CHAPTER 11

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."