"But it's not just because you're human, it's because you're new. We don't know you yet, and you don't know us; that makes you all the odd people out. There's a learning curve when new sidhe join the guards, too," I said.
"You usually give very good eye contact, but you're staring at the horizon while we're talking. What are you looking for, Princess Meredith?" Cooper asked.
"King Sholto."
"What?"
"You asked what I was looking for, and I answered the question."
"I thought his title was Lord Sholto," Becket said.
"He's the only sidhe noble with a different title in another court," I said.
"Is Lord, or King, Sholto coming in by boat?" Cooper asked.
"No," I said.
"Then why are you looking out at the ocean for him?"
"He is coming from the ocean, just not by boat," I said.
"Okay, I'll bite; if he's not coming by boat, how is he getting here?" Becket asked.
"He'll walk," I said.
"Princess, you don't do this often, but when you do, it's like pulling teeth to get you to answer a straight question."
I turned and looked at Cooper, and thought about it. "I'm sorry, you're right. I've spent the last few months with just other fey, and we aren't always known for straightforward information sharing."
Becket gave a snorting laugh. "That's an understatement."
"Becket," Cooper said, voice sharp.
"It's all right, Agent Cooper, truth is truth."
"All right, then if King Sholto isn't coming by boat, how is he going to walk here?"
"Magic," I said, and went back to staring at the edge of the water.
"Can you elaborate, please?"
I smiled, and thought about it. "Do you know what his title is as lord among the sidhe?"
"He's the Lord of That Which Passes Between," Cooper said.
"Exactly," I said.
"What does that mean, Princess?" Becket asked, and he sounded impatient now.
I sighed, and shivered for a minute even in the borrowed jacket. "The edge of sea and shore is a place between, which means he can use it to travel to me."
"You said he was going to walk; do you mean he's going to walk onto the beach like magic?" Cooper asked.
"Not like magic, it is magic."
"You mean literally 'oooh' magic?" Becket said, making a finger-waving gesture when he said "oooh."
"Exactly," I said, smiling. I liked Becket. He made me remember that I missed being around people who weren't sidhe, or fey, or familiar with the high courts. It was a more formal world, and I'd been surrounded by people who had lived in it for centuries, and it had made me lose some sense of myself that wasn't sidhe, or even brownie. I'd forgotten that being human could be fun, and that though I'd hated being exiled to Los Angeles without any way to interact with another sidhe, and losing all of faerie had been like a living death, I'd found a part of my humanity that had gotten lost at the Unseelie Court. I'd grown up with a house full of sidhe and other fey, but I'd gone to school with humans--American humans--and our neighbors had been the same. I hadn't realized until this last year that being raised outside faerie had given me more of a connection to my human grandfather's culture, and having the ambassador and his men in the house had made me realize I'd gotten sucked right back into the culture of the courts. It was a different culture than either the Seelie or Unseelie, but it was still not a human way of looking at things. The soldiers who had visited hadn't helped me understand that, because they'd come more as priests and priestesses seeking answers. That hadn't been normal enough to make me realize that I was in danger of losing something important. My human great-grandfather had been a good man, from every story I'd ever heard. He'd been a Scottish farmer who had been special enough to fall in love with the family brownie, not a type of fey known for their beauty. I didn't want to lose that part of my heritage again. I'd actually begun to wonder if I needed to work at the Grey and Hart Detective Agency just to remember that I was more than a faerie princess. I was a person, I was Merry Gentry, or had been for three years until the queen had sent Doyle to these Western Lands to find me and bring me home. Now I had sidhe lovers, and faerie had come to us. I had almost everything I'd been homesick for, plus three children, and the magic of the Goddess returned, but in all that wonder I didn't want to forget that I was part human, too, and part brownie. I wanted to find a way to honor all those parts of me, and share that with our children.
"You look very serious all of a sudden, Princess; what ya thinkin' about?"
