around my hand.
I prayed. "Please, Goddess, don't take him from me, not now. Let him know his child, please. If I have ever held your grace, bring him back to me."
The blue flames flared bright and brighter. They did not burn, but felt more like electricity, stinging and biting, but just short of pain. The glow was so bright I could no longer see his body. I could feel the smooth muscles of his chest, but I could not see anything but the blue of the flames.
I felt fur under my hand. Fur? Then I was not touching Frost. Something else was inside that blue glow. Something with fur and not man-shaped.
The shape stood, and moved high enough that I could not touch it. Doyle was behind me, folding me in his arms, picking me up off the ground. The blue fire died down, and a huge white stag stood in front of us. It looked at me with gray and silver eyes.
"Frost," I said, and reached out, but it ran. It ran for the far windows over the acre of marble. It ran as if the surface wasn't slick for hooves. It ran as if it weighed nothing. I thought it would crash into the glass, but French doors that had never been there before opened so that the great stag could run out into the new land beyond.
The doors closed behind him, but the doors did not go away. Apparently, the room was flexible still.
I turned in Doyle's arms so I could see his face. It was him looking out of his eyes now, not the Consort. "Is Frost..."
"He is the stag," Doyle said.
"But does that mean he's gone as our Frost?"
The look on his dark face was enough.
"He's gone," I said.
"He is not gone, but he is changed. Whether he will change back to the man we knew, only Deity knows."
He wasn't dead, exactly. But he was lost to me. Lost to us. He would not be a father to the child we had made. He would never be in my bed again.
What had I prayed? That he would come back to me. If I had worded it differently would he still have transformed into an animal? Had my words been the wrong ones?
"Do not blame yourself," Doyle said. "Where there is life of any kind there is always hope."
Hope. It was an important word. A good word. But in that moment, it didn't seem enough.
Chapter 24
"I DON'T CARE HOW MANY GALLY-TROTS YOUR MAGIC CALLS back," Ash said. "You swore you would lay with us, and you have not done so." He paced the room, hands pulling at his short blond hair as if he would pull it out.
Holly sat on the large white couch with the Gally-trot lying on its back in his lap, or in as much of his lap as it would fit, which meant it filled up a large portion of the large couch. Holly ruffled the dog's chest and stomach. Holly of the hot temper seemed more relaxed than I'd ever seen him.
"The sex was so she'd bring us into our powers. She's brought us power."
"Not sidhe-sided power," Ash said, coming to stand in front of his brother.
"I would rather be goblin," Holly said.
"I would rather be king of the sidhe," Ash said.
"The princess has told you that she is with child," Doyle said.
"You've come too late to the party," Rhys said.
"And whose fault is that?" Ash asked. He came to stand in front of me now. "If you had only bedded us a month ago, then we would have had our chance."
I stared up at him, too numb to react to his anger and disappointment. Someone had put a blanket around me. I huddled in it, cold. Colder than I knew how to cure. So funny, Frost was gone, and I mourned him by being cold.
There were diplomatic answers I could have given. There were many things I could have said, but I simply didn't care. I didn't care enough to mind my tongue.
I stared up at him. Galen slipped onto the couch beside me. He curled his arm around my shoulders. I snuggled in against him. I let him hold me. He had been standing with the others whom Doyle had called into the living room. Standing in case Ash's anger got the better of his sense. The goblin's anger had been so great that Doyle and Rhys were still standing. They wanted to be up and ready. In case