A Lick of Frost
I TOOK FROST'S ADVICE, AND WENT TO ONE OF THE SMALLER guest rooms in Maeve Reed's huge guesthouse. She'd offered us the main house while she was away in Europe, where she'd fled because Taranis had tried to kill her twice with magic. Maybe soon we could tell her that Taranis was no longer a threat to her, or anyone, but I still had to get through today. I'd have liked to have found a place of our own by now, but with nearly twenty men to house and feed I couldn't afford it. I was still refusing to take aid from my aunt. I knew all too well how long and dangerous were the strings that she attached to all favors.
The adrenaline had worn off, and I was more tired than when I had started the day. I was coming down with something. Dammit.
I believed Frost would love me, but I wasn't sure how I would feel aging while they all remained young and fair. There were moments when I wasn't certain that I was a good enough person to be a good sport about that.
The room was dark. Blackout curtains had been added to the room's only window. The mirror over the dresser had been removed so that the wall was blank and peaceful. There would be no unexpected calls in here. It was one of the reasons I'd chosen the room. I needed rest, and I had had all I wanted of surprise mirror calls today.
Kitto had joined me, and he lay curled beside me under the smooth softness of clean cotton sheets. His dark curls rested on the curve of one of my shoulders, his breath warm on the mound of my breast. His arm lay over my stomach, his leg over my thigh, his other arm up where he could play idly with my hair. He was the only man in my guard shorter than I was, short enough that he could curl around me as I curled around the taller men. He was one of the first men to join me in exile. In the weeks that he'd been away from faerie, Doyle had forced him to use the gym. There was muscle under the white smoothness of his moonlight skin now. Muscle that had never been there before.
He was 4' 11" with the face of an angel that had never quite gotten through puberty. But then goblins don't have to shave, and in that, his body had taken after that half of his heritage. I played with the soft curls of his hair, which had grown to touch the tops of his broadening shoulders. The hair was as soft as Galen's, as soft as my own.
My other hand was curled around his back. My fingers traced the smooth line of scaled skin that ran down his spine. The scales looked dark in dim light, but in brighter light his skin ran with rainbows. In the kissable mouth that rested against my breast were retractable fangs, connected to poison glands. His father had been a snake goblin. The fact that his father had raped his mother instead of eating her was unusual. Apparently snake goblins were a cold lot in every way. Passion did not move them, but something about Kitto's mother had wakened heat in his father's cold heart.
She had then abandoned her baby beside a goblin mound when she realized what he was. Goblins have been known to eat their own young, and sidhe flesh is highly prized. His own mother had put him out to be killed. Instead, he'd been taken in by a goblin female who had meant to raise him to a bigger size to eat him. But something about Kitto had moved her, too, and she had not had the heart to kill him, There was something in him that did indeed bring out the desire to care, to take care of, to protect. He had offered his life to save mine more than once, yet I still could not see him as my protector.
He raised huge almond-shaped eyes to me, a swimming pure blue the way Holly and Ash's eyes were completely one color. Except Kitto's eyes were blue, a wonderful clear blue like a pale sapphire, or a morning sky.
"Who are you hiding from today, Merry?" he asked, voice gentle.
I smiled at him from my nest of pillows. "How do you know I'm hiding?"
"It's why you come here, to hide."
I traced the edge of his cheek. But for a few chance genes he would have been like Holly and Ash, tall and sidhe beautiful with the extra strength and stamia of the goblins.
"I told you, I'm not feeling well."
He smiled, and propped himself up on one elbow so that he was looking slightly down at me. "That is true, but there is a sorrow to you that I would lift if you only tell me how."
"Just don't make me talk of politics. I need to rest if I am to do my duty tonight."
He traced his finger down the side of my face from temple to chin. It was a long, slow movement that made me close my eyes and catch my breath.
"Is that how you see the goblins you will bed tonight, as a duty?"
I opened my eyes. "It is not that they are goblins that makes them a duty."
He smiled, sliding his hand into my hair. "I know that. It is who they are, what they are, and you do not feel your best."
"They frighten me, Kitto."
His face was sober. "I fear them, too."
"Did they ever use you ill?"
"They have not much liking for male flesh. I have serviced them a time or two when they came to bed my master."
