Rhys just rolled over and threw an arm across my waist and part of Galen. I could feel that Rhys was awake, but if he wanted to pretend he could.
Royal and I lowered our voices and he moved down the pillow so he could snuggle against the side of my face and whisper into my ear. “The other demi-fey are jealous,” he said.
“Of the sex?” I whispered.
He traced his hand along the curve of my ear the way a bigger lover might caress a shoulder. “That, but to be able to grow in size is a rare gift among us. None here in this house can do it except for me. They are wondering if a night with you would do the same for them.”
“What do you think?” I asked.
“I don’t know if I want to share you with them, but I am like all new lovers, jealous and infatuated. We’ve even been approached by some demi-fey who are not ours. They want to know if ’tis true that I’ve gained such a power.”
Rhys raised his head, done with pretense. “What did you tell them?”
Royal sat up next to my face, wrapping his arms around his knees. “That it was true, but they didn’t believe me until I showed them.”
“So you can do it at will,” Rhys said.
He nodded happily.
“What do you think would happen if we went down to the Fael and you changed in front of everybody?”
“Merry would be pestered silly by other demi-fey wanting to be big.”
I looked at Rhys, and Galen raised his head. “No, Rhys, no.”
“It’s been two days and the police still have no clue where they are,” Rhys said.
“You are not going to make Merry into bait for these monsters.”
“I think that’s up to Merry,” Rhys said.
Galen turned his unhappy face from him to me. “Don’t do it.”
“I think Bittersweet wouldn’t be able to resist,” I said.
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,” he said.
“We’d have to run it by Detective Tate,” Rhys said.
Galen propped himself up on both elbows and looked down at all of us. “You woke up screaming, Merry. That’s just from seeing their victims. Do you really want to put yourself out there as a potential victim for them?”
In truth, no, but out loud I said, “I know I don’t want to go to another murder scene, especially if I could flush them out into the open.”
“No,” Galen said.
“We’ll discuss it with Lucy,” I said.
He went up on his knees and even nude and lovely he was so angry that it wasn’t sexy. “Does my vote not count at all here?”
“What kind of ruler would I be if I kept myself safe and let more of the fey die?”
“You gave up the damned crown for love; well, don’t do this for the same reason. I love you, we love you, and this human has some of the most powerful enchanted items that the oldest among us have seen in centuries. We don’t know what he’s capable of, Merry. Don’t do this. Don’t risk yourself and our babies.”
“The police may not even let me play bait. They seem worried I’ll get hurt just by the media.”
“And if the police say no, you’ll still go down to the Fael and have Royal show off, won’t you?”
I didn’t say anything. Rhys looked at me, not Galen. Royal just sat there as if waiting to see what the sidhe would decide as his kind had done for centuries.
Galen got out of bed and picked his clothes up from the floor where they’d been dropped last night. He was as mad as I’d ever seen him. “How can you do this? How can you risk everything like this?”
“Do you really want to see another murder?” I asked.
“No, but I’ll survive it. I’m not sure I’d survive seeing your body in the morgue.”
“Get out,” I said.
“What?”
“Get out.”
“You can’t unman her before a battle,” Rhys said.
“What the hell does that mean?” Galen asked.
“It means that’s she’s scared and doesn’t want to do this, but that she’ll do it for the same reason we picked up a weapon and ran toward the fighting and not away from it.”
“But we’re her bodyguards. We’re supposed to run toward the problem. She’s who we’re supposed to guard. Doesn’t part of that job mean keeping her from taking risks?”
Rhys sat up, pulling the sheet into his lap and a little off me. “Sometimes, but in the old days we rode into battle beside our leaders. They led from the front, not the rear. The only failure for a king’s guard was not dying at their side, or them dying before we did.”
“I don’t want Merry to die at all.”
“Neither do I, and I’ll bet my life that I can keep that from happening.”
