A Caress of Twilight
Chapter 17-18
Chapter 17
Doyle was kneeling on the burgundy bedspread, speaking to the mirror, when Frost and I entered the room. "I will allow shared sight as soon as our princess is with us, Queen Niceven."
The mirror was a swirl of mist as I crawled across the bed. It put Doyle kneeling at my back, slightly to one side. Rhys was sitting behind both of us, against the headboard, propped up among the pile of burgundy, purple, mauve, pink, and black pillows. I couldn't tell for certain, but he seemed to be nude, except for a few well-placed pillows. I had no idea how he'd stripped that quickly.
Frost crawled onto the bed to half sit, half recline a little behind me and to one side, so that I was framed by Doyle and him.
Doyle made a sideways movement with his hand and the mist cleared. Niceven sat in a delicate wooden chair, carved so that her wings slipped through the slotted back without damaging them. Her face was a near perfect triangle of white skin. But her whiteness was not the same as mine, or Frost's, or Rhys's. Her white skin held a greyish tinge. Her white-grey curls had been done in elaborate ringlets like those of some old-time doll. A tiny tiara held those curls back from her face, and the tiara sparkled with the cold warmth that only diamonds can manage. Her gown was white and flowing. The looseness of the cloth would have hidden her body, except that it was absolutely sheer and you could see the small pointed breasts, the almost skeletal thinness of her ribs, the dainty crossed legs. She wore slippers that seemed to be made of flower petals. A white mouse, as large to her as a German shepherd to me, sat beside her chair. She stroked the fur between its ears.
A trio of ladies-in-waiting stood behind her, each in a different color dress that matched the brilliance of their wings, rose-red, daffodil-yellow, and iris-purple. Their hair was black, yellow, and brown, respectively.
Niceven had gone to a great deal more trouble than we had to stage her little scene.
I felt positively ordinary in my green skirt outfit. But I didn't mind too much. It was a business call, after all.
"Queen Niceven, it is good of you to return our call."
"In truth, Princess Meredith, I have been awaiting your call these three months. Your affection for the green knight is well known among the court. I am most surprised that it has taken thee so long to contact me."
She was being very formal. I realized it wasn't just the speech that was formal. She wore her crown; I had no crown, not yet. She sat upon her throne, while I was sitting in the middle of a slightly rumpled bed. She had ladies-in-waiting like a silent Greek chorus behind her. And a mouse, mustn't forget the mouse. I had only Doyle and Frost on either side of me and Rhys in the pillows behind. Niceven was trying to put me at a disadvantage. We'd see about that.
"In truth, we have sought the aid of healers out here in the world of mortals. It is only recently that we had to admit that a call to you was necessary."
"Sheer stubbornness on your part then, Princess."
"Perhaps, but you know why I have called, and what I wish."
"I am not some fairy godmother to be granting wishes, Meredith." She'd dropped my title, a deliberate insult.
Fine, we could both be rude. "As you like, Niceven. Then you know what I want."
"You want a cure for your green knight," she said, one hand tracing the pink edge of the mouse's ear.
"Yes."
"Prince Cel was most insistent that Galen remain injured."
"You told me once that Prince Cel does not yet rule the Unseelie Court."
"That is true, but it is not at all certain you will ever live to be queen, Meredith." She'd dropped the title again.
Doyle moved from beside me to put his back to Rhys. He made sure he was still at the edge of the bed, at the limit of my peripheral vision and well within the queen's. As if they'd arranged it, Rhys rose from the pillows to his knees and showed clearly that he was nude. He rolled Doyle's long braid in his arms until he came to the end and began to undo the ribbon that bound it.
Niceven's eyes flicked behind me to the movement, then back to my face. "What are they doing?"
"Preparing for bed," I said. Though I wasn't 100 percent sure of that
Delicate grey brows furrowed. "It is, what... nine o'clock where you are. The night is young to waste in sleeping."
"I did not say we would sleep." I kept my voice even.
She drew a deep enough breath that I could see the rise and fall of her dainty chest. She tried to keep her attention on me, but her gaze kept flicking to the men. Rhys was working Doyle's thick hair free of the braid. I'd seen Doyle with his hair free of that braid only once. Only once had it been like some dark living cloak to shroud his body.
Niceven watched them furtively, giving me very little eye contact. I wasn't sure if it was Doyle's hair or Rhys's nudity. I doubted the nudity, because being nude just wasn't that unusual among the court. Of course, maybe she was gazing at Rhys's washboard abs, or what lay just below them.
Frost sat up, took off his suit jacket, and began to slip out of his shoulder holster. Her eyes flicked to him.
"Niceven," I said softly. I had to repeat her name twice more before she looked at me. "How do I cure Galen?"
"It is not certain that you will be queen, and if Prince Cel becomes king, then he will hold it ill that I helped you."
"And if I am queen, I will hold it ill that you did not."
She smiled. "So I must find a way between the two snarling dogs. I will help you here, because I have already helped Cel. It will even things up."
I remembered Galen's screams, and the pain in his eyes these last months, and I didn't think it evened things up. I didn't think fixing what she'd ruined came close to evening things up. But we were doing faerie politics here, not therapy, so I said nothing. Silence is not a lie. A sin of omission, but not a lie. Our cultures allow you to omit as much as you can get away with.
"How is Galen to be cured?" I asked.
She shook her head, making her curls bounce and her diamond tiara glitter. "No, we talk price first. What would you give me to make your green knight whole?"
Frost and Doyle moved up beside me almost simultaneously. "You will have the goodwill of the Queen of the Unseelie, and that should be enough," Frost said, his voice as cold as his name.
"She is not queen yet, Killing Frost." Niceven's voice was full of a cold, cold anger. It had the taste of an old grudge. Was it personal to Frost?
I saw Doyle begin to reach toward the other man, and I stopped him with a look. There was a tension between them tonight. It wouldn't make us look strong to argue amongst ourselves. Doyle stayed at my side, only his eyes looking at Frost. The look was not friendly.
I touched Frost's arm, squeezing slightly. He startled, muscles tightening, looked first to Doyle, then realized it was my touch. He'd expected it to be Doyle. He relaxed, slowly. He let out a deep, quiet breath and moved a fraction behind me.
I turned back to the mirror and found Niceven's face shrewd, watchful. I half expected her to say something, but she did not. She merely sat and waited for me to commit myself.
"What would Queen Niceven of the Diminutive Fey want from Princess Meredith of the Unseelie Court in return for curing her knight?" I'd purposefully put both our titles in the same sentence, emphasizing that I knew she was queen and I was not. I was hoping to make up for Frost's outburst.
She looked at me for a few heartbeats, then gave a very small nod. "What would Princess Meredith of the Unseelie Court offer us?"
"You said once that you would give much for a longer drink of my blood."
She looked startled before she could school her face to courtly blankness. When she could control herself, she said, "Blood is blood, Princess. Why should I care for yours?"
Now she was just being difficult. "You said that I tasted of high magic and sex. Or have you forgotten me so quickly, Queen Niceven?" I made my face fall, my eyes downcast. "Did it mean so little to you?" I shrugged, and let my newly shoulder-length hair fall across my face. I spoke behind a curtain of hair that sparkled like spun rubies. "If the blood of the heir to the throne means nothing to you, then I have nothing to offer." I turned my eyes toward her, knew the effect that those tricolored green and gold eyes could have through a frame of blood auburn hair, coupled with glimpses of skin like polished alabaster. I'd grown up among women, and men, who used their beauty like a weapon. I would never have dreamed of doing it with another sidhe, because they were all more beautiful than I, but with Niceven and her hungry eyes that followed my men, with her, I could use my own other-worldliness as she'd tried to use hers.
She slapped her tiny hand on the arm of her chair hard enough to startle the white mouse. "By Flora, you are your aunt's blood. Prince Cel has never mastered his beauty as Andais has, and as you have."
I gave a small bow, because it's always hard to bow from a sitting position. "A pretty compliment from a lovely queen."
She preened, smiling, petting the mouse, leaning back in her chair so that her sheer dress showed off more of her body. Her body had gone past slender into cadaverous, so that it was like looking at a little starved thing. But she thought her body was beautiful, and I could show nothing less in my face.
Frost stayed unmoving a little behind me. He'd removed his belt, his shoulder holster, his suit jacket, but nothing else. Even his shoes were still on. He was not going to strip for Niceven.
Doyle on the other hand had removed his shoulder holster, his belt, and his shirt. The silver ring in his left nipple glinted so that Niceven could see it, even in profile. Rhys continued to work at all that thick black hair as if he were smoothing out the train of a dress.
The men moved about me like ladies-in-waiting preparing themselves for bed. They left me alone to deal with Niceven. Which meant I was doing all right on my own. Good to know.
I flashed her a curve of lips as red as the red, red rose, no lipstick needed. "A drink of my blood to cure my knight, you agree?"
"You give your own life's fluid away very freely, Princess." She was being cautious.
"I only give that which I own."
"The Prince thinks he owns all the court."
"I know that I own only the body I inhabit. Anything else is hubris."
The Queen laughed. "Will you come home so that I may feed?"
"Do you agree that another feeding is worth my knight's cure?"
She nodded. "I agree."
"Then what would a feeding once a week be worth?"
I felt the men behind me tense. The atmosphere of the room was suddenly thicker. I was careful not to look at them. I was princess, and I didn't need the permission of my guards to do anything. I either ruled, or I did not.
Niceven's eyes narrowed into pale little flames. "What's that supposed to mean, a feeding once a week?"
"It means exactly what I said."
