But the door opened, and it was Sholto, Lord of Shadows and That Which Passes Between, King of the Sluagh. He came in with his unbound hair, in a white-blond cloak over a black-and-silver tunic and boots.
He wasted a smile on me, and I got the full impact of his tricolored eyes: metallic gold around the pupil, then amber, then yellow like aspen leaves in the fall. His smile faded as he turned to the other men and said, “I heard you yelling, Sea Lord, and I have been crowned by faerie and the gods themselves. Does that make this fight more mine?”
Chapter Twenty-six
“I do not fear you, Sluagh Lord,” Barinthus said, and again there was that angry sound from the sea outside.
Sholto’s smile vanished completely, leaving his handsome face arrogant, starkly beautiful, and totally unfriendly. “You will,” he said, and his voice held an edge of anger. There was a sparkle of gold as his eyes began to shine.
The sea outside slapped against the glass again, harder, angrier. It wasn’t just that it was a bad idea for the men to duel; it was dangerous for all of us here by the sea. I couldn’t believe that Barinthus, of all people, was behaving so badly. He’d been the voice of reason for centuries at the Unseelie Court, and now … I’d missed some change in him, or maybe without Queen Andais, the Queen of Air and Darkness, to keep him in check, I was seeing the real him after all. That was a sad thought for me.
“Enough of this,” Doyle said, “both of you.”
Barinthus turned on Doyle, and said, “It is you who I’m angry at, Darkness. If you prefer to fight me yourself that will be fine.”
“I thought you were mad at me, Barinthus,” Galen said. That caught me off guard; I’d thought he would know better than to attract the big man’s anger a second time.
Barinthus turned and looked at Galen, who was still in the bathroom doorway. The sea slapped against the windows behind him hard enough to shake them. “You didn’t betray everything by refusing the crown, but if you want a piece of this fight, you may have it.”
Galen gave a small smile, and moved away from the doorway. “If the Goddess had given me a choice between the throne and Frost’s life, I would have chosen his life, just as Doyle did.”
My stomach tightened at his words. Then I realized that Galen was baiting Barinthus, and the anxiety went away. I felt suddenly calmer, almost happy. It was such an abrupt change of mood I knew it wasn’t me. I looked at Galen walking slowly toward Barinthus, his hand out almost as if he was offering to shake hands. Oh, my Goddess, he was doing magic on us all, and he was one of the few who could have because much of his magic showed no outward sign. He didn’t glow, or shimmer, or be anything but pleasant, and you just felt like being pleasant back.
Barinthus didn’t threaten again as Galen moved slowly, carefully, smiling, hand out toward the other man.
“Then you are a fool, too,” Barinthus said, but the rage in his voice was less, and the next slap of ocean against the windows was also less. It didn’t rattle the windows this time.
“We all love Merry,” Galen said, still moving gently forward, “don’t we?”
Barinthus frowned, clearly puzzled. “Of course I love Meredith.”
“Then we’re all on the same side, aren’t we?”
Barinthus frowned harder, but finally gave a small nod. “Yes.” That one word was low, but clear.
Galen was almost to him, his hand almost touching his arm, and I knew that if his glamour was working this well from a distance, that one touch would calm the whole situation. There’d be no fight if that hand once touched that arm. Even knowing what was happening didn’t completely nullify the effects of Galen’s charm, and I was just getting the backwash of it. Most of it was concentrated on Barinthus. Galen was willing him to calm down. He was willing him to be friends.
A scream sounded from outside the room, but it was inside the house. The scream was high pitched and terror filled. Galen’s glamour was like most; it shattered with the scream and the adrenaline rush as everyone went for weapons. I owned guns, but hadn’t packed one for the beach. It wouldn’t have mattered, because Doyle pushed me to the floor on the far side of the bed, and ordered Galen to stay with me. He, of course, would go for the scream.
Galen knelt by me, gun out and ready, though not pointed, because there was nothing to point at yet.
Sholto had the door opened, staying to one side of the doorjamb so he didn’t make a target of himself. He was on the queen’s guard when he wasn’t king of his own kingdom, and he knew the possibilities of modern weapons, and a well-placed arrow. Barinthus was pressed to the other side of the flattened door, the fight forgotten, as they did what they had trained to do for longer than America had been a country.
Whatever they saw out there made Sholto move forward at a cautious crouch, gun in one hand, sword in the other. Barinthus spilled around the door with no visible weapon, but when you’re seven feet tall, more than humanly strong, nearly immortal, and a trained fighter, you don’t always need a weapon. You are the weapon.
Rhys went next, keeping low, gun in hand. Frost and Doyle glided through the door armed and ready, and just like that it was just Galen and me in the suddenly empty room. My pulse was thudding in my ears, pushing at my throat, not at the thought of what might have caused one of my female guards to scream, but at the thought of the men I loved, the fathers of my children, maybe never coming back through that door again. Death had touched me too early for me not to understand that nearly immortal is not the same thing as truly immortal. My father’s death had taught me that.
Maybe if I’d been queen enough to sacrifice Frost for the crown, I would have been more worried about the other women, but I was honest with myself. I’d only been trying to be friends with them for a few weeks, I loved the men, and for someone you love, you will sacrifice much. Anyone who says otherwise has either never truly loved or is lying to themselves.
I heard voices, but they weren’t yelling, just talking. I whispered to Galen, “Can you understand what they’re saying?”
Most of the sidhe had better-than-human hearing, I did not. He cocked his head to one side, gun now pointed at the empty doorway, ready to shoot anything that came through it.
“Voices, women. I can’t understand what they’re saying, but I can tell that one is Hafwyn, one of them is crying, and Saraid is pissed. Now Doyle, and Ivi, he’s upset but not angry. He sounds panicked, as if whatever’s happened bothered him.”
Galen glanced down at me, frowning a little. “Ivi sounds contrite.”
I frowned, too. “Ivi is never contrite about anything.”
Galen nodded, and then was suddenly all attention at the door. I watched his finger begin to pull. I couldn’t see anything around the corner of the bed. Then he raised the gun toward the ceiling and let out a breath in a low whoosh, which let me know how close he’d come to pulling that trigger.
“Sholto,” he said, and got up, gun still in one hand, and held his other hand down for me. I took it and let him help me stand.
“What’s happened?” I asked.
“Did you know that Ivi and Dogmaela had sex last night?” he asked.
I nodded. “Not exactly, but I knew that Ivi and Brii took lovers among the women who were willing.”
Sholto smiled and shook his head, his face halfway between amused and thinking about something far too hard. “It seems that after last night Ivi assumed he could give her a little cuddle, and something he did seems to have terrified her.”
“What did he do to her?” I asked.
“Hafwyn was witness and agrees with Ivi about what he did and did not do. Apparently, he merely came up behind Dogmaela, wrapped his arms around her waist, and picked her up off the floor, and she began to scream,” Sholto said. “Dogmaela is too hysterical to make much sense. Saraid is being physically restrained from attacking Ivi, and the man seems honestly puzzled by the turn of events.”