A Caress Of Twilight

"A double-action handgun doesn't need to be cocked to fire, Rhys," Doyle said, voice calm, even amused. But I couldn't see his face to see if his expression matched his tone; we'd both frozen in our almost embrace.

"I know," Rhys said, "a little melodramatic, but you know what they say: One scary sound is worth a thousand threats."

I spoke, my mouth still touching the warm skin of Doyle's neck. "They don't say that." Doyle hadn't moved, and I was afraid to, afraid to set something in motion that I couldn't stop. I didn't want any accidents tonight.

"They should," Rhys said.

The bed creaked behind us. "I have a gun pointed at your head, Doyle." It was Nicca's voice. But not calm, no, a definite thread of anxiety wove his words together. Rhys's voice had held no fear; Nicca's held enough for both of them. But I didn't have to see Nicca to know the gun was trained nice and steady, the finger already on the trigger. After all, Doyle had trained him.

I felt the tension leave Doyle's body, and he raised his face just enough so that he was no longer speaking into my skin. "Perhaps I couldn't slay you all, but I could kill the princess before you could kill me, and then your lives would mean nothing. The Queen would hurt you much more than I ever could for allowing her heir to be slaughtered."

I could see his face now. Even by moonlight he was relaxed, his eyes distant, not really looking at me anymore. He was too intent on the lesson he was teaching his men, to care about me.

I braced my back against the wall, but he paid no attention to the small movement. I put a hand in the middle of his chest and pushed. It made him stand up straighter, but there really wasn't room for him to go anywhere but on the bed.

"Stop it, all of you," I said, and I made sure my voice rang in the room. I glared up at Doyle. "Get away from me."

He gave a small bow using just his neck for there wasn't room for anything more formal, then he backed up, hands out to his sides to show himself empty-handed to the other guards. He ended between the bed and the wall with no room to maneuver. Rhys was half on his back, gun pointed one-handed as he followed Doyle's movement around the room. Nicca was standing on the far side of the bed, gun held two-handed in a standard shooter's stance. They were still treating Doyle like a threat, and I was tired of it.

"I am tired of these little games, Doyle. Either you trust your men to keep me safe, or you don't. If you don't, then find other men, or make sure you or Frost are always with me. But stop this."

"If I had been one of our enemies, your guards would have slept through your death."

"I was awake," said Rhys, "but truthfully I thought you'd finally come to your senses and were going to do her up against the wall."

Doyle frowned at him. "You would think something that crude."

"If you want her, Doyle, then just say so. Tomorrow night can be your turn. I think we'd all step aside for an evening if you'd break your. . fast." The moonlight softened Rhys's scars like a white gauzy patch where his right eye should have been.

"Put up your guns," I said.

They looked at Doyle for confirmation. I shouted at them. "Put up the guns. I am the princess here, heir to the throne. He's the captain of my guard, and when I tell you to do something, you will, by Goddess, do it."

They still looked at Doyle. He gave the smallest of nods.

"Get out," I said. "All of you, get out."

Doyle shook his head. "I don't think that would be wise, Princess."

Usually I tried to get them all to call me Meredith, but I had invoked my status. I couldn't take it back in the next sentence. "So my direct orders don't mean anything, is that it?"

Doyle's expression was neutral, careful. Rhys and Nicca had put up their guns, but neither one was meeting my eyes. "Princess, you must have at least one of us with you at all times. Our enemies are … persistent."

"Prince Cel will be executed if his people try to kill me while he's still being punished for the last time he tried to kill me. We have six months' reprieve."

Doyle shook his head.

I looked at the three of them, all handsome, even beautiful in their own ways, and suddenly I wanted to be alone. Alone to think, alone to figure out exactly whose orders they were taking, mine or Queen Andais's. I'd thought it was mine, but suddenly I wasn't so sure.

I looked at them, each in turn. Rhys met my gaze, but Nicca still wouldn't. "You won't take my orders, will you?"

"Our first duty is to keep you safe, Princess, and only second to keep you happy," Doyle said.

"What do you want from me, Doyle? I've offered you my bed, and you've refused."