"Why would you offer to make a weekly blood offering to me?"
"For an alliance between us."
Frost pushed toward me over the bed. "Meredith, no..."
He was going to say something unfortunate and ruin everything. I had the beginnings of an idea and it was a good one. "No, Frost," I said, "you do not tell me no. I tell you no or yes. Don't forget that." I gave him a look that I hoped he understood, which was shut the fuck up, and don't ruin this.
He closed his mouth into a tight, thin line, so obviously unhappy, but he sat there, sulking. At least he was quiet about it.
I heard Doyle take in a breath, and I just looked at him. The look was enough. He gave a small nod of his head and let Rhys begin to brush out his long hair. There was a wave to all that blackness, because of the braid, I think; I remembered Doyle's hair as straight. I was distracted for a moment watching Rhys kneeling so pale and perfect against all that darkness. It was Doyle clearing his throat who made me jump and turn back to the mirror.
Niceven laughed, the sound of just slightly off-key bells, as if it were something lovely that had been just a bit malformed.
"My apologies for my inattention, Queen Niceven."
"If I had such a bounty awaiting me, I would make this a short conversation."
"And what if you had the bounty of my blood awaiting you? What then?"
Her face sobered. "You are persistent. It is most unfeylike."
"I am part brownie, and we are a more persistent people than the sidhe."
"You are part human, as well."
I smiled. "Humans are like the sidhe; some are more persistent than others."
She didn't smile back at me. "For another drink of your blood, I will cure your green knight, but that is all. One drink, one cure, and we are done."
"For one drink of my blood, King Kurag of the goblins became my ally for six months."
Her delicate eyebrows raised. "That is goblin and sidhe business, and none of ours. We are the demi-fey. No one cares who we ally ourselves with. We fight no battles. We challenge no duels. We mind our business and everyone else minds theirs."
"So you refuse an alliance?"
"I think caution is the better part of valor here, Princess, no matter how tasty you may be."
In negotiations, always try to be nice first, but if nice doesn't work, there are other options. "Everyone leaves you alone, Queen Niceven. Because they consider you too small to worry about."
"Prince Cel thought us big enough to spoil your plans with the green knight." Her voice held the first hint of anger.
"Yes, and what did he offer you for that bit of work?"
"The taste of sidhe flesh, knight's flesh, and blood. We feasted that night, Princess."
"He paid you in someone else's blood, when his body was full of blood only one step down from the queen herself. Have you ever tasted the queen?"
Niceven looked nervous, almost frightened. "The queen shares only with her lovers, or her prisoners."
"How that must irk you, to see such a precious gift wasted."
Niceven pouted tiny ghost silver lips. "If only she would take some of my people to her bed, but we are..."
"Too small," I finished for her.
"Yes," she hissed, "yesss, always too small. Too small a power for an alliance. Too small a power to be used except as her sneak spies." Tiny, pale hands balled into fists. The white mouse cowered away from her as if he knew what was coming. Even the trio of ladies behind her throne shuddered as if from the brush of an icy wind.
"And now you do dirty work for her son," I said. My voice was carefully neutral, almost pleasant.
"At least he sought us to do his work." The anger in that small, delicate figure was frightening. Her rage made her take up more space than mere physicality could explain. She was truly regal in her rage.
"I offer you what the queen will not. I offer what the prince will not."
"And what is that?"
"Royal blood, blood of the very throne of the Unseelie Court. Ally with me, Queen Niceven, and you will have such blood. Not only once, but many times more."
Her eyes became narrow little slits again, glittering with a fire colder than the diamonds on her crown. "What would either of us gain from such an alliance?"
"You would gain the ear and the aid of my allies."
"The goblins have little to do with us."
"And what of the sidhe?"
"What of them?"
"As ally to one of the heirs, you would gain status. They would no longer be able to dismiss you, for fear that you might bear a grudge and whisper it back to me."
She kept those glowing eyes on me. "And what would you gain from this alliance?"
"You would spy for me, as well as for the queen."
"And Cel?"
"You would cease to spy for him."
"He won't like that."
"He doesn't have to like it. If you are my ally, then to injure you is to insult me. The queen has decreed that I am under her protection. To harm me now is a death sentence."
"So he insults me, then you step in. Then what?"
"Threaten to bring your entire court out here to Los Angeles, out here to me."
She shivered. "I would not wish to take my people out into the city of men." She spoke as if there were only one city of men, the city.
"You could live in the botanical gardens, acres of open land. There's room for you here, Niceven, I swear it."
"But I do not want to leave the court."
"Wherever the demi-fey travel, faerie follows."
"Most sidhe do not remember that."
"My father made sure I knew the history of all the fey. The demi-fey are the most closely allied with the rawness that is faerie, the very stuff that makes us different from the humans. You are not leprechaun, or pixie, to pine and die away from faerie. You are faerie. Is it not said that when the last demi-fey fades, there will be no more faerie upon the earth?"
"A superstition," she said.
"Maybe, but if you leave the Unseelie Court and the Seelie Court retains its own demi-fey, the Unseelie will be weakened. Cel may not remember that bit of our lore, but the queen will. If Cel insults you enough for you to pack your belongings, the Queen will intercede."
"She will order us to stay."
"She cannot order another monarch to do anything. That is our law."
Niceven looked nervous. She feared Andais. Everyone did. "I do not wish to anger the queen."
"Neither do I."
"Do you really believe that the queen would punish her own son if he drove us away, rather than take out her anger on us?" She had crossed her legs again, arms folded over her chest, forgetting to flirt, forgetting to be regal in her fear.
"Where is Cel now?" I asked.
Niceven giggled, a most unpleasant little giggle. "Being punished for six months. There are bets going round that his sanity will not survive six months of isolation and torment."
I shrugged. "He should have thought of that before he was such a bad, bad boy."
"You are flippant, but if Cel comes out insane, it will be your name that he screams. Your face that he wants to smash."
"I'll cross that bridge when I come to it."
"What?"
"It's a human saying. It means that I'll deal with the problem when and if it comes to pass."
She seemed to be thinking very hard, then said, "How would you offer this blood to me? I do not think either of us would relish a weekly trip between faerie and the Western Sea."
"I could put it upon a piece of bread, and the essence could be sent to you via magic."
She shook her head, ghostly curls bouncing around narrow shoulders. "The essence is never the same."
"What do you suggest?"
"If I send one of my people to you, they could act as my surrogate."
I thought about it for a moment, feeling Frost's stillness, hearing the heavy, almost tearing sound of Rhys pulling the brush through Doyle's hair. "Agreed. Tell me the cure for my knight and send your surrogate."
She laughed, off-key bells ringing. "No, Princess, you will gain the cure from the lips of my surrogate. If I give it to you now before I have been paid, you may think better of it."
"I have given you my word. I cannot go back upon it now."
"I have dealt with the great of faerie for too long to believe that everyone keeps their word."
"It is one of our most stringent laws," I said. "To be forsworn is to be outcast."
"Unless you have friends in very high places who make sure such tales are never spread."
"What are you saying, Queen Niceven?"
"I say only this, that the queen doth love her son much, and has broken more than one taboo to keep him safe."
We stared at each other, and I knew without asking that Cel had made promises and broken them. That alone should have made him outcast and certainly denied him the right to any throne. Andais had always spoiled Cel, but I never realized just how much.
"When can we expect your surrogate?" I asked.
She seemed to consider this, reaching an idle hand out toward where the mouse was crouched. It crept close to her, its long whiskers twitching, ears alert, as if it still wasn't sure of its welcome. She stroked it gently. "A few days," she said.
"We are not always at home to welcome visitors. I would be loath to have your envoy receive less than our best hospitality."
"Leave a pot of flowers by your door and that will sustain him."
"Him?"
"I believe a him would please you more, would it not?"
I gave a small nod, because I wasn't sure I cared. I was sharing blood, not sex, so I didn't have a preference; or at least I didn't think I did. "I am sure the Queen is wise in her choosing."
"Pretty words, Princess. It remains to be seen whether you have pretty actions to back up all those words." Her eyes flicked back to the men and settled on Doyle and Rhys. "Pleasant dreams, Princess."
"And to you, Queen Niceven."
Something harsh crossed her face, made it look even thinner and sharper, as if her face were a mask. If she reached up and ripped her face off, I was not going to be able to hold my business face in place. But she didn't. She merely spoke in a voice that was like the whisper of scales on stone. "My dreams are my own business, Princess, and I will keep them as I like them."
I gave her another half bow. "I meant no insult."
"None taken, Princess, merely envy rearing its ugly head." With those words, the mirror went blank and smooth.
I sat gazing into my own reflection. Movement caught my gaze, and I watched Rhys and Doyle still on their knees. Muscles worked in Rhys's arms as he brushed Doyle's hair. Frost didn't so much move as just look at me in the mirror so hard that it turned me to look at him.
Frost glared back. The other two seemed unaware of my attention. "Niceven is gone. You can stop pretending," I said.
"I haven't finished brushing out all of this hair," Rhys said. "This is why I stopped growing mine down to my ankles. It's almost impossible to take care of it by yourself." He separated out another section of hair, hefted it in one hand, and began to brush with the other.
Doyle was silent as Rhys worked on his hair with the serious-faced concentration of a child. There was absolutely nothing else childish about him as he knelt nude, surrounded by a sea of black hair and multicolored pillows. His body was, as always, tightly muscled, pale, gleaming. He was lovely to look at, but he wasn't excited. Nude didn't mean sex to the sidhe, not always.
