A Lick Of Frost

I had an inkling of where this was going. "You asked my father if you could be my fiancé?"

"I asked him to consider me."

"You, or he, never told me that."

"It seemed clear from the begi

My face clouded over at the mention of my ex-fiancé. He'd dumped me after years. Said I was too human, not sidhe enough for him. What he hadn't realized was that once he dumped me Andais would force him back into celibacy with the rest of the guard. He tried to join my little harem and I turned him down. The only reason he wanted to join was to have sex with someone, anyone. He didn't love me. I knew that.

What I hadn't expected was him selling some rather intimate photos of the two of us to the tabloids. I had loved him once. I wasn't certain he had ever loved me. He had sold the pictures and fled faerie. To my knowledge the long arm of faerie had never caught up with him. To my knowledge. I hadn't asked. I had loved him once. I did not want to know how he'd died, or be presented his head in a basket. Aunt Andais was capable of both, or worse.

Rhys touched my cheek, made me look up at him. "I shouldn't have mentioned his name."

"I'm sorry, but I hadn't thought about him in a while."

"Until I brought him up," Rhys said.

Kitto moved minutely on the other side of me. Until that moment he'd been so still I had almost forgotten that he was there. He was very good at that, but naked in a bed with me and Rhys, and still able to be nearly u

I looked at him, but didn't ask out loud if it was magic. Kitto would not believe it was magic even if it was. He saw himself as powerless, and that was that.

"Perhaps I should leave the two of you alone," he said.

"It's your room and your bed," Rhys said.

"Yes, but I will share it with my friend, even if I'm not included."

Rhys reached across me and patted the other man's shoulder. "That is a generous offer, Kitto, but I think there will be no sex this afternoon."

"What?" I asked.

He smiled down at me. "Your mind is full of all that has happened today, as a queen's mind should be. It makes for a good ruler, but bad sex."

I started to protest, but he cradled my chin in his hand. "It's okay, Merry. Maybe what we all need right now is to hold each other. Maybe it's about closeness."

"Rhys…"

His hand moved so that he covered my mouth, lightly, with his hand. "It's all right, really."

I kissed the palm of his hand, then moved it away from my mouth. "I understand now why not Galen. He's a political disaster. But you, you do politics just fine."

"Thanks for the compliment."

"So why?" I asked.

"Why did your father not choose me?" he asked.

I nodded.

Kitto slipped out of the bed. "This is sidhe business."

"Stay," Rhys said.

Kitto hesitated.

"Prince Essus told me that there was enough death in your life. He wanted you paired with someone whose magic was about life."

"Griffin's magic was beauty and sex."

"It complemented what your father hoped you would grow into magically." Rhys played with the edge of my hair. "He was right."

"If you were goblin," Kitto said, "beauty and sex would be useless. It would condemn you to be a slave to someone stronger and more able to fight. Your powers, Rhys, they would be valued above such soft things."

"Essus wanted something softer for his daughter," Rhys said.

"He would never have chosen Doyle, would he?" I asked.

"It would never have occurred to him that the queen's Darkness could ever be parted from her side. But no, I think if I was too harsh for his daughter to marry, then Doyle would have been out too."

"I hadn't thought about who my father might have chosen for me among my guards."

"Hadn't you?" he asked.

"No."

Kitto had picked his jeans up off the floor where he'd let them fall. "I will leave you two to talk."

"Stay," Rhys said. "Help me understand why it's you Merry comes to when she wants to relax. I'm not her heart's desire. I'm not even the one who makes her heart beat fast by a feather's touch. I need to find a place in her life, too. Help teach me how to be something new."

"I will not teach you my place, for you will replace me."

"I will never be as undemanding of Merry as you are. I have neither the personality nor the patience. But teach me to be a little less pressure so that she might turn to me for something."

"Oh, Rhys," I said.

He shook his head, sending all that curly white hair sliding around his shoulders. "You like me. You've always liked me. You enjoy sex with me, but you do not burn for me. Strangely, you burn for colder things even than my powers."

"I am Unseelie sidhe."

"You are also Seelie sidhe."

"I am part that, yes, but I am also part human, and part brownie. But if you pushed me to name myself, what I am, I am Unseelie."

He smiled, a sad sort of smile. "I know that."

"Andais accused me of remaking the Unseelie court into a mirror of the Seelie. I am not doing it on purpose."

"Remember what I said about you when you were sixteen? That I wanted to see which side of your family you took after?" Rhys asked.

"Yes."

"I wanted you to take after the Seelie side of your family."

"My grandfather is an abusive bastard. My uncle is mad. My mother is a cold, envious social climber. Why would you want that in your life?"

"I don't mean their personalities, and I don't even mean the ones you referred to. Remember, I knew your ancestors before they were lost in the great wars in Europe. I knew some of the women of your mother's line. They were goddesses of fertility, love, lust. They were a warm lot, Merry, in that good earthy way."

"So, what, you wondered if I had taken after my great-great aunt?"

"Aunts," Rhys said, "and a great-grandmother or two. You reminded me of them. The hair, the eyes. I saw them in you."

"No one else did," I said.

"No one else was looking."

I rose and gave him a kiss. The kiss grew until I felt his body grow hard again, where all the talk had made it soft. He broke from my lips with a sound that was almost pain. "I can't keep being the gentleman if you keep kissing me like that."

"Then don't be the gentleman, be my lover."

Kitto finished fastening his jeans. "I will leave you to what the sidhe do best, other than magic. You are my friend, Rhys, I believe that, but you are not comfortable with me in the bed with you and the princess."

Rhys started to protest. It was my turn to put my fingers on his lips. "He's right."

He moved my hand. "I know. Dammit, I know. I thought if I could have sex with Kitto and you, I could guard you tonight with the goblins, but I can't."

"You have come a long way on the subject of goblins, Rhys. It's all right."

"Who will guard you tonight if Doyle is injured and my sensibilities are too delicate?"

"I don't know," I said, "and right this second I don't care. Make love to me, Rhys, now, just you. Be with me, help chase my thoughts to stillness." I rose and kissed him again and drew him down to me with arms and hands and eagerness.

I did not hear the door close quietly behind Kitto, but when next I opened my eyes, we were alone.