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Chapter Twenty-five
I was snuggled against the sweet scent of Frost&039;s back, one ar around the fir me just as perfectly They were a foot and an inch or two taller than I was, so spooning meant we had to choose if anted our faces next to each other, or our groins There was no way to have both
Doyle snuggled in his sleep, one ar across me and over Frost&039;s side Of all the men, they touched each other the most in their sleep, as if they needed reassurance that not only I was there, but that the other man was, too I liked that
Doyle moved a little more and I was suddenly aware that his body was very happy to be pressed up against my ass The sensation pushed me further out of the drowsy sleep I couldn&039;t see a clock, so I didn&039;t kno long we had until the alar we had, I wanted to use it
Music sounded It wasn&039;t the alarm It was Paula Cole&039;s "Feelin&039; Love," which meant it was my phone I felt Doyle and Frost wake instantly Their bodies tensed, ency I&039;d noticed that uards woke like that, unless I woke the else always meant some crisis
"It&039;s my cell phone," I said Some minutia of tension slid away fro are in the clothes pile, which here all the clothes had ended up last night
One of the interesting things about the Treo was that it could play an entire song, and that&039;s what it was doing as Frost furound someone would have needed to steady me so I didn&039;t fall out of bed, but Frost could reach the floor easily There was no tension in his body as he finally held the phone back up in the air intotone It was fine until it played too far into the song in public The sexually explicit lyrics didn&039;t botherfor some little old lady or mother with small children to protest So far no one had, orin ti to Jeremy Grey,for the glowing face of the bedside clock, afraid I&039;d overslept The blackout curtains in the ht not helpful "What time is it?"
"It&039;s only six; you&039;re hours frori rong
"What&039;s wrong, Jeremy?"
Theain, because they, like me, knew that Jereood Funny how no one ever wakes you up with good news
"There&039;s been another feythe sheet pool in my lap "Like the other one?"
"I don&039;t know yet Lucy just called"
"She called you, not me," I said "After the mess my presence made of the last rata"
"You are," he said, "but if I feel I want you and your guard&039;s opinion she&039;s leftwhatever employees you think will be the ment, Jeremy, and I know you understand the situation&039;"
"That is an odd way for her to ask"
"This hen you show up, it&039;s not her bad, it&039;syou better than she can"
"I&039;ht, Jere to come save me made her lose the only witness we had"
"Maybe, but if a fey, especially a demi-fey, wants to run they will They disappear better than alht, but"That&039;s true, but it was still a lauards; tasn&039;t enough frouards, it&039;s more people to hide," I said
"I&039;ll have some of the other people meet us there, so we all show up in a mass We&039;ll hide you with nuood glamour, and they&039;re too damn noticeable"
"They won&039;t like that"
"Either you&039;re Princess or you aren&039;t, Merry If you are going to be in charge, then be in charge If you&039;re not, then stop pretending"
"The voice of experience," I said
"You know it," he said "If I need you, ave me the address to meet so ouldn&039;t show up in a car that was associated with me
"They won&039;t let this many of us inside a crime scene, Jeremy," I said
"Some of us don&039;t need to be inside the crime scene to do our jobs, and it won&039;t hurt our reputation to havearound with the police"
"Thinking like that is why you&039;re the boss"
"Re the boss Get off the phone, enjoy a few o earn the title Princess Leave your two shadows at ho ones who can blend in better when I call"
I hung up and explained to Doyle and Frost why they were not going with o They didn&039;t like it at all, but I did what Jereht Either I claimed the role or someone else would I&039;d almost lost it to Doyle before, and now Barinthus There were too h followers Doyle and Frost dressed in jeans and T-shirt and suit respectively I chose a suht dress and heels The heels were for Sholto as coladoe where the sand met the surf because it was a place between and he was the Lord of that which passes between He and King Taranis were the only sidhe left who could do uards were truly that good at personal glauards, but we needed h to know that if they couldn&039;t be with uards, which was fine, but who? Sholto was great at gla we spent a lot of the o with ood at glamour as I am"
"But they have only been with us a feeeks," Frost said "We have not trusted them with Merry&039;s personal safety"
"We have to try thee of the bed, where he was sitting as I got dressed "They were Prince Cel&039;s pet guards only a feeeks ago I auard duty over Merry"
"Nor I," Frost said
Barinthus spoke frouards here at the beach house"
"But that&039;s just running the periuards to do that Merry&039;s safety is a different type of duty altogether"
"We either trust them, or we need to send theed a look, and then Doyle said, "I am not as distrustful as that"
"Then you uard Merry," Barinthus said "They have already begun to suspect that they will never be trusted because of their association with Prince Cel"
"How do you know that?" I asked
"They have spent centuries with a queen and a prince to answer to; they feel the need of someone to lead them You have left many of them here at the beach house off and on these feeeks I am who they have to follow"
"You are not their leader," Rhys said
"No, the princess is, but your caution to keep them farther frohtened by this neorld that you have brought them to, and they wonder why you have not taken any of the"
"That was a human custom that the Seelie Court adopted," I said "It&039;s not an Unseelie custoer at the Seelie Court than at our own They would like so familiar?" Rhys asked
"I don&039;t knohat youfar too serious in Rhys&039;s voice
"I say again that I do not knohat you od"
"Nor you, death god," Barinthus said, and there was an edge of irritation to his voice now It wasn&039;t anger I&039;d rarely seen the big ry, but there was some tension between the two of the on?" I asked
It was Frost who answered "Of those of us at your side, they are two of the most powerful"
I looked at Frost "What does that have to do with the tension between thein to feel their way back to their full powers, and like raer"
"We are not ani Frost"
"But you would remind me that I am not truly sidhe Nor was I one of Danu&039;s children when she first came to the shores of our homeland All this you re Frost, and once even less than that"
Barinthus studied him Finally, he said, "Perhaps I do see those ere once less than sidhe, but are sidhe now as lesser still I do not mean to feel that way, but I cannot deny that I find it difficult to see you with the princess and about to be father to her children when you have never been worshipped and once were but a childlike thing to skip across the still winter&039;s nights and paint the panes with hoarfrost"
I&039;d had no idea that Barinthus thought that the sidhe who began life as non-sidhe were lesser, and I didn&039;t try to keep the surprise off my face "You never mentioned any of this to me, Barinthus"
"I would have taken anyone as father to your children if it would have put you on the throne, Meredith Once you were on the throne, we could have solidified your power base"
"No, Barinthus, we could have taken the throne and been victim to assassination attempts until some of us died The nobles would never have accepted me"
"We could have&039;we,&039; Kingmaker Define &039;we,&039;" Rhys said
I re when I&039;d first entered the beach house
"We as in us, her princes and nobles," Barinthus said
"Except for me," Frost said
"I did not say that," he said
"But did you mean it?" I asked, and held ht beside ainst his hip
"Is it true that you were crowned by faerie itself with the blessing of the Goddess herself?" he asked "Did you truly wear the crown of ht and shadows?"