Frost made a small movement that turned me to him. His eyes were the dark grey of the sky just before a storm. He was angry; it showed in every line of his face, the tension of his shoulders, the way he sat, so careful, immobile, and shimmering with energy at the same time.
"I'm sorry if it upset you, but I knew what I was doing with Niceven."
"You have made it abundantly clear that you rule here and I merely obey." His voice was harsh with anger.
I sighed. It was early, but it had been a long day. I was too tired for Frost's hurt feelings. Especially since he was in the wrong.
"Frost, I cannot afford to appear weak to anyone right now. Even Doyle holds his opinion in public, no matter how unfavorable it is in private."
"I have approved of everything you've done today," Doyle said.
"I am so happy to hear that," I said.
He gave me a very level gaze, ruined only a little by the tugging of his hair from the brush. It's hard to look menacing when you're being fussed with. He stared at me, until most people would have looked away or flinched. I met his gaze with my own empty one. I was tired of games. Just because I could play them, and play them fairly well, didn't mean I enjoyed them.
"I've had enough power plays for one day, Doyle. I don't need any more, especially not from my own guards."
He blinked those dark, dark eyes at me. "Hold off, Rhys. Meredith and I need to talk."
Rhys stopped obediently, sitting back among the pillows, the brush still in his hand.
"In private," Doyle said.
Frost jumped as if he'd been struck. It was his reaction more than Doyle's words that made me suspect we were talking about more than just a few secrets.
"It is my night with Meredith," Frost said. His anger seemed to have vanished on the wings of possibilities he hadn't foreseen.
"If it was Rhys, then he would have to wait his turn again, but I have not had a turn, so I am within my rights to ask for this evening."
Frost stood, almost stumbling in his haste and the lack of space at the foot of the bed. "First you hold me back from helping her today, now you take my night in her bed. I would accuse you of jealousy, if I did not know you better."
"You can accuse me of anything you wish, Frost, but you know I am not jealous."
"Perhaps, perhaps not, but you are something, and that something has to do with our Merry."
Doyle sighed, a deep, almost wounded sound. "Perhaps I thought that by making the princess wait for my attentions I would intrigue her. Today I saw that there is more than one way to lose a woman's favor."
"Speak plainly, Darkness."
Doyle stayed kneeling, half-naked, his hands limp and empty resting against his thighs, surrounded by a sea of his own hair. He should have looked helpless, or feminine, or something, but he didn't. He looked like something carved out of the elemental darkness, as if he'd risen as one of the first things to ever draw breath, before the light came. The silver ring in his nipple caught the light as he breathed. His hair had covered all the earrings, so that this one silver spark was the only color on him. It was hard to look away from that shining silver light.
"I am not blind, Frost," Doyle said. "I saw the way she looked at you in the van, and you saw it, too."
"You are jealous."
He shook his head. "No, but you have had three months and there is no child. She is a princess and will be a queen. She cannot afford to give her heart away where there is no marriage."
"So you'll step in and win her heart instead?" Frost's voice held more heat than I'd ever heard in it, outside of the bed.
"No, but I will see that she has choices. If I had paid closer attention, I would have stepped in sooner."
"Oh, you in her arms will make her forget all about me, is that it?"
"I am not so arrogant as that, Frost. I told you, today I realized there was more than one way to lose a woman's heart, and waiting too long is one of them. If there is to be any chance that Meredith will not turn to you, or Galen, then something must change now. Not later, but now."
"What does Galen have to do with any of this?" Frost asked.
"If you have to ask that, then it is not I who am blind," Doyle said.
Confusion chased over Frost's face. Finally he frowned and shook his head. "I don't like this."
"You don't have to like it," Doyle said.
As interesting as the conversation was, I'd had enough of it. "You are all talking as if I'm not here, or as if I have no choice in the matter."
Doyle turned his so serious face to me. "Do you object to me sharing your bed tonight?" He asked it in the same neutral voice that he would have used to order at a restaurant or talk to a client, as if my answer meant nothing to him.
But I knew he sometimes used that neutral voice when he felt anything but neutral. It was a way of shielding himself from the emotion; act as if it doesn't matter, and maybe it won't.
I looked at him, the sweep of shoulders, the swell of his chest and that sparkling glint of silver, the flat plains of his stomach, the line where his jeans cut across his body. I had never seen Doyle nude, ever. He did not participate in the casual nudity of the court; neither had Frost.
I looked at Frost. His silver hair was still back in the loose ponytail, so his face was clean and unadorned, if anything that beautiful could ever be called unadorned. He had his jacket and shoulder holster, complete with gun, hung over one arm. He was wearing his arrogant mask again, the one he hid behind so often at court. That he felt he had to wear his mask here and now in front of me hurt my heart.
I wanted to go to him, wrap my arms around him, lay my cheek against his chest, and tell him don't leave. I wanted to feel his body against mine. I wanted to wake in a cloud of his silver hair.
I did go to him then, but not the way I wanted to go. I got close, but didn't trust myself to touch him. I was afraid if I did, I wouldn't let him go, "I have the chance to satisfy mine and many a court ladies' curiosity tonight, Frost."
He turned away so he couldn't see my face. "I wish you joy in it," but he didn't sound like he meant it.
"I want you tonight, Frost."
That turned him to me, with a startled look.
"With Doyle in my bed looking like that, and all the waiting, I still want you. My body begins to ache when you're not with me. I hadn't realized until today what that meant." I couldn't keep the pain out of my eyes, and finally stopped trying.
He stared down at me, raised a hand to touch my face, but stopped himself just short of my skin. "If that is true, then Doyle is right. You will be queen. And some things... you cannot be as others. You must be queen before all else."
I laid my face against his open hand, and even that small touch made me shiver.
He drew his hand away, rubbing it against his pants as if something clung to his skin. "Tomorrow night, Princess."
I nodded. "Tomorrow night, my -- " and I stopped there for fear of what word I might use to finish.
He turned without another word and left the room, shutting the door firmly behind him.
Some small noise turned me back to the room. Rhys slid to the other side of the bed near the window and picked up his clothes that were lying in a hasty heap on the floor. "The first night shouldn't be a group effort."
"Making this a threesome had not occurred to me," Doyle said.
Rhys laughed. "I didn't think it had." He worked his way round the bed, holding the clothes with the brush balanced on top, all held above waist level so my view was uninterrupted. It was a nice view.
"A little help with the door, please." The moment he asked, I knew that he was feeling left out. He was flaunting his charms and I was ignoring him. A deadly insult among the fey.
I got up to open the door for him, as if he couldn't have shifted his clothes around to do it himself. But I stopped before opening the door and raised up on tiptoe to kiss him. I balanced with one hand behind his head, lost in the curls at his neck, and the other hand trailing down the side of his body, caressing over his ribs, the sweep of his hip. I let him see in my eyes how beautiful he was to me.
It made him smile, and he gave me a shy glance out of his one perfect eye. The shy was pretend, but the pleasure wasn't.
I stayed on tiptoe long enough to put my forehead against his. My hands played in the curls at the back of his neck, and he shivered under my touch. I stood back on the ground flat-footed and moved out of the door so he could pass.
Rhys shook his head. "That was her idea of a good-bye kiss, Doyle." He glanced back at the other man, still kneeling in the bed. "Have fun, kiddies." But his serious face didn't match the flippant words.
Rhys offered me the hairbrush from the pile of clothing, then I let him out. I shut the door behind him, and was suddenly very aware that I was alone with Doyle. Doyle, whom I'd never seen nude. Doyle, who had frightened me when I was a child. Doyle, who had been the Queen's right hand for a thousand years. He'd kept me safe, guarded my body and my life, but somehow he hadn't really been mine. Somehow he wouldn't really be mine until I'd touched that dark body, seen all of him bare before me. I wasn't sure why that was so important to me, but it was. By withholding himself from me, it was almost as if he was holding his options open. As if he believed that once he was with me, he'd have no more options. Which wasn't true. I'd been with my one-time fiance, Griffin, for seven years, and in the end he'd found plenty of options, none of them me. Having sex with me hadn't been a life-altering experience for him. Why should it be different for Doyle?
"Meredith." He said my name once, but for once his voice wasn't neutral. That one word held uncertainty, a question, and a hope. He spoke my name once more, and it turned me around to face the bed and what lay waiting for me among the burgundy sheets.
Chapter 18
He sat on the edge of the bed closest to the mirror, closest to me. He was almost lost among the black dream of his hair. Almost all the other sidhe I knew had some contrast from hair to skin to eyes, but Doyle was all of one piece. His unbound hair cascaded around him like a black cloud, so that his ebony skin was almost lost in the folds of it. A long, long lock of hair had fallen over his face, and his black-on-black eyes were lost in that darkness. He looked like a piece of night itself come to life. He swept a hand up to draw back the hair and try to tuck it behind one pointed ear. The earrings glittered like stars against his darkness.
I walked forward until the bed bumped against my thighs. My legs pressed into the bed, but all I could feel was the thickness of his hair, trapped between my body and the firmness of the bed. He turned his head, and I felt the hair tug underneath me. I pressed in harder, trapping his hair.
He turned those dark eyes up to me, and there were colors in his eyes that shone nowhere in the room, like a swarm of brilliant fireflies -- blue, white, yellow, green, red, purple, and colors I had no name for. The pinpoints danced and swirled, and for a second I could almost feel them flying around me, the tiny wind of their passing like being caught in a cloud of butterflies; then I was falling and Doyle caught me.
I came to myself in his arms, in his lap, where he'd sat me. When I could speak, I said, "Why?"
