Merry Gentry 03 - Seduced by Moonlight (35 page)

"Are you actually going to strip in the car?" I asked.

"I am wet through and through, Princess. If I can get the clothes off, I will begin to dry. The clothes will stay wet longer than my skin will."

"It is true that the ring sparked for me when Meredith first returned to the courts, but I thought then that I could be of more use to her if I remained at the courts, as her ally. Sadly, I still think so."

"The queen will give you no choice," Usna said, "except to see the Hallway of Mortality before you bed the princess. That choice you may have."

I looked at Barinthus. I wanted to ask him if he would claim his true name before the entire court, or at least the queen. But I couldn't ask without giving away that there was more secret to tell. It was his secret, not mine.

If he understood my look, he ignored it. "When I touched the ring many months ago, it was nothing like today. Nothing."

"The ring has grown stronger," Doyle said.

"That alone may not be it," Rhys said.

We looked at him.

He moved aside his soaking-wet trench coat and held up the chalice. Those of us who knew it was back were shocked. Barinthus, who hadn't known, was beyond shocked.

"Where did you get that?" Barinthus finally managed in a voice that was barely a whisper.

"I rescued it from the dais where it had fallen. It was hidden underneath a flap of your coat. I don't think anyone got a picture of it. When Barinthus stood, I palmed it, as discreetly as I could."

"It was locked in the makeup case, wrapped in cloth," I said.

Nicca held up the small case from where it had been sitting by his feet. "I fetched it with us, as Doyle directed. I had not held it before, so I did not notice the change in weight."

"How did it get out of the box?" I asked.

Doyle motioned, and Nicca opened the box. The black silk covering lay folded in the bottom of the case. I started to pull the silk out, to help put the chalice inside again, but Doyle said, "No, Merry, do not touch it and any one of us at the same time. We are not equipped to do another emergency circle of power. I am not entirely certain that it would be successful inside the metal of the car while it was moving."

"Do you think we contained the energy?" Rhys asked.

"I do not know," he said.

"I do not mean," said Barinthus, "where did you get it just now. I mean how did it come to you?"

"I dreamed of it, and when I woke it was in bed with me."

"I thought this was a secret," Sage said.

"Barinthus needs to know," Rhys said, "and all cats love to keep secrets."

"Princess and Darkness have no problem with that?" Sage asked.

Doyle and I exchanged glances, then both of us shook our heads. "No," we said together.

Usna had managed to wiggle out of all his clothing. He crawled toward us with his shoulder holster flapping loose over his bare shoulders and his sheathed sword in one hand. Crawling on all fours, even with the sword in one hand, seemed strangely suited to him. His right shoulder and most of his upper arm were black, and, if I remembered, his back was red and black. A flash of red decorated what I could see of his right hip, and the calf of his left leg.

He spoke to them, but he stared at me. "What came in a dream?" His voice was lightly curious, and held none of the heat of his gaze.

"This," Rhys said.

When Usna saw what Rhys held, he raised up on his knees and cursed long and soundly in Gaelic. "The chalice, the real chalice?"

"It would seem so," Barinthus said.

I was inches away from Usna where he knelt. Perhaps I had been too much among the humans, but it struck me as odd that he could be this close to me nude and not be aroused. Something in me felt slighted by that. Childish? Maybe. But I had the almost irresistible urge to cup him in my hand and make him notice me. I must have made some small movement because Barinthus touched my shoulder, stopped my arm from finishing the motion.

"Do you feel compelled to touch him?"

I thought about that. "Maybe, sort of."

"Then do not do it here with the chalice so close. As Doyle has said, we are in a moving car. The water at the press conference would have been enough to flood the interior of this car."

I leaned back on my knees, resting on my heels. It wasn't entirely comfortable because of the spike high heels. The patent leather just didn't have as much give as regular leather.

"You're right," I said, and crawled away from Usna and the chalice. I didn't stop until my back hit Galen's damp legs and the puddle of water that was collecting under the three men on the seat. I stayed in the water. My hose, skirt, and panties were all black. It was uncomfortable, but it wouldn't ruin anything I was wearing. At that moment it was more important to be as far away from the chalice as I could get. Stretch limo, or not, there just wasn't room to run.