He opened his mouth, started to speak, but I held a hand up. "No, I don't want to hear any more of your excuses. I believed the one about wanting to be the last of my men, not the first, but if one of the others gets me with child, according to sidhe tradition that person will be my husband. I'll be monogamous after that. You'll have missed your chance to break a thousand years of forced celibacy. You haven't given me a single reason good enough for that kind of risk." I folded my arms across my stomach, cradling my breasts. "Speak truth to me, Doyle, or stay out of my bedroom."

His face was almost neutral, but an edge of anger showed through. "Fine, you want truth, then look at your window."

I frowned at him, but turned to look at the window with its gauzy white drapes moving ever so gently in the breeze. I shrugged, arms still held tight. "So?"

"You are a princess of the sidhe. Look with more than your eyes."

I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and tried not to respond to the heat in his words. Getting angry at Doyle never seemed to accomplish anything. I was a princess, but that didn't give me much clout; it never had.

I didn't so much call my magic, as drop the shields I had to put in place so that I wouldn't travel through my day seeing mystical sights. Human psychics and even witches usually have to work at seeing magic, other beings, other realities. I was a part of faerie, and that meant I spent a great deal of energy not seeing magic, not noticing the passing rush of other beings, other realities that had very little to do with my world, my purpose. But magic calls to magic, and without shields in place I could have drowned in the everyday rush of the supernatural that plays over the earth every day.

I dropped the shields and looked with that part of the brain that sees visions and allows you to see dreams. Strangely, it wasn't that big a change in perception, but suddenly I could see better in the dark, and I could see the glowing power of the wards on the window, the walls. And in all that glowing power I saw something through the white drapes. Something small pressed against the window. When I moved the drapes aside, nothing was on the window but the play of pale color from the wards. I looked to one side, using the edge of my sight, my peripheral vision, to look at the glass. There, a small handprint, smaller than the palm of my hand, was etched into the wards on the window. I tried to look closer at it, and it vanished from sight. I forced myself to look sideways at it again, but closer. The handprint was clawed and humanoid, but not human.

I let the drape fall shut, and spoke without turning around. "Something tried the wards while we slept."

"Yes," Doyle said.

"I didn't feel anything," Rhys said.

Nicca said, "Me, either."

Rhys sighed. "We have failed you, Princess. Doyle's right. We could have gotten you killed."

I turned and looked at them all, then I stared at Doyle. "When did you sense the testing of the wards?"

"I came in here to check on you."

I shook my head. "No, that's not what I asked. When did you sense that something had tested the wards?"

He faced me, bold. "I've told you, Princess, only I can keep you safe."

I shook my head again. "No good, Doyle. The sidhe never lie, not outright, and you've avoided answering my question twice. Answer me now. For the third time, when did you sense something had tested the wards?"

He looked half-uncomfortable, half-angry. "When I was whispering in your ear."

"You saw it through the drapes," I said.

"Yes." One clipped, angry word.

Rhys said, "You didn't know that anything tried to get in. You just came through because you heard Merry moving around."

Doyle didn't answer, but he didn't need to. The silence was answer enough.

"These wards are my doing, Doyle. I put them up when I moved in to this apartment, and I redo them periodically. It was my magic, my power, that kept this thing out. My power that burned it so that we have its… fingerprints."

"Your wards held because it was a small power," Doyle said. "Something large would still get through any ward you could put in place."

"Maybe, but the point is that you didn't know any more than we did. You were just as in the dark as we were."

"You're not infallible," Rhys said. "Nice to know."

"Is it?" Doyle said. "'Is it really? Then think on this — tonight none of us knew that some creature of faerie crept to this window and tried to get in. None of us sensed it. It may have been a small power, but it had big help to hide this completely."

I stared at him. "You think Cel's people risked his life tonight, by trying to take mine again."

"Princess, don't you understand the Unseelie Court by now? Cel was the Queen's darling, her only heir for centuries. Once she made you coheir with him, he fell out of favor. Whichever one of you produces a child first will rule the court, but what happens if both of you die? What happens if you are assassinated by Cel's people and the Queen is forced to execute Cel for his treachery? She's suddenly without heir."

"The Queen is immortal," Rhys said. "She's agreed to step down only for Merry or Cel."

"And if someone can plot the death of both Prince Cel and Princess Meredith, do you really think they will stop at the death of a Queen?"

We all stared at him. It was Nicca who spoke, voice soft. "No one would risk the Queen's anger."

"They would if they thought they wouldn't get caught," Doyle said.