"I am a power to be reckoned with, Meredith, and I want you to never forget that. A king should have more to offer than seed."
I slid my hands across his skin, wrapping my arms around his neck. "Are you auditioning?"
He smiled. "We all are, Meredith. Some of the others may forget that in the rush of hot skin and sex, but you must never forget. You are choosing a father for your children, a king for the court, and someone you will be tied to forever."
I hid my face in the curve of his neck. His skin was warm to the touch. His pulse beat against my face. His smell was so warm, so very warm. "I've been thinking about that." I spoke the words against his skin.
He rubbed his neck against my face. "And what conclusions have you come to?"
I drew back enough to see his face. "That Nicca would be a victim and a disaster on the throne. That Rhys is lovely in bed, but I can't see him as a king. That my father was right and Galen would be utterly disastrous. That there are more knights at court that I would rather kill than be tied to for the rest of my life."
He laid his lips against the side of my neck, not quite kissing me. He spoke with his own mouth against my skin, so that his words made small kissing movements against me. "There is Frost and... me."
The feel of his lips made me shiver, writhing in his lap. Doyle drew a sharp breath, his hands wrapping around my waist, across my thighs. He whispered, "Merry," against my skin, his breath warm and fierce, his fingers digging into my thigh, my waist. There was such strength in his hands, such pressure, as if with little effort he could plunge his fingers into my body and bring my blood and flesh to the surface, peel me apart like something ripe and sweet. Something that had been waiting for his hand to open me, to bring me, to spill me in a rush of pleasure over his hands, across his body.
He half lifted me, half threw me onto the bed. I waited for him to press his body against mine, but he didn't. He got up on all fours, straddling above me like a mare with a colt, but there was nothing motherly about the way he stared down at me. He'd thrown all that hair over one shoulder so that his naked upper body was exposed to the light. His skin gleamed like polished ebony. His breathing was deep and rapid, making the nipple ring wink and shimmer above me.
I raised my hand to touch it, brushed my fingers over that bit of silver, and a sound came out of Doyle, low in his body and growing, a growl like some great beast, echoing through that slender, muscled body. He straddled my body, lips curving back to flash white teeth, while that growl trickled out of his lips, past his teeth like a warning.
It made my pulse race, but I wasn't afraid yet. Not yet. He leaned down into my face and snarled, "Run!"
I just blinked at him, my pulse in my throat.
He threw back his head and howled, a sound that echoed and echoed in the small room. The hair on my body stood, and I stopped breathing for a second, because I knew that sound.
That lone, clear evil belling of the Gabriel Ratchets, the dark hounds of the wild hunt. He put his face inches from mine and growled, "Run!"
I scrambled out from underneath him, and he watched me with those dark eyes, his body immobile but so tense it seemed to shimmer with the promise of some violent action, violence contained, constrained, restricted, but there all the same.
I had crawled off on the wrong side of the bed. I was trapped between the window and the bed. The outer door lay across the bed, past Doyle. I'd played games of hunt and catch before. A lot of things in the Unseelie Court liked to catch you first, but that was pretend, play, foreplay. The look in Doyle's eyes was hungry, but one hunger looks much like another until it's too late.
His voice fought out from his clenched teeth. "You ... are ... not... running!" With that last, he made a rush at me on all fours, a black blur. I threw myself over the edge of the bed, rolled, and fell to the floor in front of the outer door. I was on my feet, hand on the doorknob when his body crashed into mine. The door shook and my body bruised with the violence of it. He jerked my hand off the doorknob, and I could not withstand his strength.
I screamed.
He tore me away from the door, threw me on the bed. I tried to slide off to one side, but he was there, his lower body pressing against mine, keeping me pinned to the side of the bed. I could feel the firmness of him through his jeans, through my panties.
The door opened behind us, and Rhys looked in. Doyle growled at him. Rhys said, "You screamed?" His face was serious. There was a gun in his hand, held next to his leg, not pointed but there.
Doyle growled, "Get out!"
"I leave at the princess's order, not yours, sire." He shrugged. "Sorry. You having a good time, Merry, or..." He made a vague motion with the gun.
"I'm... I'm not sure." My voice came out breathy. The feel of Doyle pressed tight and firm against me was exciting, even the promise of violence was exciting, but only if it was the promise of it, a game.
His hands on my thighs were shaking, his entire body quivering with the effort not to finish what he'd started. I touched his face gently. He startled as if I'd hurt him, then turned, looked at me. The look in his eyes was barely human. It was like looking into the eyes of a tiger, beautiful, neutral, hungry.
"Are we having fun here, Doyle, or are you going to eat me?" My voice was a little steadier, firmer.
"This first time I would not trust myself to put my mouth to such tender places."
It took me a second to realize that he had misunderstood me. "I don't mean eat me in the euphemistic sense, Doyle. I mean, am I food?" My voice sounded utterly calm now, ordinary. Pinned to the bed by his body, his eyes still animalistic and wild, and I sounded like I was in the office, talking business.
He blinked and I saw the confusion in his eyes. I realized that I was asking him to think too deeply. He'd given himself over to a piece of himself that he rarely let out. That part didn't think like a person.
He did something with his legs that pressed him tighter against me. It made me cry out, but not in pain. "Do you want this?" His voice was almost normal, breathy, but almost normal.
I searched his face, tried to read something there that would comfort me. There was a glimpse of him in the eyes, a sliver of Doyle left behind. I took a deep breath, and said, "Yes."
"You heard her. Get out." His voice began to fall into the growl again, every word lower and lower.
"You sure, Merry?" Rhys asked.
I'd almost forgotten him standing there. I nodded. "I'm sure."
"So we just close the door and ignore the noise and trust that you'll be all right?"
I stared into Doyle's eyes and found nothing but need, a need like nothing I'd ever seen in any man. It went beyond desire and became a true need, like food, or water. For him, tonight, this was need; if I turned from him now, we might come together as lovers, but he'd never let himself go this far again. He might close this part of himself away forever, and it would be a little death.
I'd endured that little death for years, dying by inches on the shores of the human sea. Doyle had found me and brought me back to faerie. He'd brought back all those parts of myself I'd had to leave behind to pass for human, to pass for lesser fey. If I turned from him now, would he ever find this piece of himself again?
"I'll be all right, Rhys," I said, but I wasn't looking at him, I was looking at Doyle.
"You sure?"
Doyle turned and spoke in a voice that was almost too low and animal to understand. "You heard her. Now get out."
Rhys gave a small bow and shut the door behind him. Doyle turned those eyes back to me. He growled more than spoke, "You want this?" He was giving me one last chance to say no. But his body ground against mine, his fingers digging into my thighs, as he said it. His mind and mouth were trying to give me a way out, although his body didn't want to.
I had to close my eyes as I shuddered under the press of him. He growled against my face, and the sound traveled through his body, vibrating along mine, as if the sound could travel places that his body hadn't touched yet.
Even as his body ground into mine, forced small noises from my throat, he growled, "Do you want this?"
"I want this."
One of his hands slid from my thigh to the side of my panties. The silk tore with a wet sound like skin being cut. My body jerked as he stripped the silk away and pressed the rough material of his jeans against my naked body. He ground himself against me until I cried out, half in pleasure, half in pain.
He scooted me onto the bed just enough so that he could tear at his pants. The belt opened, the button, the zipper, everything slid down until I saw him nude for the first time. He was long and thick, and perfect. He slid a finger inside of me. It made me cry out, but that wasn't why he'd done it. When he found me wet and open, he pushed himself inside me, and even wet, he had to work himself in. I was screaming underneath him before he'd managed to get himself all inside me. He seemed to fill me up, every inch, and I writhed underneath, just from the feel of him stiff and large inside me.
Then he began to drag himself out of me, and push himself into me, and the small waves of pleasure began. I watched the dark length of him sliding in and out of my white, white flesh, and the sight alone made me cry out.
My skin began to glow like I'd swallowed the moon, and his dark skin gleamed in answer, filled with all the colors that had been in his eyes. It was as if he were still black water reflecting the glow of the moon, and I was the moon. The bright dancing colors flowed under his skin, and the room brightened, brightened, flickering as if we both burned with colored flame. We cast shadows on the wall, the ceiling, as if we lay at the center of some great light, some great flame, and we became that light, that fire, that heat.
It was as if our skins melted into each other and I felt those dancing lights flow across my skin. I sank into his dark glow as he was swallowed by my white shine, and somewhere in all of that, he brought me screaming, screaming, screaming, drowning in pleasure that was so intense it was like pain. I heard him cry out, heard that bell-like howl, but in that one moment I didn't care. He could have ripped my throat out and I'd have gone with a smile.
I came to myself with Doyle collapsed on top of me, his breathing labored, his back covered in a sheen of sweat and blood. I raised my hands and found blood on my white skin, glowing like neon against the fading glow. In that last moment when I hadn't been aware, I'd bloodied his back. I felt the first stinging trickle of blood and found his teeth marks in my shoulder, bleeding, hurting a little, but not too much, not yet. Nothing could hurt too much with Doyle's body still on top of mine, him still inside me, as we both relearned how to breathe, how to be in our own bodies again.
His first panting words were, "Did I hurt you?"
I touched my bloody fingers into the bite on my shoulder, mixed the neon glows together like mixing paint, and held up my fingers before his face. "I think I should be asking you the same question."
He put a hand back to touch the blood on his back, as if he hadn't felt it until that moment. He propped himself up on one elbow and stared at the blood on his hands. Then he threw back his head and laughed, laughed until he collapsed on top of me again, and when he finished laughing, he cried.