Kitto had survived in a culture more violent than any in faerie by doing what some people have to do in prison to survive. They choose someone powerful, or are chosen, and become their property. It was looked down upon, but strangely was honored as a profession. On one hand, goblins like Kitto were the victims of cruel humor; on the other hand, they were highly valued by their masters. Master was not a sexist term in goblin nomenclature. It could be male or female. It was simply the term for one who owned a slave.
"Serviced them?" I made it a question.
"I believe in pornography I would be what is termed a fluffer. They do everything together, do the brothers. I helped keep one ready while the other finished."
He said it as if it were the most normal thing in the world. There was no condemnation, no anger, nothing. It was the way of his world once. The only world he'd known until his king gave him to me. I tried very hard to give Kitto choices in his new life, but I had to be careful, because too many choices made him anxious. His entire world had literally changed. He had never seen electricity or a television. He was now living on the estate of one of Hollywood's leading actresses, though he'd never seen a single one of her movies. He was much more impressed that she had once been the goddess Conchenn - a secret that Hollywood did not know.
"I will be with you tonight, Merry. I will help you."
"I can't ask you..."
He put his fingers against my lips. "You do not have to ask. None of your other men will know goblin culture as I do. I do not say that I could protect you from them, but I can keep you from falling into traps of custom."
I kissed his fingers and moved his hand away from my mouth so I could lay another kiss against the palm of his hand. I wanted to say, "I can't let you because they abused you," but he didn't see it that way. To tell him it was abuse when he didn't think it was seemed wrong. It was his culture, not mine. Who was I to throw stones after what I'd seen in Andais's bed today? Poor Crystall.
There was a soft knock on the door. I sighed, and snuggled deeper into the pillows. I did not want to deal with another crisis today. I had one all nice and scheduled for later tonight when the goblin twins arrived.
Kitto leaned over and whispered against my hair, "You are princess. You can tell them to go away."
"It's Rhys."
Kitto and I exchanged a look. He widened his eyes, his version of a shrug. He was right. It would have to be something important for Rhys to willingly see me in bed with a goblin, any goblin. He even liked Kitto, or at least had sat up late with him introducing him to marathon film noir movie sessions. He'd gone along with Galen when the two of them took Kitto shopping for modern clothes. But Rhys always left if it got physical with Kitto.
Whatever would bring Rhys willingly into this room had to be important. Important today meant bad. Shit. Out loud I said, "Come in."
Kitto started to move away from me as if he were going to leave, but I grabbed his arm and kept him propped on his elbow above me. "This is your room. You don't leave."
Kitto looked doubtful but he stayed where I wanted him. He was good that way. He followed orders beautifully, which was more than I could say for most of the other men.
Rhys walked in, closing the door quietly behind him. I studied his face, and he looked peaceful enough. "Doyle is a very stubborn man even for a sidhe."
"You're just figuring that out?" I asked.
Rhys grinned. "Fair enough. I knew it already."
"He still won't let Merry sit by his side?" Kitto asked. He looked perfectly at ease beside me now, as if he had never considered moving away.
Rhys moved farther into the room as he spoke. "He says, "I am to protect her, not she me." He further says that you need your rest for tonight, not to sit and worry over him."
"I would have cuddled him while we both slept," I said.
"His loss, our gain," Rhys said, grinning again. He took off his jacket.
"Our gain," Kitto said, a lilt of surprise in his voice.
Rhys paused, jacket in one hand. His shoulder holster was very stark against the pale blue of his shirt. Though shoulder holster implied that it was just for guns and that wasn't true at all. All the men who had been with me for a few months had custom rigs made, I suspect by one of the leather workers inside faerie. No human could have made them so quickly and so perfectly. There were also intricate designs worked into the leather, and nearly ingenious ways to carry as many weapons as possible and still be able to slip modern jackets over them all.
Rhys stood there with a gun under one arm and a knife on the other. A second gun rode at his waist. There was also a short sword belted somehow across his back so that the hilt stuck a little out from behind his back on one side. He could grab it sort of like a gun worn at the small of the back.
"I touched you in the lawyer's office, and didn't feel all the weapons," I said. "There's a spell that affects sight and touch."
"If you didn't pick up on it, then it's as good as promised," Rhys replied.
"Why did I see the swords at Frost and Doyle's back?"
