I reached out, and Frost grabbed my hand, pulled me back. "We don't know what this is." I didn't fight him, because he was right.
So I clung to his arms and didn't know what to do. I was supposed to be princess of faerie, and all I could do was kneel and stare while that strong body rolled itself into a mess of naked muscles and bone that glistened in the air, wet with blood.
When Doyle screamed again, I screamed with him. The others spilled into the room behind us with guns and swords, and none of it would help. I prayed, prayed as I had for Nicca, but there was no glow from the chalice this time. There was nothing but Doyle writhing on the floor, and the blood that crept outward like a widening dark pool on the carpet.
Frost walked backward on his knees, moving us away from that spreading wetness. He stumbled when he did it, and that one small movement freed one of my hands. It made no sense - in fact, it was the opposite of good sense - but I had to do it. I had to touch what was lying on the carpet, because it couldn't be Doyle. That writhing mass of muscle, bones, and tissue could not be my tall, handsome, Darkness. It wasn't possible.
My fingertips found wet, warm flesh, no skin. Whatever I touched in the second before Frost jerked me back was something deep within Doyle's body, something never meant to be caressed by human hand.
Frost held my wrist and seemed horrified by the red blood on my fingertips. "Don't do that again, Merry."
"Is that fur?" Rhys asked the question, pointing a pale finger.
I looked back at what was left of Doyle, and at first I didn't see it. Then, among all the dark flesh, I saw an equally dark wash of fur, flowing like slow water to coat the naked meat that had once been a man. The bare glistening bones sank into that fur, and once hidden away they began to reform with a sound like stones grinding together. A mouth formed out of that fur and bone, and it screamed, and it sounded human, but it wasn't.
When it was over, a huge black dog lay panting on its side amid the blood and fluids. My eyes tried to make sense of it, tried to see Doyle in that furred shape, but it was all dog. A huge black mastiff-type dog. I remembered the shadow dogs in my vision. What lay before us was a twin of the dogs that had formed from the shadows under the trees.
The great shaggy head tried to rise, but fell back as if exhausted. I tried to reach out to pet it, and Frost wouldn't let me. "Let me go, Frost," I said.
Rhys knelt on one knee near the dog's hind legs. "It's Doyle's dog form. I thought never to see it again." He reached out with the hand that wasn't holding a gun, and stroked down that furred side.
The dog raised its head and looked at him, then again fell back against the carpet, as if the effort had taken too much.
I stared at that furred form and was so happy that he was alive, not a disintegrating mass of flesh, that I didn't care if he was a dog. At that moment, it was so much better than what I'd feared. He wasn't dead. I'd learned long ago that with life, there is hope. With death, there is none. I believed sincerely in reincarnation. I knew that in another lifetime I might see the dead again, but it had been cold comfort at eighteen when my father died. It would have been very cold comfort if Doyle had turned into something that couldn't be healed, but only killed as a mercy. "Let go of me, Frost."
He released me reluctantly.
"Doyle, can you hear me?" I asked.
"It is still me, Merry." Doyle's voice was deeper, more growling, but it was definitely his voice.
I crawled to him, my knees sinking into the wet carpet. The blood was already cooling. I touched one of the long silken ears. Doyle nuzzled his great head against my hand.
Rhys stroked his hand down the furred side. "I always half envied you shape-shifters. Thought it must be cool to be an animal, some of the time." He laid his hand over Doyle's chest, over his heart, as if he could feel more than just the heavy thud of it. "But I've never seen a change that violent."
I brushed my hand down the warm and strangely dry fur, as if all that fur hadn't come through a wash of blood. Of course, maybe it hadn't. I didn't know that much about the mechanics of shifting form; no one really did. One of the first things to be lost when the fey left faerie in Europe was shape-shifting. Those of us who had fled to America, but kept to our hollow hills, had retained more of some abilities, but most of us were a backward lot and didn't trust or sometimes even believe in modern science. So there were no scientific studies of the phenomenon.
The fur was so soft, so thick under my hand. "Changes this violent only happen when one sidhe tries to force another into shifting against his will." My hand slid down the fur until my hand touched Rhys's fingertips. That one small touch thrilled along my arm up into my shoulder, my chest, a spasm of muscles and skin that was both pleasure and pain. It stole my breath, made me stare wide-eyed into Rhys's face.
Doyle's chest rose and fell under our hands, his heart like a great, thick drum.
"The magic isn't gone yet." Rhys's voice was hoarse.