I glanced at Becket and smiled. "That I'm part human, not just sidhe, and I need to be reminded of that."
"I don't understand," he said.
"Are you saying we remind you what it's like to be human?" Cooper asked.
"No, you remind me that I am human."
He gave me a look, one dark eyebrow rising. "Forgive me, princess, but you aren't exactly human."
"My great-grandfather was."
"And your grandfather is Uar the Cruel, one of the high nobles of the Seelie Court, who is mentioned in myth and folklore going back hundreds of years."
"My great-grandmother was a brownie."
"And your father was Essus, Prince of Flesh and Fire. He was worshipped as a god before the Romans conquered Britain."
"Agent Cooper, are you saying that the noble side of my heritage is more important than the non-noble side?"
He looked startled. "I wouldn't say that. I mean, I didn't ... I didn't mean that."
"She so got you, Coop," Becket said.
"I didn't mean to insult you, Princess, but you can't just say you're human with the pedigree you have."
"I didn't say I'm just human, but I'm not just sidhe either, and I want my children to understand that they're more than just sidhe. Through me they're brownie, and through Galen they're pixie, and Doyle gives them phouka. I want them to understand that they are more than just sidhe of either court. I want them to value all parts of their heritage."
"It sounds like you've been thinking about this," Cooper said.
I nodded. "For a few days, yes."
"So you want your kids to grow up being more human?" Becket asked.
"Yes," I said. A shimmering caught my eye at the edge of the sea. One moment it was just the waves and the sand, and the next Sholto just stepped out of nowhere and started walking up the beach toward us.
"Holy shit!" Becket said.
Cooper had started to reach for his gun, and then forced himself to relax, or at least pretend.
The wind caught Sholto's hair, streaming it out around him in a pale blond halo that intermingled with the black of his cloak, so that he strode toward me in a cloud of silken hair and dark cloth. The three yellow rings of his eyes had already begun to shine as if they were carved of gold, citrine, and topaz. It almost distracted from the beauty of his face, the broad shoulders, the sheer physicality of him as he strode toward me.
"You can try to be human, Princess, but that's not human," Becket said.
"Oh, Agent Becket, you have no idea how not human he is." Then Sholto was there, sweeping me into his arms, kissing me as if he hadn't seen me in months, instead of just days. I wrapped myself around him, and he put his hands under my ass and started up the stairs, his mouth still married to mine. He climbed smoothly, easily, as if he could keep kissing me forever, whether he was climbing a set of stairs, or a mountain.
Becket called after us, "I don't know, Princess, I think the glowing eyes give it away."
I broke from the kissing long enough to look over Sholto's shoulder and let the men see that my own eyes had started to burn.
They looked startled, but it didn't stop Becket from saying, "Humans don't glow, just so you know."
I might have said something pithy back, but Sholto ran his hand through my hair and kissed me again, and nothing seemed more important than giving all my attention to the man in my arms.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE
&n
bsp; WE PASSED THE sidhe in a hurried rush. Some of them looked astonished, others ... hungry was the only word I had for it. They all watched us pass, though; Unseelie culture didn't demand that they look away. In fact, in all fey culture, if someone was trying to be attractive or sexy and you didn't pay attention, it was an insult; no one insulted us.
Sholto and I made it to the bedroom before the clothes began to come off, but barely. In fey culture we could have been nude in front of the guards and it would have been taken in stride. Nudity taboos were more human, and both the Seelie and Unseelie courts were closer to the rest of the fey; nudity meant just without clothes on, neither good nor bad.
I did toss Cooper's jacket off to one side so it wouldn't be in danger of getting messy. If I'd been thinking more clearly I'd have thrown it back to him before we got to the bedroom, but I wasn't thinking clearly about anything. It was all hands, and mouths, and the weight of Sholto above me as he pressed me to the bed. It wasn't a time for thinking, it was a time for feeling his smooth skin under my fingertips, his muscles under my hands, him pulling my top over my head in one eager motion so he could stare down at my breasts in the lacy bra I'd chosen for him.
