It's a Trailer Park of Emotion!: A Caress of Twilight

Chapter 31 begins sometime after the previous chapter, with Merry about to soothe jealous Frost’s babby emotions with sex, because it was apparently “Frost’s night” that night. They had blocked the mirror with magic so that no one could interfere on their night, but of course Queen Andais has to call unexpectedly. She’s immediately pissed off that they had blocked her call, so Merry runs to the living room to get Doyle to come unblock the mirror. Doyle unblocks the mirror just as Merry is seating herself on her bed to answer Andais’s call.

They notice that Andais is standing in the Hallway of Mortality, the room where she has her prisoners tortured. They can’t see much, but they can hear someone screaming off-screen. Andais is covered in blood and speckled with larger bits of something. Merry realizes that Andais is naked under all that blood and gore. Merry apologizes for blocking the mirror but explains that they’ve had many callers over the past day. Merry tells Andais that Taranis’s social secretaries have invited her to the Seelie Yule Ball, but that she declined.

Andais seems as if she is in a decent mood, however, despite being initially pissed off by the call being blocked. She explains to them that she had been torturing those she deemed magically capable enough to let loose the Nameless. However, no one had confessed, and Andais is so convinced in her torturing abilities that she believes no one she tortured that night had released the Nameless. Since no one from the Unseelie Court had released the Nameless, Andais believes that it must be a Seelie sidhe who did it.

Doyle said, from his awkward position, “Have you informed the king of his peril?”
“He refuses to believe that anyone in his beautiful shining court could do such a thing. He says that none of his people would know how to raise the old dead gods, and that one would touch the Nameless, for it has nothing to do with them. The Nameless is an Unseelie problem, and the old gods are ghosts, and that is an Unseelie problem, as well.”
“What exactly would be a Seelie problem?” I asked. I almost hated to have her attention back on me, but I wanted to know. If none of this was Seelie business, then what exactly was their business?
“That, niece, is an excellent question. Of late, Taranis seems unwilling to dirty his hands with anything of importance. I don’t know what’s wrong with him, but he seems to be living more and more in his own little dream haven, built of pretty illusions and his own magic.” She crossed her stained arms, looking thoughtful. “It has to be one of his court. It has to be.”

Andais then realizes that Frost is kneeling in front of the mirror, naked. She orders him to reveal himself to her, so he gets up, sits back on the bed, and moves his hands so that his dick is exposed to her. She frowns at it, but then tells him that he’s truly beautiful and she was saddened that she had forgotten that. This worsens her mood.

“I have not enjoyed myself this day. These were people whom I respected, or liked, or valued, and now they will never again be my allies. They will fear me, but they feared me before, and fear is not truly the same as respect. I’m learning that, at last. Give me something pleasant to remember this night by. Let me watch the three of you together. Let me see the lights from your skin brighten the night like fireworks.”

Hahaha, what? She’s sad, so she orders them to have a threesome while she watches? Come on.

The three of us sat there for a second, then Doyle said, “I have had my night with the princess. Frost has made it clear that he does not wish to share her tonight.”
“He will share if I say that he will share,” Andais said. It was hard to argue with her, blood soaked and nude, looking like some terrible primal thing; but we tried.
“I would ask that Your Majesty not do this,” Frost said. He wasn’t looking arrogant. He was looking almost frightened.
“You would ask? You would ask? What is it you are asking of me?”
“Nothing,” he said, head hanging so that the shine of his hair hid his face. “Absolutely nothing.” He sounded bitter and sorrowful when he said it.

HAHAHA Frost pulling the *pout pout* Nothing’s wrong *pout pout* HAHAHA

“Aunt Andais,” I said, keeping my voice level, soft, like I was trying to talk a crazy person out of setting off the bomb strapped to her body. “Please, we have done nothing to displease you. We have done everything we can to please you. Why would you punish us for that?”
“Were you going to have sex tonight?”
“Yes, but-“
“You are going to fuck Frost tonight, are you not?”
“Yes.”
“You fucked Doyle last night, correct?”
“Well, yes, but-“
“Then what difference does it make if you fuck them both right now, tonight?” Her voice was rising again, losing its calm edge.
My voice went lower, more even as hers began to unravel. “I have not been with both of them at once before, Your Majesty, and a ménage a trois must be done carefully or you spoil the game. I think that Doyle and Frost are both too dominant to share me comfortably.”
She nodded, “Very well.”
I think we all relaxed, let a breath out.
“Then replace one of them with one of the others. Give me a show, niece of mine, give me something to enjoy this night.”

Merry has no idea what to do, and cannot think of anything she could offer the queen to set her mind off of forcing a threesome upon them. She tells her men that she’s “open to suggestions”, hoping that they take the subtle hint that she’s looking for suggestions to get them out of this situation, but of course both of them can’t take a hint and start recommending Merry’s other lovers for a threesome, hahaha. Good grief.

