A Lick of Frost

A second male voice came. "We have a federal warrant to bring the princess into protective custody." It was Special Agent Raymond Gillett, who had been the only federal agent who had kept in touch with me after the investigation of my father's death had gone cold. When I was younger I had thought he cared what happened to me. Lately I realized it was more about not leaving such a high-profile case unsolved. I was still angry with him, but in that moment, his familiar voice was a good sound.

"The princess is not here, officers," said a second guard. "Please go back to the press area."

"The princess is here," Lady Elasaid said, "and in need of human medical attention."

You could feel the increased tension in the group of nobles, like a spring that had been wound once too often. To the human officers, they would be beautiful and unreadable, but I felt their energy rise like the first spark of heat from a match. The guards at the door would feel it, too.

The great black dog moved up on one side of Hugh. It didn't make me feel better. Weaponless against the might of sidhe guards, all he could do was die for me. I didn't want him to die for me. I wanted him to live for me.

"We have doctors with us," Major Walters said. "Let them look at the princess, and we'll go from there."

"The king has ordered that she not be given back to the brutes who injured her. She ca

"Did he forbid her going near humans?" Agent Gillett asked.

There was a moment of silence while the murmur of power began to build among the sidhe around me. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, as if they were whispering their magic.

"The king said nothing about humans looking at her," a new guard voice said.

"We were told to keep her away from the press."

"Why would the princess need to be kept away from the press? Agent Gillett asked. "She will tell them firsthand about being rescued from the evil Unseelie by "your brave king."

"I do not know…"

"Unless you think the princess will have a different story," Major Walters said.

"The king has given his oath that it is so," the talkative guard said.

"Then you have nothing to lose by letting our doctors look at her," Agent Gillett said.

The guard who had sounded agreeable said, "If the king is true to his word, then there is nothing to fear, Barri, Shanley. You do believe him, don't you?" There was the first real doubt plain in his voice, as if even among the king's most loyal the lies were becoming too heavy to bear.

"If she is truly here, then let her come forward," Shanley said. He sounded tired.

Hugh held me closer as the nobles parted like a glittering curtain, Only Hugh's hounds and the blond guard stayed in front of me. Doyle stayed to our side. I think that he, like me, was worried that the already suspicious guards would figure out who he was. They might let us go into the press room, but if they suspected that the Darkness was inside their sithen, they would go wild.

Finally, Hugh said, "Let them see."

Both the guard and the great dogs moved. Doyle moved a little behind Hugh so that he blended in with the other dogs, aside from his color. He was the only black one among them. To my eyes he stood out almost painfully, so black among all the Seelie color.

I must have looked even worse than I felt, because both the men were wide-eyed. They controlled it after that first glimpse, but I'd seen it. I even understood it. And it was as if that look let me feel again. I don't know if it was the magic, the fear for Doyle, or the fear that Taranis would find us. Or maybe the little screaming voice in my skull that had been growing louder. The voice that finally let me think the thought all the way through, to ask in my own head at least, "Did he rape me? Did he rape me after he beat me unconscious?" Was that what the great king of the Seelie considered seduction? Goddess, let him have been confused when he thought it possible that I carried his child.

It was like knowing that you were cut but only feeling pain after you saw the blood. I'd seen the "blood" on the faces of the police. I saw it in the way they moved toward me. The left side of my face ached and was swollen. I knew that it must have hurt before, but it was as if only now could I feel all of it.

The headache came back in a roar that closed my eyes and brought a fresh wave of nausea. A voice said, "Princess Meredith, can you speak?"

I looked up into Agent Gillett's eyes. There was that old compassion there, that look that had made me trust him when I was a young woman. I looked into those eyes and knew it was real. I'd felt used by him recently, realizing that he'd kept in touch with me in hopes of solving my father's murder not for me, but for some purpose of his own. I had told him to stay away from me, but looking up into his face now, I understood what I'd seen in him when I was seventeen. For this moment, he cared, deeply.

Maybe he was remembering the first time he saw me, collapsed in grief, clutching my dead father's sword as if it were the last solid thing in the universe.

"Doctor," I whispered. "I need a doctor." I whispered because the last time I'd felt this sick, talking had hurt my head. But I also whispered because I knew it would make me seem more pitiful and if sympathy would get me in front of the press, I would play that card for all it was worth.

Agent Gillett's eyes hardened, and I saw again that purpose that had made me believe he would find my father's killer.

Tonight, that was all right. I carried my father's grandchildren inside me. But I had to get to safety. Strength of arms and magic are so often what the sidhe rely on, but they have never been weak. They do not understand the arsenal of the powerless. I understood, because I had lived in the land of the helpless most of my life.

I stopped fighting to be brave. I stopped fighting to feel better. I let myself feel how hurt I was, and how frightened. I let myself think the thoughts I'd been shoving back. I let them fill my eyes with tears.

The guards at the doors tried to move in front of us, but Major Walters used his officer voice. It echoed in the marble room and into the open door beyond. "You will move aside, now."

The talkative guard said, "Shanley, we have no healers who can cure this. Let the humans treat her." He had hair the flame color of autumn leaves just before they fall to the ground, and eyes of circles of green. He seemed young, though he had to be over seventy, because that was Galen's age, and he was the next youngest sidhe to me.

Shanley looked down at me. His eyes were two perfect circles of blue.

I lay in Hugh's arms and gazed up at him through tear-soaked eyes, and a swelling bruise that covered me from temple to chin.

Shanley spoke quietly, "What story will you tell the press, Princess Meredith?"

"The truth," I whispered.

A look of pain went through those inhumanly lovely eyes. "I ca

I might have pitied him, but I knew that Taranis would not be distracted forever in his bath. Not even with servant girls to abuse. We were inches away from the press and relative safety. But how to travel those last few inches?

Major Walters pulled his radio from a coat pocket and hit a button. "We need backup out here."

"If they come through, we will fight them," Shanley said.

"She is with child," the healer said. "She carries twins."

He looked suspiciously at her. "You lie."

"I have few powers left me, that is true, but I have enough magic left to sense such things. She is with child. I felt their heartbeats under my hand like the fluttering of birds."