"Funny, I've had the same fantasy," he said. He wiggled his eyebrows at me and did a miserably bad Groucho Marx impression. "Maybe you can come up to my place and look at my etchings."
I smiled and shook my head. "Don't you watch any movies made after color came into the cinema?"
"Not often." He held out his hand, and I took it. We walked down the hallway hand in hand, and it was companionable. Of all the guards I liked, I'd have thought Rhys would have been the most obnoxious about the possibility of sex. But he'd been the perfect gentlemen. Proof once again that I didn't really understand men.
Chapter 29
THE DOORS AT THE END OF THE HALLWAY WERE SMALL TONIGHT: MAN height. Sometimes the doors were big enough for an elephant to pass through. They were a pale grey with gold edgings, very Louis the something. I didn't bother asking Rhys if the queen had redecorated. The sithen, like the Black Coach, did its own redecorating.
Rhys opened the elegant double doors, but we never got to step into the room beyond because Frost stopped us. It wasn't that he was physically blocking the door-though he was. He'd changed into the queen's outfit, and the sight of him in it stopped me cold. I think Rhys stopped moving because I did.
The shirt was completely see-through, to the point where I wasn't sure if the cloth was actually white, or if it was clear and it was his skin that made it look white. The shirt was cut like a second skin to his chest, but the sleeves had a large puff of diaphanous material, cut tight just above the bend of his elbow by a broad applique of glittering silver. The rest of the sleeves fell in a long full tube like a crystal morning glory. The thread that kept the shirt together was silver and gleamed at every seam. The pants were silver satin cut so low around the waist that his hip bones showed through the cloth of his shirt. If he'd tried to wear underwear they would have shown at the waist of the pants. The only thing that kept the pants up was that they were unbelievably tight. A series of white strings over the groin, like the ties on the back of a merry widow, took the place of a zipper.
His hair had been divided into three sections. The upper part was pulled up through a white carved piece of bone so that the silver hair fell like the water of some fountain around his head. The second section of hair was simply pulled back on either side and held in place with bone barrettes. The lower section hung loose and free, but so little was left that it was like a thin silver veil emphasizing his body instead of hiding it.
"Frost, you're almost too beautiful to be real."
"She treats us like dolls to be dressed at her whim." It was the closest thing to an overt criticism of the queen that I'd ever heard him say.
"I like it, Frost," Rhys said. "It's you."
He scowled at Rhys. "It is not me."
I'd never seen the tall guard so angry about something so small. "It's just clothes, Frost. It won't hurt you to wear them with grace. Showing your displeasure in them could hurt you, very much."
"I have obeyed my queen."
"If she knows how much you hate the clothes she'll order more of the same for you. You know that."
The scowl deepened until he managed to put lines across that perfect face. Then a scream came from the room behind him. Even wordless, I recognized that voice. It was Galen.
I stepped forward. Frost stood his ground.
"Get out of my way, Frost," I said.
"The prince has ordered this punishment, but has graciously allowed privacy. No one may enter until it is complete."
I stared up at Frost. I couldn't fight my way past him, and I wasn't going to kill him. It used up my options.
"Merry is being named coheir tonight," Rhys said.
Frost's eyes flicked from one to the other of us. "I do not believe it."
Galen screamed again, and the sound raised the flesh on my arms, clenched my hands into fists.
"I will be coheir tonight, Frost."
He shook his head. "That changes nothing."
"What if she told you that our celibacy will be lifted for Merry, and Merry alone?" Rhys asked.
Frost managed to look arrogant and disbelieving. "'What if' is not a game I will play with you."
Galen gave another sharp scream. The queen's Ravens do not scream easily. I moved toward Frost, and he tensed. I think he was expecting a fight.
I ran my fingers lightly over the front of his shirt. He jumped as if I'd hurt him. "The queen will announce tonight that I am to have my pick of the Guards. She's ordered me to sleep with one of you tonight, or tomorrow I will have a starring role in one of her little orgies." I wrapped my arms around his waist, pressing myself lightly against his body. "Trust me, Frost, I will have one of you tonight, and tomorrow, and the night after that. It would be a shame if you were not among those I bedded."
The arrogance was gone, replaced by something eager and afraid. I didn't understand the fear, but the eagerness, that I understood. He looked to Rhys. "Your oath that this is true."
"You have it," Rhys said. "Let her pass, Frost."
He stared down at me. He still hadn't touched me back-my caress had been like a kiss against unresponsive lips-but he moved out of the way, sliding from the circle of my arms. He watched me like you'd watch a coiled rattlesnake, no sudden movements, and no trust that it wouldn't bite you anyway. He was afraid of what was happening in that room.
I walked past him. I felt Rhys at my back, but all I could see was what lay in the center of the room. There was a small water garden in the center of the room, with a large decorative rock in the center of it. Stepping-stones led to the rock, in which were embedded permanent chains. Galen was chained to the rock. His body was almost lost to sight under the slowly fanning butterfly wings of the demi-fey. They looked like true butterflies on the edge of a puddle, sipping liquid, wings moving slowly to the rhythm of their feeding. But they weren't sipping water, they were drinking his blood.