Galen raised my hand that he was holding up so that he could lay a kiss on the back of it, but I pulled back at the last second. "I have blood on my hands."
"There's no blood on the back of your hand." He held it up so I could look at it. "See, all clean."
I just shook my head, over and over again, and shivered harder. My teeth started to chatter.
"We have to get her dry and warm," the nurse said, her voice sounding like there was no more arguing about it.
"I'm fine," I managed to say between chattering, and even as I said it, I knew it wasn't true. I had no idea why I didn't want to let them help me, except that I hadn't been shot. Sholto had been shot. Sholto was dead, not me. I realized that part of me seemed to think that if I just didn't let them help me, they'd be able to help him more. It made no sense, but that was finally the thought I dragged up into the front of my head, from where it had been hiding in the back of my thoughts, so I was acting on it, but didn't know why.
"Merry," Frost said, "you are not fine. Where does she need to go for a doctor to look at her?"
"Follow me," the nurse said, obviously happier now that someone was being reasonable.
I didn't want to be reasonable. I wanted to be totally unreasonable. I wanted to scream at her, lash out at Frost, scream at the world, and the only thing that kept me from it was that voice in my head saying, "That makes no sense."
I was a princess, a queen actually, Sholto's queen, which meant I had to do better. The last thing I could do for him was to remember I was his wife--funny, but I'd never thought the word wife much about Sholto and me, but we had been married by the very magic of fairie and Goddess, and that was about as blessed a union as you could get.
I thought of something I hadn't before. I looked at Frost. "Has anyone told the sluagh that their king is dead?"
"They know," he said.
"Are you sure?" I asked.
He nodded. "Yes." He helped me stand, but the high heels that hadn't seemed that high turned underneath me, and he had to catch me or I would have fallen. A small pain sound escaped him, and I remembered he was hurt, too.
"Frost, you're hurt. I'm so sorry, so sorry ..." I pushed away from him, but he wouldn't let me go. I pushed against his chest, trying to force him to let me go, but he flinched and I realized I was pushing against his wounds. I started to cry again. "Everyone keeps getting hurt."
Galen picked me up, and Frost let him. "I'm not hurt," he said with a smile.
"Not yet," I said, as I curled my arms around his neck and buried my face against the side of his neck. The tears stopped and I was suddenly exhausted. I started shivering again, trembling in his arms as if I would shake myself apart.
I felt him walking and lifted my head enough to see we were following the nurse and that Frost was behind us. The guards that had been waiting outside the little alcove seating area closed in on either side of us. Usna and Cathbodua were there, her raven feather cloak had morphed into a fitted black leather trenchcoat, but I knew it was partly illusion. I wasn't sure how I felt about her still being on guard duty now that I knew she was pregnant, but it was too hard for me to think about, so I let it go for now. Uniformed police came in at the front and back of the knot of security. They'd given me the breathing room I asked for, but my guards both sidhe and human DSS had been doubled, and the police were determined that I didn't get killed on their watch.
"Where's Doyle?" I asked.
"He's tearing Saraid and Dogmaela a new one," Galen said.
"It wasn't their fault," I said.
"He's really mad at himself, but he's going to take it out on them."
"Why is he mad at himself?"
Frost spoke from just behind us. "Because we both believe if we'd been with you this wouldn't have happened."
I shook my head, fought to talk around my chattering teeth, and said, "That's not true. I don't think that's true."
I tried to think, was there a moment when someone could have done something? Would Doyle and Frost have made the difference? Would that have been much better than Saraid and Dogmaela? Frost had been hurt; he couldn't have been there today, but Doyle ... would Doyle being there have made the difference, or would he have died, too? That thought was too awful. I pushed it back and started to shake until I could barely keep hold of Galen. He held me closer, tighter, as if trying to share his warmth.
The nurse, whose name was Nancy, yes, Nurse Nancy, led us to a private room. One thing being a faerie princess had always gotten me was a better room at the hospital. Being a princess didn't keep me out of the hospital; in fact, it seemed to put me in more often than if I hadn't been one, but I did usually get a private room. It was the only way to control the media and the gawkers. I'd been newsworthy all my life, and right at that minute I would have traded all of it for Sholto to walk through the door alive.
