Лорел Гамильтон - A Lick Of Frost

"Doctor," I whispered. "I need a doctor." I whispered because the last time I'd felt this sick, talking had hurt my head. But I also whispered because I knew it would make me seem more pitiful and if sympathy would get me in front of the press, I would play that card for all it was worth.

Agent Gillett's eyes hardened, and I saw again that purpose that had made me believe he would find my father's killer.

Tonight, that was all right. I carried my father's grandchildren inside me. But I had to get to safety. Strength of arms and magic are so often what the sidhe rely on, but they have never been weak. They do not understand the arsenal of the powerless. I understood, because I had lived in the land of the helpless most of my life.

I stopped fighting to be brave. I stopped fighting to feel better. I let myself feel how hurt I was, and how frightened. I let myself think the thoughts I'd been shoving back. I let them fill my eyes with tears.

The guards at the doors tried to move in front of us, but Major Walters used his officer voice. It echoed in the marble room and into the open door beyond. "You will move aside, now."

The talkative guard said, "Shanley, we have no healers who can cure this. Let the humans treat her." He had hair the flame color of autumn leaves just before they fall to the ground, and eyes of circles of green. He seemed young, though he had to be over seventy, because that was Galen's age, and he was the next youngest sidhe to me.

Shanley looked down at me. His eyes were two perfect circles of blue.

I lay in Hugh's arms and gazed up at him through tear-soaked eyes, and a swelling bruise that covered me from temple to chin.

Shanley spoke quietly, "What story will you tell the press, Princess Meredith?"

"The truth," I whispered.

A look of pain went through those inhumanly lovely eyes. "I cannot let you into that room." His words were his admission that he knew that my truth and Taranis's truth were not one and the same. He knew that his king had lied, and given oath on it. He knew, and yet he had made oath to serve Taranis as guard. He was caught between his vows and his king's treachery.

I might have pitied him, but I knew that Taranis would not be distracted forever in his bath. Not even with servant girls to abuse. We were inches away from the press and relative safety. But how to travel those last few inches?

Major Walters pulled his radio from a coat pocket and hit a button. "We need backup out here."

"If they come through, we will fight them," Shanley said.

"She is with child," the healer said. "She carries twins."

He looked suspiciously at her. "You lie."

"I have few powers left me, that is true, but I have enough magic left to sense such things. She is with child. I felt their heartbeats under my hand like the fluttering of birds."

"You don't get heartbeats this quickly," the guard said.

"She entered this sithen pregnant with twins. She was forced into the king's bed to be raped, pregnant with someone else's children."

"Do not say such things, Quinnie," he said.

"I am a healer," she said. "I must speak out at last. If it costs me all I am, all I have, I swear to you that the princess is at least a month gone with twins."

"You will take oath on it?" he asked.

"I will swear any oath you wish me to take."

They stared at each other for a long moment. There was pounding on the door behind the guards and the sounds of struggle. The rest of the police and agents were trying to come in. The Seelie guards didn't want to injure the police in front of the press, with live cameras on them.

It sounded like the police didn't have the same compunction about the guards. The door shuddered under the weight of bodies hitting it.

The talkative guard went to stand by his captain. "Shanley, listen to her."

"The king took oath, too," he said. "And nothing came to brand him an oathbreaker."

"He believes what he says," the healer said. "You know that. He believes, so he does not lie, but that does not make it true. We have all seen that in these last few weeks."

Shanley looked from his fellow guard to the healer, then finally to me. "Were the Unseelie raping you when our king saved you?"

"No," I said.

His eyes glittered, but not with magic. "Did he take you against your will?"

"Yes," I whispered.

A tear trailed from each of his beautiful eyes. He gave a small bow. "Command me."

I hoped I knew what he wanted me to do. I spoke as loud as I dared with my head pounding. "I, Princess Meredith NicEssus, wielder of the hands of flesh and blood, granddaughter of Uar the Cruel, command you to step aside and let us pass."

He bowed lower, and moved aside still in that bow.

Major Walters spoke on his radio again. "We're coming through. Repeat, we're bringing the princess through. Clear the doors."

The sounds of fighting grew louder. The blue-eyed guard spoke into the air. "Stand down, men. The princess is leaving."

The fighting slowed, then there was no sound. The blue-eyed guard nodded at the other guards, and they opened the great doors.

Doyle moved up closer to me as Hugh carried me forward. For a moment I thought it was a magical attack of light, then I realized that it was lights for moving cameras and flashes for still ones. I closed my eyes against the blinding glare, and Hugh carried me through the doors.

I WAS BLIND FROM THE LIGHTS. MY HEAD FELT LIKE IT WAS going to explode from the assault of it all. I wanted to scream at them to stop, but was afraid that would only make it all hurt worse.

I closed my eyes and tried to shield them with one hand. There was shadow against the light, and a woman's voice. "Princess Meredith, I'm Doctor Hardy. We're here to help you."

A man's voice. "Princess Meredith, we're going to put you in a neck brace. It's just a precaution."

There was a wheeled stretcher beside us suddenly, as if it had just sprung into being. The medical team started to swarm me. Dr. Hardy was shining a light in my eyes, trying to get me to follow it. I could follow it, but the other hands that I couldn't see lifting me, starting to do things to me, panicked me.

I started to slap at them, to make small helpless sounds. I don't know what it was about what they were doing, but it was too much. I couldn't see who was touching me. I couldn't see what they were doing. I didn't understand what was happening. I could not bear it.

"Princess, Princess Meredith, can you hear me?" Dr. Hardy asked.

"Yes," I said in a voice that didn't sound like me at all.

"We need to get you to a hospital," Dr. Hardy said. "To transport you there are things we need to do. Can you let us do those things?"

I wasn't so much crying as tears just seemed to be sliding down my face. "I need to know what you're doing. I need to see who's touching me."

She looked behind me at the barrage of media, The police had moved in to form a wall against them, but they would hear most of what we said. The doctor leaned very close to me. "Princess, were you raped?"

"Yes."

Major Walters bent close too, "I am sorry, Princess, but I have to ask. Who did it?"

A sidhe guard by the door said, "The Unseelie did it, as they raped Lady Caitrin."

"Shut up!" Major Walters said. Then he turned back to me. "Is that true?"

"No," I said.

"Then who?"

"Taranis knocked me unconscious and I woke naked in his bed with him beside me."

"Liar!" the guard behind us said.

Shanley, who was in charge of these men, said, "She took oath on it."

"So did our king."

"I cannot help that," he said.

"Taranis hurt me. He and no other. I swear it by the darkness that eats all things."

"You are mad to make such an oath," a voice I didn't know said.