"What would have happened if the princess touched me?" Usna asked.

"Perhaps nothing," Barinthus said, "or perhaps much." He turned toward Doyle. "The chalice always had a mind and agenda of its own. Has that changed?"

Doyle shook his head. "On the contrary, it seems to have grown worse."

"Consort help us," Barinthus whispered.

The driver spoke over the intercom. "The bridge is blocked off, police lights everywhere."

Doyle hit the button. "What's happened?"

Silence, then the driver's voice again. "The river is over the bridge. I haven't seen the river that high since the big flood of 'ninety-four. Strange, we haven't had any rain."

In the silence that followed, we all looked at each other. "It looks as if we did not contain all the power from Barinthus's return to godhead," Doyle said.

I remembered the earthquake that had happened after I brought Kitto into his power. A thought occurred to me. "Was there an earthquake in California after we left today?"

Barinthus shook his head. "I checked the weather to see if your plane would be delayed; there was no earthquake." He looked suddenly thoughtful. "There was a freak windstorm, almost a tornado, which they do not have there, but it was not close to the airport."

We all exchanged glances, those of us who knew.

"What is it?" Barinthus asked.

"When I brought Kitto into his power, there was an earthquake later that night."

"What has that to do with the windstorm?"

"Nicca's wings came at the same moment that . . ." I shook my head. "Sage, just show him."

Sage turned to Barinthus and the now staring Usna. Sage was smiling, enjoying the hell out of all of it. He lowered his sunglasses enough for them to see the tricolor of his eyes.

Usna hissed. "Goddess, he's sidhe."

Barinthus touched Sage's face, put the newly colored eyes toward the light. "He is not sidhe, no part of him." He let go of Sage and turned to stare at me. "You did this?"

I nodded.

"How?"

"Sex."

Barinthus frowned. "You said Nicca's wings came at the same time."

I nodded. "Yes."

He seemed to think about that for a moment. "You had sex with both of them at the same time."

The fey did not have a problem with multiple partners, and it was rude of him to remark upon it. "What does that matter?" Doyle said, coming to my defense.

"The queen is convinced that Meredith must take more than one lover at a time, to conceive."

"Why?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I am not sure, but she has been very clear on her plans in this area." By wording it that way, he implied that she had been unclear about her plans in other areas.

"I have taken multiple lovers before this, Barinthus."

"Who?"

Rhys was wrapping the chalice in its silk robe, tucking it into the case once more, as he answered, "Me and Nicca."

Nicca closed the lid of the makeup case and tested the latch, though I think we all knew that wasn't the problem.

"The queen seems quite taken with the idea that Meredith must take more than one lover at the same time. When she finds out that this has already been done and no baby has come . . ." He shook his head, and looked at me. "The queen seems calmer of late, Meredith, but in some ways more determined. Once set upon a course of action, she is no longer distractible by putting an attractive man in her way, or an opportunity to torture. Her hobbies do not seem to interest her as they once did."

That sex and torture were my aunt's hobbies had always made her difficult to deal with, or so I'd thought. Barinthus was saying the opposite.

"Are you saying that you used sex and pain to distract her over the years?" I asked.

He nodded. "It was like offering a child candy. They take their sweets and forget what they were angry about. But in the last few weeks, no amount of painful candy derails her thoughts. She will take the diversion, use it up, and then come right back to where you wanted her not to go." He was frowning. "On the one hand, it is good to see her thinking with her head instead of her groin. On the other hand, we at court had become accustomed to dealing with her groin. The head is not so easily distracted."

"If she's thinking with her head and not lower, then why is she fixated on me with multiple lovers?"

"She seems determined that that is the only way you will become pregnant. That, and she is choosing plant and agricultural deities for you. She seems equally fixated on that."

"And you have no idea why?" Doyle asked.

