A Lick of Frost(94)

"Did the Unseelie rape you?"

"No."

"Were you raped, Princess?"

"Taranis knocked me unconscious and kidnapped me, and I woke nude in his bed. He says we had sex. I will be taking a rape kit at the hospital. If it comes back positive for an unknown, then yes, my uncle raped me."

The police were holding the press secretary and some of the sidhe back by force. Some of the nobles and the dogs were helping them mind the crowd. I heard growls around me. The loudest was next to me. The great black head touched my hand. I raised fingers to stroke Doyle's fur. That one small touch was more comfort than anything else had been.

Dr. Hardy yelled above the chaos, "The princess has a concussion. I need to get her to X-ray or a cat scan to see how serious it is. So we're leaving now."

I said "No."

"Princess, you said you'd go quietly if you told the truth."

"No, it's not that. I can't have an X-ray. I'm pregnant." Agent Gillett was still holding the microphone close enough that the room had heard that. If we thought there had been chaos before, we'd been wrong.

The press were yelling, "Who's the father? Did your uncle make you pregnant?"

Dr. Hardy leaned close and whispered/shouted above the cacophony, "How far along are you?"

"Four to five weeks," I said.

"We will treat you and your baby like gold," she said.

I would have nodded, but the neck brace kept me from doing so. I finally said "Yes."

She looked up at someone I couldn't see and said, "We need to get her to a hospital now."

We began to push our way toward the door. There were two main reasons we were having problems moving. One was the press.

They all wanted one last image, one last question answered. The second was the Seelie guards and nobles who opposed Hugh. They wanted me to stay with them. They wanted me to recant.

Inhumanly beautiful faces kept hovering over me, saying things like, "How can you lie about our king? How can you accuse your own uncle of such a crime? Liar. Lying bitch," was the last one before the police got very serious above keeping the golden throng away from my face.

They tried to chase away the black dog, but I said, "No, he's mine."

No one questioned it. Dr. Hardy only said, "He doesn't go in the ambulance."

I didn't argue. Just Doyle beside me, in any form, was an improvement. Every brush of his fur against my hand was better.

There were so many people around the stretcher, so much light that the only way I knew we were finally outside was the brush of night air against my face. It had been night when Taranis took me. Was it the same night, or the next night? How long had he had me?

I tried to ask what day it was, but no one heard me. The press had followed us outside the sithen. They trailed us with shouted questions and mobile lights.

The wheels of the gurney didn't like the grass. The bumps made my head ache more. I fought not to make small sounds of pain, and was able to do it until the medics closed around us so that I could no longer touch Doyle's fur. The moment I lost contact with him the pain was worse.

I spoke his name before I could stop myself. "Doyle," I said softly, a plea.

The huge black head shoved its way under the doctor's arm. It made her stumble. She tried to shove him away, saying, "Shoo."

"I need him, please."

She frowned at me, but she dropped back a step so the dog could be closer to me. Close enough that my hand could caress his fur on most of the bumpy ride. I'd never realized how uneven the grass around the mounds was until smoothness was what I needed. It had always seemed like such level ground until this moment.

One of the cameras peered over the shoulders of the medics. The light blinded me. The pain spiked hard and sharp, and nausea came with it.

"I'm going to be sick."

They had to stop the gurney, and help me lean over the side of it. Between the tubes and board and neck brace, I couldn't have moved myself. I'd never rolled onto my side with this many hands helping me.

Dr. Hardy yelled while I threw up, "She has a concussion! Bright lights aren't good for her."

Being sick made the inside of my head explode, or that's what it felt like. My vision swam in ruins. A hand touched my forehead, A hand that was cool and solid and felt… like I should know it.

My vision cleared to find a man with a blond beard and mustache peering into my face. It was his hand on my forehead. A baseball cap was pulled low on his face. There was something about the blue eyes that looked vaguely familiar. Then while I still looked at this stranger's face, the eyes changed. One eye held three rings of blue: cornflower blue around the pupil, sky blue, then a circle of winter sky.

I whispered, "Rhys."