"Your breasts were magnificent before, but now they are beyond amazing," he said in a voice that was low and almost hushed, the way people talk in museums around works of art.
"Hopefully they won't stay this big," I said, gazing down at more mounding creamy goodness than I'd ever thought possible on my own body.
He shook his head, all that pale hair sliding around the blackness of his clothes. "No, Meredith, they are beautiful, you are beautiful."
"I'm just not used to them this big. I pass a mirror and it startles me. The belly is gone, but the breasts are still out to here." I laughed.
He drew his gaze up to look into my eyes. The glow in his eyes was just a faint shine now, like a fire banked for the night, hot just near the center of the wood.
"Whether your breasts stay this magnificent size, or become the beautiful, pale mounds that they were, they, and you, will still be as desirable."
I hadn't realized until that moment just how much the body changes were still bothering me. You want to be able to breast-feed, especially when you have a baby like Bryluen who might not be able to take formula. I'd expressed milk for her before I came on this little booty call. The others could have formula in a pinch, but Bree couldn't. It wasn't all natural, and only that was safe for her.
"Such a serious face, Meredith; what are you thinking about that steals the light from your eyes?"
I sighed. "The babies, Bryluen in particular." I looked up at him, touching his arms where they were tented on each side of my body, while the rest of him sat sideways on the bed, most of his long legs still off the side of it.
"I'm sorry, Sholto, you deserve better than a distracted me. Would it be odd to say, this is the longest I've been away from the triplets, and I'm both excited for the time away and weirdly missing them. That doesn't make any sense at all, does it?"
He smiled, and it was gentle. I wondered if I was the only one who got to see that particular smile. "It means you will be a good mother, are a good mother. You are, what's the phrase, wired right for motherhood." He suddenly looked very serious, almost sad.
I stroked my hands up and down his bare arms; he'd taken off his near-medieval-looking tunic but was still wearing a very modern black undershirt. It was one of those designed more for working out than just wearing, but the stretchable material fitted his muscular upper body like a glove, tucked into the top of black breeches that matched the tunic that was now on the floor.
"Now why is your face all serious?" I asked.
He looked at me, smiling, but it was tinged with something not happy. "To another female in my bed I might lie, but that is not our rule."
"No," I said, "honesty between us, always."
"As my queen commands," he said, smiling more now.
I smiled back. "As my king requests," I said.
We smiled at each other with that special happy softness that couples have when they use one of their endearments that they use with no one else.
"Then I will speak honestly to my queen. I had feared that perhaps you would not be wired to be a mother."
I studied his face, trying to read more of his thoughts. "Why would you think that?"
"Your own mother is not the most maternal of women. Your aunt was devoted to her son, but cruel and horrible to almost everyone else. Your uncle, the king, is little better. Your grandfather is Uar the Cruel." He shrugged, and raised a hand so he could take my hand in his.
"You were worried that my family is mostly crazy, so would I be crazier than I seem, too?"
He began to rub his thumb over my knuckles. "Have I said too much honesty to you, my queen?"
I smiled up at him and squeezed his hand. "No, I was thinking the very same thing earlier this week, but not about me, about the babies."
I sat up and shared my fears with him. It might have been more logical to share them with Doyle, or Frost, or one of the fathers who actually lived with me, but sometimes it's not about logic in relationships, it's about the people, and in that moment Sholto gave me an opening to talk that no other man in my life had managed. I'd noticed that it worked that way a lot; the man you thought would be perfect for this or that wasn't always the one who worked best for it.
He wrapped his arms around me, pressed me to the slickness of the modern undershirt, my hands trailing a little lower as I hugged him back, so I felt the nearly velvet texture of his leather trousers, still tucked into the knee-high boots. I pressed the side of my face against the firm strength of his chest. I could hear his heartbeat against my cheek. It was a good, steady sound, the kind of sound you could plan your life around if you were looking for a center to your world. Sometimes I felt I had too many centers to my world, and the triplets had just amplified the sense of too many people pulling me in too many directions.