He shook his head. "I know that something has happened. She tortured Conri, tortured him personally."

"Didn't he just get tortured for trying to kill me last time I was here?"

"Yes, but he had done nothing wrong. He seemed as shocked as the rest of us when she took him. She paraded his broken body in the great room, made everyone walk by him and see what had been done to him, but he was gagged the entire time, so he could not speak. He lies isolated in a cell, seen only by Fflur, the queen's healer."

"Conri was one of Cel's staunchest supporters among the guards," Doyle said.

Barinthus nodded. "Yes, and what a scrambling there was among Cel's people, who had persisted in making it clear that they considered Meredith unfit for the throne. They toadied, and did everything and anything they could dream up to win the queen's favor."

"Was Conri the only one she tortured?" I asked.

"As of now, but the rest of Cel's allies are frightened."

"You made mention of him not being able to speak," Doyle said. "Do you think he told the queen something, something she doesn't want others to know?"

Barinthus nodded. "I do."

"Do you have any idea what it is?"

"Only that it was after Conri's torture that the queen began to fixate on multiple lovers for Meredith and that most of them should be plant or agricultural deities." He shrugged. "You now know what I know. If you can make more sense of it than I, I will be happy to hear it."

Doyle shook his head. "I will think upon it."

"We all will," Rhys said.

The others nodded.

The driver's voice came back on the intercom. "They're starting to let cars through. The river just went back down. Weird."

Someone gave a nervous laugh. I said, "Well, it could have been worse."

They all looked at me. "We may have flooded every river and stream around St. Louis," Doyle said. "How much worse could it be?"

"St. Louis used to be part of a great inland sea, about a million years ago, give or take a millennium," I said, softly.

The silence in the car was suddenly thicker than before, heavy with a sort of shared horror. "Kitto got a small earth tremor. Nicca and Sage got a windstorm," Galen said. "I don't think bringing Barinthus back into his godhead would rate sinking most of a continent."

I knew exactly which of us knew that Barinthus was Manannan Mac Lir by who looked at him, and then away. Galen didn't know. But I did, and the thought of raising that much power without a formal circle of protection made my blood run cold. Though that could have been the puddle of water I was sitting in, too.

It was a long, cold walk from the parking area to the faerie mounds. The snow was knee-deep on me, and there was no way for my mortal body to wade through it in four-inch spike heels and a miniskirt. Not without breaking an ankle or getting frostbite. So I was carried, and the only one who wasn't wet through was Barinthus. Everyone else's clothes began to freeze in the icy wind, and those who had no magical protection against the elements shivered as we waded through the snow.

Barinthus carried me easily. What would have had me floundering in the powdery depths was nothing to his height. I'd always known he was two feet taller than me, but as he carried me in his arms pressed against his broad chest, I was aware as I had never been before how physically imposing he was.

It was both comforting to ride in his strong arms, and unnerving. Curled up in his arms, I felt quite the child. He had carried me many times as a child, but now I had memories of him that did not match being child-like in his arms. I lay against his body and felt not embarrassed, but not comfortable, either.

I looked up at him from the nest he'd made of his coat for me. If he was cold without it, I could not tell. He looked out before him, and not at me, at all, as if I were indeed a child that filled his arms. Maybe I was to him. Maybe what had happened at the press conference hadn't changed how he saw me. The magic had meant something to him, that I knew, but as for the rest, perhaps I was no more than his old friend's daughter. He had always been more of a true uncle to me than any to whom I was related by genetics.

If it had been almost any other guard whom I had had such an intimate moment with and he'd ignored me like this, I would have done something to make certain he could not ignore me. But it wasn't anyone else, it was Barinthus, and somehow it seemed beneath both our dignities for me to grope him.

I must have sighed heavier than I meant to, because my breath came out in a cold white cloud. "Are you warm enough, Princess?"

The moment he asked, I realized that I shouldn't have been. I was coatless with almost nothing on my legs and lower extremities. "I'm warm enough, and why is that?" Then I realized what he'd called me. "You called me
Princess.
You never use my title."