The police wanted to secure the room, so did the men and one woman of the diplomatic service, but the sidhe pointed out that none of them could look for magical dangers. It was like trying to get a rugby huddle into one room, no one wanted to be left outside, and each branch of guard wanted to search the room.
Nurse Nancy settled it all. "We've got to get the princess out of her wet clothes, so unless you've already seen her naked in person, you have to get out."
All the humans, both goverment issue and police issue, went in an embarrassed mass for the door. There were enough of them that they had a traffic jam at the door. One of the cops stepped back and asked, "Are you sure that just the two fathers are enough protection for her once we leave the room? She had four guards at the beach."
It was Cathbodua who said, "Only Usna and I are leaving of our seven guards. I think five Raven guard should be enough."
"She had four at the beach, remember?" he said.
"Nothing personal, but two of the four were human. This is five of the Raven guard."
Galen sat me on the bed where the nurse told him to, and then she produced a large plastic bag. "We can put your clothes in here, Princess, if the police don't need them for evidence. Then they can go home with you."
I touched the jacket, cold with seawater and wet with blood, and didn't want to take it off. In some part of my mind I knew it made no sense, but it felt as if once I took it off that Sholto would be more lost to me. Stupid, but it was his jacket, he'd put it on me himself, and it was his blood on it--it was his in a way nothing else would ever be again.
Galen bent over and held my chin in his hand, made me look into his eyes. "Merry, you have to get warm, and for that the clothes have to come off. No one's going to take the jacket away."
I nodded, because I was shivering too hard to talk.
Nurse Nancy touched my face. "She's cold and clammy to the touch. We have to get her out of these clothes now."
"We will," Galen said. He sat beside me on the bed and began to slide the jacket off one arm. I let him take it, because it was Galen, and I trusted him to help me keep it.
Frost stood beside me and helped take the other sleeve off, but when he bent a certain way, he hesitated in midmotion as if something hurt.
I grabbed his hand in mine and just looked at him as I sat there shivering in the short skirt and tiny top. Funny how sexy outfits are never good emergency clothing.
Nicca came forward, his knee-length deep brown hair was back in a braid. He'd started wearing it back once Kadyi got old enough to grab hair. Nicca's skin was still the rich brown of autumn leaves, and I knew underneath his very modern-looking clothes were huge moth wings, but like Sholto's tentacles, his wings could be just an incredibly vivid tattoo if he wished. Just that thought made my mind skip a beat, like I'd almost thought too much about it, and now I had to stop thinking altogether.
"Let me help her undress, Frost, please?"
"It doesn't do any good for you to be here if you reopen a wound," Galen said.
Frost frowned like he'd pout, which he'd done a lot once upon a time, but then he found the room's only chair and sat gingerly on t
he edge of it. Was his back hurt, too? I didn't remember any of the scratches being there, but I was having trouble remembering everything that happened in the last hour, and that was days ago. How could I remember something that far back?
Cathbodua had shooed everyone else out and closed the door behind her. It was then that Nurse Nancy seemed to figure out that five of the men were staying and helping her undress me. "OK, gentlemen, the rest of you can go on out with the rest of them," she said.
Ivi said, "You said we could stay."
"No, I said only the people that had seen her nude could stay."
"Well, then we can all stay," Ivi said. He wasted a smile on her and flipped his nearly ankle-length hair so that the pattern of ivy leaves that climbed all that paler green hair showed clearer. Humans were always thinking that Ivi had somehow decorated his hair with the pattern of ivy vines and leaves, but it was natural, an outward sign of his inner nature.
But Nurse Nancy was made of sterner stuff than some and didn't respond to the flirting. "I know the fey are more comfortable with nudity than most humans, but I didn't just mean that. I meant ..." The nurse seemed lost for words. She was ignoring the flirting, but her discomfort was real.