His voice vibrated up through his chest against my face as we held each other. "Your idea of raising them with more non-sidhe and humans is sound, and they will already be visiting my court. That will certainly expose them to a wider world of faerie than the high courts can offer."
I leaned back enough to see his face, sorry that I couldn't keep the beat of his heart in my ear, but my desire to see his face was greater.
"In a few days, or weeks, we'll know which of the babies is yours; don't you mean that child will visit your court?"
He looked down at me, his face arrogant and almost heartrendingly handsome. It was the face he wore when he was hiding his emotions. Why did he feel that he needed to hide from me about this?
"Do you want only my genetic child to visit the sluagh?"
"No, I want them all to understand just how diverse their world is, but I hadn't talked to you about it, and I didn't want to assume."
Some tension went out of his arms, his shoulders, and that release traveled through my arms, where I held him. His face went from arrogant and model perfect to smiling broadly at me. He looked so joyous that it made me smile back.
"Only one babe may be mine genetically, but they are all a part of you, Meredith, and I love you." He touched my lips with a fingertip, as if I'd made some motion to speak. "I know you are not in love with me, nor I with you, not yet, but I do love you more than any woman before you."
I kissed his hand and used mine to move him so I could speak. "I am honored to have such a place in your heart, Sholto."
"This sounds like the beginning of a 'let's just be friends' speech."
I laughed then, and he looked puzzled.
"Oh, Sholto, no, I do not want to friendzone you. I love what we have together. I love that we do things in the bedroom that no one else can do with me, because no one else has the diversity of your equipment."
He laughed then, joyous and somehow masculine, that sound. I liked the tones of men laughing when they were happy enough not to worry how it sounded, or who heard them. Good tha
t I did, since I was likely to be surrounded by men for the rest of my days.
"That you list my extras as part of what you love about me makes me love you even more."
"Good, because I love that you want to take all the babies to see your kingdom. I love that you spend more time in the nursery helping with them than half the other men, even though you don't live at the house all the time. I love watching your face when we're alone and how many different expressions I get to see that I'd never seen at court, or when other people are with us. I love the look on your face when you hold the babies. I love how your arms feel when you hold me, and the sound of your heart when I press my cheek against your chest."
"And this would be when Rhys or Galen says, 'But you aren't in love with me.'"
"But you aren't in love with me, either," I said.
"True," he said, and he pulled me close again. "And they are, and it is always hard to love more than you are loved."
I snuggled up against his body and said, "That sounds like experience talking."
"It is. I had many a serious crush on noble ladies of both courts, but I was the Queen's Perverse Creature, as Doyle was her Darkness, and Frost her Killing Frost. I feared someday that she would say, 'Where is my Creature, bring me my Creature,' when she wanted to send the sluagh out to frighten or kill her enemies." He held me tight and said, "Before you came to me, Meredith, I feared I would simply become the Queen's Creature."
"Doyle is the Queen's Darkness," I said, softly.
"Yes, but it is frightening and romantic for the Queen to say, 'Where is my Darkness, bring me my Darkness,' and someone would bleed or die at his hand."
"You and your host have made men lose their minds at the sight of all of you in full strength, and bled many, killed many."
"What is that old children's rhyme, 'Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me'? Anyone who says that doesn't understand the power of words. They can cut deeper than any knife, hit harder than any fist, touch parts of you that nothing physical will ever reach, and the wounds that some words leave never heal, because each time the word is thrown at you, labeled on you, you bleed afresh from it. It's more like a whip that cuts every time, until you feel it must flay the very skin from your bones, and yet outwardly there is no wound to show the world, so they think you are not hurt, when inside part of you dies every time."