A Lick of Frost(74)

Rhys spoke softly, "Merry."

I looked up at him, startled. "Did I miss something?"

"Yes." He motioned with his gaze at the twins.

I turned to them. "I am so sorry, but so much has happened today that I find worry overriding my duty."

"So the Darkness is still too injured to be by your side," Ash said.

"He will not be here tonight. I told you that earlier."

"Will Rhys and the Killing Frost be your guards tonight?" Holly asked.

"No."

Rhys couldn't do it. Frost I'd ordered not to. He could not hide his feelings well enough. I feared he would insult Holly with a look or a sound tonight. The middle of sex could be very like the middle of blood lust in battle for a goblin. I didn't want to have Frost start a fight by accident.

"Amatheon and Adair will guard me." At the mention of their names, they stepped forward from the line of guards behind me. Amatheon was copper-haired, and Adair was crowned with a dark gold that had once been closer to just brown, before we'd had sex inside faerie, and he had come back into some of his power. Amatheon had been a deity of agriculture. Adair was the oak grove, but also once a solar deity. I wasn't sure if he'd been solar, then downgraded to oak, or if he'd been both simultaneously. It was considered the height of rudeness to ask a fallen deity what their old powers once were. It was like rubbing their noses in their lost status.

"Is it true that fucking them is what turned Andais's garden of pain into the meadow it is now?" Holly asked.

"Yes," I said.

Rhys said, "I wish Doyle were here, I really do. I hate goblins, everyone knows that, so I don't trust my judgment with you."

"Rhys," I said, "what…"

"Is no one going to ask why they have brought every Red Cap the goblins have at their command?"

"I, too," Frost said, "do not wish Merry to do this. It colors my judgment as well."

"Well, I don't give a damn who she fucks as long as she eventually fucks me, so I'll say it. Why in the name of the consort do you have this many Red Caps with you?" Onilwyn stepped away from the rest of my guards.

Onilwyn was the most graceless sidhe I'd ever seen. There was something blocky about his muscular build. He was tall enough and he moved well, but he just wasn't made as smoothly as the rest. I was never sure why, and again, could not ask. It wasn't his roughness that made me not want to sleep with him. He was as handsome with his long green hair and lovely eyes as most of the sidhe. But if pretty is as pretty does, Onilwyn was ugly to me.

I'd managed not to sleep with him yet because I truly didn't like him. He had been one of Cel's friends who had tormented me when I was a child. I truly didn't wish to be tied to him by a child and marriage, so I'd refused him my bed. I'd given him permission to masturbate, which was more than the queen had allowed. He could entertain himself all he wanted. I just didn't want him entertaining me.

If I didn't get pregnant soon, he'd promised to complain to the queen. I had until the end of this month, because that was when I could bleed away my chances for a baby this cycle. The queen would force me into his bed. First, on the chance that I could get pregnant. Second, because she knew I didn't want to do it.

But sometimes it's the unpleasant person who will say what needs saying. I had not worried about how many Red Caps were in the room until Onilwyn spoke. That was wrong. I should have worried. There were enough of them that if they started a battle we might lose. Why hadn't it worried me?

My left hand pulsed so hard it brought a sound from me. My hand of blood liked the Red Caps. My power liked the Red Caps. Not good, or was it?

Ash and Holly exchanged a glance.

"The truth," I said. "Why did you bring every Red Cap the goblins can boast?"

"They insisted," Ash said.

"The Red Caps do not insist," Onilwyn said. "They obey."

Ash looked at the other man. "I would riot expect a sidhe to know so much of us." He looked at me and gave a nod. "Except for the princess, who seems to make a study of all her people's culture."

I nodded back. "I appreciate that you have noticed my efforts."

"I have noticed. It is one of the reasons I am here."

"I fought in the goblin-sidhe wars," Onilwyn said. "I saw the Red Caps ordered into battles that were sure death, but they never hesitated. I learned that they are oathed to never disobey the Goblin King."

"You are correct, green man," Jonty said.

"They are also forbidden from competing for kingship," Onilwyn said.

"Also correct."

"Why are you all here?" Onilwyn asked.

I looked at Onilwyn. It wasn't like him to worry this much over my safety. Maybe he was worried about his own.