Beauty

by Sophie Oak

  “She’s saved me time and time again. She raised me. She trained me.”

  “Because she always intended to take you to the Unseelie plane. This is not her fight. You’re a bargaining chip for Gillian McIver. I would have completely left Gillian out of the planning if I could have. As it stands, she only knows I’m trying to help. We’re going to keep it that way. You cannot leave the plane. There must be a Finn in Tir na nÓg or all is lost.”

  There was a shuffling upstairs, and she heard a male voice call out. “Guards? Where is the witch?”

  Niall’s jaw firmed, and he took her elbow. “Just follow my lead, Your Highness. I will protect and defend you with my life. This I vow. I will see you on your rightful throne and not that of the Unseelie.”

  He began up the stairs, stepping around the bodies of the guards he’d killed. Bron’s mind was racing. What was going on? What did he mean about Gillian? Gillian had been trying for years to take Bron to the Unseelie plane, but that made sense. It was her home plane. Where else would Gillian go?

  She followed Niall into the main hall, her eyes on her potential ally. Niall was a handsome young man roughly her age. She tried to remember him. His father had been kind enough, but all she could remember of the boy was a shy lad who brushed her pony’s coat and gave her carrots to feed it. Could she believe him? Did she have a choice?

  “Hurry along now.” Micha stood frowning. There was a circular disc around his neck, tied with rough twine. It didn’t fit with Micha’s normal elegant dress. The mayor pressed a second one into Niall’s hand. “Wear this. It’s a ward to protect you from the bitch’s magic. And hopefully the potion has started to work.”

  “Potion?” Niall asked. His eyes took in the room. Three guards stood at attention, Micha’s closest men. The door to the grounds stood open, and the sounds of workers shuffling as they built the great bonfire wafted in. Already Bron could smell the scent of the oil they doused the wood in.

  Micha shrugged. “I had one of my house women concoct a dampening potion. It should keep her calm and compliant. I slipped it into her water this morning. She should be a mess by now. It’s actually an aphrodisiac, but it has the added benefit of making the user very submissive. Did you think I’d give you your last words? Not a chance. I have too much at stake. But you shouldn’t be able to talk at this point.”

  Micha grabbed a vial off his desk. “Hold her.”

  Niall stopped, obviously not sure what to do. Poor Niall. None of this had gone how he’d planned. She was sure he’d hoped to slip her out of the province with no one the wiser. Now he had to get her away from the guard and deal with a drugged princess. He was forced to watch as one of Micha’s personal guards held her and forced her head back.

  The substance was vile, and she recognized the bitter taste. There had only been a hint of it in the water. This was undiluted. It raked through her system, burning as it made its way down her gut. The effect was almost instantaneous. A horrible ache, so much worse than before, grabbed her.

  She needed. She needed them.

  “Shim. Lach.” She could feel her head lolling back.

  “That’s better.” Micha’s muddy eyes looked down at her. “See, my dear, now you’re compliant, more like the lady you should have been.”

  “Hurts.” She seemed to only be able to speak single words now. “Shim. Lach.”

  He shook his head. “Are they your lovers, dear? I should have known you would be a whore, too. I should have taken you and left it at that. You ungrateful wretch. You don’t deserve to be my wife. Go and see if the fire is hot yet and bring the magistrate. Our witch has confessed.”

  She felt her body falling and the cold stone floor against her skin. Her head ached, a sharp pain, but it was nothing compared to the fires that licked at her body. Fire. Fire should be sweet, but now it was only pain. Shim. Shim was fire. Like a shimmer. Lach was cool like a lake. Yes, that was where she’d gotten their names. One mystery solved. Would she see them soon?

  “Your Highness, I am outnumbered.” Niall lifted her off the floor where they had simply tossed her like she was a piece of garbage. Niall’s words were whispered against her ear, so small she could barely make them out.

  She wanted to kiss him. She wanted his lips on hers, his cock sliding deep. That would quench the fire. Her eyes would close, and she could pretend he was Lach or Shim.

