Beauty [A Faery Story 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (45 page)

“You can’t use your power. You don’t know what that will do.”

“My power can’t hurt Bron,” Shim insisted. “Fire can’t hurt her. She was in the middle of that fire for minutes when we found her the first time. It knows who its master is.”

“And air? How about that, Shim? If you burn away the eddy cloud and she falls a hundred or two hundred feet, how will you save her this time?” Lach felt sick.

And then he felt her. A calm presence. Bronwyn.

Bring the war to me. Bring them all to me. She won’t kill me. You have time and I have power. I love you. I love you both. Trust in me. Believe in me.

Lach sat back, her words hitting him like a hammer. He knew what she intended to do.

“We have to go after her,” Shim said, standing up. “They’ll take her to the palace.”

It would be the sensible thing to do. He could rally whatever troops were left and he could search for her. He could save her and carry her away and give the fight back to her brothers. He could still have what he wanted.

But it wasn’t what Bron wanted. What Bron wanted was a chance to end the war. She didn’t want the crown and she no longer wanted revenge. He’d felt that deep in her soul. She wanted to end the war to bring back the kingdom of her youth and to give her people their freedom.

His wife was a hero and he’d been a coward.

He shook his head. “No. We go to Aoibhneas. We gather her brothers and whatever troops we have and we march.”

Shim stared at him for a moment. “But that leaves her in danger.”

“It leaves her in a place where she can turn the tide.” He didn’t want it. Every cell of his body revolted at the thought, but Bronwyn mattered more.

“And if she dies?” Shim asked.

His heart would be a gaping hole. His life would be over. “Then we’ll find her through that door Duffy talked about. We found her once. We’ll find her again. But if we don’t let her try this, she won’t be the same woman we love.”

Shim took a long breath and held his hand out, gripping Lach’s. “Then we are in agreement. And Lach, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean it. Alive or dead, I am your brother and I love you. I am grateful to be walking and loving our wife.”

Lach stood. The forest around them was quiet now, the soldiers disappearing with their hag. They had found their prize and once it was in hand, none of the rest of them mattered.

“Where is Her Highness?” Roan asked.

“Gone.” The word sounded hollow.

Dante’s clothes were torn, covered in blood though he bore no mark of his own. It was easy to see how he’d healed so quickly. Kaja bore two holes in her neck. She’d obviously forced her husband to feed and heal after the battle. She looked up with tears in her eyes.

“Gone? How?” Kaja asked.

Shim came to his side. “The hag took her, but Bron wanted to go.”

Dellacourt snarled their direction. “She wanted to be taken? She wanted a hag to cart her back to the very man who had her killed in the first place?”

Charlie, the boy from Aoibhneas, walked with an arm around each of his fathers. “I can hear her.”

Shim stepped forward. “What do you mean?”

Nate looked down at his son. “He’s stronger now, but maybe his time there is still affecting him.”

Lach wasn’t about to put up with that. He’d been marginalized for far too long. “No. Listen to him. Let him speak. If he says he hears Bronwyn, then I want to know what she’s saying.”

Charlie looked him in the eye. “She’s not really saying anything, but she’s feeling. She’s feeling strong and she wants the rest of us to feel strong, too. She’s ready.” Charlie stood up, pushed his fathers away a bit. “I’m ready. We’re all going to be ready.”

Lach nodded, his mission clear. To bring the battle to Bronwyn. Like it or not, he was her soldier now.

“Lach, you have to come quick.” Gillian was suddenly at his side. Tears streaked down her face. Harry stood behind her, a deep frown creasing his brow.

Gillian grasped his hand. He allowed himself to be pulled as he looked back at Roan.

“Prepare to move. We’re heading into Aoibhneas. Someone find that damn phooka. He’ll know a way. He’s herded us to this point. The least he can do is get us where we need to be.” He followed after Gillian and then his heart nearly broke.

Duffy.

