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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.
Frost was dressed in charcoal grey dress slacks cut long enough that they covered the tops of his charcoal gray loafers. The shoes were polished to a mirror sheen. His shirt was white with a ribbed front and a banded collar that encircled the smooth firm line of his neck. A pale grey jacket hid his shoulder holster and shiny nickel-plated .44. The gun was so big that I could barely hold it one-handed, let alone shoot it.
His silver, Christmas-tinsel hair was pulled back in a firm ponytail that left his face strong, clean, and almost too handsome to look at. The tail of silver hair had spilled mostly over the backseat and half across his shoulder. A few strands trailed over my shoulder and arm as he gave his report to Doyle. I touched those shining strands, feeling the spiderweb softness of them. The hair looked metallic, like it should feel harsh, but it was wonderfully soft. I'd had all this silken grace spill over my naked body. There was a part of me that thought that a man's hair should be at least to his knees. High-court sidhe took great pride in their hair, among other things.
Frost's hip pressed against mine, hard to avoid in the close confines of the seat. But his thigh pressed the length of mine, and that he could have avoided.
I had raised a lock of his hair in front of my face, letting the strands fall down, while I watched the world through a lace of his hair, when Doyle said, "Are you listening to us, Princess Meredith?"
I startled and let Frost's hair fall away. "Yes, I was listening."
The look on his face said, clearly, he didn't believe me. "Then repeat it back to us, if you can."
I could have told him I was a princess and I didn't have to repeat anything, but that would have been childish, and besides, I really had been listening, to some of it.
"Frost saw some of Kane and Hart's people behind the walls. Which means that they are doing some sort of job for her, either bodyguarding or something that needs psychic talent." The Kane and Hart Agency was the only real competition that the Grey Detective Agency had in L.A. Kane was a psychic and a martial-arts expert. The Hart brothers were two of the most powerful human magicians that I'd ever met. The agency did more bodyguard work than we did, or had, until my guards showed up.
Doyle looked at me. "And?"
"And what? "I asked.
Frost laughed, a purely masculine sound that said more than words that he was pleased.
I knew what had pleased him without having to ask. He was pleased that I'd been so distracted by just having him near me. I found Frost the most distracting of the guards that I was sleeping with.