"I would be happy to distract you, Princess," Doyle said.
"Oh, yeah, you're great at foreplay as long as there's no follow-through, and let me just say that that's really beginning to get on my nerves, too," I said.
"Frost should be back from his assignment very soon. He's told the starlet that she'll have to find someone else to guard her from her would-be fans."
We were still speaking around Rhys's body. "I thought Frost's body-guarding gig lasted until the end of the week, at least."
"I thought it prudent after last night's attempt that we have him with us. I've sent him on ahead to scout Ms. Reed's home."
"Scout?" I made it a question.
"She is, after all, full Seelie Court sidhe, once a goddess, but yet no longer of either court. She might feel she is beyond the limits of our laws. I would be a poor guard indeed to simply allow you to walk into her home without some preparation."
"So you just pulled Frost off a job for our agency and reassigned him, without asking Jeremy, or me."
Silence.
"I'll take that as a yes." I frowned up at Rhys. "Move to one side, Rhys. The threat display is getting a little old."
Rhys looked a little surprised, as if I was supposed to be quaking in my boots. Of course, maybe the show wasn't for me. Kitto looked pale and very frightened.
"Move!" I said.
"Do as the princess bids," Doyle said.
Only then did Rhys move, reluctantly, to one side. I stared past him at Doyle, who was just inside the door. "Either Rhys helps distract me while Kitto gets reassured, or he packs his bags and goes back to Illinois."
Doyle looked completely surprised. You didn't see that response too often in the Queen's Darkness. It made me just a little happy. "I thought you enjoyed Rhys's attentions."
"I love having Rhys in my bed, but that doesn't matter. If he can't control himself around Kitto, then eventually he's going to blow up and hurt him. You know Kurag didn't want to join a treaty with me, Doyle. He tried to weasel out of it from the beginning. I forced an alliance on him, but if Kitto is injured, or worse, killed, then Kurag could use it as an excuse to break the alliance." I stroked the side of Kitto's face, turning him from staring at Rhys. "And do you really think that if Kurag has to send us a second goblin, it will be anyone as pleasant as Kitto? It's my flesh and blood being offered up, not Rhys's, not yours."
"That is true enough, Princess," Doyle said. "But if you send Rhys home, our Queen will also send a new guard to replace him, and there are many less pleasant guards she could send than Rhys."
"It doesn't matter. Either Rhys does this, or he's out. I'm tired of the histrionics."
Doyle took a deep enough breath that I could see the rise and fall of his chest from across the room. "Then I will stay and guard everyone's safety."
Rhys turned toward him. "You don't mean that I have to do this."
"Princess Meredith NicEssus, wielder of the hand of flesh, has given you a direct order. If you do not obey it, then the princess has already told you the penalty."
Rhys walked toward Doyle, the anger fading. "You would cast me aside for this? I am one of your best guards."
"I would hate to lose you in this fight," Doyle said, "but I cannot go against the princess's wishes."
"That's not what you said last night," Rhys said.
"She is right, Rhys, you have endangered our alliance with the goblins. If you cannot control your rage at Kitto, then you are a hazard to us all. She is right to make you face this fear."
"I am not afraid of him," Rhys said, pointing again.
Kitto cowered back against me at Rhys's anger.
"All mindless hatred comes from a root of fear," Doyle said. "The goblins hurt you long ago, and you fear ending up in their hands again. You can hate them if you like, and you can fear them, if you must, but they are our allies, and you must treat them as such."
"I will not help that... thing sink its fangs into an Unseelie princess."
"If you had behaved yourself," I said, "I wouldn't be forced to do this again so soon. You're about to cause me pain, Rhys, and if I'm willing to endure it, then the least you can do is make it not completely unpleasant."
Rhys went to the window, gazing out. He spoke without turning around. "I don't know if I can do this."
"Just try," I said, "but really try. You can't just put a toe in, declare the water cold, and run home. You have to stay with it. If you truly can't bear it, we'll talk, but first you have to try."
He leaned his head against the window glass. He finally raised his head, squared his shoulders, and turned to face the room. "I'll do my best. Just make sure he doesn't touch me."