Doyle was kneeling on the burgundy bedspread, speaking to the mirror, when Frost and I entered the room. "I will allow shared sight as soon as our princess is with us, Queen Niceven."
The mirror was a swirl of mist as I crawled across the bed. It put Doyle kneeling at my back, slightly to one side. Rhys was sitting behind both of us, against the headboard, propped up among the pile of burgundy, purple, mauve, pink, and black pillows. I couldn't tell for certain, but he seemed to be nude, except for a few well-placed pillows. I had no idea how he'd stripped that quickly.
Frost crawled onto the bed to half sit, half recline a little behind me and to one side, so that I was framed by Doyle and him.
Doyle made a sideways movement with his hand and the mist cleared. Niceven sat in a delicate wooden chair, carved so that her wings slipped through the slotted back without damaging them. Her face was a near perfect triangle of white skin. But her whiteness was not the same as mine, or Frost's, or Rhys's. Her white skin held a greyish tinge. Her white-grey curls had been done in elaborate ringlets like those of some old-time doll. A tiny tiara held those curls back from her face, and the tiara sparkled with the cold warmth that only diamonds can manage. Her gown was white and flowing. The looseness of the cloth would have hidden her body, except that it was absolutely sheer and you could see the small pointed breasts, the almost skeletal thinness of her ribs, the dainty crossed legs. She wore slippers that seemed to be made of flower petals. A white mouse, as large to her as a German shepherd to me, sat beside her chair. She stroked the fur between its ears.
A trio of ladies-in-waiting stood behind her, each in a different color dress that matched the brilliance of their wings, rose-red, daffodil-yellow, and iris-purple. Their hair was black, yellow, and brown, respectively.
Niceven had gone to a great deal more trouble than we had to stage her little scene.
I felt positively ordinary in my green skirt outfit. But I didn't mind too much. It was a business call, after all.
"Queen Niceven, it is good of you to return our call."
"In truth, Princess Meredith, I have been awaiting your call these three months. Your affection for the green knight is well known among the court. I am most surprised that it has taken thee so long to contact me."
She was being very formal. I realized it wasn't just the speech that was formal. She wore her crown; I had no crown, not yet. She sat upon her throne, while I was sitting in the middle of a slightly rumpled bed. She had ladies-in-waiting like a silent Greek chorus behind her. And a mouse, mustn't forget the mouse. I had only Doyle and Frost on either side of me and Rhys in the pillows behind. Niceven was trying to put me at a disadvantage. We'd see about that.
"In truth, we have sought the aid of healers out here in the world of mortals. It is only recently that we had to admit that a call to you was necessary."
"Sheer stubbornness on your part then, Princess."
"Perhaps, but you know why I have called, and what I wish."
"I am not some fairy godmother to be granting wishes, Meredith." She'd dropped my title, a deliberate insult.
Fine, we could both be rude. "As you like, Niceven. Then you know what I want."
"You want a cure for your green knight," she said, one hand tracing the pink edge of the mouse's ear.
"Yes."
"Prince Cel was most insistent that Galen remain injured."
"You told me once that Prince Cel does not yet rule the Unseelie Court."
"That is true, but it is not at all certain you will ever live to be queen, Meredith." She'd dropped the title again.
Doyle moved from beside me to put his back to Rhys. He made sure he was still at the edge of the bed, at the limit of my peripheral vision and well within the queen's. As if they'd arranged it, Rhys rose from the pillows to his knees and showed clearly that he was nude. He rolled Doyle's long braid in his arms until he came to the end and began to undo the ribbon that bound it.
Niceven's eyes flicked behind me to the movement, then back to my face. "What are they doing?"
"Preparing for bed," I said. Though I wasn't 100 percent sure of that
Delicate grey brows furrowed. "It is, what... nine o'clock where you are. The night is young to waste in sleeping."
"I did not say we would sleep." I kept my voice even.
She drew a deep enough breath that I could see the rise and fall of her dainty chest. She tried to keep her attention on me, but her gaze kept flicking to the men. Rhys was working Doyle's thick hair free of the braid. I'd seen Doyle with his hair free of that braid only once. Only once had it been like some dark living cloak to shroud his body.
Niceven watched them furtively, giving me very little eye contact. I wasn't sure if it was Doyle's hair or Rhys's nudity. I doubted the nudity, because being nude just wasn't that unusual among the court. Of course, maybe she was gazing at Rhys's washboard abs, or what lay just below them.
Frost sat up, took off his suit jacket, and began to slip out of his shoulder holster. Her eyes flicked to him.
"Niceven," I said softly. I had to repeat her name twice more before she looked at me. "How do I cure Galen?"
"It is not certain that you will be queen, and if Prince Cel becomes king, then he will hold it ill that I helped you."
"And if I am queen, I will hold it ill that you did not."
She smiled. "So I must find a way between the two snarling dogs. I will help you here, because I have already helped Cel. It will even things up."
I remembered Galen's screams, and the pain in his eyes these last months, and I didn't think it evened things up. I didn't think fixing what she'd ruined came close to evening things up. But we were doing faerie politics here, not therapy, so I said nothing. Silence is not a lie. A sin of omission, but not a lie. Our cultures allow you to omit as much as you can get away with.
"How is Galen to be cured?" I asked.
She shook her head, making her curls bounce and her diamond tiara glitter. "No, we talk price first. What would you give me to make your green knight whole?"
Frost and Doyle moved up beside me almost simultaneously. "You will have the goodwill of the Queen of the Unseelie, and that should be enough," Frost said, his voice as cold as his name.
"She is not queen yet, Killing Frost." Niceven's voice was full of a cold, cold anger. It had the taste of an old grudge. Was it personal to Frost?
I saw Doyle begin to reach toward the other man, and I stopped him with a look. There was a tension between them tonight. It wouldn't make us look strong to argue amongst ourselves. Doyle stayed at my side, only his eyes looking at Frost. The look was not friendly.
I touched Frost's arm, squeezing slightly. He startled, muscles tightening, looked first to Doyle, then realized it was my touch. He'd expected it to be Doyle. He relaxed, slowly. He let out a deep, quiet breath and moved a fraction behind me.
I turned back to the mirror and found Niceven's face shrewd, watchful. I half expected her to say something, but she did not. She merely sat and waited for me to commit myself.
"What would Queen Niceven of the Diminutive Fey want from Princess Meredith of the Unseelie Court in return for curing her knight?" I'd purposefully put both our titles in the same sentence, emphasizing that I knew she was queen and I was not. I was hoping to make up for Frost's outburst.
She looked at me for a few heartbeats, then gave a very small nod. "What would Princess Meredith of the Unseelie Court offer us?"
"You said once that you would give much for a longer drink of my blood."
She looked startled before she could school her face to courtly blankness. When she could control herself, she said, "Blood is blood, Princess. Why should I care for yours?"
Now she was just being difficult. "You said that I tasted of high magic and sex. Or have you forgotten me so quickly, Queen Niceven?" I made my face fall, my eyes downcast. "Did it mean so little to you?" I shrugged, and let my newly shoulder-length hair fall across my face. I spoke behind a curtain of hair that sparkled like spun rubies. "If the blood of the heir to the throne means nothing to you, then I have nothing to offer." I turned my eyes toward her, knew the effect that those tricolored green and gold eyes could have through a frame of blood auburn hair, coupled with glimpses of skin like polished alabaster. I'd grown up among women, and men, who used their beauty like a weapon. I would never have dreamed of doing it with another sidhe, because they were all more beautiful than I, but with Niceven and her hungry eyes that followed my men, with her, I could use my own other-worldliness as she'd tried to use hers.
She slapped her tiny hand on the arm of her chair hard enough to startle the white mouse. "By Flora, you are your aunt's blood. Prince Cel has never mastered his beauty as Andais has, and as you have."
I gave a small bow, because it's always hard to bow from a sitting position. "A pretty compliment from a lovely queen."
She preened, smiling, petting the mouse, leaning back in her chair so that her sheer dress showed off more of her body. Her body had gone past slender into cadaverous, so that it was like looking at a little starved thing. But she thought her body was beautiful, and I could show nothing less in my face.
Frost stayed unmoving a little behind me. He'd removed his belt, his shoulder holster, his suit jacket, but nothing else. Even his shoes were still on. He was not going to strip for Niceven.
Doyle on the other hand had removed his shoulder holster, his belt, and his shirt. The silver ring in his left nipple glinted so that Niceven could see it, even in profile. Rhys continued to work at all that thick black hair as if he were smoothing out the train of a dress.
The men moved about me like ladies-in-waiting preparing themselves for bed. They left me alone to deal with Niceven. Which meant I was doing all right on my own. Good to know.
I flashed her a curve of lips as red as the red, red rose, no lipstick needed. "A drink of my blood to cure my knight, you agree?"
"You give your own life's fluid away very freely, Princess." She was being cautious.
"I only give that which I own."
"The Prince thinks he owns all the court."
"I know that I own only the body I inhabit. Anything else is hubris."
The Queen laughed. "Will you come home so that I may feed?"
"Do you agree that another feeding is worth my knight's cure?"
She nodded. "I agree."
"Then what would a feeding once a week be worth?"
I felt the men behind me tense. The atmosphere of the room was suddenly thicker. I was careful not to look at them. I was princess, and I didn't need the permission of my guards to do anything. I either ruled, or I did not.
Niceven's eyes narrowed into pale little flames. "What's that supposed to mean, a feeding once a week?"
"It means exactly what I said."
"Why would you offer to make a weekly blood offering to me?"