"Yes," I said
"Was Doyle truly croith thorn and silver?"
"Yes," I said, and played with Frost&039;s hand, rubbingthe solid coainst my cheek
Barinthus put his hands before his face, as if he could not bear to look at us any with you?" I asked
He spoke withouthis hands "You had won, Merry, don&039;t you understand that? You had won the throne, and the croould have silenced the other nobles" He lowered his hands and his face looked tormented
"You can&039;t know that," I said
"Even now you stand beforefor"
I finally understood as bothering hiave up the crown to save Frost&039;s life"
"Upset," he said, and he gave a harsh laugh "Upset - no, I wouldn&039;t say I&039; he would have knohat to do with it"
"My father left faerie for years to save my life"
"You were his child"
"Love is love, Barinthus What usted sound "You are a wos move you, but Doyle" He looked at the otherwe could have ever wished for to save the life of one man You kneould happen to our court and our people with a failing queen and no heir to the bloodline"
"I expected that there would either be civil war or assassins would kill the queen and there would be a new ruler of our court"
"How could you hold the life of one ood of your entire people?" Barinthus asked
"I think your faith in our people is too great," Doyle said "I think that Merry crowned by faerie and Goddess or not, the court is too deeply divided with power factions I think that the assassins wouldn&039;t have stopped with the queen They would have aimed at the new queen, at Merry, or at those closest and most powerful near her until she stood alone and helpless as they saw it There are those ould have been happy to turn her into a puppet for their hand"
"With us at her side and in our full power they would not have dared," Barinthus said
"The rest of us have been brought back into our power, but you have only regained a ss you back fully into your powers, then you are not as powerful as most of the sidhe in this room"
The silence in the room was suddenly heavier, and the very air was suddenly thicker, like trying to drink our breath
"The fact that the Killing Frost reat Mannan Mac Lir must rankle," Rhys said
"He is not more powerful than I am," Barinthus said, but in a voice that held so on rock
"Stop this," Doyle said, and he actually moved to stand between the the air thick, and I re able toout of their mouths, drowned on dry land ?" Barinthus asked
"If you are angry with ry with me, old friend, but Frost had no say in the choices we made on his behalf Merry and I chose freely"
"Even now you stand guard over hi Frost&039;s hand "Are you bothered that we gave up the crown for just one ave it up for Frost?"
"I have no quarrel with Frost as a man, or a warrior"
"Then is it really that he&039;s not sidhe enough for you?"
Rhys stepped just enough around Doyle so he could meet Barinthus&039;s eyes "Or do you see in Doyle and Frost what you wanted with Prince Essus but were always afraid to ask for?"
We all froze, as if his words were a bo toward us, but there was no way to stop it There was no way to catch it, and no way to run We just all stood there, and I had moments for h my head It was quick flashes A hand on so, an embrace, a look, and I suddenly realized that ht have beenwith love in our court no matter what sex you chose, but the queen didn&039;t let any of her guard have sex with anyone but her, and one of the ter her court had been that he had joined her guard It had been a way to control hireat Mannan Mac Lir as her lackey and hers in every way, only hers
I&039;d alondered about her insisting that Barinthus join her guard It hadn&039;t been standard at the time for exiles from the Seelie Court Most of the other sidhe who had come froht it was because the queen feared Barinthus&039;s power, but now I saw another motive She had loved her brother, my father, but she had also been jealous of his power Essus was a naod, at least in the recent past, if you counted the Roman Empire as recent, but her own name, Andais, had been lost so completely that no one remembered what she had once been Had she forced Barinthus to be her celibate guard to keep him out of her brother&039;s bed?
I had a moment to think about Essus and Mannan Mac Lir joined as a couple both politically and ree hat she&039;d done, I understood the fear They were two of the most powerful of us Combined, they could have owned both courts, if they&039;d been willing to, because Barinthus had joined us before ere cast out of Europe Our internal wars had been our own business and no matter for human law, so they could have taken first the Unseelie and then the Seelie Court
I spoke into that weighted silence "Or was it Andais who made it impossible for you to have his love? She would never have risked the two of you joining your power together"
"And now there is a queen of faerie ould have let you have all you desired, but it is too late," Rhys said quietly
"Are you jealous of the closeness you see between Frost and Doyle?" I asked it with a careful, quiet voice
"I am jealous of the power I see in the other ht that without your touch I will never coive ance, beautiful and alien It was a look that I&039;d seen hiive Andais It was his unreadable face, and he&039;d never had to use it on me before