A Lick Of Frost   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

The press were yelling, "Who's the father? Did your uncle make you pregnant?"

Dr. Hardy leaned close and whispered/shouted above the cacophony, "How far along are you?"

"Four to five weeks," I said.

"We will treat you and your baby like gold," she said.

I would have nodded, but the neck brace kept me from doing so. I finally said "Yes."

She looked up at someone I couldn't see and said, "We need to get her to a hospital now."

We began to push our way toward the door. There were two main reasons we were having problems moving. One was the press.

They all wanted one last image, one last question answered. The second was the Seelie guards and nobles who opposed Hugh. They wanted me to stay with them. They wanted me to recant.

Inhumanly beautiful faces kept hovering over me, saying things like, "How can you lie about our king? How can you accuse your own uncle of such a crime? Liar. Lying bitch," was the last one before the police got very serious above keeping the golden throng away from my face.

They tried to chase away the black dog, but I said, "No, he's mine."

No one questioned it. Dr. Hardy only said, "He doesn't go in the ambulance."

I didn't argue. Just Doyle beside me, in any form, was an improvement. Every brush of his fur against my hand was better.

There were so many people around the stretcher, so much light that the only way I knew we were finally outside was the brush of night air against my face. It had been night when Taranis took me. Was it the same night, or the next night? How long had he had me?

I tried to ask what day it was, but no one heard me. The press had followed us outside the sithen. They trailed us with shouted questions and mobile lights.

The wheels of the gurney didn't like the grass. The bumps made my head ache more. I fought not to make small sounds of pain, and was able to do it until the medics closed around us so that I could no longer touch Doyle's fur. The moment I lost contact with him the pain was worse.

I spoke his name before I could stop myself. "Doyle," I said softly, a plea.

The huge black head shoved its way under the doctor's arm. It made her stumble. She tried to shove him away, saying, "Shoo."

"I need him, please."

She frowned at me, but she dropped back a step so the dog could be closer to me. Close enough that my hand could caress his fur on most of the bumpy ride. I'd never realized how uneven the grass around the mounds was until smoothness was what I needed. It had always seemed like such level ground until this moment.

One of the cameras peered over the shoulders of the medics. The light blinded me. The pain spiked hard and sharp, and nausea came with it.

"I'm going to be sick."

They had to stop the gurney, and help me lean over the side of it. Between the tubes and board and neck brace, I couldn't have moved myself. I'd never rolled onto my side with this many hands helping me.

Dr. Hardy yelled while I threw up, "She has a concussion! Bright lights aren't good for her."

Being sick made the inside of my head explode, or that's what it felt like. My vision swam in ruins. A hand touched my forehead, A hand that was cool and solid and felt… like I should know it.

My vision cleared to find a man with a blond beard and mustache peering into my face. It was his hand on my forehead. A baseball cap was pulled low on his face. There was something about the blue eyes that looked vaguely familiar. Then while I still looked at this stranger's face, the eyes changed. One eye held three rings of blue: cornflower blue around the pupil, sky blue, then a circle of winter sky.

I whispered, "Rhys."

He smiled through the fake beard. He'd used glamour to hide his eyes and other things, but the beard was simply a good fake. He had always been the best of the men at undercover work when we were with the detective agency.

I was crying and not wanting to, because I was afraid it would hurt.

A voice came from behind him. "Remember our deal."

Rhys answered without turning around. "You'll get your exclusive televised interview as soon as she's well enough. I gave my word."

I must have looked confused because he said, "They let us come in as part of their crew for a promised interview, or two."

I reached for him with my free hand. He took it, and kissed my palm. The camera that had made me sick was back to recording, just at a slightly better distance.

"Is he one of your guys?" Dr. Hardy asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Great, but we need to keep moving."

"Sorry," Rhys said, and he put a hand on my shoulder as they moved me back to my back. My other hand searched again for the touch of fur and found it for a moment, then a hand found mine. I couldn't turn to see, and he seemed to understand, because Galen's face hovered over mine. He had a hat on, too, and he'd used glamour to make his green hair look brown and his skin look human. He let the glamour go while I watched, and it was smoother even than Rhys's. One moment a nice-looking human guy, the next Galen. Magic.

"Hey," he said, and his eyes filled with tears almost immediately.

"Hey," I said back. I had a thought for what might have happened if they'd been recognized earlier inside the mound, but it was a small thought. In that moment I was too happy to see them to worry about it. Or maybe I was just that sick?

Dr. Hardy said, "Any more Romeos going to come out of the woodwork?"

"I don't know," I said, which was the absolute truth.

"One more was inside with us," Galen said.

I couldn't think who else had glamour good enough to risk going inside before cameras and the Seelie. Some people's glamour actually didn't hold on camera, and the Seelie Court was ruled by the master of illusion. He was a bastard, but he would have seen through their disguises. My chest hurt with the thought of what might have happened. I clutched Galen's hand tighter, and wished I could move my head to look at Rhys.

Instead I was trapped staring at the night sky. It was a good sky, black and full of stars. It was the end of January, almost February.

Shouldn't I be cold? The thought was enough to let me know that I wasn't nearly as aware of everything as I thought I was. Hadn't someone said I was going into shock? Or had I dreamed that?

We were at the ambulance. It was as if it had suddenly appeared to me. It wasn't magic, it was injury. I was losing little bits of time. That couldn't be good.

It was at the door of the ambulance that I found out who had had enough glamour to brave the press and the Seelie sidhe.

He had short blond hair, brown eyes, and a nondescript face, until he bent over me. He gave the illusion that the short hair grew into a long braid that I knew would sweep the ground.