  Goddess, it was cruel to die like this. To know this ache and know what it meant. She would die a virgin, fire torching her from the inside and the outside.

  “Your Highness, you must tell me where the knife is.”

  His voice was so urgent. He was so close, his skin hidden under layers of clothes. Shim. She’d seen him without his clothes. And Lach. So beautiful. She needed flesh against hers. It was all she wanted now. Shim was close. She could see him. He was holding her.

  “Shim. Kiss me.”

  “Damn it, Bronwyn.” There was a shuffling as he looked down at her. His eyes shifted to dark blue. There he was. But his words made little sense. “I need to know where the knife is. It’s the only proof. I can’t save you, but I have a job to do. If I can’t save you, I have to find someone else. That knife is proof. Please. You owe the kingdom.”

  Kingdom? What kingdom? Why did he care about the kingdom? She hurt. She ached. She couldn’t even breathe. “Kiss me.” Why wouldn’t he kiss her? Lach liked to play vampire games, but Shim was always so quick with kisses. She needed both. Where was Lachlan?

  Her body shook. Niall wouldn’t leave her be. “The knife. Where is the knife?”

  He kept talking about the knife. He urged her. Told her they were coming. The words didn’t make sense.

  “The tower. In the tower.” That was where she’d hidden the knife. The knife had been her father’s. The knife had killed her, blood tumbling from her body until nothingness had swallowed her up and then fire had brought her back. A phoenix. She’d been a phoenix, born anew.

  They had given her wings.

  “Where in the tower?” Niall growled. “I’m out of time. They’re coming back. I’ll have to find it myself. I am sorry for this, Your Highness. I wish you good luck in your journey.”

  And she was back on the floor. Alone. Abandoned. A cramp hit her. She needed to touch herself, but she couldn’t make her damn arms work. A journey. She was taking a journey.

  Into death.

  Rough hands pulled her up, dragging her when her feet wouldn’t work. Tears streamed now. The world was a chaotic mess, and she couldn’t feel them. They were always there, somewhere in the back of her mind. She no longer cared that they were an expression of what was wrong with her. They had been the best part of her pathetic life, and she couldn’t feel them. Real or not, she wanted them here.

  “Lachlan.” Someone was screaming his name. “Shim.”

  She could smell the fire. So close now. Her head snapped back. Someone had slapped her. Blood. She tasted it even as another seizure hit. The agony was unimaginable, a body that cried out for solace and would get not an ounce.

  Rope bit into her wrists, the only thing holding her up.

  The guards laughed. Called her trash. Better off ashes. That was all she was to these men. Nothing. She meant nothing. Her dreams and madness meant less than nothing. They would lash her to a pole and burn her then sweep up her ashes. It would be as though she hadn’t lived.

  Bronwyn Finn had died so long ago, and now this girl, this woman she’d become, would be gone, too. Ashes burned in the fire, sent to the wind. The ache in her gut…pussy. It was in her pussy. There was no way to deny it now. The ache in her pussy superseded all other pain. What a horrible way to die—all her sweetness dissolved and she was left with only a raw ache as the sum of all her years.

  Lachlan. Shim. She called to them. She didn’t know if she cried out loud or if it was only in her head.

  She felt the heat of the fire and prayed she would see them soon.

  Chapter Nine

  The phooka stopped at the edge of the f
orest, his mighty hooves kicking up dirt. Lach dismounted. Beyond the copse of trees, there was a small village. Bron’s village. They’d ridden all night, never letting up. Lach wasn’t close to tired, as though something as inconsequential as fatigue couldn’t touch him now.

  But fear could.

  Lach dismounted from the phooka’s enormous back, his boots thudding against the forest floor. Something was wrong. He could feel it. Or rather not feel it.

  He didn’t have the same connection to Bron that his twin had, but since he’d been on this plane, he could feel her, like a whisper in the back of his head. Now the little noise was gone, as though someone had turned it off. It had happened just a few minutes before, but it scared the crap out of him as his vampire cousins would say.

  “Something’s gone very wrong.” Shim stood beside him, one hand on their steed.

