Swallowing Darkness - Laurell K. Hamilton [52]
Sholto and the doctor were stripping him of the last of his clothes. I remembered him as so strong, so very alive. He lay on the bed as immovable as the dead. His chest rose and fell, but his breaths were shallow. His skin still had that unhealthy gray pallor to it. Without the clothes in the way you could see how many wounds marred his body. I counted seven separate ones before Sholto came to me. He grabbed my arm and turned me from the bed.
“You look pale, My Princess. Sit down.”
I shook my head. “It’s Mistral who’s hurt.”
Sholto took both my hands in his, and looked into my face. He seemed to be studying me. He let go of one hand so he could touch my forehead. “You feel cool to the touch.”
“I’ve been out in the winter cold, Sholto.” I tried to see around his body to the bed.
“Meredith, if it comes to a choice between having the healer look at you and the babes you carry or saving Mistral, I will choose you and the babies. So sit down and prove to me that you are not going back into shock. Riding with the wild hunt is not often an occupation for women, and I have never heard of a pregnant woman or goddess doing it at all.”
I heard his words, but all I could think of was that Mistral might be dying.
He squeezed my hand hard. The pain was enough to make me frown up at him and try to pull away. “You’re hurting me,” I said.
“I would shake you, but I don’t know what that would do to the babies. Meredith, I need you to take care of yourself so we can take care of Mistral. Do you understand that?”
He let go of my hand, and led me gently by the elbow to a chair that must have been there all along. It was as if I hadn’t seen the room until that moment, as if all I could see was Mistral, Sholto, and, vaguely, the healer. Was I in shock? Had I gone back into shock as the magic receded? Or were all the events of the evening simply catching up with me?
The chair Sholto sat me in was large. The arms under my hands were carved wood, smooth from years of other hands caressing it. The cushions underneath me were soft, and the draperies that were curled over the back of the chair were silk, a deep purple like ripe grapes or the darker color of wine. I looked around the room and found that most of the room was done in shades of purple and burgundy. I think I’d expected black and gray the way the Queen’s room was done. Sholto spent so much time in the Unseelie Court trying to be as good as, and fit in with, the Unseelie nobles that I’d just assumed that the black he wore at court was what he would have done his home in, but now I was here, and it was nothing like I’d imagined.
Among the burgundy and purple there were hints of red and lavender, gold and yellow here and there, interwoven with the darker colors. My apartment in Los Angeles had been mostly burgundy and pink. It hadn’t occurred to me until that moment that whoever I married would have a say in the decor of our home. I was pregnant with their children, but I didn’t really know their favorite colors, except for Galen. I’d known that Galen liked green since I was small. But the rest of the men, even Doyle and my lost Frost, hadn’t had time to tell me their likes and dislikes of small things. Colors, cushions, rugs, or bare wood; what did they prefer? I had no idea. We’d gone from emergency to emergency for so long, or been working to make ends meet, that there hadn’t been time to worry about the typical things couples discuss.
I’d spent my early life with my father out among the humans, American humans, so I knew how to be a couple, but I had the same problem that all royals had. We could try to be ordinary, but in the end, it wasn’t truly possible. What we were would always overwhelm who we were.
Sholto appeared in front of me with a cup in his hand. Steam rose from it, and it smelled thick, warm, sweet. I could identify some of the spices in it, but not all.
“Mulled wine, but I can’t drink, not while I’m pregnant.”
The healer spoke from the bed. “Did you see the servant bring in the wine?