"Are you saying that I should support Kurag in his effort to get the twins killed, or the twins in killing him?"
"I am saying that Kurag fears your enemies and will escape the treaty as soon as he can, and that the twins may not honor a treaty with you. Two of those that insulted them so they had to stand challenge were also sidhe-sided goblins and had made it known that they wished to bed you and gain their own magic."
"You're saying that now that Ash and Holly have their hands of power, they may not want me to give such power to any other goblins," I said.
He nodded. "They do not fear me, for my hand of power only allows me to bring someone through a mirror call against their will, and close the window at will. It is powerful, so I'm told, but it is mostly useless in a duel. Other sidhe-sided may gain other things that are more battle useful."
I wrapped him closer in the circle of my arms, folding my silk robe over both of us. I think the robe would have tied around both of us, we were both so small.
"It is always a gamble which magic will come to a person," I said.
"I've learned that some powers run in bloodlines, as you have the hand of flesh like your father before you."
"True," I said.
"If you had been able to keep fucking them, I think they would still be tied to you more, but when the doctor told you not to risk it with the babies ..." I could feel him shrug in the circle of my arms.
"You think they want to be free of me?"
"Holly does," Kitto said. "Ash will do whatever will give them the most power."
"It will be six weeks before I can have sex with anyone, according to the doctors."
"And longer before you would risk such roughness in bed as they or Mistral prefer," Kitto said.
I petted Kitto and tried not to betray with even the stillness of my body the secret I'd been keeping. Holly and Ash were perverted by goblin standards. They actually liked gentle sex, and Ash enjoyed giving oral sex, which was a sign among the goblins that he considered himself subservient to me, or anyone he would go down on. It had taken me weeks to convince Kitto to allow me to go down on him, for he feared that it would hurt my reputation among the goblins, and we still needed their threat to keep our enemies in check, or at least to give them pause about attacking me. If the goblins learned the kind of sex that the brothers enjoyed, their reputations would be ruined. It could cost them their lives, because if you were perceived as weak, the challenges to combat could come so fast and often that eventually you would fail, and there was only one cure for failure in a duel among the goblins--death. I was lucky that the sidhe gave other options, or I would have died long before I escaped to Los Angeles.
Kurag, Goblin King, and Niceven, Queen of the Unseelie Demi-fey, had both agreed to forgo their price of treaty until after the babies were born. The goblins would have to wait until I was cleared for sex and had had it successfully with some of the fathers of my children, but Niceven could ask for her blood price to continue sooner. It was but a bit of blood offered to their tiny mouths, but the wild magic that had returned with my own late-blooming hands of power had given wings to the wingless among them, and given extra powers to some among them who had shared my blood and then my bed. Legend had said that some among the demi-fey could change to human size, but we had thought that lost with so much other magic among the fey, until we'd met demi-fey who could do it. I still thought they would be the perfect assassins, though Niceven said that they had never acted as such. I wasn't sure I believed her.
"You've thought of something that makes you sad, or worried," Kitto said softly.
"The demi-fey can demand their bit of blood again sooner than the goblins can demand their bit of flesh," I said.
He snuggled his face against my shoulder and stroked a hand down my back. "You fear the demi-fey, don't you?"
"Remember the case we helped the police solve? That proved to me that the demi-fey can be just as insane and dangerous as any of us." I shivered at the thought of what had almost happened, when our tiny murderer had tried to cut the babies from my body and destroy what she could not have, a regular life with the human she was in love with. They say lovers want the world to love with them, but love thwarted can turn as ugly and dangerous as any hatred I'd ever seen.
He kissed my shoulder. "I am sorry, our Merry, it was careless of me not to remember."
I shook my head, my longer hair sliding over the silk, which meant I was moving more than I thought, as if I could shake the memory of that evil from my mind, but it was too recent a memory to fade. I had been in my first trimester with the babes then, and it had been the case that made the men veto any other cases for the Grey and Hart Detective Agency until after the babies were born. So many things had been waiting for the babies, and now we stood surrounded by all of them. Triplets, the first ones born to the sidhe in more centuries than anyone could remember.
