Rhys flung himself onto the bed, settling himself onto his side, and plumping the pillows so that he was half sitting against the headboard. One knee was up, the other half bent so that he flaunted himself to all of us as we came into the room. The grin on his face did not bode well; it was the look he usually wore when he was going to tease. Frost did not respond well to teasing, and that was an understatement.
"No teasing, Rhys, I mean it. I am tired, it's late, and it's been a very weird day." I opened the bedside table and tried to put the chalice into the drawer. It didn't fit. The drawer was too shallow. I cursed softly under my breath. "Do you think it would be all right just sitting by the bed wrapped in the silk?"
"Probably," he said.
I sat the silk-wrapped cup beside the lamp, and somehow wanted it both farther away and closer. It made no sense, but I wanted to hold it in my hand, have it touch me, so I'd know it wouldn't vanish, and I wanted to hide it in the bottom of a drawer, bury it under clothes, and never have to touch it again. I settled for putting it on the floor beside the bed, half hidden under the dust ruffle. If someone broke in, it wouldn't be immediately apparent, and if I needed to grab it quickly, I could.
"You're so touchy tonight," Rhys said. "Not used to having hot lesbian sex, are you?"
I glared at him. "It was a privilege to bring Maeve to her first sidhe-on-sidhe orgasm in a century, but you know I didn't do it on purpose."
"Looked pretty on purpose to me," he said, still grinning.
Fine, he was going to be difficult. "You're just jealous that I got to touch her and you didn't."
The grin faded around the edges. "Maybe." The grin flared back to life. "Or maybe I'm jealous that I didn't get to be in the middle."
I opened my robe, and the moment he saw me nude, his eye took on a look that I'd begun to know well. It was a look between pain and hunger, as if the wanting was so strong that it hurt him somehow. I'd assumed the look was because of the years of celibacy, but only Rhys looked at me like that. I liked it, and wondered about it, and knew it was something so personal that I'd never ask. If he didn't volunteer the story behind it, I would never know. If he ever lost the look, then, and only then, I might be able to ask.
Frost and Sage were arguing in the hallway behind us. Rhys, unfortunately, wasn't the only one in a teasing mood. Sage I couldn't control, but Rhys, that I could do something about.
I crawled naked onto the bed, and said, "Please, Rhys, don't tease Frost, not tonight."
He wasn't looking at my face, and I didn't think he'd heard me. I tried again. "Rhys, Rhys, up here, eye contact." I snapped my fingers to get his attention.
He blinked and took a long time to finally get to my face. "Did you say something?"
I hit him with a pillow, which he caught and wrapped his arms around. "I mean it, Rhys. If you make this difficult in any way, I'm going to be pissed." I picked up another pillow and hugged it. "I'm tired, Rhys, I mean really physically tired. I want sleep, not to wade through the emotional fallout from Frost sharing blood with Sage." I met his gaze and was happy to see the grin had faded. "Please, don't make this harder."
He was solemn now. "Asking me, or telling me?"
"Right now, I'm asking as a friend, a lover, not as princess."
He moved the pillow behind him so he was sitting up even higher. "Okay, since you asked nicely." The grin crept back. "Besides, Frost isn't really my type."
I rolled my eyes. "If you make one homosexual joke, I will kick you out of this bed tonight. I swear it"
"Would I do a thing like that?"
"Yes, damn it, you would." I touched his arm, gripped it. "Rhys, please, don't."
Frost and Sage were almost in the room, and now I could hear what they were arguing about. Frost wanted Sage to take blood without using glamour, and Sage wanted to use glamour. It was more fun that way, the little demi-fey was saying.
Rhys's face went serious, and he sighed. "I like Frost, he's a good man in a fight, but he's been touchy as hell on a winter's day since he joined the courts as a sidhe."
I caught the odd phrasing, but I knew what Rhys meant. I'd seen Frost's first form. That form hadn't been sidhe. There'd been so much happening that I hadn't had time to think about the meaning of any of it. Frost hadn't always been sidhe, yet I'd been taught that you had to have sidhe blood in your veins to become sidhe. I remembered him dancing across the snow, child-like, beautiful, the way a rush of snow is beautiful when the wind lifts it up and throws it to the sky in a dance of shimmering silver. What I'd seen hadn't been sidhe. I wasn't sure what it had been, but if not sidhe, then what? If never sidhe before, then how was he sidhe now? Questions, and no time for answers, because Frost came through the door with Sage fluttering at his shoulder. I couldn't talk to Frost about what I'd seen in the vision in front of Sage. I wasn't sure that Frost would want it discussed even in front of Rhys, but I knew that Sage wouldn't be welcome in the discussion.