  Their ridiculously obnoxious steed who talked way too much for a horse. “Aren’t you the smart one, Shim? The king is slaughtering Fae and you’re just now figuring out that there’s something wrong.”

  Lach rolled his eyes. “Shut up, phoo.”

  Shim ignored the phooka utterly. “A couple of minutes back, I lost touch with Bron.”

  “Could she be sleeping?” Lach couldn’t imagine it. She had to be terrified. They had no idea what had happened after she’d been called a witch and lost consciousness. But the humming in the back of his head had been there, an oddly comfortable sensation. He felt bereft without it.

  But he thought he would know if she had died.

  She couldn’t die. Not when they were so close.

  Shim shook his head. “She was sleeping earlier. I could feel it. You have to get used to the connection now that it’s strong enough for you to feel it. When she’s sleeping, the hum changes.”

  Yes, Lach had heard it. “It’s like it’s muted and calm, and when she wakes up there’s a liveliness to the sound.”

  “Yes. That’s right. But now there’s nothing. She was awake and moving and then nothing.”

  Lach thought back to those last few moments. His brother was wrong. “Not nothing. She was confused.”

  The phooka huffed and tossed his head back and forth. “Perhaps the princess was drugged.” He sniffed the air. “I’ve heard that sometimes executioners are kind. They drug the ones they set on fire. Smells like they’re already at work.”

  Panic, pure and unadulterated, raced through his veins. He started to run toward the village, but his brother’s hand stopped him.

  “Don’t you dare. This is my element, not yours, brother.” His eyes closed briefly. “I can feel it. The fire. Idiots. They can’t kill my mate with fire.” He looked up again, and his normally dark eyes had gone a distinct orange. “Stay away from it. We both know it can burn you.”

  “And we both know that a sword can cut you in half.” Lach looked to the phooka, who had far better senses than either of them. “How many people are out there?”

  The phooka breathed deeply. “Many. At least twenty. By the horrible smell of them, I would say almost all men.”

  And men would have swords. Two against twenty.

  Or were they just two? What had Roan said back in Aoibhneas? That the dead Lach brought back were powerful. Chaos. Perhaps chaos could be their friend for once.

  “Can you grab the fire? Keep it from her?” Lach asked.

  “Already done, brother. Though I doubt anyone knows I have control. I can’t see anything, so I’m simply keeping it in a circle. How do I know she isn’t burning already?”

  “Because I don’t smell the divine scent of roasting princess yet, Your Highness. No way I would miss that. Control the fire. I’ll see what I can find out.” The air around the phooka shimmered, and the horse became an odd-looking creature. What spoke to him was a combination of a large squirrel and a creature Lach had seen in vampire DLs. A lemur. But lemurs were slow, and the phooka was not. He scampered up into the trees using long claws. The leaves above their heads shook, delicate green shells raining down on them.

  Lach’s whole body was on edge. Bronwyn was in that village. She was close, so close. It was everything he’d wanted since that first moment as a child when he’d closed his eyes and seen her in his dreams. She’d been a child, even younger than him and Shim. In that first dream, Lach remembered them all looking at each other as though wondering what to do and then Bron had shown them a game. A silly thing. She threw a pebble and then hopped and skipped to pick it up. Unseelie games tended to involve blood and often death. It had been a sweet thing to spend time with the wide-eyed girl.

  When they had awakened the next morning, they had laughed about sharing a dream.

  They were still dreaming of her when they’d turned sixteen, and Lach had known that somehow, someway Bronwyn completed him.

  And then he’d seen a picture of her and set the idea in his father’s mind to merge the tribes through marriage.

  “I can’t stand this waiting,” Shim said.

  Lach hated it, too, but finding Bronwyn wouldn’t mean a thing if they didn’t live through the experience. They needed to stay calm. Rushing in could be bad for Bronwyn, too. What they really needed was an army.

  An idea played at Lach’s brain. He needed an army, but his father had ensured their army wouldn’t follow him. He hadn’t meant to, but he’d treated Lach and Shim like fragile idiots for so long, no one would follow them. No Unseelie alive would follow a fragile king.