Doyle rolled onto his back, his great muzzle opening wide, flashing a gleam of teeth like small white knives. Both Rhys and I pulled our hands back from him, just in case. He'd spoken only once. Some retained more of themselves in animal form than others. I'd never seen Doyle as anything but sidhe.
Doyle strained at the air with paws bigger than my hands. He growled, but there were words in it. "I can feel it, growing, growing inside me."
Then it was as if the dog's body split asunder, like a seed, and something huge, and black, and slicker-furred than dog sprang out of him. Rhys and I were left to scramble back. Frost grabbed me around the waist and ran us backward to the wall, giving room to the huge shape growing at the foot of the bed.
It spilled upward like a genie from a bottle, except that the bottle was Doyle's body. A great black horse shape flowed upward, as if something of flesh could be formed of water and smoke, because solid flesh did not push into the air like a fountain, or smoke rising from some great fire.
Maeve and Sage came through the door in time to see the horse become truly solid. The dog form was simply gone, like black smoke that faded around huge dark hooves.
The dog had been the size of a small pony, so the horse was even more massive. It tossed its black head and nearly scraped its nose on the ceiling. The neck was thicker than my waist. It stamped on the carpet with hooves the size of dinner plates. It moved uneasily on its huge legs, and even little movements made everyone back up. All the men were staring. Kitto seemed more frightened than the rest. He had moved back through the crowd so that he stood near the door, and I think only Maeve and Sage blocking the door kept him in the room. Another phobia to add to the list for the goblin.
It was Sage who broke the silence. "I'll be damned."
"Probably," the horse said. It was still Doyle's voice, but instead of the growl of the dog, it was higher-pitched and had lost that near-animal undertone. To say that the horse's voice sounded more human seemed wrong, but was still true.
Doyle shook out a mane as black as his own hair. "I have not been in this form since the first weirding."
Rhys came forward and passed a hand down the side of that smooth neck. The horse's body gleamed like some dark jewel.
I started forward, but Frost held me tighter, pressing the back of my nude body against the front of his, but he wasn't excited to be there. He whispered, "It's not over. Can't you feel it?"
"What?"
"Magic," he breathed.
"Pressed this close to you, all I can feel is you. You all feel like magic to me."
He looked down at me then, and I saw a thought in his eyes, as if he hadn't known that before. "Then we make it harder for you to sense other magic?"
I nodded. "Yes."
"That is not good," he said.
I rubbed my body against his, and felt him swell against me, instantly. "I love it," I said, "I love being with you, all of you."
I don't know what he would have said, because the horse tried to rear and found there was no room. It rose above us like some black demon, hooves slicing the air. Rhys threw himself backward, rolling across the floor to end up against the others' legs.
The great form seemed to spread like a black coat, opening down the middle. Black wings stretched out of that opening, and the horse's form faded into smoke, or black mist. When the mist cleared there was a huge black eagle standing on the carpet. Its outspread wings must have been eight feet, maybe more. One wing brushed the far wall and folded against it. There simply wasn't room.
Standing, the bird was almost as tall as I was. I'd never been that close to anything that large that was supposed to be a bird. It cocked a head at me, and I saw those black-on-black eyes, and strangely, the look was still Doyle.
Rhys had regained his feet. "An eagle, cool. I never knew you were a bird."
The ebony beak opened, flashing paler colors. "I have never been this." The words sounded even higher-pitched yet, as if it were a voice meant for eagle screams, not human speech.
No one tried to get closer this time. No one tried to touch him. He folded his wings in against his body for only a moment, then they spread wide again, and the thick breast opened, like a coat, and Doyle stepped out in a swirl of darkness that moved like smoke but smelled like mist.
He stood naked before us for a second, then collapsed slowly to the floor. I would have rushed forward, but Frost still held me tight. It was Rhys and Nicca who reached his side first. Doyle managed to catch himself on one hand.
"Are you hurt, Captain?" Nicca asked.
Rhys was grinning. "That was a hell of a show."
I think Doyle tried to smile, but his arm began to tremble and slowly collapse, until he lay on the carpet on his side. Strangely, along with his clothes, the tie to his braid was gone, and that long plait of hair was starting to unwind across the floor.
"Let go of me, Frost, now!"
"You want to go to him," he said, and there was such sorrow in his voice.
I looked up at him. "Yes, as I'd want to go to any of you who was hurt."
He shook his head. "No, Doyle is special to you."
I frowned up at him. "Yes, as you are."
He shook his head again. He leaned over, whispered against my face. "Since he entered your bed, you have distanced yourself from me." He drew back and let me go. I watched him pull himself upright until he was the tall, handsome Frost. Imposing, impersonal, arrogant of face and bearing. But the look in his grey eyes was hurt, angry.
