He stood na**d 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."