  Lach opened his senses and found that cold place deep in his center where his power resided. He couldn’t have a living army. Roan was in charge of the men he’d brought. But there was more than the living to consider.

  “Damn me, Lach. What are you doing?” Shim’s eyes were wide.

  He felt for them. The dead were everywhere, as much a part of the land as the living could ever be. The dead were oddly eternal, shifting from one form to the next. From living to corpse to food and fertilizer, and in their own way, right back to living.

  But Lach wanted the corpses. Yes. They would do nicely.

  “Getting us some backup.” He called to them, reaching out with his mind, tendrils of power flowing like a cool river, sweeping up the dead in its wake.

  He ignored the smaller creatures. Rats who had died crawled once more, birds flew, and cats hissed from long-dead mouths. But Lach was concerned with the mausoleums. Yes. His power sought the places of the dead.

  He’d always fought the power, but now he embraced it. He opened himself to it, welcoming the rush of sensation that came with it. He knew them. As he called to them, so did they speak to him.

  Sir Bran Jenkins lay on his cold slab, a sword clutched in his hands, placed there by his sons and his widow that he might fight on in the afterlife. Sir Bran wanted to fight. It had run through his veins, and though he no longer had blood, the desire clung to his bones more strongly than any shroud.

  His sons, both taken not long after, lay in the crypt close to their father.

  A family of warriors with nothing left but useless swords that would never again sing with the heat of battle.

  Then fight, Sir Bran. Take up your sword. Wake up your sons. Fight for me.

  He called to them, sending his message out to the quiet mass of dead. Ears long since past hearing listened, perking up, ghastly smiles forming on lipless faces. Lach felt them rising from their stone beds or clawing up from the ground.

  And he heard the cries of the living who had the horrible fate of coming into contact with his army of dead.

  The phooka scrambled down the tree, his long tail twitching, amber eyes enormous in the afternoon light. “You’ve been busy, Your Highness. It seems the dead walk again.”

  “The dead fight again,” Lach corrected him.

  “Whatever they’re doing, it’s working. Go quickly, Your Highnesses. Your princess is in a bad way. She’s surrounded by fire. The flames refuse to touch her, but I cannot say the same for the smoke. The battle is all around her. Hurry.”

  Shim took off, sword i
n hand. Lach followed, his mind working in two directions—saving Bronwyn and keeping control of his creatures. He could feel them fighting, sent images of guards. Kill the guards. Leave everyone else.

  They raced past buildings, small structures, the place markers of a small, poor village. Mud huts and thatched roofs surrounded them. Bron had lived here, was dying here, when she should have had two palaces to choose from.

  All around him there were sounds of battle. Grunts and groans and the creaking of limbs as they moved, trying to protect hearts and heads and bellies from opponents’ swords. Screams could be heard over the clanging of metal against metal. Cries of terror. Pleas for the dead to go back to their graves.

  Lach felt the heat from the fire before he could see it. He stopped in his tracks, his mind flying back to that day. He didn’t remember much except the heat and pain, and the deep need to save his brother from both.

  He couldn’t go there. He forced his attention to the present. Even that one small lapse had cost him. His corpses had fallen to the ground. The guards who remained stood staring down as though utterly surprised by their victories.

  Bron. Bron was in the middle of it all. He saw her for the first time. Her skin was pink from the heat, sweat coating her as she hung limply from the pole they had attached her to. Lach clutched his sword, his heart threatening to fail. Her black hair hung around her face, lips as red as any rose but just as unmoving. They were too late.

  Shim elbowed a guard who seemed to realize that the dead were not the only opponents.

  “Get back to yer houses.” The guard shoved at his brother, but before Shim had hit the dirt, the guard was on fire, his tunic going up like a torch.

  Lach clutched the sword in his hand. It was mostly for decoration, though both he and Shim had received instruction. But now, as the world seemed to crash around him, instinct coursed through his body. His corpse warriors were reviving now that he had control of himself. He would kill them all. They had taken his princess, his mate, the only woman in the world who could bridge the halves of himself. They had murdered her and now they would pay.