I COULDN'T WALK BECAUSE OF MY ANKLE. DOYLE CARRIED ME INTO THE hotel lobby. Kitto stayed very close to me. Rhys had made a nasty comment on the way inside. If Rhys continued to carry a grudge against all goblins, it was going to make things harder than they already were. I didn't need harder. I needed something to be easier.
What was waiting in the lobby was not easier.
Griffin was sitting in one of the overstaffed chairs, long legs stretched out so that the back of his head rested against the back of the chair. His eyes were closed when we entered, as if he were asleep. His thick wavy copper-colored hair spilled just to his shoulders. I remembered when it had hit his ankles, and I'd mourned when he cut it. I'd avoided searching the crowd for him tonight. A glance was enough to prove that that deep, nearly auburn, red hair wasn't in the room. Why was he here? Why hadn't he been at the banquet?
I watched him with his line of black lashes closed on the pale face. He was wasting glamour to pass for human. But even dulled by his own magic, he was a shining thing. He was dressed in jeans with the bottoms of cowboy boots showing, a white dress shirt, buttoned up, and a jean jacket with leather touches at shoulder and arm. I waited for my chest to tighten, my breath to catch, at the sight of him. Because he wasn't asleep. He was posing so that I could get the full effect. But my chest was just fine. My breath didn't catch.
Doyle had stopped with me in his arms just short of the imitation Oriental rug that the chairs sat upon. I stared down at Griffin from Doyle's arms and was empty. Seven years of my life and I could look at him now and feel nothing but an aching emptiness. A wistful sort of sadness that I had wasted all that time, all that energy, on this man. I'd been afraid to see him again, afraid that all those old feelings would come flooding back, or that I'd be furious with him. But there was nothing. I would always have sweet memories of his body and less sweet memories of his betrayal, but the man that sat so carefully posed was not my love anymore. The realization was both a profound relief and a great sorrow.
He opened his eyes slowly, that smile curling his lips. The smile made my chest hurt, because once I had believed that that special smile was meant just for me. The look in his honey-brown eyes was familiar as well. Too familiar. He looked at me as if I'd never gone away. He looked at me with the same surety that Galen had had earlier. His eyes filled with a knowledge of my body and the promise that he would have access to it soon.
That killed any kindness I might still have felt for him.
The silence had gone on a little too long, but I didn't feel the need to break it. I knew if I simply said nothing, Griffin would break first. He'd always been fond of the sound of his own voice.
He stood in one fluid motion, slouching just a touch so he didn't look his six feet three. He flashed me the full smile, the one that made his eyes crinkle and showed that flash of dimple in one cheek.
I stared at him, face immobile. It helped that I was so tired I could barely think, but it was more than that. I felt empty inside and I let it show in my face. I let him see that he meant nothing to me, though knowing Griffin, he wouldn't believe it.
He stepped forward, one hand outstretched as if he'd take my hand. I stared at him until his hand dropped away, and for the first time he looked uncomfortable.
His gaze slid over all of us, then came back to rest on me. "The queen insisted I not be there tonight. She thought it might upset you." The surety was sinking away from his eyes, leaving him anxious. "What did I miss tonight?"
"What are you doing here, Griffin?" I said. My voice was as empty as my heart.
He shifted from one foot to the other. It was obvious that this reunion wasn't going the way he'd planned. "The queen said she'd lifted the geas on the Guard for you." His eyes flicked to Doyle, to the others. He frowned at the goblin. He didn't like any of this. He didn't like me in someone else's arms. There was a small flare of satisfaction. Petty, but true.
"How does the geas being lifted for me and me alone answer my question, Griffin?"
He frowned at me.
"Why are you here?" I asked.
"The queen said she told you that she'd be sending one guard of her choosing along." He tried the smile again, and it faded as I stared at him.
"Are you trying to tell me that the queen has sent you as her spy?"
His face raised, that smooth chin jutting out. It was a sure sign that he wasn't happy. "I thought you'd be pleased, Merry. There are a lot of guards that would be worse to share your bed with."
I shook my head, leaned my face against Doyle's shoulder. "I am too tired for this."
"What do you want us to do, Meredith?" Doyle asked.