Brioc moved where I could see him and where he could help Ivi flirt and intimidate the nurse. Brioc was as tall, slender, and muscled as Ivi, but Brioc's hair was a bright yellow blond, his skin a pale grayish white like some of the Red Caps had, but Brioc was pure sidhe. His skin was the color of cherry tree bark, just like the incredible red of his full lips wasn't due to lipstick of any kind. He was the cherry tree made flesh and blood, as Ivi was for his namesake. Vegetative deities were always interesting. Brioc said, "You meant her lovers could stay."
"Yes, that is what I meant," the nurse said.
"We assumed that is what you meant," Ivi said.
I couldn't see the nurse's face, but I heard her silence, even through my shivering and chattering teeth. "Are you saying that you're all ... lovers?"
"Yes," Ivi said.
"Ex-lovers," Brioc said, "but yes, so we can guard the princess no matter her state of undress."
Galen and Nicca had peeled off the wet top and the bra. For some reason my bare breasts seemed to galvanize Nurse Nancy. "The hospital gown is on the bed, it closes in the back, just open the door when she's dressed ... undressed ... redressed." She fled. Apparently, five lovers was a few too many over the nurse's comfort zone. Under other circumstances it might have been amusing; now it just seemed like another reminder that I would never completely understand human culture.
I was in shock, as in the kind of shock that needed a bedsize heating pad under me, warm blankets, and an IV to give me fluids. I felt fragile and very human ending up in a hospital bed just from shock. There was nothing wrong with me; I hadn't been the one who got shot. I didn't have a scratch on me, though they'd probably been aiming at me. Had the bullet been for me, and Sholto just got in the way? No one wanted to kill Sholto, but plenty of people wanted to kill me.
The bed was warm, I was warm, and I was suddenly so tired. Frost sat beside the bed, his hand in mine, and my eyes were fluttering shut. I managed to ask, "Did they give me something?"
"What do you mean, give you something?" Frost asked.
"To sleep. Did they give me something to make me sleep?"
Galen came to stand on the other side of me, stroking his hand across my forehead. "Yes."
"I'm not hurt. I don't need to sleep."
"We agreed with the doctor," Galen said, voice soft.
"Damn it," I managed to say as my eyes fluttered closed again.
He leaned down to lay a soft kiss on my lips. "I love you, Merry."
"I love you, too," and that was the last thing I remembered, before sleep came and I could not fight it.
CHAPTER
FORTY
THE DREAM BEGAN innocently enough, but like all innocence it could not last. I stood in the high, round room of a tower that I had never seen before. There were beautiful tapestries on the walls, rugs bright as stained glass on the floor, and through the room's two windows the sunshine was golden and thick like honey for the eyes. It was beautiful, peaceful, so why was I afraid?
A man's voice came from behind me, "I can keep you safe, Meredith, you and our children."
My throat closed tight, and I couldn't breathe for a second, because I knew that voice. I turned as one does in a horror movie, slowly, unwilling, because you know the monster is right there--behind you.
Taranis stood in a bright swath of sunlight, most of him lost in the light, so that he seemed to be forming from the light itself as he stepped farther into the room. He held his hand out to me, a smile curling his lips, and it was as if that smile were some happy jewel set between the red-gold of his mustache and beard. His hair flowed in matching curls and waves as if his hair couldn't decide how curly it wanted to be. I didn't think I'd ever seen him when his hair wasn't perfectly styled. This careless play was somehow more pleasing, and more real. His eyes looked just a brilliant green rather than the green of many flower petals in every shade of green known under the sky, and those more human eyes smiled kindly at me.
I actually took a step toward him, but I stumbled on the edge of my floor-length skirt. I looked down and found myself in a dress that matched the tower room. I was dressed like some fairy-tale princess waiting to be rescued. My heart climbed into my throat, so that I was choking on it.
"Meredith." And the moment he said my name, the fear receded. I gazed up at him and found this new, more human Taranis comforting. Part of me knew that was wrong, that he wasn't comforting, but it was as if I couldn't think the thought all the way through.