I looked down at the little goblin's pale face and frightened eyes. "Rhys, I hate to break it to you, but I don't think Kitto wants to touch you any more than you want to touch him."
Rhys gave a small nod. "All right then, let's do this. We've got clients waiting." He managed a faint smile. "Mysteries to solve, bad guys to catch."
I smiled at him. "That's the spirit."
Doyle closed the door behind him and leaned against it. "I will not interfere unless there is danger."
For the first time Doyle was protecting me not from any outside force, but from one of my own guards. I watched Rhys as he walked toward Kitto and me. The bandage on his neck was almost as big as my palm. Maybe Doyle wasn't around just to keep Kitto and me safe from Rhys; maybe, just maybe, he was also here to keep Rhys safe from me.
Chapter 5
Rhys laid his silk trench coat across my desk and came to stand in front of us. Kitto curled into a tight ball in my lap, eyes staring up at Rhys the way small mammals watch cats. As though the cat won't see them, if they stay still enough.
The shoulder holster was stylishly white against Rhys's button-down shirt. The butt of the gun was like a black imperfection among all that cream and white. "Give your gun to Doyle, Rhys, please."
He glanced at Doyle, who had gone back to his chair against the windows. "I believe you are making the little one nervous, Rhys."
"Well, isn't that just a pity," he said, and his voice was cruel.
I glared up at him and felt the first stirrings of power. I didn't fight the anger or the magic. I let it fill my eyes, knew there was a glimmer in my eyes of colors and light nowhere in the room but in my eyes.
"Be careful, Rhys, or you can leave now, without your second chance." My voice was low and careful again. I was holding on to my magic the way you hold your breath, controlled or you start yelling.
I must have looked like I meant it, because he turned without another word and walked to Doyle. He handed the gun butt first to the dark man, then he stood there for a few seconds, shoulders squared, hands in fists at his sides. It was almost as if he felt more insecure without the gun. If he'd been facing true mortal danger, I could have understood it, but Kitto wasn't that kind of threat to Rhys. He didn't need the gun.
He turned toward us with a shaky breath, which I heard clearly from feet away. Some of the anger had been stripped away, and what was left was barely disguised fear. Doyle was right; Rhys feared Kitto, or rather, goblins. It was like a phobia for him. A phobia with a basis in reality; those are the kind that are almost impossible to cure.
He stopped just in front of us again, staring down at me, face diffident, but underneath was a vulnerability that made me want to say, no, you don't have to do this. But I would have been lying. He did have to do this. If something wasn't done, Rhys would lose his temper once too often and Kitto would get hurt, or worse. We couldn't risk the treaty. And Kitto was mine to take care of. I wasn't sure where my duties would lie if Rhys killed him in a fit of panic. I didn't want to have to order an execution of someone I'd known all my life.
I wanted to reassure Rhys, tell him it was all right, but I didn't want to appear weak, either. So I sat there with a very tense Kitto curled tight in my lap, and said nothing.
"I've always left the room when you deal with ... it, him," Rhys said, "
What happens now?"
I'd had enough, and I suddenly didn't feel sorry for Rhys. I looked down at Kitto. "I offer you small flesh or weak blood." Small flesh was goblin slang for light foreplay. Weak blood meant barely breaking the skin, or even just raising welts. There was every possibility that Kitto would choose something I wouldn't need any distraction for. I'd slowly been teaching Kitto new definitions of petting and foreplay, definitions that were a lot less stressful to all concerned.
He looked down, not meeting anyone's eyes, and whispered, "Small flesh."
"Done," I said.
Rhys frowned. "What just happened?"
I looked up at him. "You always negotiate with goblins before sex, Rhys. If you don't, you end up hurt."
He frowned down at me. "I was a prisoner for a night. I had no ability to negotiate."
I sighed, and shook my head. Most sidhe, Seelie or Unseelie, knew very little about cultures outside their own. It was a type of prejudice that believed nothing but sidhe culture was worth knowing. "Actually, according to goblin law, you did. If they'd tortured you, then, no, you'd have simply had to endure what they did to you, though truthfully there is some room for negotiation even in torture. For sex, though, you always have room to negotiate. It's custom among them."
