Why the change of heart now?"
"He's still scary, Merry, but he's also a terrible stuffed shirt. He wasn't always like that, but somewhere over the centuries he became more... human, in the worst sense of the word." The grin faded around the edges.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"Just thinking about what might have been. Taranis used to be good for a few laughs, and a drunken brawl or two."
I raised eyebrows. "Taranis? Having a boys' night out on the town? I can't picture it."
"You've known him for only thirty years. He hasn't been at his best." He sat up, got to his feet. "Dibs on the shower."
"If you get it first this morning, I get it first tomorrow," Nicca said.
"Only if you're fast enough," Rhys said, heading for the bathroom.
Nicca's arms slid around my waist, turned me to him. "Let him have his shower." He raised a slender brown hand to trace the waves near my face. He rolled over on his back, drawing me with his hands at my neck and waist. The sheet had rolled off of him, and I saw that he was firm and ripe again.
I half laughed. "Don't you ever grow tired?"
"Of this, never." His face grew more serious, a little less tender. "This with you is the first time I have ever been with a woman and not been afraid."
"What do you mean?"
"The queen is a fearsome thing, Meredith, and she likes her men submissive. I'm not dominant, but I don't enjoy her idea of sex."
I leaned in and gave him a very gentle kiss. "We do some rough stuff."
He suddenly hugged me to him. "No, Meredith, no, you don't. You never scare me." He held me, and I relaxed against him, let him hold me. Almost too tight. It almost hurt.
I stroked his sides and what I could reach of his back, until he began to relax. His arms were not quite so crushing. I'd thought only days ago about sending Nicca back home, because I did not want him to be king. He wasn't able to be king, and it had nothing to do with whether or not he could breed.
I held him, stroked him gently, until the sudden panic in him eased. When he was calm, he reached for me again, and I went to his arms, his mouth, his body. I hoped King Taranis wouldn't call while we were in the midst of things, but the lovemaking took the last wounded look from his eyes. I needed to see those brown eyes turned to me with nothing but smiles in them.
When Rhys stepped out of the bathroom with his towels, we were just finishing. He cursed under his breath. "Is it too late to join in?"
"Yes," I said, and gave Nicca a last parting kiss. "Besides, I get the shower next." I scrambled out of bed and went for the bathroom before Nicca could protest. I left them laughing, and I left the room laughing myself. What better way is there to begin a day?
Chapter 34
That afternoon, Maeve and Gordon Reed showed up at our door. It had been only days, but Gordon looked like it had been years. His skin had gone from sallow to grey. He seemed to have lost weight, so that the strong bones that had once made him a tall, commanding figure now made him look like a large-boned skeleton, covered in paper-thin greyness. His eyes looked larger in his face, and the pain in them looked constant. It was as if the cancer were sucking him dry, eating him from the inside out.
Maeve had said on the phone that Gordon was worse, much worse, but she hadn't prepared us for this. No mere words could prepare you for watching a man die.
Frost and Rhys had met their car on the street so they could help her husband up the short flight of steps to our apartment. Maeve had followed them up with huge sunglasses hiding most of her face, and a silk scarf around all that blond hair. She held an ankle-length fur coat tight at her throat as if it were cold. She looked like a Hollywood imitation of a great movie star. Of course, who had a better right to the look?
The men helped Gordon into the bedroom so he could rest while we did the first part of the fertility rite. Maeve was apparently going to pace the living room while she waited. She'd almost lit up a cigarette before I could tell