[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
bespelled cop to the ground, where he was already wounded by Doyle's shot. There would be pictures
of Rhys and Nicca behind Doyle with guns in one hand and swords in the other, and Barinthus and the
Page 162
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
others forming a wall around us.
While it was happening, I was crushed under the white and grey of Frost's body while my hearing
returned and what I heard mostly was screams. Something warm dropped onto my forehead,
something liquid and heavier than sweat. I couldn't move my head enough to look up, but another drop
joined the first to trickle down my skin, and I caught that whiff of metallic sweetness that was blood.
I tried to push him off me, tried to ask how badly he was hurt, but it was like trying to move a mountain.
I managed to say, "Frost, Frost, you're hurt."
If he heard me, he ignored me. Everyone ignored me. It was as if I were strangely nonessential to the
events. The man had tried to kill me, but now it was the police and the bodyguards who were on stage,
not me.
I heard Major Walters bellow, "Get her out of here." The cry was taken up, like a battle cry. "Get her
out of here, get her out of here," so many voices yelling, so many male voices yelling it.
The weight above me lifted, and I saw the lights of the room again. More voices, "My God, she's hurt!"
The cry was taken up again, "She's hurt, she's hurt, the princess is hurt." There would be a picture of me
later with blood running down my face, but it wasn't my blood. I think I was the only one who knew that
at first.
Kitto was still kneeling close to me, and I knew that he had been one of the bodies in my living shield.
Barinthus held down his hand to me. "Merry-girl." He hadn't called me that in years. I took his hand while
Galen tried to look at Frost's shoulder and the bigger man shrugged him off. It never occurred to me that
Barinthus hadn't touched the ring in the other room.
His hand met the ring as he pulled me up, and he froze in midmotion, a look of startlement on his face.
The guards who were new looked around for another threat, because they felt the magic. My guards felt
it, but they knew it wasn't another attempt on my life. I heard Frost say, "Consort save us," and Rhys say,
"Shit." Then the room was gone, swallowed in a blink of magic. The water was warm as a bath, warm as
blood. Barinthus was beside me, helping me tread water. The nearly invisible webbing between his
fingers had flared to life, one strong arm stroking the water, while the other held me against his body. We
were both nude, and it had been the warmth of the water that had kept me from noticing. Which meant
the water was the exact temperature of my body. I could feel his legs moving, keeping us afloat, keeping
us in the middle of a vastness of water that was as blue as his hair, as green as his hair, as grey as his hair.
His hair streamed down his shoulders into the water, and where it touched, it was as if each strand
became a current, like a melting of color that swam away from us, until I couldn't tell what was hair and
what was water, and still his body was solid against mine. Part of his body grew more solid as our bodies
bumped against one another in the warm, warm water.
"Merry," he said, "what have you done?"
I opened my mouth but it wasn't my words that came out: "I bring you back your ocean, Manannan Mac
Lir, come take it from me."
He touched my mouth with his hands, and for a moment only his strong legs kept us afloat. "Do not say
that name, for I am not he. I have not been that for long years." He looked stricken, as if hearing the
name had hurt him somehow.
I realized in a distant way that I wasn't entirely alone in my body, nor entirely in control of it. The thought
Page 163
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
should have frightened me, but it didn't. The power was so so soothing, so safe. It was like being
wrapped in peace.
"Come, drink of me, and hold me to your lips." My body entwined around his, wrapping us together in
the warm water. It was as if I'd known that he would try to push me away, but there was no way to
break free now. My small, rounded arms were like gentle chains, my legs around his waist solid as the
mountain's root. Strangely, I knew that he could not free himself of me. He could deny me, but he could
not cast me aside. My body's weight forced him to glide onto his back, his head only barely above the
quiet waves.
His eyes flashed white. "You are not Merry."
"I am Merry," and I knew it was true.
"But not Merry alone." His arms and legs fanned the water, pressing parts of him against me in a way
that we had never been.
"No, not Merry, alone."
"Danu," he said, and his voice was the rushing whisper of waves on some distant shore.
I slid my hands behind his neck and raised my body along his, until my mouth hovered over his, and the
tip of him caressed against the opening of my body. The feel of him touching the edge of me brought me
back into myself, chased her soothing presence back, just enough. I said, "Barinthus."
"Merry, do you agree to this? The Goddess and God mean well, but I have seen them use people, and I
no longer believe that the end justifies the means."
I raised back enough to gaze down at him. He floated underneath me, his hair flowing out in a halo of
blue, green, grey, navy, turquoise, and his face caught like a flower in the center of all that color, all that
movement. Everything around us was water, moving, flowing, slapping in tiny waves. His body was the
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]