Merry Gentry 03 - Seduced by Moonlight (17 page)

"Everyone agrees it's a bad idea, Galen," I said.

"Then why do it?"

"To find out what Taranis wants," Doyle said, "in the least dangerous way."

"If going to the Seelie Court and standing next to the King of Light and Illusion is the least dangerous way, I'd like to know what the
most
dangerous way would be."

Doyle finally stood and walked toward Galen, who was still pacing the kitchen. He stopped the pacing by simply standing in front of Galen, forcing him to stand still. They stood and looked at each other, and for the first time I felt something between them. Some test of wills that had happened with Doyle and Frost, Doyle and Rhys, but never Galen.

"The most dangerous way would be if we refused Taranis's invitation and gave him an excuse to call Meredith out for a duel."

"It's been centuries since anyone's dueled over matters of court etiquette," Rhys said.

"Yes," Doyle said, but his gaze never left Galen. For the first time I was aware that Galen and Doyle were the same height, and Galen's shoulders were actually a touch broader. "But it is still an acceptable reason to give challenge. If Taranis wants Merry dead, it would be perfect. She could not refuse him outright, because to do so would force her into exile. A sidhe noble who refuses challenge, for whatever reason, is branded a coward, and cowards cannot rule at either court."

Galen's shoulders rounded a little, as if he slumped. "He wouldn't dare."

"He released the Nameless to slay one sidhe woman, for fear she would whisper his secret. I think Taranis would dare anything."

"I didn't think . . ." Galen started.

"No," Doyle said, "you did not."

Galen stepped back from him. "Fine, I'm stupid, I don't understand court politics, and I don't understand being that devious. I'm useless at strategy, but I'm still scared for Merry to go into the Seelie Court."

Doyle gripped his arm. "We are all worried about that."

They had a moment when their eyes met, and then it was okay between them again. Had Galen been challenging Doyle in small ways for a while, and I just hadn't noticed, or had this been the first? As challenges went, it was mild, but even a mild challenge from Galen was something I'd never seen. He just wasn't a leader. He didn't want to be. But for fear of my safety he'd stood up to Doyle.

I went to Galen and hugged him from behind. He rubbed his hands over my arms, sliding the silk of my robe up so he could touch my skin. He was wearing only the dress slacks he'd started the day in, so that I had the warm skin of his stomach against my hands. "I can't tell you it will be all right, Galen, but we're going to do our best to have enough muscle and political allies on our side to make even Taranis hesitate."

"I don't like that part of the plan, either," Galen said. "You cannot agree to sleep with all the half-goblins."

I started to pull away from him, and he caught my hands, held me pressed against his stomach. "Please, Merry, please, don't be mad."

"I'm not mad, Galen, but I am not going to argue about this with anyone else. I mean it. We have our plan, it's the best we can do, and that is that." I pulled my hands out of his grip, and he didn't fight me. I turned to Doyle. "The chalice complicates things, but it doesn't really change anything."

He gave a small nod. "As you say."

"What if Merry keeps the chalice on the grounds that the Goddess gave it to her?" Nicca said. He'd gone to kneel by the table so he could look at the goblet more closely.

"I don't think divine intervention is a good enough reason," Rhys said.

"But it is our tradition," Nicca said. "They may have messed the story up and confused it with other stories, but
Whosoever pulls this sword out of the stone is rightful king
is still true. The Ard-Ris of Ireland had a stone that would cry out at the touch of the rightful king."

"There are those who believe that when the Ard-Ri was no longer chosen by the stone, that is when the Irish lost to the English," Doyle said. "They forsook their heritage, their great magic, and the line of true kings was broken."

I looked at him. "I didn't know you had Fenian leanings."

"You do not have to be a Fenian to understand that the English have tried to destroy the Irish through any means—political, cultural, even agricultural. The Scots were treated badly, but the Irish have always been the special whipping boys of the English."

"The Irish fight among themselves, that's why they keep coming up short," Rhys said.

Doyle gave him an unfriendly look.

"It's the truth, Doyle, they're still killing each other over who crosses themselves when they bend a knee to the Christian God. You don't see the Scots, or the Welsh, slaughtering each other over a matter not of which god they pray to, but of how they pray to the very same God. I mean, that's a crazy reason to kill each other."

Doyle let out a breath, then said, "The Irish have always been a hard people."