"The enchantment only works if you don't break the line of the clothing covering the holster. They keep insisting on huge swords that show around the edges of the jackets, so you see the swords. It also makes it more likely that people will notice their guns and other weapons. Once you draw attention to what amounts to an illusion, it begins to break down. You know that."
"But I didn't realize that was what the leather rigs were, bespelled."
He shrugged.
"It must have cost a pretty penny."
"They were gifts," he said.
I gave him wide eyes. "Not this much magical work."
"You made yourself pretty popular among the lesser fey when you gave your little speech in the hallway, about how most of your friends were below stairs when you were a child, not among the sidhe."
"It's true," I said.
"Yes, but it also helped win them to you. That and you being part brownie."
"A lesser fey did the leather work?" I asked.
He nodded. "While the sidhe have lost most of their magic, the lesser fey have held on to more than we knew. I think they were afraid to point out to the sidhe that the lesser fey hadn't faded as much as the greater fey."
"Wise of them," I said.
Rhys was at the foot of the bed now. "Not that I don't like my nifty new leather rig, but are you delaying so you can think of a polite way to send me away, or is there a question you don't want to ask?"
He nodded, and looked down, as if gathering his thoughts. "Unless you object, either of you, I'd like to join you for afternoon cuddling." He raised his face and displayed one of the most neutral expressions I'd ever seen from him. He usually hid his emotions behind a wry humor. Today he was serious. It wasn't like him.
"My opinion doesn't count," Kitto said, but he scooted down beside me, pulling the sheet up to cover most of himself.
Rhys put his jacket over one arm. "We've been over this, Kitto. You're sidhe now, which means you get to be as opinionated as the rest of us."
"Oh, please," I said. "Not as opinionated as all that. Kitto's sort of refreshingly undemanding."
Rhys smiled at me. "Are we that bad?"
"Sometimes," I said. "You're not as bad as some."
"Like Doyle," he said.
"Frost," said Kitto, then seemed shocked at his insult of the other man. He actually covered his face with the sheet, snuggling tightly against the side of my body. But there was a tension to him now that had nothing to do with sex. He was frightened.
Was he frightened of Rhys? He had tried to hurt, if not kill, Kitto on at least one occasion when I first brought him to Los Angeles. Apparently, a few movies and shopping trips couldn't make up for earlier hostility. Sort of like parents trying to win over kids in a divorce. If you're mean, all the treats in the world don't make up for it later.
Rhys had been mean, and Kitto had been hiding that he was still afraid of the other man. I had missed it completely. I had thought we were as much a big happy family as we were going to get. How could I rule these people if I couldn't even keep peace and safety among my own lovers?
"I don't think Kitto's comfortable with you being here, Rhys," I said. I stroked Kitto's back under the covers. He snuggled harder against me as if afraid of what I would ask him. I didn't understand why "servicing" Holly and Ash didn't bother him, but Rhys did. Maybe it was a cultural thing that I didn't understand because I wasn't goblin enough. I would be their high queen, but I would never truly be goblin. They were our foot soldiers, our strong arm, and most likely to be cannon fodder. The Red Caps were our shock troops. But I was missing something, right this minute, about the goblin in my bed. He was truly sidhe by birth of his magic, but in his heart he was, and always would be, goblin, just as there was more human to me because I'd gone to human schools and had human friends. That more than genetics made me more human than I would have been, more American than I would have been in the way I thought. Sometimes I wondered if my father would have found another excuse to raise me outside of faerie if Andais hadn't tried to kill me. Father had felt that it was very important that I understand our new country.
"Kitto," Rhys said. "I know I was awful to you once, but I've tried to make up for it."
Kitto's voice came out muffled. "Did you do all of it just to make up?"
Rhys seemed to think about it. "At the beginning, but you're the only one who will watch more than two gangster movies in a row with me and actually enjoy them. The others tolerate it. Or were you just being polite?"
Kitto spoke, still under the covers. "I like James Cagney. He's short."
"Yeah, I like that about him, too," Rhys said.
"You are not small," Kitto said.
"For a sidhe I am."
Kitto pulled an edge of cover down so he could see the other man. I lay there unneeded. This was a guy moment that had strangely turned into a girl moment. I'd noticed with Kitto that the guy silence didn't quite work. He had an almost feminine need to talk, to express his thoughts and feelings, or they weren't real to him.
"Edward G. Robinson is short, too," Kitto said softly.
Rhys smiled. "Bogart wasn't all that tall either."