Sage entered fluttering at Frost's shoulder the way a taller fey would have walked at his side. "I will not do it without the glamour, and there's an end of it."
Frost was shaking his head, all that silver hair sparkling in the light. "I will not allow you to bespell me, Sage, and that is the true end of it."
"Gentlemen," I said.
They both turned with petulant anger plain on their faces. But Sage's face went from pouting to lust in the blink of an eye. He flew toward the bed with a laugh, fluttering above my head like a tiny helicopter trying to get a better view.
Frost stayed by the door, and the look on his face stayed petulant, angry, with just a hint of fear. It showed in his grey eyes for a few moments, real fear, then it was gone, lost behind his arrogance. I knew the arrogance was partly to hide whatever he was thinking. I knew he was more than that now, but the knowledge didn't really make him any easier to deal with because it meant he was unsure of the situation, or didn't like it. Never a good thing.
I held out my hand to him. "Come to me, Frost."
"To you I would gladly come, Meredith, but not to all of you."
I let my hand fall across the pillow that was still in my lap. Sage wasn't getting quite as good a show as he might have wanted, but he fluttered joyously above me because I tended to put on clothes or get under the covers before he took blood. He'd proven himself untrustworthy. I don't mind being groped when I've invited it, but unwanted attention I didn't need. I figured with Rhys and Frost, I'd be safe enough. Looking at Frost still standing by the door, I began to wonder.
"You agreed to this, Frost," I said.
"I agreed to give blood, but not to let the little fey work his glamour on me."
Sage turned in midair and fluttered back toward the bigger man. "A sidhe who fears the magic of a demi-fey, what riddle is this?"
"I do not fear you, little man, but I will not willingly allow any fey to use his magic upon me."
"Allowing Sage to use glamour when he takes blood is the compromise, since I won't give him sex."
"It is not my compromise," Frost said, and he seemed to look taller, broader of shoulder, more sure of himself. I'd learned that the more certain he seemed, the less certain he was, but he wouldn't have thanked me for knowing that, let alone for sharing it.
Rhys sat up from the pillows where he'd been reclining. "Princess, may I?"
I made a small motion, and sighed. "If you think you can help."
"Let Sage taste Frost" - he hurried with the next words, because of the look of outrage on Frost's face - "as he tasted me, a tiny lick, nothing else. Let's see if Frost really tastes like a god, or whether he just tastes sidhe."
It wasn't a bad idea. "Frost, will you allow Sage to lick you, that and nothing more?"
Frost opened his mouth, I think to refuse, but I added. "Frost, please, it's not that much to ask."
He hesitated a moment, then nodded, once. "I will allow it."
"Sage," I said, "a small lick like you gave Rhys in the other room, nothing else."
Sage flew close enough to the bed for me to see a truly evil smile, but he nodded. I didn't trust it, but he nodded again and fluttered toward Frost.
Frost started to take a step back, then seemed to realize what he was doing and stood his ground. Most sidhe seemed to believe that no one short of another sidhe could use glamour on them successfully. It wasn't true, but a lot of them believed it was. The fact that Frost didn't believe it made me wonder whose magic he'd fallen afoul of. He reacted as if he had reason to fear the demi-fey.
"Wait," I said. "Has Frost ever been given to the demi-fey for torture like Galen was given to them?"
"No," Frost and Rhys said in unison.
Sage shook his head. "We've never had the pleasure of the Killing Frost staked out for us." He licked his tiny lips, making enough of a show of it that we'd all see. "Yum."
Frost looked at me. "Don't make me do this."
"Do what? Let him lick your skin, see what you taste like? It's not a hardship, Frost. Did you fall afoul of some lesser fey's glamour? Is that why you're worried?" The moment I said it, I knew I'd been too bold.
"I have fallen afoul of no fey." His face was at its most beautiful, cold and arrogant, with the bone structure to make a plastic surgeon weep with envy. The grey of the silk robe seemed almost to blend with the glittering silver of his hair. He was like some sculpture too beautiful to touch, too proud to stoop to touching anyone else.
I wanted to ask him what was wrong, but didn't dare in front of the other men. I looked into that face, trailed my gaze down his chest, his waist, thought about everything that lay under the robe, and knew that even if we'd been alone, he might not have admitted that anything was wrong.
"Taste him, Sage." My voice sounded as tired and discouraged as I felt.
Sage moved forward, his wings barely moving, as if he should have fallen rather than floated. He hovered just over Frost's face, then darted in and out, a blur of yellow and blue and red. He was near the ceiling and out of reach before Frost could swat at his face, almost as if Sage had known he'd do it.
