Galen bent over and held my chin in his hand, made me look into his eyes. “Merry, you have to get warm, and for that the clothes have to come off. No one’s going to take the jacket away.”
I nodded, because I was shivering too hard to talk.
Nurse Nancy touched my face. “She’s cold and clammy to the touch. We have to get her out of these clothes now.”
“We will,” Galen said. He sat beside me on the bed and began to slide the jacket off one arm. I let him take it, because it was Galen, and I trusted him to help me keep it.
Frost stood beside me and helped take the other sleeve off, but when he bent a certain way, he hesitated in midmotion as if something hurt.
I grabbed his hand in mine and just looked at him as I sat there shivering in the short skirt and tiny top. Funny how sexy outfits are never good emergency clothing.
Nicca came forward, his knee-length deep brown hair was back in a braid. He’d started wearing it back once Kadyi got old enough to grab hair. Nicca’s skin was still the rich brown of autumn leaves, and I knew underneath his very modern-looking clothes were huge moth wings, but like Sholto’s tentacles, his wings could be just an incredibly vivid tattoo if he wished. Just that thought made my mind skip a beat, like I’d almost thought too much about it, and now I had to stop thinking altogether.
“Let me help her undress, Frost, please?”
“It doesn’t do any good for you to be here if you reopen a wound,” Galen said.
Frost frowned like he’d pout, which he’d done a lot once upon a time, but then he found the room’s only chair and sat gingerly on the edge of it. Was his back hurt, too? I didn’t remember any of the scratches being there, but I was having trouble remembering everything that happened in the last hour, and that was days ago. How could I remember something that far back?
Cathbodua had shooed everyone else out and closed the door behind her. It was then that Nurse Nancy seemed to figure out that five of the men were staying and helping her undress me. “OK, gentlemen, the rest of you can go on out with the rest of them,” she said.
Ivi said, “You said we could stay.”
“No, I said only the people that had seen her nude could stay.”
“Well, then we can all stay,” Ivi said. He wasted a smile on her and flipped his nearly ankle-length hair so that the pattern of ivy leaves that climbed all that paler green hair showed clearer. Humans were always thinking that Ivi had somehow decorated his hair with the pattern of ivy vines and leaves, but it was natural, an outward sign of his inner nature.
But Nurse Nancy was made of sterner stuff than some and didn’t respond to the flirting. “I know the fey are more comfortable with nudity than most humans, but I didn’t just mean that. I meant …” The nurse seemed lost for words. She was ignoring the flirting, but her discomfort was real.
Brioc moved where I could see him and where he could help Ivi flirt and intimidate the nurse. Brioc was as tall, slender, and muscled as Ivi, but Brioc’s hair was a bright yellow blond, his skin a pale grayish white like some of the Red Caps had, but Brioc was pure sidhe. His skin was the color of cherry tree bark, just like the incredible red of his full lips wasn’t due to lipstick of any kind. He was the cherry tree made flesh and blood, as Ivi was for his namesake. Vegetative deities were always interesting. Brioc said, “You meant her lovers could stay.”
“Yes, that is what I meant,” the nurse said.
“We assumed that is what you meant,” Ivi said.
I couldn’t see the nurse’s face, but I heard her silence, even through my shivering and chattering teeth. “Are you saying that you’re all … lovers?”
“Yes,” Ivi said.
“Ex-lovers,” Brioc said, “but yes, so we can guard the princess no matter her state of undress.”
Galen and Nicca had peeled off the wet top and the bra. For some reason my bare br**sts seemed to galvanize Nurse Nancy. “The hospital gown is on the bed, it closes in the back, just open the door when she’s dressed … undressed … redressed.” She fled. Apparently, five lovers was a few too many over the nurse’s comfort zone. Under other circumstances it might have been amusing; now it just seemed like another reminder that I would never completely understand human culture.
I was in shock, as in the kind of shock that needed a bedsize heating pad under me, warm blankets, and an IV to give me fluids. I felt fragile and very human ending up in a hospital bed just from shock. There was nothing wrong with me; I hadn’t been the one who got shot. I didn’t have a scratch on me, though they’d probably been aiming at me. Had the bullet been for me, and Sholto just got in the way? No one wanted to kill Sholto, but plenty of people wanted to kill me.
The bed was warm, I was warm, and I was suddenly so tired. Frost sat beside the bed, his hand in mine, and my eyes were fluttering shut. I managed to ask, “Did they give me something?”
“What do you mean, give you something?” Frost asked.
“To sleep. Did they give me something to make me sleep?”
Galen came to stand on the other side of me, stroking his hand across my forehead. “Yes.”
“I’m not hurt. I don’t need to sleep.”
“We agreed with the doctor,” Galen said, voice soft.
“Damn it,” I managed to say as my eyes fluttered closed again.
He leaned down to lay a soft kiss on my lips. “I love you, Merry.”
“I love you, too,” and that was the last thing I remembered, before sleep came and I could not fight it.
CHAPTER FORTY
THE DREAM BEGAN innocently enough, but like all innocence it could not last. I stood in the high, round room of a tower that I had never seen before. There were beautiful tapestries on the walls, rugs bright as stained glass on the floor, and through the room’s two windows the sunshine was golden and thick like honey for the eyes. It was beautiful, peaceful, so why was I afraid?
A man’s voice came from behind me, “I can keep you safe, Meredith, you and our children.”
My throat closed tight, and I couldn’t breathe for a second, because I knew that voice. I turned as one does in a horror movie, slowly, unwilling, because you know the monster is right there—behind you.
Taranis stood in a bright swath of sunlight, most of him lost in the light, so that he seemed to be forming from the light itself as he stepped farther into the room. He held his hand out to me, a smile curling his lips, and it was as if that smile were some happy jewel set between the red-gold of his mustache and beard. His hair flowed in matching curls and waves as if his hair couldn’t decide how curly it wanted to be. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him when his hair wasn’t perfectly styled. This careless play was somehow more pleasing, and more real. His eyes looked just a brilliant green rather than the green of many flower petals in every shade of green known under the sky, and those more human eyes smiled kindly at me.
I actually took a step toward him, but I stumbled on the edge of my floor-length skirt. I looked down and found myself in a dress that matched the tower room. I was dressed like some fairy-tale princess waiting to be rescued. My heart climbed into my throat, so that I was choking on it.
“Meredith.” And the moment he said my name, the fear receded. I gazed up at him and found this new, more human Taranis comforting. Part of me knew that was wrong, that he wasn’t comforting, but it was as if I couldn’t think the thought all the way through.
He crossed the room and touched my cheek, ever so gently, with the back of his hand. “Come to me, Meredith, come and be my queen and I will keep you safe from all that would harm you.”
His tone was sweet, but his words jarred me, because they did not ring true with my own memories. I moved my face back from that touch and said, “You’re part of what I need to be protected from.”
He looked puzzled, as if my words made no sense. “Meredith, I would never hurt you.”
I looked up into that handsome face and thought, He would never hurt me, of course he would never hurt me. I said, “No,” not because I believed it in that moment, but as a place to start. No, he was wrong somehow. No, I shouldn’t be here. No, just no.
“Oh, Meredith, I want to take care of you, you and our children.”
I shook my head. “No … not …” Not what, I thought? What was he not? What was not true? That was it, something he’d just said wasn’t true, but what was it? Why couldn’t I think?