Now, everything and everyone that had been waiting for the births would be wondering when to approach me, and how, and if they wanted to continue with treaties, alliances, or ... There were those among Taranis's court who had been waiting to see if my children were born deformed monsters, which was what the Golden Court had believed happened to all sidhe who joined the Unseelie Court. It wasn't true, but like all truly ugly rumors it was strongly believed by many.
Now that the babies and their first pictures were disproving the rumor, we would see how serious the Seelie nobles had been about doing anything to have children of their own. If I could truly give them babies they would do much, including perhaps killing Taranis for me. I much preferred his death by his own nobles to risking the men I loved in battle against him, and me battling him ... it was too ludicrous to think about. He'd kill me. He would just kill me. Of course, what he wanted to do to me was to force me to be his queen, because he thought his rape had gotten me with his child. That he thought that was reasonable was just one more example of his insanity.
I stood there wrapped in the warmth of my robe and Kitto's arms, surrounded by our three children, and I wanted to feel content and happy, but there was still too much work to do, too many deaths to accomplish, because I finally owned that only the deaths of at least one of my relatives would bring safety to me and mine.
One of the babies shifted in their crib, making a small sound like the mewing of a kitten or the soft rustle of a bird. Kitto and I tensed, waiting to see if the noise grew and the baby woke, but the movement quieted and the room was full of that contented sleepiness that babies can give off, so you struggle to stay awake around them like being covered in dogs on the couch.
As if my thoughts had called them, I heard a snuffling at the door. The quiet voice of one of the guards came. "No, pups, you'll wake the babies moving around in there."
I looked toward the door. I could see the vague shapes of larger dogs, and the smaller ones; their eyes shone in the light in a way that those of normal dogs did not, but they were the dogs of faerie, and they did a lot of things that normal dogs didn't do.
I spoke softly. "It's all right, let them in."
"As you will, my lady." And the door was opened so the mass of dogs could spill inside. There were so many of them that their wagging tails made a sound, like wind, or the softest of clapping. I'd never had so many dogs in so quiet a room to understand that wagging tails actually make noise. It made me smile.
My two faerie greyhounds, Mungo and Minnie, pressed close like silk over muscle; the pack of terriers and small lapdogs that seemed to always roam the house and grounds milled around our ankles and calves. The smaller dogs started yipping, and one terrier gave a full bark.
"Hush," I said.
"You'll wake the babies," Kitto said.
The door pushed further open, and two more dogs entered. Two large black shapes, like all black Rottweilers, but they weren't Rotties, they were hellhounds, the black, raw stuff of faerie's wild magic made flesh and blood. Most of the dogs had begun as them, like black placeholders that would shift to a different variety of dog
once they were needed, though Doyle said that if they remained in this form for long enough they would simply be hellhounds. They actually had nothing to do with hell and everything to do with being wild magic, powerful guardians, and hunting down those who had betrayed or threatened faerie. If you had a pack of them behind you, you might think Christian demons were chasing you. Doyle's father had been a phouka, a shapeshifting faerie, but his mother had been a hellhound, so he could actually turn into a shape very similar to the pair that strode into the room. The other dogs went silent and gave way as the two came to bump against Kitto and me, only Mungo and Minnie stayed on either side of me, hunched, but touching me from behind. They acknowledged the bigger dogs' dominance, but not their place at my side, which was a fine line to walk in dog politics, but so far they'd managed it without fights. I had no illusions who would win a fight between my two slender sight hounds and the more massive guard dogs. Kitto and I both touched the great black heads.
"Big fellas," Kitto said, affectionately.
But then an even bigger shape pushed his way through the door, and the hellhounds gave way to him, as everyone else had given way before them.
"No," I whispered, "that's the big fella."
