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“Do you wish an audience?” Doyle asked.
The question caught me off-guard. I actually thought about it, then shook my head. “No, not really.” I looked at him, studied that dark face. “I didn’t know you enjoyed watching.”
“I don’t. Very few among the guards enjoy voyeurism.”
“The queen beat it out of us,” Galen said.
Doyle nodded. “Almost literally.”
“I, for one,” Frost said, “do not wish to watch whether you will it, or no.”
“I would never ask anything of you, Frost, that I thought would hurt you, not if I had a choice.”
He started to get offended, or to pretend he didn’t understand me, but then his face softened, and he even gave a little smile. “I know you would not. It is not Galen and Nicca with you tonight that bites at me. It is the demi-fey. I do not like him. I do not like a princess of the sidhe having to use her body as a bargaining chip.”
“Frost,” I said, going to him, “a royal woman’s body has been a bargaining chip for thousands of years. At least I’m not bargaining myself away in marriage. That might be my fate if I were human.”
“Married to that… thing.” The look on his face was so shocked it was fu
I touched his arm, but he pulled away. I’d had enough. “First, the demi-fey are a part of this court. The way the sidhe treat them, the way everyone treats them, is a disgrace. They are either part of us or they are not.” I watched his face close down, watched that sullen arrogance close around him, but I didn’t stop just because his feelings were hurt. I couldn’t afford to keep stopping every time he got his feelings hurt, it happened too often. “Second, I’m tired of your acting as if your blood and body are too precious to be bargained with. I put my flesh and blood up for grabs a lot for you, all of you. You won’t feed anyone. You won’t even let a single demi-fey watch. Rhys won’t let goblins touch him, or the demi-fey either now.”
“He fell to the power of Sage’s glamour,” Frost said. “He will not risk it again.”
“Fine, but I’m risking it. Galen has more reason to be afraid of the demi-fey than either Rhys or you, and he’s going to do this for me, for us, tonight.” I moved closer to him, but didn’t try to touch him. I didn’t want to see him pull away. “I know you covered my body with yours, that you offered your life for mine today. But so did Galen. He nearly paid with his life tonight, yet here he stands ready to let a demi-fey touch him.”
“What do you want of me?” Frost asked.
“I want you to stop pouting about me sharing myself with the lesser fey, when you won’t let your so-white flesh be touched by them. I want you to stop making me feel as if I’m the whore and you’re too good for it.” I realized I was angry, really angry. But it wasn’t Frost I was angry with, I was just angry. And I hadn’t been able to be angry at the people I most wanted to be angry with, so suddenly this unreasoning anger flared. My skin ran hot with it, making me glow through the dried crust of blood and gore.
I stepped back from him. “I am tired, Frost, and there is still much for my body to do tonight. By our bargain I must be with Royal, in some way. By the queen’s order I must be with Galen and Nicca tonight. And one other green man before dawn finds me.” I thought about it. “I need to bed Sholto before we go to the goblin court tomorrow night so we can count on the sluagh as our allies.” I shook my head. “I did it again, didn’t I?”
“Before dawn finds you,” Doyle said, “yes.”
“But there is too much to do, and the clock starts ticking again at dawn.”
He nodded. “I would offer my blood in your place if it would satisfy Niceven.”
I smiled at him. “I know you would, but the demi-fey don’t seem to like you. Later, when we have the time, I’d like to know the story behind that.”
“No,” Doyle said, “you will not like the story, and I will not like telling it.”
He looked so solemn, almost sad, that I touched his arm, and said, “Unless I need to know it, you may keep your secret feud with Niceven’s court a secret.”
“Would you really let the little fey touch you?” Frost asked.
Doyle looked at his friend. “Yes, if it was necessary.”
“How can you let those things touch you?”
“How can I ask of the princess what I would not give myself?” Doyle said.
Frost bent his head, eyes closed. He took in a lot of air, as if he were trying to get enough breath for some long, deep dive. His breath came out in a shaky rush. He opened his eyes, and they were raw with emotion, like grey wounds. “I would never ask of you a thing that I would not do myself, Meredith. I am sorry.”
I touched his arm, and this time he didn’t pull away. I leaned into him, and offered my face up for a kiss. There was enough height difference that if he didn’t bend down to kiss me, I couldn’t make him. Not without a chair to stand on. But I didn’t have to get a chair.
Frost met me halfway, bending down, his hands on my arms, steadying me on my tiptoes. We kissed. I meant it to be a chaste kiss, a “good-bye for the night” kiss, but he had other ideas.
His lips pressed against mine, hard, fierce. His tongue pushed at my mouth, and I opened to him, let him slide inside my mouth. His breath shuddered inside my mouth, as if he were breathing me in, and he crushed me against him. He lifted me off my feet and wrapped me around him. He fed at my mouth with tongue and teeth and lips, until I made small sounds at the force of his mouth, the near painful grip of his arms and hands. I melted against him; when he drew back from the kiss, I was light-headed, and tried to keep the kiss going. I’d forgotten where we were, what I was supposed to be doing. I forgot myself as I had at the press conference. I forgot everything but the taste of his mouth, the feel of his body. I forgot everything but Frost’s kiss.
He drew away from me while I fought to kiss him again. I was making small, protesting noises as he tried to slide me down his body and set me on the floor. I wrapped my legs around his waist, and refused to be set down.
“Meredith, Meredith.” I think Doyle’s deep voice had been talking to me for a while. I finally looked at him. He smiled and shook his head. “He has to go now, we both do.”
I looked back to Frost, who had finally wrapped his arms back around me when I wouldn’t let him drop me. He looked terribly pleased with himself. “Now I can leave you to others.”
I shook my head, because what I wanted to say was don’t leave, but I couldn’t. It wasn’t that I didn’t want Galen, but… Frost seemed to always be able to make me want him.
“If you are leaving, then you need to put her down,” Doyle said.
He let me slide down his body, and I let him do it, this time I did. My knees were a little unsteady, and he had to keep his hand on my arm for a moment, before I could stand on my own.
He laughed, a purely masculine laugh. “Goddess help me, but I do love you.”
“Enough, Frost,” Doyle said, “we have other work to do tonight.” He motioned for the door, and this time Frost went where he was told. Doyle turned to me at the open door. “I will not try to compete with that.” He said it with a smile.
I raised up on tiptoe, my hands on his chest, and said, “It isn’t a competition.”
He lowered his face to mine. “In the mortal words of the human world, the hell it isn’t.” He kissed me, firm and thorough but chaste compared to what Frost had done, then he drew back from me. “Do you wish me to send in the demi-fey?”
“Let us get the blood off of us first. I’ll send Nicca or Kitto for Royal.”
“As you wish.” His eyes flicked behind me, then he touched my face, and closed the door behind him.
I turned around to find that two of the other men in my life had undressed while I was preoccupied. Galen’s body was covered in patches of dried blood. It wasn’t lust that made me go to him and wrap myself around his nude body, it was fear. Later there’d be time for lust, but in that moment I just wanted to hold him, wanted to feel him warm and alive in my arms. My hands couldn’t seem to avoid feeling the dried scratchiness of blood. It was everywhere on the smooth perfection of his skin. My hands found the still-healing wound in his back. I shivered.