I shook my head. "I do not have time for this."
He just looked away as if I weren't there.
I turned to the others. "Rhys, is he going to be all right?"
"Yeah, he's just tired. I think from that first change. He fought like a son of a bitch."
Doyle's voice came tired but clear. "The less I fought, the easier it became."
"Good. Get him into the bed, so he can rest," I said, and turned back to Frost. I looked at him while I said, "Everybody out, except Doyle, Rhys, and Frost."
They all looked at each other. "Just do it, guys. Now." I was tired, too. A tired that went beyond the physical. And I'd had enough. Enough of my beautiful Frost. I'd decided to resort to brutal honesty, because I'd tried everything else.
There must have been something in my voice, because no one argued with me. How refreshing.
When the door closed behind them and Rhys was helping Doyle into the bed, I gave my full attention to Frost. "Normally, I would do this in private, but none of you believes me, most of the time, without one of the other guards to back me up. I don't want any misunderstandings, Frost."
Frost gave me a very cold look. "I understand that Doyle will be in your bed tonight."
I shook my head. "Frost, it is not Doyle being in my bed that's made me pull back from you. It's you who's made me pull back."
He looked away, as if he was at full attention but didn't see anything.
I slapped his chest, hard, because I couldn't reach his face. It startled him, made him look at me, and for a moment I saw something real in those eyes again, but only for a moment. Then he was all cold arrogance again.
"This pouting has got to stop."
He gave me cold eyes. "I do not pout."
"Yes, you do." I turned to the two men at the bed.
Rhys was tucking Doyle under the covers. He nodded. "You do pout."
Doyle lay heavily on the pillows, as if raising his head would have been an effort. "You do, my old friend, you do."
"I don't know what you mean," Frost said, "any of you."
"Something hurts your feelings, you pout. You perceive that something threatens your place in my affections, you pout. Things don't go your way in a debate, you pout."
"I do not pout."
"You're pouting, right now, this very second."
He opened his mouth, closed it, and a moment of puzzlement showed through. "I do not see this as pouting. Children pout, warriors do not."
"Then what do you call this?" I asked, hands on hips.
He seemed to think a moment, then said, "I merely react to what you do. If you prefer Doyle to me, then there is nothing I can do. I have given you the best of me, and it is not good enough."
"Love isn't just about sex, Frost. I need you not to do this."
"Not to do what?" he asked.
"This" - I poked a finger against his chest - "this cold distant facade. I need you to be real, yourself."
"You do not like me when I am myself."
"That's not true. I love you when you are yourself, but you have to stop letting everything hurt your feelings. You have to stop pouting." I stepped back enough so I could look up into his face without straining my neck. "I spend so much energy worrying how you're going to take something. I don't have the energy to spare to tiptoe around your feelings, Frost."
He moved away from the wall. "I understand."
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Leaving. That's what you want, isn't it?"
I turned to the two men. "Help me out here, please?"
"She doesn't want you to leave," Rhys said. "She loves you. She loves you more than she loves me." He didn't sound hurt; it was more a statement of fact. Since it was the truth, I didn't try to argue. "But every time you pull the cold, arrogant act, Merry pulls away. When you pout, she pulls away."
"The cold arrogant act, as you put it, is what saved my sanity with the queen."
"I am not the queen, Frost," I said. "I don't want a toy in my bed. I want a king at my side. I need you to be a grownup." It should have been silly to tell someone hundreds of years my senior to grow up, but it was necessary. Sadly.
Doyle spoke from against the pillows, and his voice held the effort that speech cost him. "If you could curb your emotions, she would love you and no other. If you could but understand, there would be no contest."
I wasn't entirely sure of that, but saying so out loud would not help. So I let it go.
"And what matters who she loves, if there is no child," Frost said.
"It seems to matter to you a great deal." Doyle closed his eyes and seemed asleep.
Frost frowned. "I do not know how not to do this. It is a habit of centuries."
"Let's do this," I said. "Every time you start to pout, I just tell you to stop. You try to stop when it's brought to your attention."
"I don't know."
"Just try," I said, "that's all I'm asking. Just try."
A very solemn look passed over his face, then he nodded. "I will try. I still do not agree that I pout, but I will try not to do it."
I hugged him. When I pulled away, he was smiling. "For that look in your eyes, I would slay armies. What is a little emotion, to that?"
Anyone who thought that slaying armies was easier than fixing your own internal emotional mess hadn't had enough therapy. But I didn't say that out loud, either.