Black, Michael Ian:My Custom Van: And 50 Other Mind-Blowing Essays that Will Blow Your Mind Al l Over Your Face
- Livres de poche 2010, ISBN: 9781439153536
Ballantine Books. Good. 4.2 x 1.1 x 6.73 inches. Mass Market Paperback. 2009. 416 pages. <br>I am Meredith, princess of faerie, and at long las t, I am with child-twins, fathered by… Plus…
Ballantine Books. Good. 4.2 x 1.1 x 6.73 inches. Mass Market Paperback. 2009. 416 pages. <br>I am Meredith, princess of faerie, and at long las t, I am with child-twins, fathered by my royal guard. Now I must stay alive to see my children born, as conspirators from every co urt plot against me and mine. They seek to strip my guards, my lo vers, from me by poisoned word or cold steel. But I still have su pporters, and even friends, among the goblins and the sluagh who will stand by me. Those who would defy and destroy me are destine d to pay a terrible price. To protect what is mine, I will sacrif ice anything-even if it means waging a battle against my darkest enemies and making the most momentous decision ever made as princ ess of faerie. Editorial Reviews Review An emotionally charged and suspense-filled tale . . . with enough surprises, twists and turns to keep you guessing.-Romance Reviews Today Wild magic and wilder sex.-Publishers Weekly Nearly nonstop action.-St. Louis Post-Dispatch About the Author Laurell K. Hamilton is the New Yo rk Times bestselling author of the Meredith Gentry novels: A Kiss of Shadows, A Caress of Twilight, Seduced by Moonlight, A Stroke of Midnight, Mistral's Kiss, A Lick of Frost, and Divine Misdeme anors, as well as seventeen acclaimed Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter , novels. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri. Excerpt. ® Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter One Hospitals are w here people go to be saved, but the doctors can only patch you up , put you back together. They can't undo the damage. They can't m ake it so you didn't wake up in the bad place, or change the trut h to lies. The nice doctor and the nice woman from the SART, Sexu al Assault Response Team, couldn't change that I had indeed been raped. The fact that I couldn't remember it, because my uncle had used a spell for his date-rape drug, didn't change the evidence- the evidence that they'd found in my body when they did the exam and took samples. You would think being a real live faerie princ ess would make your life fairy-tale-like, but fairy tales only en d well. While the story is going on, horrible things happen. Reme mber Rapunzel? Her prince got his eyes scratched out by the witch , which blinded him. At the end of the story, Rapunzel's tears ma gically restored his sight, but that was at the end of the story. Cinderella was little better than a slave. Snow White was actual ly nearly killed four different times by the evil queen. All anyo ne remembers is the poisoned apple, but don't forget the huntsman , or the enchanted girdle and the poisoned comb. Pick any fairy t ale that's based on older stories, and the heroine of the piece h as a miserable, dangerous, nightmarish time of it. I am Princess Meredith NicEssus, next in line to a high throne of faerie, and I'm in the middle of my story. The happy-ever-after ending, if it 's coming at all, seems a very long way away tonight. I was in a hospital bed, in a nice private room, in a very nice hospital. I was in the maternity ward, because I was pregnant, but not with my crazy uncle's baby. I had been pregnant before he stole me awa y. Pregnant with the children of men I loved. They'd risked every thing to rescue me from Taranis. Now, I was safe. I had one of th e greatest warriors that faerie had ever seen at my side: Doyle, once the Queen's Darkness, and now mine. He stood at the window, staring off into the night that was so ruined by the lights from the hospital parking lot that the blackness of his skin and hair was much darker than the night outside. He'd removed the wraparou nd sunglasses that he almost always wore outside. But his eyes we re as black as the glasses that hid them. The only color in the d im light of the room was the glints from the silver rings that cl imbed the graceful line of one ear to the point that marked him a s not pure blood, not truly high court, but mixed blood, like me. The diamonds in his earlobe sparkled in the light as he turned h is head, as if he'd felt me staring at him. He probably had. He h ad been the queen's assassin a thousand years before I was born. His