“Kitto had his turn today, and Nicca isn’t due for two more nights. I think everyone would agree on Nicca being moved ahead before they would agree to Kitto being allowed two turns back-to-back.”
“Agree?” the queen said. “Why do the men have to agree on anything? Don’t you just pick among them, Meredith?”
“Not really. We’ve got a schedule and we usually stick to it.”

A sex schedule. Sexy.

“A schedule, a schedule?” She began to smile, then to grin. “And how did you arrive at this schedule?”
“It was alphabetical,” I said, trying not to sound as puzzled as I felt.

Nothing to be puzzled about, Merry. Andais is openly mocking you, you’re just too dumb to understand.

“She has an alphabetical schedule, alphabetical.” She began to laugh, a low trickle of sound at first, then it grew into a huge genuine belly laugh. She half doubled over, clutching at her sides, laughing until tears trailed out of her eyes to trickle through the blood.

This would also be my reaction, were I in the same situation. I mean, yeah, I understand they’re trying to knock Merry up, and that’s just about the only acceptable time for a sex schedule, but come on, you’ve got several of the most beautiful men waiting and eager to fuck you 24/7, and you set up a fucking alphabetical schedule. You are the worst at being sexy.

Anyway, the queen enjoys her laugh so much she tells them that they do not have to bother fucking in front of her. She enjoyed her fit of laughter so much that cleared her mood for the day and she abruptly ends the call. Frost stands from the bed and begins screaming, so Rhys runs into the room with his guns blazing.

Frost wheeled toward him, naked, unarmed, but there was something fearsome in him. “We are not animals to be paraded for her amusement!”
Doyle stood up, motioning the others back. Rhys looked at me, and I nodded. They left, closing the door softly behind them.
Doyle spoke softly to Frost. Some of it was simple soothing talk, but some was more insistent. “We are safe now, Frost.” I heard Doyle tell him. “She cannot hurt us here.”
Frost raised his head and grabbed Doyle by the shoulders. The pressure of his pale hands mottled Doyle’s dark skin. “Don’t you understand yet, Doyle? If we are not the ones who fathers Merry’s child, then we are back to being Andais’s playthings, her neglected playthings. I don’t think I could bear it again, Doyle.” He shook him, just a little. “I can’t go back to that, Doyle, I can’t!” He shook the other man, back and forth, back and forth.

Frost starts bawling at this, and so Doyle helps get Frost into the bed with Merry. He lays Frost down next to Merry, and then he lays himself down on the other side of Frost, so that it’s a giant moody sandwich of emotion. Doyle and Merry both hold Frost as he sobs himself to sleep.

So, after all of Frost’s bitching about how it’s HIS turn to fuck Merry, he doesn't even get to fuck her!

So Merry falls asleep and begins to dream.

I dreamed that I stood beside Andais in the Hallway of Mortality. All the men were chained to the torture devices, untouched, unharmed, the only shining clean things in all that dark place. Andais kept trying to get me to join her in torturing them. I refused, and I wouldn’t let her touch them. She threatened me and them, and I kept refusing her, and my refusal somehow made it so she couldn’t touch them. I refused until Frost’s small whimpering woke me. He was twitching in his sleep, struggling. I woke him as gently as I could, stroking down his arm. He woke with a scream half-choked in his throat, eyes wild.
The scream had brought the other men to the door. I waved them away as I hugged Frost to me. “It’s all right, Frost, it’s all right. It was just a dream.”
He choked on that and spoke fiercely, his face buried against my body, his arms hugging me so tight it hurt. “Not a dream, real. I remember it. I will always remember it.”
“I’ll keep you safe, Frost,” I said.
“You can’t,” he said.
“I promise I’ll keep you safe, all of you.”
He raised his hand, covered my mouth with his fingers. “Don’t promise, Merry, don’t promise that. Don’t be forsworn for something you have no hope of doing. No one else heard. I forgive it. You never said it.”
“But I did say it, Frost, and I mean it. I will make the Summerlands into a wasteland before I let her have you back,” I said. The moment the words left my mouth, there was a slight sound, though not a sound, it was almost as if the very air held its breath. It was as if in that moment reality itself froze, and then remade itself, just a little bit different than it had been.

I didn’t understand completely what had just happened. I knew what it meant, though. I was now sworn to protect the men from Andais. But I had felt the world shift, as if fate itself had shivered. Something had changed in the well-orchestrated run of the universe. It had changed because I vowed to protect the men. That one statement had changed things. I had made the fates blink, but I wouldn’t know if I’d bettered myself or worsened until it was far, far too late.

A Caress of Twilight - Chapter 31