“He saved me. He fought so hard, but they kept attacking him. Lach, do something. I should be able to heal that wound. I’ve laid hands on him. I’ve sent him everything I have. Why won’t he heal?”

Tears welled in Lach’s eyes. “Because the dead don’t heal.”

Shim gasped behind him. “Oh, gods. He died days ago. That’s how you knew I was alive. Because you’ve kept Duffy with us.”

Duffy’s eyes came open.

“I’m so sorry, brother.” Lach looked down at the wee gnome who had been his heart friend for as long as he’d known what a heart was. Duffy had been their companion, their playmate.

“I knew it. I always knew it, brother.” Duffy sat up, looking down at the wound on his chest. It wasn’t bleeding. “I was mad at first, but now I know why I got to stay. I did it, Lach. I fought and I won. I got me battle and I saved me girl. Even though she never was me girl. It don’t matter. I get that now. It don’t matter that she couldn’t love me back. It just matters that I loved her and I got to be a better man because I loved her.”

Gillian. All those long years, Duffy had still loved Gillian, his childhood crush on her forming the core of his being. Lach had known Duffy had a thing for Gillian. Even from a young age he’d refused to call her sister. He’d loved her from afar and now he’d sacrificed for her.

Bronwyn loved them back. She didn’t deserve any less. Love was something Lach had worried all of his life. He’d called what he felt for Bronwyn love, but he’d always worried it was more about possession and obsession, that his dark heart couldn’t hold a softer emotion.

He’d been wrong. He loved his brothers. Loved his father and mother. Loved his sister.

Gods, he loved Bronwyn Finn and there was nothing dark about it. She was his light, not Shim. However their soul had split, it was in him to love. His heart wasn’t a cold, dead thing. It was huge and it could only get larger. He loved Bronwyn and that meant loving every piece of her, including the piece that demanded she fight.

He’d adored the girl who ran through his dreams. He’d lusted after the lover, but he worshipped the woman she’d become. Not simply a princess, but a queen. A woman was always a queen. She was the queen of her home and her family. Bron’s was just bigger than most and like every woman with a family, she would sacrifice. She would make the world right for them, giving her body and soul to those she nurtured and loved.

He would be strong. His woman had just taught him what his father never had—how to truly be a king.

He looked at his sister and whispered. “He’s loved you for always. Give him something.”

She nodded and sank to her knees, tears falling like raindrops. She leaned over and kissed him. “You are my hero, Duffy.”

A brilliant smile lit Duffy’s face. “That’s all I ever wanted to be.” He gripped her hand, his small compared to hers. He looked up at Lach. “You have to let me go now, brother.”

Lach knew the moment had been coming from the instant he’d reached out and pulled Duffy from death. He’d felt Duffy die in that black cloud that had been meant for him and he’d reacted. He’d called on his power and brought him back. “I didn’t want to let you go. Not alone, Duffy. I don’t know what’s out there. I didn’t want you to die.”

Duffy smiled up at him. “Dying ain’t nothing to be afraid of, brother. Be afraid of not living. I got me battle. I got what I always wanted. I got to be a hero. Now, it’s time for me to find another adventure. There’s a door, Lach. It was right there and it was calling to me. And I weren’t alone. I saw me mothers. Both of them. The one what raised me and the one what gave me birth. Lach, death is a doorway. I want to know where it leads. I want the adventure that waits for me and whatever happens, I’ll see you again. I’ll conquer whatever is out there and make a place for us.”

His tears fell now. For Duffy, for Bron, for himself, for Shim.

“I love you, brother.” Shim got to his knees and put a hand on Lach and reached for Duffy.

“Love you, too. You were the best brothers I could have hoped for.”

Lach reached out and completed the circle. He and Duffy and Shim. His childhood in a circle of hands grasping. “I love you both. My brothers. I will keep you in my heart, Duffy.”

“That is a good place to be.”

Lach released his hold.

Duffy smiled, closed his eyes, and walked into eternity.

Lach rose to his feet a completely different man. He looked to Roan. “Gather what we need. We make for Aoibhneas tonight after I bury my brother.”