"For an alliance between us."
Frost pushed toward me over the bed. "Meredith, no..."
He was going to say something unfortunate and ruin everything. I had the beginnings of an idea and it was a good one. "No, Frost," I said, "you do not tell me no. I tell you no or yes. Don't forget that." I gave him a look that I hoped he understood, which was shut the fuck up, and don't ruin this.
He closed his mouth into a tight, thin line, so obviously unhappy, but he sat there, sulking. At least he was quiet about it.
I heard Doyle take in a breath, and I just looked at him. The look was enough. He gave a small nod of his head and let Rhys begin to brush out his long hair. There was a wave to all that blackness, because of the braid, I think; I remembered Doyle's hair as straight. I was distracted for a moment watching Rhys kneeling so pale and perfect against all that darkness. It was Doyle clearing his throat who made me jump and turn back to the mirror.
Niceven laughed, the sound of just slightly off-key bells, as if it were something lovely that had been just a bit malformed.
"My apologies for my inattention, Queen Niceven."
"If I had such a bounty awaiting me, I would make this a short conversation."
"And what if you had the bounty of my blood awaiting you? What then?"
Her face sobered. "You are persistent. It is most unfeylike."
"I am part brownie, and we are a more persistent people than the sidhe."
"You are part human, as well."
I smiled. "Humans are like the sidhe; some are more persistent than others."
She didn't smile back at me. "For another drink of your blood, I will cure your green knight, but that is all. One drink, one cure, and we are done."
"For one drink of my blood, King Kurag of the goblins became my ally for six months."
Her delicate eyebrows raised. "That is goblin and sidhe business, and none of ours. We are the demi-fey. No one cares who we ally ourselves with. We fight no battles. We challenge no duels. We mind our business and everyone else minds theirs."
"So you refuse an alliance?"
"I think caution is the better part of valor here, Princess, no matter how tasty you may be."
In negotiations, always try to be nice first, but if nice doesn't work, there are other options. "Everyone leaves you alone, Queen Niceven. Because they consider you too small to worry about."
"Prince Cel thought us big enough to spoil your plans with the green knight." Her voice held the first hint of anger.
"Yes, and what did he offer you for that bit of work?"
"The taste of sidhe flesh, knight's flesh, and blood. We feasted that night, Princess."
"He paid you in someone else's blood, when his body was full of blood only one step down from the queen herself. Have you ever tasted the queen?"
Niceven looked nervous, almost frightened. "The queen shares only with her lovers, or her prisoners."
"How that must irk you, to see such a precious gift wasted."
Niceven pouted tiny ghost silver lips. "If only she would take some of my people to her bed, but we are..."
"Too small," I finished for her.
"Yes," she hissed, "yesss, always too small. Too small a power for an alliance. Too small a power to be used except as her sneak spies." Tiny, pale hands balled into fists. The white mouse cowered away from her as if he knew what was coming. Even the trio of ladies behind her throne shuddered as if from the brush of an icy wind.
"And now you do dirty work for her son," I said. My voice was carefully neutral, almost pleasant.
"At least he sought us to do his work." The anger in that small, delicate figure was frightening. Her rage made her take up more space than mere physicality could explain. She was truly regal in her rage.
"I offer you what the queen will not. I offer what the prince will not."
"And what is that?"
"Royal blood, blood of the very throne of the Unseelie Court. Ally with me, Queen Niceven, and you will have such blood. Not only once, but many times more."
Her eyes became narrow little slits again, glittering with a fire colder than the diamonds on her crown. "What would either of us gain from such an alliance?"
"You would gain the ear and the aid of my allies."
"The goblins have little to do with us."
"And what of the sidhe?"
"What of them?"
"As ally to one of the heirs, you would gain status. They would no longer be able to dismiss you, for fear that you might bear a grudge and whisper it back to me."
She kept those glowing eyes on me. "And what would you gain from this alliance?"
"You would spy for me, as well as for the queen."
"And Cel?"
"You would cease to spy for him."
"He won't like that."
"He doesn't have to like it. If you are my ally, then to injure you is to insult me. The queen has decreed that I am under her protection. To harm me now is a death sentence."
"So he insults me, then you step in. Then what?"
"Threaten to bring your entire court out here to Los Angeles, out here to me."
She shivered. "I would not wish to take my people out into the city of men." She spoke as if there were only one city of men, the city.
"You could live in the botanical gardens, acres of open land. There's room for you here, Niceven, I swear it."
"But I do not want to leave the court."
"Wherever the demi-fey travel, faerie follows."
"Most sidhe do not remember that."
"My father made sure I knew the history of all the fey. The demi-fey are the most closely allied with the rawness that is faerie, the very stuff that makes us different from the humans. You are not leprechaun, or pixie, to pine and die away from faerie. You are faerie. Is it not said that when the last demi-fey fades, there will be no more faerie upon the earth?"
"A superstition," she said.
"Maybe, but if you leave the Unseelie Court and the Seelie Court retains its own demi-fey, the Unseelie will be weakened. Cel may not remember that bit of our lore, but the queen will. If Cel insults you enough for you to pack your belongings, the Queen will intercede."
"She will order us to stay."
"She cannot order another monarch to do anything. That is our law."
Niceven looked nervous. She feared Andais. Everyone did. "I do not wish to anger the queen."
"Neither do I."
"Do you really believe that the queen would punish her own son if he drove us away, rather than take out her anger on us?" She had crossed her legs again, arms folded over her chest, forgetting to flirt, forgetting to be regal in her fear.
"Where is Cel now?" I asked.
Niceven giggled, a most unpleasant little giggle. "Being punished for six months. There are bets going round that his sanity will not survive six months of isolation and torment."
I shrugged. "He should have thought of that before he was such a bad, bad boy."
"You are flippant, but if Cel comes out insane, it will be your name that he screams. Your face that he wants to smash."
"I'll cross that bridge when I come to it."
"What?"
"It's a human saying. It means that I'll deal with the problem when and if it comes to pass."
She seemed to be thinking very hard, then said, "How would you offer this blood to me? I do not think either of us would relish a weekly trip between faerie and the Western Sea."
"I could put it upon a piece of bread, and the essence could be sent to you via magic."
She shook her head, ghostly curls bouncing around narrow shoulders. "The essence is never the same."
"What do you suggest?"
"If I send one of my people to you, they could act as my surrogate."
I thought about it for a moment, feeling Frost's stillness, hearing the heavy, almost tearing sound of Rhys pulling the brush through Doyle's hair. "Agreed. Tell me the cure for my knight and send your surrogate."
She laughed, off-key bells ringing. "No, Princess, you will gain the cure from the lips of my surrogate. If I give it to you now before I have been paid, you may think better of it."
"I have given you my word. I cannot go back upon it now."
"I have dealt with the great of faerie for too long to believe that everyone keeps their word."
"It is one of our most stringent laws," I said. "To be forsworn is to be outcast."
"Unless you have friends in very high places who make sure such tales are never spread."
"What are you saying, Queen Niceven?"
"I say only this, that the queen doth love her son much, and has broken more than one taboo to keep him safe."
We stared at each other, and I knew without asking that Cel had made promises and broken them. That alone should have made him outcast and certainly denied him the right to any throne. Andais had always spoiled Cel, but I never realized just how much.
"When can we expect your surrogate?" I asked.
She seemed to consider this, reaching an idle hand out toward where the mouse was crouched. It crept close to her, its long whiskers twitching, ears alert, as if it still wasn't sure of its welcome. She stroked it gently. "A few days," she said.
"We are not always at home to welcome visitors. I would be loath to have your envoy receive less than our best hospitality."
"Leave a pot of flowers by your door and that will sustain him."
"Him?"
"I believe a him would please you more, would it not?"
I gave a small nod, because I wasn't sure I cared. I was sharing blood, not sex, so I didn't have a preference; or at least I didn't think I did. "I am sure the Queen is wise in her choosing."
"Pretty words, Princess. It remains to be seen whether you have pretty actions to back up all those words." Her eyes flicked back to the men and settled on Doyle and Rhys. "Pleasant dreams, Princess."
"And to you, Queen Niceven."
Something harsh crossed her face, made it look even thinner and sharper, as if her face were a mask. If she reached up and ripped her face off, I was not going to be able to hold my business face in place. But she didn't. She merely spoke in a voice that was like the whisper of scales on stone. "My dreams are my own business, Princess, and I will keep them as I like them."
I gave her another half bow. "I meant no insult."
"None taken, Princess, merely envy rearing its ugly head." With those words, the mirror went blank and smooth.
I sat gazing into my own reflection. Movement caught my gaze, and I watched Rhys and Doyle still on their knees. Muscles worked in Rhys's arms as he brushed Doyle's hair. Frost didn't so much move as just look at me in the mirror so hard that it turned me to look at him.
Frost glared back. The other two seemed unaware of my attention. "Niceven is gone. You can stop pretending," I said.
"I haven't finished brushing out all of this hair," Rhys said. "This is why I stopped growing mine down to my ankles. It's almost impossible to take care of it by yourself." He separated out another section of hair, hefted it in one hand, and began to brush with the other.
Doyle was silent as Rhys worked on his hair with the serious-faced concentration of a child. There was absolutely nothing else childish about him as he knelt nude, surrounded by a sea of black hair and multicolored pillows. His body was, as always, tightly muscled, pale, gleaming. He was lovely to look at, but he wasn't excited. Nude didn't mean sex to the sidhe, not always.