"Hard, and melancholy," Rhys said. "They make the Welsh look cheerful."

Doyle actually smiled. "Aye."

"Can Merry actually claim the right to keep the chalice on the grounds that it chose her?" Galen asked. "I'm not old enough to remember anybody getting to be king because some stone cried out, so will this actually work?"

"It should work," Doyle said, "but I can't say that the Seelie Court will bow to tradition. It has been so long since the great relics have been among us that many have forgotten how we acquired them in the first place."

"Forgotten because they wish to forget," Nicca said.

"Perhaps, but just saying Meredith owns the vessel because it came to her from the hand of the Goddess Herself will take some convincing."

"How do I prove that the Goddess gave me the goblet?" I asked.

Doyle waved a hand at the table. "The fact that we have the goblet is the proof."

"We prove that the Goddess gave me the chalice by simply having the chalice in my possession?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Isn't that a circular argument?"

"Yes," he said.

"I don't think they're going to buy that."

"I am open to suggestions," Doyle said. Doyle was the master strategist, so whenever he asked for suggestions on a plan, it made me nervous. When he didn't know what we were doing for certain, it didn't usually bode well.

"Whatever we decide, Merry must keep the chalice," Nicca said, "and that means that our queen can't have it, either."

"Oh, shit," Rhys said. "I hadn't thought of that."

I looked at Doyle. "You talked about spies, but that's really why you don't want her to know, isn't it?"

He sighed. "Let us just say that I do not know what she will do when she finds out. The reappearance of the chalice was most unexpected, and the method by which you gained it is also unexpected." He shrugged. "I do not know what she will do, and I do not like not knowing. It is dangerous not to know."

"I'm only her heir if I get pregnant before Cel gets someone else pregnant. She's still my queen, and if she demands the cup of me, I'm duty-bound to give it to her, aren't I?"

Doyle seemed to think for a moment, then nodded. "I believe so, yes."

"Merry must keep the chalice," Nicca said.

"You keep saying that," Rhys said. "Why are you so sure of it?"

"It vanished once because we weren't worthy to keep it. What if Merry hands it over to someone else who isn't worthy, and it goes away again?"

"I think our queen would allow Merry to keep the chalice on that logic alone," Doyle said. "She would not risk the loss of it again."

"If Taranis forces us to give him the chalice and it vanishes again," Galen said, "then it would be the ultimate proof that he isn't worthy to lead."

"And we might prevent him from taking the goblet by that logic," Doyle said, "but only in a private audience. We cannot by hint or faintest action allow anyone to guess that we do not think he is worthy to be king."

"Not my court, not my problem," I said.

"We will try very hard to keep it from being our problem," Doyle said. "Now, I think a little sleep is in order for all of us. We are leaving for the courts in less than a day, and there is much to do."

"What do we do with the chalice? We can't just leave it here on the table," I said.

"Wrap it in the silk and take it to the spare bedroom. Put it in a drawer beside you."

"We're not going to lock it up in the safe? The guest house does have one."

"I think that anyone who might want to steal it would have little trouble tearing the safe out of the wall."

"Oh," I said. "Maybe I've been too long out among the humans. I keep forgetting how very strong some of us can be."

"I think, Princess, you had best not be forgetting things like that. Once we return to the high courts of faerie, you will need to remember just how dangerous everything and everyone can be."

"Is the discussion finished?" Sage asked from midair.

Doyle looked around the room, meeting everyone's solemn face. "Yes, I believe it is."

"Good," Sage said. "I'm due some blood, and I want it now."

I heard Frost take a breath to argue, and I knew the sound so well that I said, "No, Frost, he's right. We bargained, and sidhe who don't keep their bargains are worthless."

"I will not go back on our bargain, but I do not like it."

I sighed. I'd been feeding Sage once a week for a month, but Frost had to open his own lily-white vein once, just once, and it was a major problem. I loved Frost when I was in his arms. I even loved Frost when I was looking at his beauty, but I was beginning to not love Frost when he pouted; to not love him when he made simple things so much harder than they had to be. It made me question whether I had ever been in love with Frost, or had it just been lust? Or maybe I was just tired. Tired of it always being my blood and my body on the line. It was Frost's turn to take one for the team, and I really didn't want to hear any whining about it, no matter how delightful he looked while he did it.

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."