Spike was one of the biggest dogs I'd ever seen; he could nearly look me in the eye just standing, as tall as a modern Irish wolfhound with the same wiry coat, but broader, beefier. He was the true figure of the dogs that the Romans said could bring down the horses that pulled their chariots and then, if their masters didn't call them off, could slay the charioteer, too. They'd been so fierce that ransoms had been paid in an exchange of dogs. The great dogs had been pitted against lions in the arena, and the dogs had won enough matches to make it a good sport.
Spike strode into the room with an attitude that wasn't sight hound at all; they tend to be more uncertain, nervous, whereas he carried himself more like a German shepherd, and the way he sized up a room was more Doberman. He just had working guard dog in every purposeful pad of those great feet. In good light his coat was a wonderful mix of pale brindle stripes. He had a "sibling" that was short-haired to his wire coat, so that his brother looked like a pale tiger, which was what we'd named him, so it was Tiger and Spike.
"Aye," Kitto said, "he is."
The great dog came to me and I put both my hands on the big head and ruffled him. He gave a big tongue-lolling grin, as goofy and happy to be petted as any of the smallest terriers. I put my forehead against his rough, warm fur and whispered, "Did you hear us up, Spike?"
He snuffled me, as if to say yes, or maybe he was just taking a bigger hit of my scent.
Kitto had moved out of the circle of my arms so I could greet Spike. He wasn't afraid of the smaller dogs, but the wolfhounds seemed to give him and all the goblins pause. I'd learned that the wardogs hadn't just killed Romans, but had actually been used in the great wars between the sidhe and goblins, and they had been one of the few things that could bring true death to the immortals. They looked like dogs, but in effect they were living, breathing manifestations of the wild magic of faerie itself, so in effect they were magic made flesh, and that meant they could kill goblins, sidhe, all of us. I put my face over those gigantic jaws and trusted he wouldn't crush my throat with one bite.
Kitto moved away, and some of the smaller dogs followed him, so that he knelt in a swirl of them, petting them, and the sounds of their happy panting, snuffles, snorts, and quiet dog noises filled the room.
The two big, black dogs walked to the cribs and began to sniff them. Kitto got up and went to them. "Hush, you'll wake the babies."
The big black dog put its nose resolutely against the crib bars and looked back at me. It wasn't a dog look in those dark eyes, and as I gazed into them there was a spark of red and green like Yule fires banked and ready to come to life and fill a room with everything the holiday was meant to be, and so seldom was. I smelled roses, and then I smelled pine, like Christmas trees, and I wasn't surprised when I looked back to find Frost coming through the door. When the wild magic had first come here in L. A. he had sacrificed himself, become a great white stag; for a time we thought we'd lost him forever to that form, not dead, but not human enough to know that I was pregnant with his child, not human enough to hold me or love me.
He came to hold my hand now, and I smiled up at him, so happy that he stood beside me now. He bent and kissed me, whispering, "The God called me to your side."
I nodded.
Kitto came to stand on my other side but didn't try to take my hand. I reached out to him, and the smile that flashed joyful across his face was so worth that small gesture. "What's happening?" he whispered.
"Magic," I said.
The black dog snuffled Bryluen's onesie-covered body. She stared at him, eyes intent, not afraid, and then the big nose touched her bare face. The rush of magic washed over us in a skin-tingling, hair-raising wash of warmth that filled the world with the scent of pine and roses, and the scent of spring like a wash of fresh rain that brings the first flowers.
The black fur ran as if it were water moved by wind, and where that wind touched it the fur turned the green of grass and leaves, fur growing slightly longer, thicker, more wiry-looking. The shaggy green head was bigger than the baby it lay beside, but it raised that head and looked at us. Its tongue lolled out happily, and the overly wide eyes held both happy dog and something else, something more.
"Cu Sith," Frost whispered, and it was, the great watchdogs that used to guard our faerie mounds, our sithens. One had appeared in Illinois and attached itself to the Seelie Court, and a second had appeared here in L.A. when the wild magic created new lands of faerie inside the walled estate. The first one had run away to take up its post among the Seelie and spent a lot of time protecting the servants from King Taranis's rage. Taranis was afraid of their Cu Sith, partly because of what it was, and partly, I thought, because it didn't like him, and a Cu Sith was the heart of any sithen it guarded. It was a way of saying that his faerie mound didn't like him much.
