Лорел Гамильтон - Mistral's Kiss

“No,” I said to Doyle. “I am princess here, not you.”

“Your duty is to live,” Doyle said.

I shook my head. “If you die, I’m not sure I want to.”

He kissed me then, hard and fierce. I tried to melt into that kiss, but he tore himself away and slammed the door in my face.

The doors locked. I glanced at the agent, who said, “We have to get you to safety, Princess.”

“Unlock the door,” I demanded.

He ignored me and started the engine, hit the gas. Just then wind slammed into the car, so hard that it skidded the vehicle to the side. Charlie fought to keep the car in the parking lot and out of the trees.

“Drive,” Bancroft yelled, “drive like a son of a bitch!”

I looked then, because I had to. The wild hunt had broken through, and it was like the moment in the cave — as if the darkness had split open and was spilling out nightmares. But the nightmares were even more solid now. Or maybe, now that I’d seen them, I couldn’t unsee them.

A coat flew over my face, and I was left scrambling at it. “Don’t look, Merry,” Frost said, his voice choked, “don’t look.”

“Put on the coat, Princess,” Bancroft said. “We’ll get you to the hospital.”

I held the coat in my arms, but turned to look back.

The police were shooting at the hunt. Mistral lit the sky with lightning, and one of the police crumbled to the ground. Was he screaming? The horror spilled over Sholto, and he was lost to it. Doyle leapt toward the tentacles and teeth, the sword glittering in the moonlight. I screamed his name, but the last thing I saw before we drove into the dark was Doyle lost under a weight of nightmares.

FROST’S HAND GRABBED MY SHOULDER, PRESSING ME AGAINST the seat. “Merry, please, don’t make Doyle’s sacrifice in vain.”

I touched his hand, pressed it against me, and there was more blood on it. “How can I let them drive us to safety and not fight it?”

“You must. I am too hurt to help, and you are too fragile. I would willingly die with them, but you must not die.”

Agent Charlie had us on the narrow road, driving a little too fast for the darkness and the snow. He hit ice and skidded.

“Slow down or you’re going to put us in a ditch,” Bancroft said. “And you, Frost, right, you need to lie back and let me finish putting pressure on this wound. You bleed to death and you can’t keep the princess safe.”

“Did you see it?” Charlie said as he slowed down. “Did you see it?”

“I saw it,” Bancroft said in a strained voice. He pulled on Frost. “Let me take care of the wound like your captain ordered.”

Frost let go of me, slowly, his hand pulling away. I started drawing the trench coat over me. I didn’t know whose coat it was, but I was cold. Cold in a way that the coat wouldn’t help, yet it was all I had.

Agent Charlie slowed at a sharp turn, and I caught a glimpse of something in the trees. It wasn’t the wild hunt, and it wasn’t our men.

“Stop,” I said.

He slowed further, almost stopped. “What? What is it?”

I saw them in the trees: goblins. Goblins walking in single file, cloaked for the cold, bristling with weapons in the cold light of the moon. They were walking away from the fight, though some of them glanced back. That was enough to tell me they knew what was happening, and they were leaving my men to die.

“Drive,” Bancroft said.

“Stop,” I ordered.

Agent Charlie ignored me. The car picked up speed.

“Stop,” I repeated. “There are goblins out there. They can tip the balance. They can save my men.”

“We’re doing what your guard demanded,” Bancroft said. “We’re going to a hospital.”

I had to stop the car. I had to talk to the goblins — they were my allies. They had to help, if I asked it, or be forsworn.

I reached over, touched the agent’s face, and thought about sex. I’d never done this to a human before, never used that part of my heritage for evil. And it was evil — I didn’t know him, didn’t want him, but I made him want me.

The agent slammed on the brakes, throwing me into the dash, and throwing the men in the back into the floorboards. Bancroft yelled, “What the hell are you doing?”

Agent Charlie threw the car into park, skewing halfway across the road. He unbuckled his seat belt, pulled me toward him, and started trying to kiss me, his hands everywhere. I didn’t care, as long as the car was stopped.

Bancroft came over the seat. “Charlie, for God’s sake, Charlie. Stop!”

I took advantage of the fight to reach across and unlock the door while the men fought almost on top of me. I opened the door and fell backward into the road. Charlie tried to crawl after me. Bancroft slid over the seat and on top of his partner.

I got to my feet on the icy road, huddling under the coat.

The goblins were there in the dark, just outside the headlight beams. Two faces looked at me, two nearly identical faces: Ash and Holly. The wind blew their yellow hair from their hoods. I couldn’t tell which twin was which in the uncertain light — the only difference was eye color.

“Hail, goblins,” I called.

One of them touched the other and nodded toward the dark. They began to turn and leave. I yelled, “I call on you as allies. To deny me is to be forsworn. The wild hunt is abroad, and oathbreakers are sweet meat to them.”

The twins turned back to us, and the goblins who were only dark shapes behind them shifted in the dimness. “We did not make this oath,” one of them called.

“Kurag, Goblin King, did, and you are his people. Do you call your king a liar? Are you king now among the goblins, Holly?”

I had taken a chance on that. I wasn’t certain which brother it was, but I’d guessed based on the fact that Holly had the worse attitude of the two. He bowed his head in acknowledgment. “The princess sees well in the dark.”

“She merely has good ears,” his brother said. “You complain more.”

Ash started down the side of the road, ignoring my plea, and some of the others followed. Most stayed in the shadows along the road’s edge. There had to be nearly twenty of them. It was enough to make a difference, enough, maybe, to save…my men.

I heard a car door open behind me. Frost crawled out and fell into the snow and ice of the road. I went to him but kept my gaze on the goblins.

“This is not our fight,” Holly said.

“I need your help as my allies; that makes it your fight,” I said. “Or have the goblins lost their taste for battle?”

“You do not battle the wild hunt, Princess. You run from it, you join it, you hide from it. But you don’t fight it,” Ash said. I could see his green eyes now. His hood framed a face as handsome as any at the Unseelie Court, golden-haired; only the pure, pupil-less green of his eyes and a bulkier body under the cloak betrayed his mixed heritage.

“Will you be forsworn?” I asked. I clung to Frost’s hand in the snow.

“No,” Ash said. But he was not happy about it.

“We came out to see what the fuss was,” one of the other goblins said, “not get ourselves killed for a bunch of sidhe.” The goblin was almost twice as broad as any sidhe. He turned into the light a face that was covered in hard, round bumps. “Get a good look, Princess.” He threw back his cloak so I could see more of him. His arms were as covered as his face in bumps and growths, marks of beauty among the goblins. But these bumps were pastel colors — pink, lavender, mint green — not a skin tone that the goblins could boast.

“That’s right, I’m half sidhe,” he said. “Just like them, but I’m not so pretty, am I?”

“By goblin standards you are the more handsome,” I said.