are not so straightforward," Doyle said.

"Yes, it is what has allowed you to best us for centuries, the fact that you are more devious than we are."

I glanced at Rhys, and something on my face must have shown because he said, "I'm not going to argue with him. The sidhe are more devious than the goblins. Goddess knows that the sidhe are more devious than any of the fey."

"So good to hear a sidhe admit the truth," Sage said.

I looked at the little man on the counter. He looked so harmless sitting there with his oversize mug of cocoa. There was even a rim of chocolate foam around his mouth so that the illusion of childish innocence was even stronger than normal. The demi-fey traded on the fact that they looked cute. I'd seen a flock of them tear the flesh from Galen's body while he lay chained and helpless. Prince Cel had ordered them to do it, but they'd enjoyed the feast.

He half fell and half pushed himself off the cabinet to hover in midair. "This is all moot, my sidhe friends, for I must tell Queen Niceven. It is all well for you to think of concealing things from your queen, because Merry may yet be queen in her stead, but Niceven's hold upon her court is secure, and I cannot chance her anger." He fluttered to the edge of the table, landing as if he had no weight, though I knew he actually weighed more than he appeared to. It always seemed like it should be the other way around, but there was substance to Sage that you could feel when he walked on your body.

He moved toward the chalice, and Doyle put a hand out, almost but not quite in front of him. "You see enough from where you are."

Sage put his hands on his slender hips and stared up at the much larger man. "What do you fear, Darkness, that I will steal it away, take it back to my court, my queen?"

"It is a sidhe gift, and it will remain in sidhe hands," Doyle said.

Sage sprang into the air, fluttering around the overhead light like some great moth, though in truth there was more of butterfly than moth to him. "But I still must needs report this to Queen Niceven. You can debate all you wish about telling your queen, but because I must tell mine, you might as well tell yours."

"We will be at the courts tomorrow night," I said. "Can you wait that long to tell your queen?"

"Why should I wait?" he asked, and came to hover in front of my face so that the wind of his wings danced in my hair.

"Because it would be safer for all of us, including your people, if fewer people know of the chalice."

He pointed a finger at me. "Tut, tut, Princess, logic will not win me. I stayed away today though your magic called me like the love song of a siren." He lit upon the table in front of me. "I did not come because I have witnessed all the amazing sidhe sex I ever wish to see, since I am not invited into your bed. I am not really much of a voyeur."

"I agreed to share blood with you once a week, Sage. That was the price of alliance with your people. I've kept my end of the bargain."

He paced in front of me on tiny butter-colored feet that matched the yellow of his wings. "Blood is a fine thing, Princess, but it does not take the place of a good thrusting." He leaned his hands on my hand, as if I were a fence, and gazed up at me with tiny black eyes. "Let me in your bed tonight and I will tell no one until we arrive at the courts."

I moved my hand quick enough to make him stumble, and he took to the air, his wings an angry blur. "Are you really still trying to make a bid to be my king, Sage? I thought we had been clear about this."

He got near enough to my face that I heard the whir of his wings. Real butterfly wings didn't make that noise. He sounded like an angry hummingbird. "Yes, originally my queen wished to make a bid to put me on the Unseelie throne as her puppet, but Flora save me, Princess, I don't care about that anymore."

"What do you care about?" Doyle asked.

Sage turned in midair and rose high enough to look at both of us. "I want sex. I want to lie with a woman again. Is that so hard a thing to believe?"

"No," Doyle said.

"No," I said.

It was Kitto who said, "The demi-fey don't care about sex any more than the goblins do, not if they can have power and blood."

Sage turned and stared at the goblin who had become sidhe. "Your kind still roasts us on spits and thinks us a delicacy. Forgive me if I don't give your opinion much weight." The sarcasm was thick in his voice.

Kitto hissed at him, and he hissed back.

"Enough," Doyle said. "What would you take to keep our secret until we arrive at the courts tomorrow night? Do not ask again for sex with the princess, for that is not going to happen."

Sage crossed his arms and did a very good imitation of a child's pout, complete with the chocolate mustache on his mouth, but I'd seen him with my blood smeared across his tiny mouth too many times to fall for it. He acted cute because it was what was left to the demi-fey, but he wasn't. He was dangerous, treacherous, lecherous, and spiteful, but not cute.

"How about the blood of a god?" Rhys asked.

Sage turned in midair like some fantastic helicopter to face Rhys. "Are you offering Maeve's blood, or Frost's?"

"Mine."

He shook his head. "You are no god."

"My power has returned. Doyle called me Cromm Cruach again this day."

Sage turned to Doyle. "Is this true, Darkness?"

Doyle nodded. "I give you my word that I called him Cromm Cruach this day."

Sage hovered in front of Rhys so that the white curls moved around Rhys's face. He went close and closer until his body almost touched Rhys. He darted in and licked Rhys's forehead, then darted away before Rhys could catch him, or swat him. Though Rhys didn't try for either. Galen would have, but Galen had the same reason to hate the demi-fey that Rhys had to hate the goblins, and it had been much more recent.

"You don't taste like a god, Rhys. You taste good, powerful, but not a god."

"When's the last time you tasted a god?" Rhys asked.

Sage fluttered over toward Frost, though he stayed out of reach. Frost wasn't tolerant of unwanted touch from anyone. Centuries of forced celibacy had made him most un-fey-like in that regard. I could touch him, but few others could.

"Let me taste your skin, Frost. No blood, not yet."

Frost scowled up at the little man, and shook his head. "I am no one's blood whore."

"What does that make me?" I asked, and my voice was as cold as my anger was hot. I'd had about all I could handle of Frost's moods for one day. I was the one who'd almost died; when was it my turn to be in a mood?

Frost looked confused. "I didn't mean . . ."

I walked toward him. "If I'm willing to donate a little blood for the cause, then what makes you too good to do it?"

He motioned at the hovering demi-fey. "I do not want that laying its mouth on me."

"I do it once a week, Frost. If it's good enough for a princess, it's good enough for you."

His face was the arrogant mask he wore when he was hiding what he was thinking. "Are you ordering me to do it?" His voice was very cold, and I knew that here could be something that would drive a wedge between us, maybe for a day, maybe forever. You never knew with Frost.

I stepped close to him, and when he jerked away, I let my hand fall to my side. "Not exactly, but I am asking you to please do this. Please help us."

"I don't want to . . ."

I touched his lips with my fingertips and he let me. His breath was warm on my skin. "Please, Frost, please, it is a small thing. It hurts only a little, and Sage is very good at glamour. He can make it hurt not at all."