Swallowing Darkness - Laurell K. Hamilton [57]
“Your hair,” Sholto whispered. “There is mistletoe in your hair again.”
I turned my head and could feel the waxy green leaves. A touch found the white berries. I gazed up at Sholto, and he had a crown of woven herbs. They bloomed with tiny stars of lavender, white, and blue. He raised his free hand and there again was a tendril of green like a living ring on his finger. It burst into white bloom, like the most delicate of gemstones.
I felt movement around one ankle, and raised my gown to find an anklet of green and yellow leaves, lemon thyme wrapped around me. Except for the mistletoe in my hair, this was what we had gained the night that Sholto and I had first made love. The mistletoe had been from a night when I was with other of my men.
A vine rose from the bed like a thorny green serpent. It moved toward our clasped hands. “Why is it always thorns?” I asked, but this was one moment when my wishes would not change faerie.
Sholto said it, “Because everything worth having hurts.” His hand tensed against mine, then the vine found our hands and began to wind around us. Thorns bit into our skin with small biting pains. Blood began to trickle down our hands, mingling our blood as our hands were pressed more and more tightly by the thorns. It should have simply hurt, but the summer sunshine fell upon us, and the perfume of herbs and roses, warmed by the life-giving sun, was all around us.
The vine around our hands burst into flowers. Pink roses covered the vine, hiding the pain, and giving us a bouquet more intimate than any ever made by man.
I felt my hair move, and as Sholto leaned in to kiss me, he said, “You wear a crown of mistletoe and white roses.”
We kissed, and his free hand with its ring of flowers cradled my face. We drew apart just enough to speak. “By our mingled blood,” I whispered.
“By the power of the Goddess,” he said.
“Let us join our power,” I said.
“And our kingdoms,” he replied.
“Let it be so,” I said, and there was a sound like some great bell being rung, as if the universe had been waiting for us to say those words. I should have been afraid of what it meant. I should have had doubts, but in that moment, there was no room for such things. There were only Sholto’s eyes gazing into mine, his hand on my face, our hands tied together by the very magic of faerie itself.
“So mote it be,” he answered. “Now let us save our Darkness.”
I’d traveled with Sholto to the between places, but I’d never been able to feel his power stretching outward. It was surprisingly similar to a hand reaching outward in the dark until it finds what it needs and draws it near.
One moment we were in the heart of faerie, the next we were in an emergency room surrounded by doctors, nurses, and screaming monitors. There was a strange man on the gurney, and a doctor was trying to restart his heart.
They stared at us for a moment, then we simply walked away, leaving them to save the man if they could. “Where is he, Meredith?” Sholto asked.
Sholto had gotten us here. Now it was up to me to find Doyle in time.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I HAD A MOMENT OF PANIC AS WE WALKED DOWN A CORRIDOR. How did I find Doyle? I thought about him, and the mark on my stomach pulsed. It had begun as a real moth but had thankfully become a tattoo. If I ever made a flag or a shield to represent me, it would hold that small moth with its bright hind wings. It was called the beloved underwing, an Ilia Underwing. It was my mark, and some of my guards bore it on their bodies. Doyle was one of those. The mark pulsed as we moved, like a game of hot and cold. If Doyle had been well, I could have simply called him to me, but I was afraid to call him. If his injuries were life threatening, then getting out of his sickbed to come to me might kill him.
I could not take that chance. We paced through the hospital guided by the mark on my body. I kept waiting for people to scream and point, but they didn’t. They acted as if they could not see us. I asked, “You’re hiding us?”
“I am.”
“I can never make people walk around me without making