“This is insane. You can’t, Merry, you can’t.”I shook my head. “I hope I don’t have to but you having hysterics doesn’t make me feel any better about it.”
“Good, because you shouldn’t feel better about it. You shouldn’t do it at all.”
“Just go, Galen, just go,” I said.
He went, his clothes still bundled in his arms, nude and beautiful from the back as he walked out the door and slammed it behind him.
“I’m scared,” I said.
“I’d be worried if you weren’t,” Rhys said.
“That’s not comforting,” I said.
“Being the leader isn’t about comfort, Merry. You know that better than any leader we’ve had since we landed in this country.”
Royal was just suddenly big enough to hold me. He wrapped his arms around me, his wings flicking out behind him, fanning the red-and-black underwing as the moth would to scare a predator away. “Tell me not to show off my new power and I will hide it away.”
“No, Royal, we want them to know.”
He pressed his face to mine and looked at Rhys. “Is it really that dangerous?”
“It could be,” he said.
“My vote with the green knight won’t change your mind, will it?”
“No,” I said.
“Then I’ll do what you want, my princess, but you must promise that nothing will happen to you.”
I shook my head, my hands tracing up his back to the strange stiff delicateness of his wings. “I am a royal of faerie. I can’t make a promise I know I can’t keep without being foresworn.”
“We’ll talk to Doyle and the rest,” Rhys said. “Maybe they’ll have a safer plan.”
I agreed. Royal held me, but in the end no one had a better plan.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
ON WEDNESDAY WE WENT TO THE FAEL AND HAD ROYAL SHOW OFF his new talent. A hurried towel thrown his way by Alice the barista and he was covered enough for human law. The flock of demi-fey in the tea shop had been beside themselves fluttering around him, and when he told how it had happened they came to me. I was covered in little hands, little bodies, all wanting to touch me, to swing from my hair, and crawl on my clothing. I had to drag one little female out from my blouse where she’d nestled between my breasts.
I had a moment of claustrophobia; so many little bodies. Doyle, Rhys, and the rest helped me step out of them, and we went home with the trap baited. I was never anywhere, not even in the house, without at least four guards with me. I was protected, but what we hadn’t thought about was that I had friends in L.A., people I cared about, and we hadn’t protected all of them.
I was getting ready for bed. Doyle was watching me brush my teeth, which I thought was a little too much caution, but since we didn’t know everything that Steve Patterson’s magical items could do I didn’t argue, though never having a minute to myself was getting old and it had only been three days.
My cell phone rang in the bedroom. I called, “Can someone get that?”
Frost came with my phone, holding it out to me. The ID said it was Julian. I picked up and said, “Hey, Julian, can’t get enough of me at work?”
“This isn’t your friend.” It was a man’s voice, but I didn’t recognize it.
“Who is this?” I asked. I had one of those moments where you know something bad is about to happen, but there’s nothing you can do because the mistake was made days ago.
“You know who it is, Princess.”
“Steve, right?”
“See, I knew you’d know.”
The men had gone very still listening.
“Do I ask how you got Julian’s phone?”
“You know that, too,” he said, and his voice was too controlled. Not cold, but it lacked fear, or excitement. I didn’t like that he had no affect on the phone.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“That’s better. He’s with us. Humans are so much easier to take with my magic than the fey.”
“Let me talk to Julian.”
“No,” he said.
“Then I think he’s dead, and if he’s dead you have nothing to bargain with.”
“Maybe I just don’t want to let you talk to him.”
“Maybe, but if I don’t talk to him then he’s dead. Something went wrong with your plan to kidnap him and he’s already dead.” My own voice sounded matter-of-fact and not excited or scared either. Maybe after a while so much happens that you just don’t have enough energy to get excited at the beginning of the emergency. Maybe that’s what was wrong with Patterson too.
I heard a sound on the other end that I wasn’t sure of, and then Julian’s voice, “Merry, don’t come. They’re going to …” I knew the next sound, flesh hitting flesh. I’d heard enough to remember.