Frost made a small movement that turned me to him. His eyes were the dark grey of the sky just before a storm. He was angry; it showed in every line of his face, the tension of his shoulders, the way he sat, so careful, immobile, and shimmering with energy at the same time.
"I'm sorry if it upset you, but I knew what I was doing with Niceven."
"You have made it abundantly clear that you rule here and I merely obey." His voice was harsh with anger.
I sighed. It was early, but it had been a long day. I was too tired for Frost's hurt feelings. Especially since he was in the wrong.
"Frost, I cannot afford to appear weak to anyone right now. Even Doyle holds his opinion in public, no matter how unfavorable it is in private."
"I have approved of everything you've done today," Doyle said.
"I am so happy to hear that," I said.
He gave me a very level gaze, ruined only a little by the tugging of his hair from the brush. It's hard to look menacing when you're being fussed with. He stared at me, until most people would have looked away or flinched. I met his gaze with my own empty one. I was tired of games. Just because I could play them, and play them fairly well, didn't mean I enjoyed them.
"I've had enough power plays for one day, Doyle. I don't need any more, especially not from my own guards."
He blinked those dark, dark eyes at me. "Hold off, Rhys. Meredith and I need to talk."
Rhys stopped obediently, sitting back among the pillows, the brush still in his hand.
"In private," Doyle said.
Frost jumped as if he'd been struck. It was his reaction more than Doyle's words that made me suspect we were talking about more than just a few secrets.
"It is my night with Meredith," Frost said. His anger seemed to have vanished on the wings of possibilities he hadn't foreseen.
"If it was Rhys, then he would have to wait his turn again, but I have not had a turn, so I am within my rights to ask for this evening."
Frost stood, almost stumbling in his haste and the lack of space at the foot of the bed. "First you hold me back from helping her today, now you take my night in her bed. I would accuse you of jealousy, if I did not know you better."
"You can accuse me of anything you wish, Frost, but you know I am not jealous."
"Perhaps, perhaps not, but you are something, and that something has to do with our Merry."
Doyle sighed, a deep, almost wounded sound. "Perhaps I thought that by making the princess wait for my attentions I would intrigue her. Today I saw that there is more than one way to lose a woman's favor."
"Speak plainly, Darkness."
Doyle stayed kneeling, half-naked, his hands limp and empty resting against his thighs, surrounded by a sea of his own hair. He should have looked helpless, or feminine, or something, but he didn't. He looked like something carved out of the elemental darkness, as if he'd risen as one of the first things to ever draw breath, before the light came. The silver ring in his nipple caught the light as he breathed. His hair had covered all the earrings, so that this one silver spark was the only color on him. It was hard to look away from that shining silver light.
"I am not blind, Frost," Doyle said. "I saw the way she looked at you in the van, and you saw it, too."
"You are jealous."
He shook his head. "No, but you have had three months and there is no child. She is a princess and will be a queen. She cannot afford to give her heart away where there is no marriage."
"So you'll step in and win her heart instead?" Frost's voice held more heat than I'd ever heard in it, outside of the bed.
"No, but I will see that she has choices. If I had paid closer attention, I would have stepped in sooner."
"Oh, you in her arms will make her forget all about me, is that it?"
"I am not so arrogant as that, Frost. I told you, today I realized there was more than one way to lose a woman's heart, and waiting too long is one of them. If there is to be any chance that Meredith will not turn to you, or Galen, then something must change now. Not later, but now."
"What does Galen have to do with any of this?" Frost asked.
"If you have to ask that, then it is not I who am blind," Doyle said.
Confusion chased over Frost's face. Finally he frowned and shook his head. "I don't like this."
"You don't have to like it," Doyle said.
As interesting as the conversation was, I'd had enough of it. "You are all talking as if I'm not here, or as if I have no choice in the matter."
Doyle turned his so serious face to me. "Do you object to me sharing your bed tonight?" He asked it in the same neutral voice that he would have used to order at a restaurant or talk to a client, as if my answer meant nothing to him.
But I knew he sometimes used that neutral voice when he felt anything but neutral. It was a way of shielding himself from the emotion; act as if it doesn't matter, and maybe it won't.
I looked at him, the sweep of shoulders, the swell of his chest and that sparkling glint of silver, the flat plains of his stomach, the line where his jeans cut across his body. I had never seen Doyle nude, ever. He did not participate in the casual nudity of the court; neither had Frost.
I looked at Frost. His silver hair was still back in the loose ponytail, so his face was clean and unadorned, if anything that beautiful could ever be called unadorned. He had his jacket and shoulder holster, complete with gun, hung over one arm. He was wearing his arrogant mask again, the one he hid behind so often at court. That he felt he had to wear his mask here and now in front of me hurt my heart.
I wanted to go to him, wrap my arms around him, lay my cheek against his chest, and tell him don't leave. I wanted to feel his body against mine. I wanted to wake in a cloud of his silver hair.
I did go to him then, but not the way I wanted to go. I got close, but didn't trust myself to touch him. I was afraid if I did, I wouldn't let him go, "I have the chance to satisfy mine and many a court ladies' curiosity tonight, Frost."
He turned away so he couldn't see my face. "I wish you joy in it," but he didn't sound like he meant it.
"I want you tonight, Frost."
That turned him to me, with a startled look.
"With Doyle in my bed looking like that, and all the waiting, I still want you. My body begins to ache when you're not with me. I hadn't realized until today what that meant." I couldn't keep the pain out of my eyes, and finally stopped trying.
He stared down at me, raised a hand to touch my face, but stopped himself just short of my skin. "If that is true, then Doyle is right. You will be queen. And some things... you cannot be as others. You must be queen before all else."
I laid my face against his open hand, and even that small touch made me shiver.
He drew his hand away, rubbing it against his pants as if something clung to his skin. "Tomorrow night, Princess."
I nodded. "Tomorrow night, my -- " and I stopped there for fear of what word I might use to finish.
He turned without another word and left the room, shutting the door firmly behind him.
Some small noise turned me back to the room. Rhys slid to the other side of the bed near the window and picked up his clothes that were lying in a hasty heap on the floor. "The first night shouldn't be a group effort."
"Making this a threesome had not occurred to me," Doyle said.
Rhys laughed. "I didn't think it had." He worked his way round the bed, holding the clothes with the brush balanced on top, all held above waist level so my view was uninterrupted. It was a nice view.
"A little help with the door, please." The moment he asked, I knew that he was feeling left out. He was flaunting his charms and I was ignoring him. A deadly insult among the fey.
I got up to open the door for him, as if he couldn't have shifted his clothes around to do it himself. But I stopped before opening the door and raised up on tiptoe to kiss him. I balanced with one hand behind his head, lost in the curls at his neck, and the other hand trailing down the side of his body, caressing over his ribs, the sweep of his hip. I let him see in my eyes how beautiful he was to me.
It made him smile, and he gave me a shy glance out of his one perfect eye. The shy was pretend, but the pleasure wasn't.
I stayed on tiptoe long enough to put my forehead against his. My hands played in the curls at the back of his neck, and he shivered under my touch. I stood back on the ground flat-footed and moved out of the door so he could pass.
Rhys shook his head. "That was her idea of a good-bye kiss, Doyle." He glanced back at the other man, still kneeling in the bed. "Have fun, kiddies." But his serious face didn't match the flippant words.
Rhys offered me the hairbrush from the pile of clothing, then I let him out. I shut the door behind him, and was suddenly very aware that I was alone with Doyle. Doyle, whom I'd never seen nude. Doyle, who had frightened me when I was a child. Doyle, who had been the Queen's right hand for a thousand years. He'd kept me safe, guarded my body and my life, but somehow he hadn't really been mine. Somehow he wouldn't really be mine until I'd touched that dark body, seen all of him bare before me. I wasn't sure why that was so important to me, but it was. By withholding himself from me, it was almost as if he was holding his options open. As if he believed that once he was with me, he'd have no more options. Which wasn't true. I'd been with my one-time fiance, Griffin, for seven years, and in the end he'd found plenty of options, none of them me. Having sex with me hadn't been a life-altering experience for him. Why should it be different for Doyle?
"Meredith." He said my name once, but for once his voice wasn't neutral. That one word held uncertainty, a question, and a hope. He spoke my name once more, and it turned me around to face the bed and what lay waiting for me among the burgundy sheets.
Chapter 18
He sat on the edge of the bed closest to the mirror, closest to me. He was almost lost among the black dream of his hair. Almost all the other sidhe I knew had some contrast from hair to skin to eyes, but Doyle was all of one piece. His unbound hair cascaded around him like a black cloud, so that his ebony skin was almost lost in the folds of it. A long, long lock of hair had fallen over his face, and his black-on-black eyes were lost in that darkness. He looked like a piece of night itself come to life. He swept a hand up to draw back the hair and try to tuck it behind one pointed ear. The earrings glittered like stars against his darkness.
I walked forward until the bed bumped against my thighs. My legs pressed into the bed, but all I could feel was the thickness of his hair, trapped between my body and the firmness of the bed. He turned his head, and I felt the hair tug underneath me. I pressed in harder, trapping his hair.
He turned those dark eyes up to me, and there were colors in his eyes that shone nowhere in the room, like a swarm of brilliant fireflies -- blue, white, yellow, green, red, purple, and colors I had no name for. The pinpoints danced and swirled, and for a second I could almost feel them flying around me, the tiny wind of their passing like being caught in a cloud of butterflies; then I was falling and Doyle caught me.
I came to myself in his arms, in his lap, where he'd sat me. When I could speak, I said, "Why?"