Sage was hissing, and at first I thought it was because Frost had swatted at him; then I heard the anger in his voice. "He tastes no different from the white knight."
"Then take my blood and let Frost out of it," Rhys said.
Sage flew near the bed. He crossed tiny arms across his chest and stamped his foot in midair, as if he were on solid ground. "No. I bargained for two sidhe warriors, and it's two I want."
"I'll give blood," Frost said, "but no glamour. I agreed to blood, not magic."
Rhys started to say something, but I touched his arm. "You'll have what we bargained for, Sage, all of it, but let Frost go back to his bed. He's no use to us tonight."
Frost flinched at my last words, a mere tightening around his eyes, but I'd made a study of him and knew what it meant.
"Who would you have in his place?" Sage asked, flying lower so that he and I were face to face. "Galen, perhaps?" His smile managed to be both evil and happy.
"You know better than to ask, Sage," I said.
He pouted, but he didn't mean it. "I will not share you with the goblin again. I want no drink from Darkness." He seemed to think about it for a moment, then alit upon the pillow in my lap. The purple satin sagged under his weight. He was always heavier than he looked, or even than I remembered. "Nicca, then, for he is all that remains."
I nodded. "Agreed."
"You have not asked Nicca if he will allow the demi-fey to take his blood," Frost said.
I looked at him, and he was still heart-stoppingly handsome. The question was, was beauty enough, and the answer, of course, was, no. "I don't have to ask Nicca, Frost. If I send for him, he'll come, and he'll do what I tell him to do. Nicca won't argue about it, he'll just do what needs doing."
"And I won't," Frost said, tilting his chin upward, looking like something carved of arrogance and defiance.
I sighed. "I love you, Frost."
That softened his face, made the uncertainty rise to the surface for a moment.
"I love you in my bed, I love so much about you, but I will be queen. I will be absolute ruler of our court. You seem to keep forgetting what that means. No matter who is king, I will still rule. Do you understand that, Frost?"
"You would have a puppet as your king."
"No, I would have a partner who knows that unpleasant things must be done, and doesn't argue about things that cannot be changed."
"I cannot be other than I am," he said, and his voice didn't match the steel calm of his face.
"I know that." My voice was soft.
For a second he looked woebegone, then the icy arrogance slid back into place. The mask that he'd worn for centuries at the court. He stared down at me, and there was nothing in his face that I could reason with. He was Frost, the Killing Frost. You do not reason with the cold of winter. You either take shelter from it, or you die.
His voice was as cold as I'd ever heard it when he said, "I will send Nicca to you and I will tell him nothing but that you require him."
"Do that," I said, and couldn't keep my own voice from growing colder. I was angry with him, angry and frustrated, and I didn't know how to save the situation. I was a future queen, and I couldn't even handle my own personal life. That seemed a bad sign. I added, "Thank you, Frost."
"Don't thank me, Princess, I'm just doing my duty." He turned as if to go.
I called him back with my words. "Frost, don't do this."
He only half turned. "Do what?"
"Make this all about you and your hurt feelings. Some things aren't about you. Some things aren't personal at all, they are just necessary."
"May I go?"
I said a short silent prayer for patience with this impossible man, then said, "Yes, go, send Nicca to us."
He left without a backward glance, one hand rubbing the small of his back, which meant he'd had a weapon of some kind there. Frost seldom went completely unarmed. And when he felt insecure he touched his weapons, the way some women play with their jewelry.
"Well," Rhys said, "that went badly."
"Moody, even for the Killing Frost," Sage said, "and angrier."
"Fear," Rhys said, softly.
"What?" I asked.
"Fear," he repeated. "The haughtier Frost gets, the more nervous he is, and nerves is just another word for fear."
"What's he afraid of?" I asked.
"Me." Sage sprang into the air, twirling as if to show off his wings and his skill.
Rhys grinned. "You can be fearsome, but I don't think that's it."
"Then what?" I asked.
Rhys shrugged. "I don't know."
Nicca appeared in the doorway. His ankle-length hair was like a tousled cloak around his body, but he'd thrown on his robe of royal purple silk. The color suited him, bringing out the rich brown of his eyes, the reddish highlights in his nearly auburn hair. It made his skin seem darker, more chocolate. "Frost said you wanted me."
I explained what we needed, and he simply said yes. No fight, no pouting, no disagreement of any kind. It was more than refreshing. It was exactly what the night needed, something simple instead of difficult. Frost in my bed was a thing of great hunger, huge demands, and fierce pleasure. Tonight a little agreeable pleasure, some lesser demands, and a gentle hunger seemed just what the doctor ordered.