The frown deepened. That single eye was so confused, so pain-filled. I spilled the small goblin to his feet and stood in front of Rhys, putting Kitto almost between us. For once Rhys didn't seem to notice how close the goblin was to him.
"The goblins will rape, and there's no saving yourself from it, but you can dictate terms, things that can be done and cannot be done."
His hand rose slowly toward his scars, then stopped before he touched them, his hand just hanging in midair. "You mean..." And he left the rest of the sentence unfinished.
"That you could have forbidden them from permanently disfiguring you, yes." My voice was very, very soft, as I said it. I'd been half wanting to tell Rhys, and half dreading, since I found out a few months ago how he'd lost his eye.
He turned to me with such horror in his face. I touched his cheeks, rose on tiptoe, and leaned his face down toward me. I laid a gentle kiss on his lips, a bare touch from my mouth to his, then stretched until my body leaned full against his, stretching as tall as I could, my hands still on his face, bringing him closer to me. I laid the same gentle kiss on his scar.
He jerked back, making me stumble. Only Kitto's arm around my waist kept me from falling. "No," Rhys said, "no."
I held my hands out to him. "Come to me, Rhys."
He just kept backing away. Doyle had moved up behind him without either of us noticing. Rhys stopped backing away when he smacked into his captain's body. "If you fail her here, Rhys, then you must go back to faerie."
He glanced at Doyle, then at me. "I haven't failed, I just... I didn't know."
"Most sidhe don't know anything about goblin culture," I said. "It's one of the reasons that the goblins are such feared warriors, because no one understands them. We might have won the goblin wars centuries sooner if anyone had taken time to study them. And I don't mean torture them. You don't learn a person's culture by torture."
Doyle put a hand on either of Rhys's shoulders and began walking him back toward us. Rhys didn't look afraid anymore, more shell-shocked, as if a piece of his world had broken away and left him hanging with his feet on thin air.
Doyle walked him back to us, and I touched his face gently. Rhys blinked, startled, as if he'd forgotten I was there. "You're not ruined, Rhys. You're beautiful." I lowered his face toward me, but the six inches of difference hampered my intentions. I could kiss his mouth, but not his eye. I went back on tiptoe, which stretched my body along the length of Rhys's. Kitto's arm had still been around my waist, and now his arm was pressed between our bodies, trapped with the pressure of our flesh. Rhys didn't scream about it, so I let it go. I would finish what I'd started.
I kissed slowly up the edge of his face, until I touched the edge of the scar. He jerked, and I think only Doyle's hands on his shoulders kept him from running again. He closed his eye tight like a condemned man who didn't want to see the bullet coming. I kissed my way across the scars, until I felt the rough, slickened skin under my lips. I laid a gentle kiss over the empty socket, where the other beautiful eye should have been.
He was so tense under my hands, almost shaking. I kissed more firmly over the thickened skin, letting my lips open and close loosely over the spot. Rhys made a small sound. I licked, very gently, over the scar. Another small sound came from his throat, and it wasn't a pain sound.
I licked, slowly, carefully, over the slick skin. His breath came in short, sharp gasps. The fists at his side were shaking, but not with anger. I ran tongue and lips over the scar until his knees buckled, and it was Kitto who caught him around the waist. The small man held him as if he weighed nothing.
I kissed Rhys on the mouth, and he kissed me back like he was drowning and would find the breath of life in my mouth. We ended on our knees on the floor with Doyle standing above us, and Kitto still wound around Rhys's waist.
Rhys put his arms behind my back and pressed me against him, hard enough that even with Kitto's arm between us I knew Rhys was hard and firm. Some buckle or strap must have bruised into Kitto's skin, because he made a small sound.
That one tiny sound brought Rhys up for air, made him look around, and when he saw the little goblin's arms around his waist, he gave something very like a scream and scrambled away from both of us.