"I am a power to be reckoned with, Meredith, and I want you to never forget that. A king should have more to offer than seed."
I slid my hands across his skin, wrapping my arms around his neck. "Are you auditioning?"
He smiled. "We all are, Meredith. Some of the others may forget that in the rush of hot skin and sex, but you must never forget. You are choosing a father for your children, a king for the court, and someone you will be tied to forever."
I hid my face in the curve of his neck. His skin was warm to the touch. His pulse beat against my face. His smell was so warm, so very warm. "I've been thinking about that." I spoke the words against his skin.
He rubbed his neck against my face. "And what conclusions have you come to?"
I drew back enough to see his face. "That Nicca would be a victim and a disaster on the throne. That Rhys is lovely in bed, but I can't see him as a king. That my father was right and Galen would be utterly disastrous. That there are more knights at court that I would rather kill than be tied to for the rest of my life."
He laid his lips against the side of my neck, not quite kissing me. He spoke with his own mouth against my skin, so that his words made small kissing movements against me. "There is Frost and... me."
The feel of his lips made me shiver, writhing in his lap. Doyle drew a sharp breath, his hands wrapping around my waist, across my thighs. He whispered, "Merry," against my skin, his breath warm and fierce, his fingers digging into my thigh, my waist. There was such strength in his hands, such pressure, as if with little effort he could plunge his fingers into my body and bring my blood and flesh to the surface, peel me apart like something ripe and sweet. Something that had been waiting for his hand to open me, to bring me, to spill me in a rush of pleasure over his hands, across his body.
He half lifted me, half threw me onto the bed. I waited for him to press his body against mine, but he didn't. He got up on all fours, straddling above me like a mare with a colt, but there was nothing motherly about the way he stared down at me. He'd thrown all that hair over one shoulder so that his naked upper body was exposed to the light. His skin gleamed like polished ebony. His breathing was deep and rapid, making the nipple ring wink and shimmer above me.
I raised my hand to touch it, brushed my fingers over that bit of silver, and a sound came out of Doyle, low in his body and growing, a growl like some great beast, echoing through that slender, muscled body. He straddled my body, lips curving back to flash white teeth, while that growl trickled out of his lips, past his teeth like a warning.
It made my pulse race, but I wasn't afraid yet. Not yet. He leaned down into my face and snarled, "Run!"
I just blinked at him, my pulse in my throat.
He threw back his head and howled, a sound that echoed and echoed in the small room. The hair on my body stood, and I stopped breathing for a second, because I knew that sound.
That lone, clear evil belling of the Gabriel Ratchets, the dark hounds of the wild hunt. He put his face inches from mine and growled, "Run!"
I scrambled out from underneath him, and he watched me with those dark eyes, his body immobile but so tense it seemed to shimmer with the promise of some violent action, violence contained, constrained, restricted, but there all the same.
I had crawled off on the wrong side of the bed. I was trapped between the window and the bed. The outer door lay across the bed, past Doyle. I'd played games of hunt and catch before. A lot of things in the Unseelie Court liked to catch you first, but that was pretend, play, foreplay. The look in Doyle's eyes was hungry, but one hunger looks much like another until it's too late.
His voice fought out from his clenched teeth. "You ... are ... not... running!" With that last, he made a rush at me on all fours, a black blur. I threw myself over the edge of the bed, rolled, and fell to the floor in front of the outer door. I was on my feet, hand on the doorknob when his body crashed into mine. The door shook and my body bruised with the violence of it. He jerked my hand off the doorknob, and I could not withstand his strength.
I screamed.
He tore me away from the door, threw me on the bed. I tried to slide off to one side, but he was there, his lower body pressing against mine, keeping me pinned to the side of the bed. I could feel the firmness of him through his jeans, through my panties.
The door opened behind us, and Rhys looked in. Doyle growled at him. Rhys said, "You screamed?" His face was serious. There was a gun in his hand, held next to his leg, not pointed but there.
Doyle growled, "Get out!"
"I leave at the princess's order, not yours, sire." He shrugged. "Sorry. You having a good time, Merry, or..." He made a vague motion with the gun.
"I'm... I'm not sure." My voice came out breathy. The feel of Doyle pressed tight and firm against me was exciting, even the promise of violence was exciting, but only if it was the promise of it, a game.
His hands on my thighs were shaking, his entire body quivering with the effort not to finish what he'd started. I touched his face gently. He startled as if I'd hurt him, then turned, looked at me. The look in his eyes was barely human. It was like looking into the eyes of a tiger, beautiful, neutral, hungry.
"Are we having fun here, Doyle, or are you going to eat me?" My voice was a little steadier, firmer.
"This first time I would not trust myself to put my mouth to such tender places."
It took me a second to realize that he had misunderstood me. "I don't mean eat me in the euphemistic sense, Doyle. I mean, am I food?" My voice sounded utterly calm now, ordinary. Pinned to the bed by his body, his eyes still animalistic and wild, and I sounded like I was in the office, talking business.
He blinked and I saw the confusion in his eyes. I realized that I was asking him to think too deeply. He'd given himself over to a piece of himself that he rarely let out. That part didn't think like a person.
He did something with his legs that pressed him tighter against me. It made me cry out, but not in pain. "Do you want this?" His voice was almost normal, breathy, but almost normal.
I searched his face, tried to read something there that would comfort me. There was a glimpse of him in the eyes, a sliver of Doyle left behind. I took a deep breath, and said, "Yes."
"You heard her. Get out." His voice began to fall into the growl again, every word lower and lower.
"You sure, Merry?" Rhys asked.
I'd almost forgotten him standing there. I nodded. "I'm sure."
"So we just close the door and ignore the noise and trust that you'll be all right?"
I stared into Doyle's eyes and found nothing but need, a need like nothing I'd ever seen in any man. It went beyond desire and became a true need, like food, or water. For him, tonight, this was need; if I turned from him now, we might come together as lovers, but he'd never let himself go this far again. He might close this part of himself away forever, and it would be a little death.
I'd endured that little death for years, dying by inches on the shores of the human sea. Doyle had found me and brought me back to faerie. He'd brought back all those parts of myself I'd had to leave behind to pass for human, to pass for lesser fey. If I turned from him now, would he ever find this piece of himself again?
"I'll be all right, Rhys," I said, but I wasn't looking at him, I was looking at Doyle.
"You sure?"
Doyle turned and spoke in a voice that was almost too low and animal to understand. "You heard her. Now get out."
Rhys gave a small bow and shut the door behind him. Doyle turned those eyes back to me. He growled more than spoke, "You want this?" He was giving me one last chance to say no. But his body ground against mine, his fingers digging into my thighs, as he said it. His mind and mouth were trying to give me a way out, although his body didn't want to.
I had to close my eyes as I shuddered under the press of him. He growled against my face, and the sound traveled through his body, vibrating along mine, as if the sound could travel places that his body hadn't touched yet.
Even as his body ground into mine, forced small noises from my throat, he growled, "Do you want this?"
"I want this."
One of his hands slid from my thigh to the side of my panties. The silk tore with a wet sound like skin being cut. My body jerked as he stripped the silk away and pressed the rough material of his jeans against my naked body. He ground himself against me until I cried out, half in pleasure, half in pain.
He scooted me onto the bed just enough so that he could tear at his pants. The belt opened, the button, the zipper, everything slid down until I saw him nude for the first time. He was long and thick, and perfect. He slid a finger inside of me. It made me cry out, but that wasn't why he'd done it. When he found me wet and open, he pushed himself inside me, and even wet, he had to work himself in. I was screaming underneath him before he'd managed to get himself all inside me. He seemed to fill me up, every inch, and I writhed underneath, just from the feel of him stiff and large inside me.
Then he began to drag himself out of me, and push himself into me, and the small waves of pleasure began. I watched the dark length of him sliding in and out of my white, white flesh, and the sight alone made me cry out.
My skin began to glow like I'd swallowed the moon, and his dark skin gleamed in answer, filled with all the colors that had been in his eyes. It was as if he were still black water reflecting the glow of the moon, and I was the moon. The bright dancing colors flowed under his skin, and the room brightened, brightened, flickering as if we both burned with colored flame. We cast shadows on the wall, the ceiling, as if we lay at the center of some great light, some great flame, and we became that light, that fire, that heat.
It was as if our skins melted into each other and I felt those dancing lights flow across my skin. I sank into his dark glow as he was swallowed by my white shine, and somewhere in all of that, he brought me screaming, screaming, screaming, drowning in pleasure that was so intense it was like pain. I heard him cry out, heard that bell-like howl, but in that one moment I didn't care. He could have ripped my throat out and I'd have gone with a smile.
I came to myself with Doyle collapsed on top of me, his breathing labored, his back covered in a sheen of sweat and blood. I raised my hands and found blood on my white skin, glowing like neon against the fading glow. In that last moment when I hadn't been aware, I'd bloodied his back. I felt the first stinging trickle of blood and found his teeth marks in my shoulder, bleeding, hurting a little, but not too much, not yet. Nothing could hurt too much with Doyle's body still on top of mine, him still inside me, as we both relearned how to breathe, how to be in our own bodies again.
His first panting words were, "Did I hurt you?"
I touched my bloody fingers into the bite on my shoulder, mixed the neon glows together like mixing paint, and held up my fingers before his face. "I think I should be asking you the same question."
He put a hand back to touch the blood on his back, as if he hadn't felt it until that moment. He propped himself up on one elbow and stared at the blood on his hands. Then he threw back his head and laughed, laughed until he collapsed on top of me again, and when he finished laughing, he cried.