Griffin's eyes hardened, and I knew that Doyle had used my first name deliberately-not a title, but my name.
It made me smile. "Take me up to the room and contact the queen. I will not be forced to share a bed with him again, not for any reason."
Griffin took a step toward us, hand stroking my hair. Doyle moved me out of his reach with a turn of his shoulders.
"She was my consort for seven years," Griffin said, and there was anger in his voice now.
"Then you should have valued her as the precious gift she is."
"Go away, Griffin," I said. "I'll get the queen to send someone else."
He moved in front of Doyle, blocking our way to the elevators. "Merry, Merry, don't you -"
"Feel anything?" I finished for him. "I feel like getting out of this lobby before we attract a crowd."
He looked toward the desk; the late-night attendant was giving us all her attention. A man had come and joined her, as if they were afraid there'd be trouble.
"I am here at the queen's orders. Only she can send me away, not you."
I stared into his angry eyes and laughed. "Fine, fine, let's all troop up to the room and call her from there."
"Are you sure?" Doyle said. "If you wish him to stay in the lobby, we can make it so." There was the faintest edge to his words, and I realized that Doyle wanted to hurt Griffin, wanted an excuse to punish him. I don't think it was personal over me. I think it was more that Griffin had had what they all wanted, access to a woman that adored him, and he'd thrown it away while all they could do was watch.
Frost moved up at Doyle's back. Kitto followed him. Rhys moved in from the other side, and Galen began to edge around to come at Griffin from the back.
Griffin was suddenly tense. His hand went to the edge of his belt and started to slide out of sight under the jacket.
Doyle said, "If your hand goes out of sight, I'll assume you mean us harm. You don't want me to assume that, Griffin."
Griffin tried to keep them all in sight, but he'd allowed them to flank him. You couldn't look at every side of a circle. It was too careless for words, and Griffin was many things, but not careless. For the first time I wondered if he had truly felt distress at our breakup, enough distress to make him careless, enough distress to get him hurt or even dead.
The idea was sort of amusing in a sociopathic sort of way, but I didn't want him dead. I just wanted him away from me.
"As amusing as it would be to watch you beat the shit out of each other, let's not and just say we did."
"What are your orders?" Doyle asked.
"Everybody upstairs, contact the queen, clean up a little, then we'll see."
"As you like, Princess," Doyle said. He carried me toward the elevators. The others came behind, forming a sort of half-circular net to sweep Griffin at our backs. Without being told, Rhys and Galen took up posts to either side of Griffin as we entered the elevator.
Doyle stood to one side, back to the mirrored walls so he could see both Griffin and the closed doors. Frost mirrored him on the other side of the doors. Kitto kept eyeing Griffin as if he'd never seen him before.
Griffin leaned his shoulders against the wall, arms crossed on his chest, ankles crossed, the picture of casual ease. But his eyes weren't casual. There was a stiffness to his shoulders that no amount of pretense could hide.
I looked at him between Galen and Rhys. He was the taller by three inches and a lot more than that for Rhys.
He caught me watching and he threw off his glamour, slowly, like a striptease. I'd seen him do it nude too many times to count. It was like watching a light spread from under his skin, his feet first always, then up the muscled ridge of his calves, to the strong thighs, up, up his body until every inch of him glowed like polished alabaster with a candle inside it, so bright that there were almost shadows cast from the glow of his skin.
The memory of his body nude and shining was burned on the inside of my head, and closing my eyes didn't help. It had been too dear a memory for too long. I opened my eyes and watched his copper-red hair glow as if it had thin metallic wire running through it. The thick, large waves in his hair crackled and moved with his power. The eyes weren't honey-brown. They were tricolored: brown around the pupil, liquid gold, then a burnished bronze. The sight of him all aglow did make me catch my breath. He would always be beautiful. No amount of hatred could take that away from him.
But beauty wasn't enough, not enough by half.
No one said a word until the elevator stopped. Then Galen grabbed Griffin's arm, and Rhys checked the hallway before Doyle carried me out.
"Why the caution?" Griffin asked. "What happened tonight?"
