“At worst they would limit me to the Seelie Court, Meredith, and that is where I stay anyway.”

“No, uncle dearest, you had a king of another kingdom assassinated; that is an act of war, and that is the one thing that will get you kicked out of this country.”

“Only you know what I did, Meredith, and once we kiss, you won’t tell.”

“You don’t believe the human wizards will free me once you have me under your spell?”

“No, Meredith, I don’t. Human magic has never been a match for mine. Now, about that dress.”

“No,” I said.

My clothes vanished and I was suddenly na**d against the rugs and the stone. He was still pressed against my ass, but now he felt bigger and harder, eager for his conquest.

“NO!” I pulled my hand free, and I prayed as never before, Let this work, let my hand of power be real here! Taranis made his clothes vanish. I had a moment of feeling him na**d on top of me, pinning me to the floor, and then his h*ps began to shift, to hunt for an angle that would let him enter me, and I shoved my hand against his bare arm. The same arm that I had twisted in the last nightmare he’d given me.

His arm began to fold in upon itself. He let me go, and it was his turn to scream, “NO!”

I turned and saw him on his knees, naked, and maybe he was handsome, but all I could see was the monster he was, and his left arm was a curling, deformed thing. I waited for it to reach the main part of his body and turn him inside out so that he wouldn’t be able to hide the monster inside, behind the handsome façade. I would make him into the truth of himself, and pull the horror out so all the world could see it.

“Meredith! Help me, Meredith, help me!”

I said, “No.”

He vanished, and a second later I woke in the hospital with Doyle bending over me. He wasn’t dead. I wasn’t trapped with Taranis, and he hadn’t bespelled me, and maybe, just maybe, the damage I’d done to him in dream would be real when he woke. Now, all we had to do was stop the assassins from killing Doyle and Mistral the way they’d killed Sholto.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

A SOUND IN the darkened room had frightened me at first, and then I’d seen the nightflyers plastered to the wall around the window, and my heart had lifted, because only Sholto could have brought them to L. A. He wasn’t dead? Had it been another dream? No, it had been real. I held Doyle’s hand in mine and looked around the room for Sholto.

Galen was on the other side of the bed. “I told you what she’d think when she saw the nightflyers. I’m sorry, Merry, but Sholto is still dead.”

“How did they get to L. A. without him?”

“Kitto brought them,” Doyle said.

I looked from one to the other of them. “Am I still dreaming?”

Galen smiled. “I could pinch you to prove we’re real.”

It made me smile a little. I tried to reach for his hand, but I was still hooked to an IV, so he took my hand instead. “No pinching necessary,” I said, “but how did Kitto bring the sluagh across the country?”

Doyle answered, “He used his hand of power.”

“The hand of reaching only lets him bring someone through a mirror during a call.” I looked at the mass of nightflyers covering the far wall and clinging to part of the ceiling. There had to be at least two dozen of them, though the way their flat bodies overlapped it was hard to get an accurate count, but still … “It would take hours to bring through this many of the sluagh. How long was I trapped in dream?”

My heart was pounding in my throat again, because though Doyle was here safe beside me, Mistral was not.

“You have only been asleep a short time, Merry; it has not been hours,” Doyle said.

“Where is Mistral?” I asked.

“At the main house, in charge of seeing that no harm comes to the babies. A hate group had claimed responsibility for trying to assassinate you, so I made Mistral stay at the house and see to the defenses there. He made me swear I would explain that only duty to our children would keep him from your side.”

“Doyle, you and Mistral are in terrible danger. Taranis means to have you both killed, as he killed Sholto. He fears the three of you the most of my men, and he intends to strip me of you, and then try to claim me for himself.”

Doyle touched my face, looking very hard into my eyes, as if trying to tell if I was telling the truth, or mad, or still dream befuddled.

“It was not just a nightmare, Doyle. Taranis was in my dreams again.”

Galen cursed softly. “Damn it, we let them put you to bed without the herbs in your pillow. I am so sorry, Merry; I should have thought of it.”

“We know that it is not a human hate group, but traitors among the sidhe themselves,” Doyle said.

“How do you know? Did Taranis invade someone else’s dreams?”

“No, but Rhys and Barinthus went to the beach house to make certain the sidhe there cooperated with the police, and forced them all to let the police take their fingerprints.”

“Are you saying one of the sidhe at the beach killed … shot Sholto?”

“Rhys and the police both quickly realized that the angle of the shot meant it could not have come from the hillside, but had to come from one of the upper windows of the house itself.”

“A lot of them didn’t want to cooperate with the police,” Galen said.

“I understand the murderer not wanting to cooperate with the police, but why did the rest refuse?”