"When Fflur has bound your wounds, you may join us in the throne room. I am eager for your presence at my side." She turned and the crowd parted before her, forming a tunnel of light that led into the throne room beyond. Eamon moved from the crowd like a black leather shadow to take her arm.
A small goblin with a ring of eyes like a necklace across its forehead knelt beside me, crowding the edge of Fflur's black skirts. The goblin's eyes flicked to me, flicked to her, to me, to her, but what it was really looking at was the blood. It was a small goblin, barely two feet tall. The ring of eyes marked it as handsome among the goblins. They literally called such a marking a "necklace of eyes," and said it in tones that humans reserved for large br**sts or a tight ass.
The queen could think what she wanted about the roses. I didn't believe that one drop of my blood had inspired the dying roses. I did believe that my royal blood had saved me, but the initial attack... I suspected another spell, hidden somewhere in the thorns. It was doable if someone were powerful enough.
I had enemies. What I needed was friends-allies.
I let my hand slide down my hip as if I were faint. The fresh wound was only inches from the little goblin's mouth. He darted forward and licked a rough tongue like a cat's across the wound. It brought a small sound from my throat, and he cringed.
Galen swung at him the way you'd chase an unwanted dog away. But Fflur grabbed the goblin by the scruff of the neck. "Greedy gut, what mean you with such impertinence?" She started to cast him away.
I stopped her. "No, he has tasted my blood uninvited. I demand recompense for such abuse."
"Recompense?" Galen made it a question.
Fflur kept her grip on the little goblin. His row of eyes flicked back and forth. "Meant nothin' by it. Sorry, so sorry." He had two main arms and two tiny useless-looking ones. All four arms writhed, clasping and unclasping tiny clawed fingers.
Frost took the goblin from Fflur, raising the small figure in two hands, skyward. His hands were empty of my knife. I'd have to remember to ask for it back. But at the moment I had other
business.
"I need to bind the wounds," Fflur said, "or you will lose more blood. I have given you some of my strength, but you did not find it pleasant and would find it less so a second time."
I shook my head. "Not yet."
"Merry," Galen said, "let her treat your wounds."
I looked at his face so full of concern. He'd been raised in the court as had I. He should have known that now was not a time to tend our wounds. Now was a time for action. I looked into his face. Not at his handsome, open face, or his pale green curls, or the way his laugh made his entire face glow-I looked at him as my father must have looked at him once when he decided to give me to someone else. I didn't have time to explain things that Galen should already have been thinking of. I searched the crowd peering down at me like gawkers at a car wreck, simply better dressed and more exotic. "Where is Doyle?"
There was movement in the crowd to my right. Doyle stepped forward. He looked very tall from where I lay on the floor. A black-cloaked pillar to loom above me. Only the peacock-feathered earrings framing his face softened the unrelieved intimidation of his figure. The look on his face, the set of his shoulders under the cloak, all of it was the old Doyle. The queen's Darkness stood beside me, and the colorful feathers looked out of place. He'd been dressed for a party and found himself in the middle of a fight. His expression told nothing, but the very lack of expression said he was not happy.
I suddenly felt six again and vaguely frightened of this tall dark man who had stood at my aunt's side. But he wasn't at her side now. He was at mine. I settled back in Galen's lap and found comfort in his touch, but it was Doyle I turned to for help.
"Bring Kurag to me if he wishes to ransom this thief," I said.
Doyle arched a line of black eyebrow. "Thief?"
"He drank my blood without invitation. The only greater theft among the goblins is a theft of flesh."
Rhys knelt on the other side of me. "I heard that goblins lose a lot of flesh during sex."
"Only if it's agreed on beforehand," I said.
Galen leaned over me, whispering against my skin. "If you are so weakened by blood loss that you can't bed anyone tonight..." He touched his lips to my face. "I don't think I could stand to watch you in one of her sex shows. You must be well enough to bed someone tonight, Merry. Let Fflur bind your wounds."
His face loomed at the corner of my eye like a pale blur, his lips like a pink cloud next to my cheek. It wasn't that he was wrong. It was that he wasn't thinking far enough ahead. "I have better use for my blood than soaking into bandages."
"What are you talking about?" Galen asked.
Doyle answered, "The goblins consider anything that comes from the body more valuable than jewels or weapons."
Galen stared up at him. He reached down toward my wrist. I felt his chest move against my head as he sighed. "And what does that have to do with Merry?" But there was something in his voice that said he knew the answer.
Doyle's dark eyes went from me to Galen. He stared at the younger guard. "You are too young to remember the goblin wars."
"So is Merry," Galen said.
Those black eyes turned back to me. "Young, but she knows her history." He flicked his gaze back to Galen. "Do you know your history, young Raven?"
Galen nodded. He pulled me farther into his lap, away from Fflur, away from everyone. He held me against him, holding my arms close so that my blood stained his skin. "I remember my history. I just don't like it."