Rhys checked the door, then took the key card from me and opened the door. He checked the room while we all waited out in the hall. If Doyle's arms were getting tired from lugging me around, it didn't show.
"The room's clear," Rhys said. He took Griffin's other arm, and they escorted him into the room. The rest of us followed.
Doyle laid me on the bed, so I was sitting against the headboard. He took a pillow out from the blue covers and propped it under my ankle. He took off his cloak and laid it at the foot of the bed. He was still wearing the leather and metal-studded harness across his bare chest; the silver earrings still glittered in his curved ears; the peacock feathers still brushed his shoulders. It occurred to me for the first time that I'd never seen Doyle any different than he was right now. Oh the clothes, but I wasn't sure if he was using glamour or not. Doyle didn't try to be other than what he was.
I looked at Griffin still glowing, still beautiful. Galen and Rhys had made him sit in a chair. Galen leaned on the small table by the chair. Rhys leaned against the wall. None of them were glowing, but I knew that Galen, at least, wasn't trying to pass for human.
Kitto climbed onto the bed curling beside me, one hand sliding across my waist, dangerously close to my lap. But he didn't try to take advantage. He curled his face against my hip and seemed content, as if he meant to sleep.
Frost sat down on the far side of the bed, legs still on the floor, but not leaving the bed to just the goblin. He crossed his hands over his chest just below the blood stains. He sat there tall and straight and heartstoppingly handsome, but he didn't glow the way Griffin glowed.
I had a sudden revelation. Griffin hadn't removed glamour. He'd added it. All those times that I thought he was throwing off all trickery, he was actually wrapping himself in the greatest trick of all. Most sidhe couldn't use glamour to make themselves look better to other sidhe. You could try it, but it was wasted effort. Even with me having come into my power he glowed, but now I could see it for what it truly was- a lie.
I closed my eyes, leaning my head back against the wall. "Drop the glamour, Griffin. Just sit there like a good little boy." My voice sounded tired even to me.
"He is very good at it," Doyle said. "Maybe the best I've ever seen."
I opened my eyes and looked at Doyle. "Glad to know the show wasn't just for my benefit. I was feeling pretty stupid."
Doyle glanced at the rest of the room. "Gentlemen?"
"He glows," Galen said.
"Like a lightning bug in June," Rhys said.
Frost nodded.
I touched Kitto's hair. "Do you see him?" I asked.
Kitto raised his head, eyes half-closed. "All the sidhe are beautiful to me." He snuggled his face back against me, and it was a little lower than my hip that he was cuddling against.
I looked at Griffin, still gleaming and so beautiful that I wanted to shield my eyes as if I were gazing at the sun. I wanted to scream at him, things about lies and trickery, but I didn't. Anger would have convinced him that I still felt something for him. I didn't- or, rather, not what he wanted me to feel. I felt tricked and stupid and angry. "Contact the queen, Doyle," I said.
The dresser sat in front of the bed with the large mirror facing me. Doyle stood in the center of the mirror. I could still see myself in the glass. I stared back at myself and wondered why I didn't look more different. Oh, my hair needed to be brushed, the makeup needed to be retouched, the lipstick was gone completely, but my face was still the same. My innocence had vanished years ago, and there was very little surprise left in me. All I truly felt was a great numbness.
Doyle pressed his hands just above the glass. I felt his magic crawl through the room like a prickle of ants marching along my skin. Kitto raised his head to watch, resting his cheek against my thigh.
The power built to a push of pressure, as if you could clear it by making your ears pop, equalizing the pressure, but the only thing that would make the pressure ease was use. Doyle caressed the mirror, and it wavered like water. His fingertips were like stones thrown into a pool where the ripples spread outward. He made a small gesture with his hands, a flexing at wrist and hand, and the mirror was no longer clear. The surface was milky, like a cup of fog.
The mist cleared, and the queen sat on the edge of her bed, looking at us through the full-length mirror in her private quarters. She'd removed her gloves, but the rest of the outfit was intact. She'd been waiting for the call. I'd have bet a body part on it. Eamon's naked shoulder showed to one side of her. He was turned on one side as if asleep. The blond boy was kneeling beside her, propped on his elbows. He was naked, too, but he wasn't under the covers. His body was strong, but thin, a boy's body without the musculature of a man. I wondered again if he was really eighteen.
