Лорел Гамильтон - A Lick Of Frost

"You're just figuring that out?" I asked.

Rhys grinned. "Fair enough. I knew it already."

"He still won't let Merry sit by his side?" Kitto asked. He looked perfectly at ease beside me now, as if he had never considered moving away.

Rhys moved farther into the room as he spoke. "He says, "I am to protect her, not she me." He further says that you need your rest for tonight, not to sit and worry over him."

"I would have cuddled him while we both slept," I said.

"His loss, our gain," Rhys said, grinning again. He took off his jacket.

"Our gain," Kitto said, a lilt of surprise in his voice.

Rhys paused, jacket in one hand. His shoulder holster was very stark against the pale blue of his shirt. Though shoulder holster implied that it was just for guns and that wasn't true at all. All the men who had been with me for a few months had custom rigs made, I suspect by one of the leather workers inside faerie. No human could have made them so quickly and so perfectly. There were also intricate designs worked into the leather, and nearly ingenious ways to carry as many weapons as possible and still be able to slip modern jackets over them all.

Rhys stood there with a gun under one arm and a knife on the other. A second gun rode at his waist. There was also a short sword belted somehow across his back so that the hilt stuck a little out from behind his back on one side. He could grab it sort of like a gun worn at the small of the back.

"I touched you in the lawyer's office, and didn't feel all the weapons," I said. "There's a spell that affects sight and touch."

"If you didn't pick up on it, then it's as good as promised," Rhys replied.

"Why did I see the swords at Frost and Doyle's back?"

"The enchantment only works if you don't break the line of the clothing covering the holster. They keep insisting on huge swords that show around the edges of the jackets, so you see the swords. It also makes it more likely that people will notice their guns and other weapons. Once you draw attention to what amounts to an illusion, it begins to break down. You know that."

"But I didn't realize that was what the leather rigs were, bespelled."

He shrugged.

"It must have cost a pretty penny."

"They were gifts," he said.

I gave him wide eyes. "Not this much magical work."

"You made yourself pretty popular among the lesser fey when you gave your little speech in the hallway, about how most of your friends were below stairs when you were a child, not among the sidhe."

"It's true," I said.

"Yes, but it also helped win them to you. That and you being part brownie."

"A lesser fey did the leather work?" I asked.

He nodded. "While the sidhe have lost most of their magic, the lesser fey have held on to more than we knew. I think they were afraid to point out to the sidhe that the lesser fey hadn't faded as much as the greater fey."

"Wise of them," I said.

Rhys was at the foot of the bed now. "Not that I don't like my nifty new leather rig, but are you delaying so you can think of a polite way to send me away, or is there a question you don't want to ask?"

"Actually, I am interested in the magic on the leather. We may need all the magical help we can get soon. But this is the first time you've willingly come into Kitto's room when I've been with him. We're wondering what's up."

He nodded, and looked down, as if gathering his thoughts. "Unless you object, either of you, I'd like to join you for afternoon cuddling." He raised his face and displayed one of the most neutral expressions I'd ever seen from him. He usually hid his emotions behind a wry humor. Today he was serious. It wasn't like him.

"My opinion doesn't count," Kitto said, but he scooted down beside me, pulling the sheet up to cover most of himself.

Rhys put his jacket over one arm. "We've been over this, Kitto. You're sidhe now, which means you get to be as opinionated as the rest of us."

"Oh, please," I said. "Not as opinionated as all that. Kitto's sort of refreshingly undemanding."

Rhys smiled at me. "Are we that bad?"

"Sometimes," I said. "You're not as bad as some."

"Like Doyle," he said.

"Frost," said Kitto, then seemed shocked at his insult of the other man. He actually covered his face with the sheet, snuggling tightly against the side of my body. But there was a tension to him now that had nothing to do with sex. He was frightened.

Was he frightened of Rhys? He had tried to hurt, if not kill, Kitto on at least one occasion when I first brought him to Los Angeles. Apparently, a few movies and shopping trips couldn't make up for earlier hostility. Sort of like parents trying to win over kids in a divorce. If you're mean, all the treats in the world don't make up for it later.

Rhys had been mean, and Kitto had been hiding that he was still afraid of the other man. I had missed it completely. I had thought we were as much a big happy family as we were going to get. How could I rule these people if I couldn't even keep peace and safety among my own lovers?

"I don't think Kitto's comfortable with you being here, Rhys," I said. I stroked Kitto's back under the covers. He snuggled harder against me as if afraid of what I would ask him. I didn't understand why «servicing» Holly and Ash didn't bother him, but Rhys did. Maybe it was a cultural thing that I didn't understand because I wasn't goblin enough. I would be their high queen, but I would never truly be goblin. They were our foot soldiers, our strong arm, and most likely to be cannon fodder. The Red Caps were our shock troops. But I was missing something, right this minute, about the goblin in my bed. He was truly sidhe by birth of his magic, but in his heart he was, and always would be, goblin, just as there was more human to me because I'd gone to human schools and had human friends. That more than genetics made me more human than I would have been, more American than I would have been in the way I thought. Sometimes I wondered if my father would have found another excuse to raise me outside of faerie if Andais hadn't tried to kill me. Father had felt that it was very important that I understand our new country.

"Kitto," Rhys said. "I know I was awful to you once, but I've tried to make up for it."

Kitto's voice came out muffled. "Did you do all of it just to make up?"

Rhys seemed to think about it. "At the beginning, but you're the only one who will watch more than two gangster movies in a row with me and actually enjoy them. The others tolerate it. Or were you just being polite?"

Kitto spoke, still under the covers. "I like James Cagney. He's short."

"Yeah, I like that about him, too," Rhys said.

"You are not small," Kitto said.

"For a sidhe I am."

Kitto pulled an edge of cover down so he could see the other man. I lay there unneeded. This was a guy moment that had strangely turned into a girl moment. I'd noticed with Kitto that the guy silence didn't quite work. He had an almost feminine need to talk, to express his thoughts and feelings, or they weren't real to him.

"Edward G. Robinson is short, too," Kitto said softly.

Rhys smiled. "Bogart wasn't all that tall either."

"Really? They make him look tall."

"Apple crates and camera angles," Rhys said.

Kitto didn't ask what he meant by apple crates, which meant that they'd already had a talk about shorter actors standing on things to look taller for the camera. It was also a cheap way to make your villain or hero look like he was strong enough to lift someone one-handed. Ah, B-movie magic.

Kitto came a little farther out of the covers. "What do you want, Rhys?"

"I want to apologize that I ever thought you were like Holly and Ash and the rest."

"I am not strong like they are," Kitto said.

Rhys shook his head. "You are kind and you crave kindness. That isn't a sin."