Mistral's Kiss

CHAPTER 16

WOOD, METAL, FLESH; ALL OF IT HIT US AT ONCE. WE WERE LEFT clinging to each other in the center of a blast of power that splashed the lake up over the island. We drowned for a moment, then the world literally moved. It felt as if the island bucked up and dropped down again.

The water cleared, the earth stopped moving, and the chalice and spear were gone. We were left wet and gasping, huddled naked together. I was afraid to let go, as if our arms around each other—our bodies still wedded together—were all that kept us from falling off the face of the earth.

Voices came, yells, shouts. I picked out Doyle's voice, Frost, and Agnes's harsh call. The voices made us both turn, blinking water out of our eyes. On the shore, which was a lot farther away than it had been before, were all our guards. We were back in the dead gardens of the sluagh, but the lake was full of water now, and the Island of Bones was in the middle of it.

Doyle dived into the water, his dark body cutting the surface. Frost followed him. The other guards did the same. Sholto's uncles discarded their cloaks and hit the water after my guards. Only Black Agnes stayed on the shore.

I looked down at Sholto; I was still on top of him. "We're about to be rescued."

He smiled up at me. "Do we need rescuing?"

"I'm not sure," I said.

He laughed then, and the sound echoed against the bare stone of the cavern. He hugged me tight, and laid a gentle kiss on my cheek. He breathed his words against my skin: "Thank you, Meredith."

I pressed my cheek against his and whispered back, "You are most welcome, Sholto."

He buried his hand in my wet hair and said, softly, "I have long desired you to whisper my name like that."

"Like what?" I asked, face still pressed against his.

"Like a lover."

I heard movement behind us, and Sholto released his hold on my hair. I kissed him on the lips, before I lifted my body to see who had made the island first.

Doyle—of course it was Doyle—walked toward us. He gleamed black and shining, water dripping down his nakedness. The light caught blue and purple gleams from his skin as he moved toward us. The light seemed to dazzle on his skin and on the water—reflected brilliance. My skin was warm in the light. Sunlight, it was sunlight again. Like noonday come to this shadowy place.

There was a green haze to the bare rock where Sholto and I lay. That haze took the shape of tiny stems, reaching out over the rock, anchoring themselves as Doyle came to stand beside us.

His face struggled for an expression, and finally settled on that stern face, the one that had frightened me as a child when he stood at my aunt's side. Somehow the expression wasn't nearly as frightening with him naked, and given my now so intimate knowledge of him. The Queen's Darkness was my lover, and I could never again see him as that threatening figure, simply the queen's assassin, her black dog to fetch and kill.

I stared up at him, still pressed tight in Sholto's arms. I sat up, and his arms fell away from me, reluctantly. Since I was still riding his body, it wasn't as if he stopped touching me. His hands slid down my arms, staying in contact. I glanced at Sholto's face and found him looking not at me, but at Doyle.

Sholto's face was defiant, almost triumphant. I didn't understand the look. I glanced at Doyle, and saw behind that stern face a flash of anger. For the first time in weeks I remembered how they had both found me in Los Angeles. They had fought, both convinced that the queen had sent each of them to kill me.

But there had been something personal about that fight. I couldn't remember what they had said to each other that made me think they had some kind of bad history, but I had felt it. The looks they gave each other now confirmed that I was missing something. Some disagreement, or challenge, or even grudge between these two men. Not good.

Rhys came up the slope of the rock, dripping like wet ivory. He stopped short of us all, as if he also sensed, or saw, the tension.

What do you do when you're naked with one lover, and another lover is standing there? Sholto was not my king, or husband. I took my hand from him and offered it to Doyle. Doyle hesitated a moment, his gaze on his rival and not on me. Then those black eyes moved to me. His expression never truly changed, but some breath of harshness left him. Or perhaps some touch of gentleness returned to him.

There was movement behind him, and Frost and Mistral struggled up the slope. They were dressed, and weapons bulged everywhere. Frost actually caught Mistral's arm as the other man slipped. The clothes and weapons had slowed them down.

Now they stood there, Frost's hand on Mistral's arm. Mistral was almost on his knees, from his slip, but they had frozen, staring at us. They hadn't just caught a whiff of tension. Their reaction said clearly that there was bad blood between Sholto and Doyle.

Doyle took my hand in his. The moment he touched me the tightness in my chest, which I hadn't even known was there, loosened.

He lifted me upward, off the other man. Sholto's hands, all of his body, let me go with such reluctance. The sensation of him drawing out of deep within my body shivered through me. Only Doyle's grip kept my knees from buckling.

Sholto raised his arms to help catch me, his hands on my thighs. Doyle pulled me in against his body, half lifting me over Sholto's body. Sholto let me go; otherwise it would have been like a tug-of-war, not seemly behavior for a king.

I stood there wrapped in Doyle's arms, staring up at his face, trying to decipher what he was thinking. Around me the tiny plants unfurled tiny leaves, and the world suddenly smelled of thyme, that sweet, green herb scent that Sholto had said he sensed when I was smelling roses.

The delicate herbs tickled along my foot, as if reminding me that there were some things more important than love. Staring up into Doyle's face, I wasn't sure that was right. In that moment I wanted him happy. I wanted him to know that I wanted him happy. I wanted to explain that Sholto had been lovely, and the power had been immense, but that in the end, he meant nothing to me, not when I had Doyle's arms around me.

But you can't say that out loud, not with the other man lying behind you. So many hearts to juggle, including my own.

The herbs touched me again, wound around my ankle. I glanced down at the greenery, and thought of my favorite thymes. My gran had grown them in the herb garden behind the house where my father raised me—so many varieties. Lemon thyme, silver thyme, golden thyme. At that thought, the plants around my ankle were suddenly tinged with yellow. Some of the leaves on some of the plants turned silver, others became pale yellow, and some that bright su

"What did you do?" Doyle whispered, his deep voice thrumming along my spine so that I shivered against him.

My voice was soft, as if I didn't want to say it too loudly: "I just thought that there is more than one kind of thyme."

"And the plants changed," he said.

I nodded, staring at them. "I didn't say it out loud, Doyle. I only thought it."

He hugged me. "I know."

Mistral and Frost were with Rhys now. They did not approach us, and again I wasn't sure why. They waited, as if they needed permission to come closer—the way they would have waited to approach Queen Andais.

I thought it was me they waited on, but I should have known better. Sholto said behind me, "The sidhe do not usually stand on ceremony, but if you need permission, then I give it. Come closer."

Mistral said, "If you could see yourself, King Sholto, you would not ask why we stand on ceremony."