I was about to open my mouth and say that Rhys had done enough to satisfy me, but Kitto spoke first. "I declare myself satisfied."
I stared at him. "You've had nothing for yourself yet."
He shook his head, blinking those drowning blue eyes. "I am satisfied." He seemed about to add more, appeared to think better of it, and just shook his head again.
It was Rhys who said, "You haven't had your bit of flesh, yet."
"No," the goblin said, "but I am within my rights to forgo it."
"Why would you do that?" Rhys asked. He was still crouched on the floor, face wild, panicked.
"Merry needs all her guards to be safe. I would not have her lose one of them over me."
Rhys stared at him. "You would give up your bit of flesh and blood so that I can stay?"
Kitto blinked, then looked at the floor. "Yes."
Rhys frowned. "Are you feeling sorry for me?" and a tiny edge of anger crept into his voice.
Kitto looked up, clearly surprised. "Sorry for you, why? You are beautiful and share Merry's body as well as her bed. You have a chance to be king. The scars that you think ruin you are a mark of great beauty among the goblins, and a mark of great valor, showing you have survived great pain." He shook his head. "You are a sidhe warrior. No one bullies you but the queen herself. Look at me, warrior, look at me." He held out his small hands. "I have no claws, precious little fang. I am like a human among the goblins." For the first time there was a bitterness in Kitto's voice. A bitterness of years of abuse, of being in a culture where violence and physical prowess is prized, of being trapped in a body that was soft by their standards. He'd been born a victim among the goblins. He held those tiny hands out to Rhys, and there was anger in that small, delicate face. Anger, and a helplessness born of truth. Kitto knew very well what he was, and what he wasn't. Among the goblins he was anyone's meat. No wonder he wanted to stay at my side, even in the big bad city.
Chapter 6
Ask most people, especially tourists, where the rich and famous live in Southern California and they'll say Beverly Hills. But Holmby Hills is full of money and fame, and land -- land with high fences that block the view of the peons driving by, straining for a look at the rich and famous. Holmby Hills is not the fashionable address it once was, not the place for the young rising stars to make their home, but one thing hasn't changed: you need money for those walls and gates, lots of money. Come to think of it, maybe that's why the newly famous don't move to Holmby Hills much; they can
't afford it.
Maeve Reed could afford it. She was a major star, but lucky for us, not in the top 2 percent. If she'd been, say, Julia Roberts, we'd have had to evade her media hounds as well as mine. One set of rabid reporters was more than enough for one day.
There were ways around the media that didn't need magic -- for instance, a white van with rust spots that sat unused in the parking garage most of the time. The Grey Detective Agency used it for surveillance when the usual van would stand out too much. If it was a nice neighborhood, we used the nice van. If it was a bad neighborhood, we used this van. The media had started following the nice van every time it went out, on the theory that it could be hiding the princess and her entourage. That left us with the old van, even though it stood out like a sore thumb in Holmby Hills.
One of the back windows was covered with cardboard and tape. Rust decorated the white paint like wounds. Both the cardboard and the rust held places to hide cameras and other equipment. The hidey-holes could even be used as gunsights in an emergency.
Rhys drove. The rest of us hid in the back. He'd piled all that white hair under a billed cap. A high-quality fake beard and mustache hid all those boyish good looks. The cap and the facial hair even covered most of the scars. The guards had become almost as camera recognizable as I was, so it had to be a good disguise. And Rhys loved playing detective. He'd dressed up as if the day was any day and all the emotional turmoil had been a dream.
Kitto was literally hiding under my legs in the floorboard. Doyle sat on the far side of the seats away from me. Frost took up the center seat.
Sitting beside each other, the two men were almost exactly the same height. Standing, Frost was the taller by a couple of inches. His shoulders were a little wider and his body slightly bulkier. It wasn't a large difference, and not one you usually noticed when they had clothes on, but it was a difference all the same. Queen Andais treated them almost as if they were just two sides of the same coin. Her Darkness and her Killing Frost. Doyle had a name aside from the Queen's nickname; Frost did not. He was simply Frost or Killing Frost, and that was all.
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