ankle-length hair moved like a black cloak as he came toward me. He was wearing green hospital scrubs that he'd been loaned. They had replaced the blanket from the ambulance that had brought us here. He'd entered the golden court, to rescue me, in the for m of a large black dog. When he shape-shifted he lost everything, clothes, weapons, but strangely never the piercings. The many ea rrings and the nipple piercing survived his return to human form, maybe because they were part of him. He came to stand beside th e bed, and take my hand-the one that didn't have the intravenous drip in it, which was helping hydrate me, and get me over the sho ck I'd been in when I had arrived. If I hadn't been with child, t hey'd have probably given me more medicine. For once I wouldn't h ave minded stronger drugs, something to make me forget. Not just what my uncle, Taranis, had done, but also the loss of Frost. I gripped Doyle's hand, my hand so small and pale in his large, dar k one. But there should have been another beside him, beside me. Frost, our Killing Frost, was gone. Not dead, not exactly, but lo st to us. Doyle could shape-shift to several forms at will and co me back to his true form. Frost had had no ability to shape-shift , but when wild magic had filled the estate where we'd been livin g in Los Angeles, it had changed him. He had become a white stag, and run out the doors that had appeared into a piece of faerie t hat had never existed before the magic came. The lands of faerie were growing, instead of shrinking, for the first time in centur ies. I, a noble of the high courts, was with child, twins. I was the last child of faerie nobility to be born. We were dying as a people, but maybe not. Maybe we were going to regain our power, b ut what use to me was power? What use to me was the return of fae rie, and wild magic? What use was any of it, if Frost was an anim al with an animal's mind? The thought that I would bear his chil d and he would neither know nor understand made my chest tight. I gripped Doyle's hand, but couldn't meet his eyes. I wasn't sure what he would see there. I wasn't sure what I was feeling anymore . I loved Doyle, I did, but I loved Frost, too. The thought that they would both be fathers had been a joyous one. He spoke in hi s deep, deep voice, as if molasses, and other, thick, sweet thing s, could be words, but what he said wasn't sweet. I will kill Tar anis for you. I shook my head. No, you will not. I had thought a bout it, because I had known that Doyle would do just what he'd s aid. If I asked, he would try to kill Taranis, and he might succe ed. But I could not allow my lover and future king to assassinate the King of Light and Illusion, the king of our enemy court. We were not at war, and even those among the Seelie Court who though t Taranis was mad or even evil would not be able to overlook an a ssassination. A duel, maybe, but not an assassination. Doyle was within his rights to challenge the king to a duel. I'd thought ab out that, too. I'd half liked that idea, but I'd seen what Tarani s could do with his hand of power. His hand of light could char f lesh, and had nearly killed Doyle once before. I had let go of a ny thought of vengeance at Doyle's hand when I weighed it against the thought of losing him too. I am the captain of your guard, and I could avenge my honor and yours for that reason alone. You mean a duel, I said. Yes. He does not deserve a chance to defen d himself, but if I assassinate him, it will be war between the c ourts, and we cannot afford that. No, I said, we can't. I looked up at him then. He touched my face with his free hand. Your eye s glow in the dark with a light of their own, Meredith. Green and gold circles of light in your face. Your emotions betray you. I want him dead, yes, but I won't destroy all of faerie for it. I won't get us all kicked out of the United States for my honor. Th e treaty that let our people come here three hundred years ago st ated only two things that would get us kicked out. The courts can 't make war on American soil, and we can't allow humans to worshi p us as deities. I was at the signing of the treaty, Meredith. I know what it said. I smiled at him, and it seemed strange that I could still smile. The thought made the smile wilt a little aro und the edges, but I guess it was a good sign. You remember the M agna Carta. That was a human thing, and had little to do with us . I squeezed his hand. I was making a point, Doyle. He smiled, and nodded. My emotions make