"Really? They make him look tall."
"Apple crates and camera angles," Rhys said.
Kitto didn't ask what he meant by apple crates, which meant that they'd already had a talk about shorter actors standing on things to look taller for the camera. It was also a cheap way to make your villain or hero look like he was strong enough to lift someone one-handed. Ah, B-movie magic.
Kitto came a little farther out of the covers. "What do you want, Rhys?"
"I want to apologize that I ever thought you were like Holly and Ash and the rest."
"I am not strong like they are," Kitto said.
Rhys shook his head. "You are kind and you crave kindness. That isn't a sin."
"You have explained this concept of sin, and if I understand it, then yes, Rhys, it is a sin to be weak among the goblins. A sin that most often ends in death."
Rhys sat on the corner of the bed. Kitto didn't flinch, which was a big improvement. "I heard that you're going to help Merry with the goblins tonight," said Rhys.
"Yes," Kitto said.
"We took another call from the goblins since Merry came in here."
Ah, here it comes, I thought.
Kitto sat up, drawing his knees tight in a hug, sliding the covers around him and a little off of me. "What has happened?"
"A lot of them used me when I was between masters." Kitto said it as if it were just ordinary.
"He said one of your masters was a favorite of the brothers, and that you helped with that, too." I knew Kurag hadn't used the word "helped." Goblins were blunt about sex, except for ones like Kitto, who had spent their lives having to be servile. Strangely, the weaker goblins were the ones who were best at diplomacy among their kind. When a mispoken word can get you killed or maimed, I guess you learn to mind your tongue. I know it had helped make me cautious.
"My last master enjoyed their company."
"What happened to your last master?" Rhys asked.
"She grew tired of me and set me free to find a new master." He touched my arm.
"You see Merry as your new master," Rhys said.
"Yes."
That was news to me. "Kitto," I said, and he looked at me. "Do you feel you have no choice when I ask you to do something?"
"What you ask of me is pleasant. You are the best master I have ever had."
It wasn't quite the answer I'd wanted. I looked at Rhys, trying to convey with my eyes "help me figure out how to ask this question."
Rhys answered it himself. "You aren't going to break a lifetime of habit with a few months of safety, Merry."
He was right, but I didn't like the fact that Kitto felt that he had little choice in his new life. "You are sidhe, Kitto," I said.
"But I am also goblin," he said, as if that settled it. Maybe it did.
"Why would you volunteer to be with Merry tonight with Ash and Holly?" Rhys asked.
"No one else here truly understands what they are capable of. I must be there to see that if harm happens it is not Merry that it happens to."
"You mean you'll take the abuse so she doesn't have to," Rhys said.
Kitto nodded.
I sat up and hugged him. "I don't want you to be hurt either."
He leaned into the hug. "And that is why I would take the hurt willingly. Besides, I am harder to hurt than you are."
"If you will allow me, I will join you and Merry this afternoon," Rhys said.
"Tonight, you mean," I said.
"No, I don't know if I'm that strong yet." He looked down, then up, but it was not me he looked at. "I don't know if I am as strong as my friend."
"Friend?" Kitto made it a question.
Rhys nodded.
"How can you say you are not as strong as me?" Kitto asked.
"I was the victim of the goblins who hurt me for a single night. Yet I have feared and hated all goblins for years. You have taught me that it was wrong. But I still don't know if I am strong enough to be in the room when Merry goes to the goblins tonight. I don't know if I can stand to be in the room and watch and guard her. You had years of... hurt, by the very goblins who will be here tonight. Yet you will give yourself to them to protect Merry. I say to you, Kitto, that is a kind of bravery that I do not have." His single beautiful eye shimmered in the dimness.
Kitto reached out and touched his arm. "You are brave. I have seen it."
Rhys shook his head and closed his eye. One lone tear trailed down his face, shining more than any human tear would have in the twilight of the room.
Kitto touched that single tear with one fingertip. He offered the trembling drop to me, but I shook my head. He raised it to his lips, and Rhys watched him lick his tear off of his finger. Tears were not as precious as blood and other fluids, but they were still gifts. I knew that sometimes the goblins tortured simply to gather tears.
The sidhe would make you cry, but they didn't value the tears.
"Can I join you?" Rhys asked, and I knew it wasn't me he was asking.
Kitto gazed into his face and finally nodded yes.