Doyle had stepped aside so that I was the first one that the queen's eyes sought. "Greetings, Meredith." Her eyes took in the scene, the half-dressed goblin and Frost on the bed with me. She smiled and it was a pleased smile. I realized that the two scenes were similar. She had two men in her bed, and I had two men in mine. I hoped she was having a better time than I was. Or maybe I didn't.
"Greetings, Aunt Andais."
"I thought you'd be all tucked into bed with one or more of your boys. You disappoint me." She stroked her hand along the boy's bare back, sweeping at the end of the oval, fingertips across his buttocks. It was an idle gesture, like you'd pet a dog.
My voice came out very neutral, carefully empty. "Griffin was here when we arrived. He says you sent him."
"I did," she said. "You agreed to sleep with my spy."
"I didn't agree to sleep with Griffin. I thought after our little talk you understood how I felt about him."
"No," Andais said. "No, I didn't understand that at all. In fact, I wasn't sure you knew how you felt about him yourself."
"I don't feel anything about him," I said. "I just want him out of my sight, and I am certainly not going to sleep with him." I realized as soon as I said the last part that she might insist on it out of sheer perversity. I added, quickly, "I want to know he's celibate again. He was freed of the geas ten years ago so he could sleep with me, but he used his freedom to fuck everyone that would have him. I want him to know that I'm sleeping with the other guards, that they're getting sex and he's not. That unless I consent to lie with him that he may never have sex again for the rest of his so unnatural life." I smiled as I spoke and realized it was the truth. Goddess bless me, it was vindictive, but it was true.
Andais laughed again. "Oh, Meredith, you may be more my bloodline than I ever dared hope. As you will. Send him back to his lonely bed."
"You heard her," I said. "Get out."
"If it's not me," Griffin said, "it will be someone else. Maybe you should ask her who she will send to replace me in your bed."
I looked at my aunt. "Who are you going to send to replace Griffin?"
She held out her hand, and a man stepped into view as if he'd been patiently waiting for his cue. His skin was the color of soft spring lilacs, his knee-length hair the color of pink Easter-egg grass. His eyes were like pools of liquid gold. It was Pasco, Rozenwyn's twin brother.
I stared at him, and he stared back. We had never been friends. In fact there was a time or two I'd thought we were enemies.
Griffin laughed. "You can't be serious, Merry. You'd let Pasco fuck you before me?"
I stared at Griffin. He'd stopped glowing and looked almost ordinary as he stood there. He was angry, so angry that there was a fine tremble in his hands as he pointed to the mirror.
"Griffin, honey," I said, "I'd let a hell of a lot of men in my bed before you."
The queen laughed, drawing Pasco down until he sat in her lap, like a child visiting Santa Claus in the mall. She stared out at me, running her hands through Pasco's cotton-candy hair.
"You agree to Pasco as my spy?"
"I agree."
Pasco's eyes widened just a bit at that, as if he'd expected at least a little protest on my part. But I just wasn't up to it tonight.
Andais caressed a hand up Pasco's clothed back. "I think you have surprised him. He told me you'd never agree to sharing a bed with him."
I shrugged. "It's not a fate worse than death."
"Very true, niece of mine."
Our eyes met through the nothing of the mirror. She nodded and pushed the man to his feet. She slapped his butt as he walked out of frame. "He'll be right over."
"Great," I said. "Now get out, Griffin."
Griffin hesitated, then walked into view of the mirror. He glanced from one to the other of us. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it. Probably the wisest thing he could have done.
He bowed, "My queen." He turned to me. "I will see you again, Merry."
I shook my head. "What for?"
"You did love me once," he said, and it was almost a question, almost a plea.
I could have lied-there was no spell on me-but I didn't. "Yes, Griffin, I loved you, once."
He looked at me, eyes roving over the bed and the smorgasbord of men. "I am sorry, Merry." He sounded sincere.
"Sorry you lost me, sorry you killed my love for you, or sorry that you can't fuck me anymore?"
"All of it," he said. "I'm sorry for all of it."
"Good boy. Now get out," I said.