He expected an argument but Roan bowed deeply. “Yes, Your Highness. I am at your service.”

“As am I.” The phooka leapt from the trees and, in an instant, switched to his horse form. “I will get us to Aoibhneas. I know a secret way in.”

“Dad, isn’t that Uncle Max’s horse?” Charlie asked.

Zane shook his head. “We’re just going to go with it, son. And I know exactly what you’re talking about. The mayor has a series of caves he keeps hidden. We know how to get home.”

“Then we leave in an hour.”

Shim picked up Duffy, holding his small body close. “Lach, I…”

Lach shook his head. “I love you. No more fighting. All that matters is winning this war and getting our wife back.”

Shim nodded and followed. Lach prayed the morning would find him closer to his goal—getting Bronwyn back in his arms.

* * * *

Bronwyn awakened to the smell of home. She could smell the bread the bakers in the White Palace made for each and every meal. It was a smell that had haunted her dreams since she’d fled. She’d tried to re-create the bread, snowy white and buttery soft with the smallest hint of honeyed sweetness, but never got it right.

She opened her eyes because no matter how lovely the smell was, this place was no longer home. She groaned a little. How long had she been here? A day at least, though it already seemed like a lifetime. A day away from them. Would she ever see them again?

“The hags certainly worked you over.”

Bron turned her head and then wished she hadn’t. Her every muscle ached. She was so, so weary. All through the long night the hags had tortured her with spell after strength-sucking spell. Pain had wracked her system and then a horrible weakness had overtaken her.

“They’re sleeping now. They don’t sleep often and no one knows where they go to do it, but it seems the only time they don’t listen in.”

A blonde woman came into view. She was regally perfect with her thin crown and slender figure. Cold blue eyes and a narrow chin completed the usurper queen’s appearance.

“Maris. To what do I owe this honor?” Bron wished she had the saliva in her mouth to spit at the bitch.

Maris chuckled a bit. “Goddess, you’re loud. I actually heard that.”

Bron’s whole heart sagged. She’d forgotten. Maris was a bondmate. It was exactly why she’d been engaged to Bron’s brothers. How could she pull this off if the queen herself knew what she was planning?

A little smile curled Maris’s thin lips. “You’ve been an annoying hum in my head for years.”

She’d been so stupid. So very dumb. She should have listened to her husbands. She wasn’t cut out for this. She was just a girl. She was still just a dumb girl.

“Stop scaring her, Maris,” a deep voice said.

The queen rolled her eyes. “It’s the only fun I have anymore, Niall.”

Niall stepped out, dressed in the livery of the Queen’s Guard. “Your Highness, I see you finally made it. Though I might point out that if we’d done this my way, you wouldn’t have been horribly tortured last night and most likely for a few nights to come.”

“A little torture never hurt a girl,” Maris said. “And she looks strong. If she’s anything like her brutish brother, then she should know a thing or two about torture.”

“You know he doesn’t like it when you talk about Beck like that. He explained that.”

Maris nodded and a bit of her bile seemed to flee. “I know. I hold on to it though because it’s what got us here in the first place. Where is he?”

“Making certain the hags aren’t around. And why are you here? If your husband catches you, he’ll find us all out.”

“Torin is scared of the girl. He was angry the hags brought her to the palace in the first place. I had to think fast on my feet or he would have had her throat slit and most likely by his own guard. We don’t own them, Niall. I should think he would be pleased with me.”

“Who are you talking about? Goddess, am I in some strange dream?” Bron asked. She was so deeply confused.

“Drink this.” Maris held a cup to her mouth and forced her head back. It was slipping down her throat before Bron could cough it back up. “Give it a minute.”

She stepped back and Bron tried to gag, but her arms were bound tight to the chair she sat in. The hags, she’d discovered there were two of them, had cackled as they’d cinched her in tight and began the ritual that would loosen her soul from her body. Now Maris had used her bindings to force some poison on her.