Rhys let me go so I could be wrapped up in Galen’s six feet worth of lean body. I was suddenly airborne as he picked me up. His green eyes were so worried. “We turned the TV on just a little bit ago. All that glass; you could have been hurt.”
I touched his face, trying to smooth out the worry lines that would never leave a trace on his perfect skin. The sidhe did age in a way, but they didn’t really grow old. But then immortal things don’t, do they?
I leaned up for a kiss, and he leaned down to help me reach him. We kissed and there was magic to Galen’s kiss as there had been to Rhys’s touch, but where the other man’s touch had been deep and almost electric, like some kind of distant motor humming, Galen’s energy was like having my skin caressed by a soft spring wind. His kiss filled my mind with the perfume of flowers, and that first warmth that comes when the snow has finally left and the earth wakes once more. All that poured over my skin from one kiss. It drew me back from him with wide, startled eyes, and I had to fight to catch my breath.
He looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Merry, I was just so worried, and so glad to see you safe.”
I gazed up into his eyes and found them just the same lovely green color. He didn’t give as many clues as the rest of us did when his magic was upon him, but that kiss said better than any glowing eyes or shining skin that his magic was very close to the surface. If we’d been inside faerie there might have been flowers growing at his feet, but the asphalt driveway was untouched underneath us. Man-made technology was proof against so much of our magic.
There was a man’s voice from inside. “Galen, something’s boiling over. I don’t know how to stop it!”
Galen turned grinning toward the house with me still in his arms. “Let’s go rescue the kitchen before Amatheon and Adair set it on fire.”
“You left them in charge of dinner?” I asked.
He nodded happily as he began to walk toward the still-open door. He carried me effortlessly, as if he could have walked with me in his arms forever and never tired. Maybe he could have.
Doyle and Frost fell into step on one side, and Rhys on the other. Doyle asked, “How did you get them to agree to help cook?”
Galen flashed that hail-fellow-well-met smile of his that made everyone want to smile back. Even Doyle was not immune to the charm, because he flashed white teeth in his dark face, responding to the sheer goodwill of Galen.
“I asked,” he said.
“And they just agreed?” Frost asked.
He nodded.
“You should have seen Ivi peeling potatoes,” Rhys said. “That was something the queen had to threaten torture to get him to do.”
All of us but Galen glanced at him. “Are you saying that Galen simply asked them and they agreed?” Doyle said.
“Yes,” Rhys said.
We all exchanged a look. I wondered if they were all thinking what I was thinking, that at least some of our magic was doing just fine outside faerie. In fact, Galen’s seemed to be growing stronger. That was almost as interesting and surprising as anything that had happened today, because just as it was “impossible” for the fey to be killed in the manner that they seemed to have been killed, so sidhe magic growing stronger outside faerie was just as impossible. Two impossible things in one day, I would have said it was like being Alice in Wonderland, but her Wonderland was fairyland, and none of the impossibilities survived Alice’s trip back to the “real” world. Our impossibilities were on the wrong end of the rabbit hole. Curiouser and curiouser, I thought, quoting the little girl who got to go to fairytale land twice, and come home in one piece. That’s one of the biggest reasons that no one ever thought Alice’s adventures were real. Fairyland doesn’t give second chances. But maybe the outside world was a little more forgiving. Maybe you have to be somewhere that isn’t full of too many immortal things to have the hope of second chances. But since Galen and I were the only two of the exiled sidhe who had never been worshipped in the human world, maybe it wasn’t second chances, but a first chance. The question was, a chance to do what?, because if he could convince fellow sidhe to do his bidding, humans wouldn’t stand a chance.CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE ONLY LIGHT IN THE HUGE GREAT ROOM OF THE BEACH HOUSE was the glow of the roomy kitchen to one side, like a glowing cave in the growing dimness. Amatheon and Adair were in that glow panicking. They were both a little over six feet tall with broad shoulders, their bare arms in the modern T-shirts muscular from centuries of weapon practice. Adair’s honey-brown hair was knotted and braided into a complicated club between his shoulder blades; unleashed, it hit his ankles. Amatheon’s hair was a deep copper red, and curled enough so that the ponytail of knee-length hair was a foam of burnished red as he leaned down toward the chiming oven. They had kilts on instead of pants, but you just didn’t see six feet-plus of immortal warrior panicking about anything often, but panicking in a kitchen with pots in their hands and the oven open while they peered inside in a puzzled manner was a very special and endearing type of panic.