He crossed the room and touched my cheek, ever so gently, with the back of his hand. "Come to me, Meredith, come and be my queen and I will keep you safe from all that would harm you."
His tone was sweet, but his words jarred me, because they did not ring true with my own memories. I moved my face back from that touch and said, "You're part of what I need to be protected from."
He looked puzzled, as if my words made no sense. "Meredith, I would never hurt you."
I looked up into that handsome face and thought, He would never hurt me, of course he would never hurt me. I said, "No," not because I believed it in that moment, but as a place to start. No, he was wrong somehow. No, I shouldn't be here. No, just no.
"Oh, Meredith, I want to take care of you, you and our children."
I shook my head. "No ... not ..." Not what, I thought? What was he not? What was not true? That was it, something he'd just said wasn't true, but what was it? Why couldn't I think?
He touched my face again, and I started to rub my face against his hand, but stopped in midmotion, because there was nothing familiar about his hand on my face. I had so many men who touched my face, who held me, who kept me safe, but this hand wasn't one of them. This man wasn't one of them. Who was he then, what was he to me? Why couldn't I think?
I shook my head hard enough that he had to move his hand. I tried to back away from him but tripped over the hem of the dress, falling to the floor hard enough that it jarred me, and I tasted blood, from biting my tongue. A single pink rose petal drifted down into my lap, and a tiny drop of blood began to fall from my lip, and it was as if time stretched forever as that drop fell in slow motion down, down, to finally land on that pink petal.
It was as if time, sound, reality all resumed with a rush that should have had a sound to it like the Doppler shift of a car speeding past me in the dark, so near that its wind ruffles my hair, tugs at my clothing, and leaves me gasping at the nearness of it.
I looked up at him, and said, "I know who you are."
He knelt beside me, smiling. "Of course you know me, I am your beloved."
"You are Taranis, King of Light and Illusion; you beat me and you raped me, and everything else is a lie."
His smile faded around the edges; that pleasant face flickered, like a TV set that wasn't quite on one station, so y
ou got the ghost of other images, and then he was back to pleasant, smiling, handsome, but harmless. I could change my physical appearance using glamour, but I couldn't add an emotion to it and make someone feel things they didn't actually feel. Was that all that his illusions were, just personal glamour with the addition of being able to project thoughts and feelings?
"Meredith, Meredith, see how much I love you."
I looked into his face and saw ... love. He loved me, of course he loved me. He had always loved me ... and the moment I thought that, I knew it was wrong. I remembered him beating me as a child. I remembered how terrified I had been of him. I remembered reaching out to my mother and she had turned away. It had been my grandmother, her mother, who had saved me from the king's anger.
I shook my head. "It's a spell, it's just a spell, it's not real."
"I want you, Meredith, I need you, that is true. I swear it by any oath you ask of me." He reached out to touch my face again.
I flinched away from his hand, but that put me almost prone on the floor, and I knew that was a bad idea, so I tried to stand, but I got tangled in the long skirts and fell back to my knees.
His hands closed on my upper arms, and he pulled me against his chest. He was so much bigger than I was, as tall as any of my lovers, and broader through the chest and shoulders than anyone but Mistral. He would be stronger than me even if he'd been human, but he wasn't human, he was sidhe, and once had been a god. He held me against his body as we knelt on the floor of the tower and I was happy for how full my skirts were, because I could only feel his chest and stomach against my back; the skirts protected me from feeling anything lower on his body.
I was so scared I couldn't breathe, as if the fear were squeezing my chest too tight for me to draw a complete breath of air.
He whispered my name, "Meredith, Meredith, Meredith," and with each repetition of my name my fear began to fade, until by the time he'd said it a dozen times I melted in against his body, letting his arms wrap around me, so that his big hand held my lower arms and then wrapped my arms and his across my body, so that I was held so close, so safe.
"I need you, Meredith," he whispered; his breath was warm against my hair and face as he bent over me and planted a kiss on my neck. His lips were so warm.