“Jonty, it is good to see you again.” I meant it. He had saved us. He had forced the twins to join our fight. The Red Caps had followed him, not Ash and Holly.
“And you, Princess Meredith,” he said in that voice that was so low it was like gravel rumbling.
“Should we have greeted the Killing Frost and Rhys?” Ash asked. “I am not completely clear on the rules of sidhe etiquette.”
“You may greet them or not. I greet Jonty because he stood beside me in battle. I greet Jonty and his Red Caps because they helped me and mine. I greet the Red Caps as true allies.”
“The goblins are your allies,” Ash said.
“The goblins are my allies because Kurag cannot get out of our bargain. You would have let my men die that night in the dark.”
“Are you going to go back on your bargain to bed us, Princess?” Ash asked.
“No, but seeing Jonty and his men reminds me, that is all.” Actually, I was angry. Ash and Holly had been like all goblins, and most sidhe. It wasn’t their fight, and they didn’t want to die defending sidhe warriors who wouldn’t have given a damn for them. I shouldn’t blame them, but I did anyway.
Jonty had picked me up in his huge arms and run through the winter night toward the fight. Where he went, the other Red Caps had gone. Because the Red Caps went, the other goblins had to go. To avoid the fight would have branded them as weaker and more cowardly than the Red Caps. I’d known it was a point of pride, but Kitto had explained that it was more than that. It would have opened the other goblins to being challenged in single combat by the Red Caps who fought beside me. No goblin would have willingly invited such a challenge.
I knew what I owed Jonty and his men, but not why they had done it. Why had they risked everything for me? If I could have figured out a way to ask that wouldn’t have insulted them, Ash and Holly, or even their king, I would have asked. But goblin culture was a maze that I did not have a map for yet. It had no room for asking why of a warrior. Why were you brave? Because I was a goblin. Why did you help me? Because no goblin turns from a good fight. Neither was completely true. But it was popularly true, and to say otherwise would bring into question Ash and Holly’s lack of enthusiasm.
Frost touched my shoulder, just a light touch. If Doyle had been there, he’d have touched me sooner. Frost didn’t like why the goblins were here tonight. He didn’t like me being with them, but he knew we needed them as allies.
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 bloodlust 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 not 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, greenman,” 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.
The Red Caps looked at Jonty. He looked at me.
“Why are you here, Jonty? Why did so many of your people come with you?”
“You I will answer,” he said in that deep voice. He’d insulted everyone here. Ash and Holly, Onilwyn, everyone but me.
He came forward. Rhys and Frost moved a little in front of me. Some of the other guards moved out of their line behind us.
“No,” I said. “He helped me save you all. Don’t be ungrateful now.”
“We’re supposed to protect you, Merry. How can we allow that to approach you?” Rhys said.
I gave him an unfriendly glare. “He is not a ‘that,’” Rhys. He is a Red Cap. He is Jonty. He is a goblin. But he is not a ‘that.’”
My anger seemed to surprise him. He gave a small bow and moved back. “As my lady wishes.”
Normally, I would have tried to ease his hurt feelings, but tonight I had other things on my mind than juggling the emotional relationships in my life.
I stood up and the silk robe I was wearing brushed the floor with a sound that was almost alive. The high-heeled sandals with their wraparound laces made a sharp sound on the marble.
High heels had been the only thing the twins had asked me to wear. The only request. I moved the robe so they got a flash of the four-inch heels, the laces that curved around my calf. I got a sound from Holly, low in his throat. Ash controlled himself better, but his face couldn’t hold it all. They wanted my white flesh against their gold. They wanted to know sidhe flesh, and it wasn’t all about power. They, like me, knew what it was to be the outsider. To be always different from those around you.
Jonty dropped to his knees in front of me. Kneeling, he looked me in the eyes. He made me aware of how small I was.
“Jonty,” I said.
“Princess,” he said.
I studied his face. Up close the change was even more startling. His skin was smoother, a softer gray. He smiled at me, and the teeth that I remembered as a mouthful of fangs were straighter, whiter, less frightening, more like a person’s mouth than an animal’s.