I held our beautiful little sociopath and prayed to the Goddess that she wouldn’t hurt anyone before we’d had time to teach her that it was wrong.
The scent of roses filled the room, and it wasn’t just the clean sweetness of the wild rose vine, but that richer musk that is more from cultivation than nature. It was a heady scent, and reassurance from the Goddess. Normally, it would have been enough to lay my fears to rest, but this time there was a kernel of unease that stayed inside my heart. How could I doubt her, after all she’d shown me, all she’d awakened around me? But it wasn’t the Goddess I doubted, it was more just worry. I was a new mother, and mothers worry.
CHAPTER NINE
MAEVE REED, THE Golden Goddess of Hollywood since about 1950, came to the hospital to escort us home to her house. We’d lived in her guesthouse when we first moved in with her, but as more fey had flocked to us, Maeve had moved us into the main house with her and left the guesthouse to new exiles from faerie who weren’t as close to her. She was an exile herself, so she understood the confusion of being cast out from faerie and being thrust into the modern world.
Though very few exiles had succeeded as well as Maeve Reed at adapting to this brave, new world. The guard outside opened the door, and I heard Maeve’s voice. “So happy you loved my last movie. Congratulations on your baby, he is adorable.” Her voice was warm and utterly sincere, and in part it was the truth, but she had been a great actress for decades and could turn utter sincerity on and off like a well-oiled switch. I doubted I would ever be that skilled at being “on” for the public, and being merely mortal I wouldn’t live long enough for the centuries of practice that had helped her get so very good at it.
She came breezing into the room with a casual wave of her hand that was too big a gesture for the room but would have looked great in a photo, as would the brilliant smile on her face. She was dressed in an oyster-white pantsuit that flowed and moved with her; a silk shell in a deep but subdued blue helped her not look quite the six feet that she was, forcing the eye down once it had started up those long legs. She smiled at me and I had a moment of catching the edge of the smile she’d used on the fan outside. It was a good smile, and sincere in its way, because she was genuinely happy that the woman liked her film, and meant the congratulations, but … the moment the door closed behind her the smile vanished, and she had a moment where it was as if she laid down some invisible burden across her shoulders. Nothing could make her less than gorgeous with that perfect pale gold tan, the perfect blue eyes in subdued but equally perfect makeup, those cheekbones, those full, kissable lips, but she had a moment of looking tired. Then she straightened up and those high, tight br**sts pressed against the blue shell, perky forever without any need for cosmetic surgery.
Her gaze went to the fruit tree that was shedding its blossoms like a pink snow, and the roses on the other side of the room. “Ah, the new wonders. The nurses asked me when the plants would be going away.”
“We aren’t sure,” Doyle said.
“Doyle, Frost, I stopped by the nursery first and the babies are beautiful.”
“They are,” Doyle said, as if to say, Of course.
“Welcome home, Maeve,” Frost said.
She wasted a few extra watts of smile on him, but she didn’t mean it. He wasn’t pure sidhe enough for her; most of my men weren’t. She’d made no secret about the fact that she’d have had sex with Rhys or Mistral, if they and I had been okay with it. Among humans it would have been an insult; among the fey if you found someone attractive and didn’t let them know, it was an insult. She was afraid of Doyle, not because he’d done anything to her, but because she’d spent too many centuries seeing him as my aunt’s assassin. She’d lost people she cared about to him long ago, so she never flirted with him. He was fine with that.
Then she turned to me, and the look on her face was suddenly cautious. She’d actually texted me before she came, asking if I was angry at her for neglecting me. I’d reassured her via text but realized I’d need to do more reassuring in person.
I held my hand out to her, and she came to me smiling, but it was a different smile, less perfect than on film, letting me see the uncertainty in her eyes. I valued that I got to see her when the cameras weren’t rolling and she let down her guard.
“I’m so sorry that I couldn’t come sooner. I saw the babies in the nursery and they are so beautiful.”
“You had to fly back from Europe just to see us.”
She took my hand in hers, studying my face. “How are you feeling, honestly?”
Her hand was warm, the bones long and delicate as I rubbed my fingers down them. “What’s wrong, Maeve?”
“The media circus is in full swing outside, Merry.” A frown showed between those perfect brows and those famous blue eyes. If only her legion of fans were ever allowed to see her eyes when they weren’t hidden by faerie glamour to appear more human; as beautiful as she was now, stripped of all illusions she was even more so.
“You say that like the media is entirely your fault. I’m the first American-born faerie princess; I’ve lived with cameras and reporters all my life.”
“That’s true, but combine your fame with mine and it’s worse than I’ve seen it, and Merry, I’ve seen it at its worst.” She squeezed my hand in hers. I wasn’t sure if it was to reassure me, or herself, or maybe neither; maybe it was just the comfort of another hand to hold.
People say they want to be famous, but there is a level of fame that becomes almost crippling. I’d had the literal weight of the press break a window from trying to get a better view of me with Doyle and Frost once. Some of them had been cut, nothing serious, but they had rained glass down on us and the other customers in the shop.
“You are actually frightened,” Doyle said.
She looked up at him and nodded.
Frost came forward to lay his hand on my shoulder. “Is Merry in danger?”
“Police have moved them all back enough that we can exit, and other patients can get into the hospital, but I have never seen so many reporters.”
“You have been the reigning Goddess of Hollywood for decades, and you have never seen so many of them.” Doyle made it a half-question.
“No, I have not,” she said.
“Then it will help boost the money that your newly released film makes, which is what your producers, and all of us, wanted,” I said. I raised my hand and laid it over Frost’s where he touched me.
“I don’t think our publicist could have envisioned this,” she said.