Galen put me down gently but quickly, striding toward the kitchen to save the meal from their well-meaning but ineffectual ministrations. They weren’t actually wringing their hands, but their body language said clearly that they’d run away if they could convince themselves it wouldn’t be cowardly.
Galen entered the fray totally calm and in control. He liked to cook, and he’d taken well to modern conveniences, but then he’d visited the outside world often all his life. The other two men had only been outside faerie for a month. Galen took the pot out of Adair’s hands and put it back on the stove on low heat. He got a towel, leaned in past Amatheon’s waterfall of hair, and began taking pies out of the oven. In moments everything was under control.
Amatheon and Adair stood just outside the glow of the kitchen, looking crestfallen and relieved. “Please, never leave us in charge of a meal again,” Adair said.
“I can cook over an open fire if I have to,” Amatheon said, “but these modern contrivances are too different.”
“Can either of you grill steaks?” Galen asked.
They looked at each other. “Do you mean over an open fire?” Amatheon asked.
“Yes, with a wire rack so the meat sits above the flames, but it’s real fire and it’s outside.”
They both nodded. “We can do that.” They sounded relieved. Adair added, “But Amatheon is the better cook of the two of us.”
Galen got a platter out of the refrigerator, took plastic wrap off it, and handed it to Amatheon. “The steaks have been marinating. All you have to do is ask everyone how they like their steaks cooked.”
“How they like them cooked?” he asked.
“Bloody, not so bloody, brown in the middle, gray in the middle,” Galen said, wisely not even trying to explain rare, medium, and well done for the men. The last time either of them had been out of fairyland one of the Henrys was king of England. And that had been a brief outing into the human world, then back they’d gone to the only life they’d ever known. They’d had one month of modern kitchens and not having servants to do all the grunt work. They were actually doing better than some of the others who were new to the human world. Mistral was, unfortunately, not taking well at all to modern America. Since he was one of the fathers of my babies, that was a problem, but he wasn’t here tonight. He didn’t like traveling outside the walled estate in Holmby Hills that we called home. Amatheon, Adair, and many of the other guards were cuter about it, and not so frustrating to the rest of us, which was nice.
Hafwyn joined Galen in the kitchen. Her long yellow braid moved in rhythm against the back of her body as she walked. She began to take things from him and hand things to him as if they’d done this before. Was Hafwyn helping in the kitchen more? As a healer, she didn’t have guard duty, and as a healer we didn’t feel that her having a job outside of that was a good idea, but she could heal with her hands, so no hospital or doctor would take her. Magic healing was still considered fraud in the United States. There had been too many charlatans over the centuries, so the law didn’t leave much room for the genuine article.
Rhys was still beside me in the dimness of the huge living room, but Doyle and Frost had moved across the room past the huge dining room table that was all pale wood gleaming in the moonlight. They were silhouetted against the huge glass wall that looked directly out onto the ocean. There was a third silhouette that stood a foot taller than them. Barinthus was seven feet tall, the tallest sidhe I’d ever met. He was bending that height over the shorter men, and without hearing a word, I knew they were reporting the day’s events. Barinthus had been my father’s closest friend and advisor. The queen had feared him as both a kingmaker and a rival for the throne. He’d only been allowed to join the Unseelie Court on the promise that he would never try to rule there. But we weren’t in the Unseelie Court anymore, and for the first time I was seeing what my aunt Andais might have seen. The men reported to him and asked his advice; even Doyle and Frost did. It was as if he had an aura of leadership wrapped around him that no crown, title, or bloodline could truly bestow. He was simply a point that people rallied around. I wasn’t even sure how aware the other sidhe were that they were doing it.