me slow. Me, too, I said. The door behind him opened. There were two men in the doorway, one tall a nd one short. Sholto, King of the sluagh, Lord of that Which Pass es Between, was as tall as Doyle, and had long, straight hair tha t fell toward his ankles, but the color was white-blond, and his skin was like mine, moonlight pale. Sholto's eyes were three colo rs of yellow and gold, as if autumn leaves from three different t rees had been melted down to color his eyes, then everything had been edged in gold. The sidhe always have the prettiest eyes. He was as fair of face as any at the courts, except for my lost Fros t. The body that showed under the t-shirt and jeans he'd worn as part of his disguise when he came to save me seemed to cling to a body as lovely as the face, but I knew that at least part of it was illusion. Starting at his upper ribs, Sholto had extra bits, tentacles, because, though his mother had been high-court nobilit y, his father had been one of the nightflyers, part of the sluagh , and the last wild hunt of faerie. Well, the last wild hunt unti l the wild magic had returned. Now, things of legend were returni ng, and Goddess alone knew what was real again, and what was stil l to return. Until he had a coat or jacket thick enough to hide the extra bits, he would use magic, glamour, to hide the extras. No reason to scare the nurses. It was his lifetime of having to h ide his differences that had made him good enough at illusion to risk coming to my rescue. You do not go lightly against the King of Light and Illusion with illusion as your only shield. He smil ed at me, and it was a smile I had never seen on Sholto's face un til the moment at the ambulance when he had held my hand, and tol d me he knew he would be a father. The news seemed to have soften ed some harshness that had always been there in his handsome body . He seemed the proverbial new man, as he walked toward us. Rhys was not smiling. At 5'6, he was the shortest full-blooded sidhe I'd ever met. His skin was moonlight pale, like Sholto's, like mi ne, like Frost's. Rhys had removed the fake beard and mustache he 'd worn inside the faerie mound. He'd worked at the detective age ncy in L.A. with me, and he'd loved disguises. He was good at the m, too, better than at illusion. But he'd had enough illusion to hide the fact that he only had one eye. The remaining eye was thr ee circles of blue, as beautiful as any in the court, but where h is left eye had once lain was white scar tissue. He usually wore a patch in public, but tonight his face was bare, and I liked tha t. I wanted to see the faces of my men with nothing hidden tonigh t. Doyle moved enough so Sholto could put a chaste kiss against my cheek. Sholto wasn't one of my regular lovers. In fact, we'd o nly been together once, but as the old saying goes, once is enoug h. One of the children I carried was part his, but we were new ar ound each other, because in effect we'd only had one date. It had been a hell of a first date, but still, we didn't really know ea ch other yet. Rhys came to stand at the foot of the bed. His cur ly white hair, which fell to his waist, was still back in the pon ytail he'd worn to match his own jeans and t-shirt. His face was very solemn. It wasn't like him. Once he'd been Cromm Cruach, and before that he'd been a god of death. He wouldn't tell me who, b ut I had enough hints to make guesses. He'd told me that Cromm Cr uach was god enough; he didn't need more titles. Who gets to cha llenge him to the duel? Rhys asked. Meredith has told me no, Doy le said. Oh, good, Rhys said. I get to do it. No, I said, and I thought you were afraid of Taranis. I was, maybe I still am, bu t we can't let this go, Merry, we can't. Why? Because your pride is hurt? He gave me a look. Give me more credit than that. I w ill challenge him, then, Sholto said. No, I said. No one is to c hallenge him to a duel, or to kill him in any other way. The thr ee men looked at me. Doyle and Rhys knew me well enough to be spe culative. They knew I had a plan. Sholto didn't know me that well yet. He was just angry. We can't let this insult stand, princes s. He has to pay. ., Ballantine Books, 2009, 2.5, US: Gallery Books, 2010. Paperback. Good. Get ready for the read of your life. Never before has a single book combine d awesome vans, unicorns, Billy Joel, and erotic fiction in such a potent c ombination. A writing tour de force? Perhaps. A reading experience that wil l sear itself into your consci., Gallery Books, 2010, 2.5<