Spike raised his head skyward and gave one long, deep baying howl. The other dogs joined him, one, two at a time, so that it was like a choir, each voice rising and blending with the next, so that we stood in the center of that beautiful, mournful, joyful noise. It reminded me more of the sound of wolves than dogs.
Gwenwyfar began to cry, and the other black dog went to her crib and looked back at us whining, as the howls reverberated and faded in the small room. We lowered the crib and the big black dog sniffed her. She cried harder, striking out with tiny legs and waving small fists. The dog snuffled her harder, rolling her a little with its muzzle; one of her tiny fists must have touched the fur, because white began to spread from its nose backward like a white snow covered the bare earth, except that this snow was shaggy fur, and the dog turned huge saucerlike eyes upward. Its great jaws were full of razor-sharp teeth, and though it looked like a big, white dog, there was just enough different about its eyes and mouth to make you think, Not quite a dog. It was one, and it wasn't.
"Galleytrot," Kitto said. He was right, it was known as a ghost dog, something that chased travelers on lonely roads and haunted lonely places. As the Cu Sith was the bright, high court of faerie, so the galleytrot was the scary story told around the winter fire, and a warning to stay in groups, because alone, things that weren't human could find you and steal you away. When the wild magic had come, the only other galleytrot had come to the hands of the goblin twins, Holly and Ash. There was no way for them to be Gwenwyfar's fathers; they had come to my bed too late. Galleytrots weren't exclusive to the goblins, but they were certainly more Unseelie than Seelie Court. Gwenwyfar might look perfectly Seelie, but her true heritage showed in the white dog at her side, as Bryluen's showed in her green dog. If theGalleytrot had come to Bryluen, I'd have wondered more if her possible goblin heritage might come from the twins.
Kitto said, "There's no dog for Alastair."
The door opened, and it was Doyle with another black dog at his side. The do
g went to Alastair's crib, and Frost lowered it for him. I took his hand in mine again, and Doyle took his other one, so that Frost stood in the middle of us as the black dog sniffed the baby. Alastair stared into the big face like Bryluen had, and then the dog touched his face, gently. Alastair made a soft sound and then the fur ran with colors, but something was different with this one, because it wasn't just the fur that changed, but the dog began to shrink, as if the big black body were being erased, or condensing down.
"What is it?" Kitto asked.
Doyle bent down and picked it up, ruffling its long ears. "A puppy," he said.
"But a puppy what?" Kitto asked.
I touched the long, trailing ears; they were silky. "Hound of some kind," I said.
The puppy began to whine and wriggle. Doyle put it on the floor, but it began to whimper and cry. Alastair started to cry, too.
Doyle frowned for a moment, then picked the puppy up and set it in the crib. It licked Alastair's face, and the crying stopped. It walked around him and settled on the other side, its white and red puppy body stretched the length of his, Alastair's hand touching its back.
"He's too little to have reached out for the puppy," I said.
"Perhaps," Doyle said.
"We can't leave the puppy in with him, it's not housebroken," I said.
"It's his puppy, Merry."
"Do you know what kind of dog it is?"
"As you said, a hound."
"The other two dogs are guard dogs; what can a puppy do?" Frost asked.
The puppy gave a contented sigh, and Alastair made a similar happy sound. "Maybe every boy needs a dog," Doyle said.
"Did you have one when you were little?" I asked.
He smiled. "I did."
I frowned at him. "What kind of dog?"
He shook his head. "Let's say it was a present from one of my aunts."
Since two of his aunts had been hellhounds, with no human form, I had to ask, "Are you saying that one of your cousins was your puppy?"
He smiled. "Dog was my other form; think of it as more a best friend than a boy's dog."
I looked down at our son and the "puppy." "Are you saying that Alastair will be able to shapeshift?"