Beauty

by Sophie Oak

  Fuck all. Lach hit his head on the hard dirt. She was inside his mind. He could feel her there, picking through his memories. Cold prickles caught in his mind, the hag plucking from here and there.

  Staring down at his brother’s body and knowing he was gone. Shim was gone. Bron was gone. Lach’s worst nightmare. He was half a man and alone in all the planes. He couldn’t stand it. His power flared for the first time.

  Standing over a woman, her lovely body spread out for his pleasure. He’d tied the knots perfectly, loving the deep concentration it had required. Bondage was a dance between three partners, and he loved the rhythm. But not the woman. He couldn’t give her what she wanted because he’d given his soul to one woman when he was just a child. She held his soul, his heart. It was only logical that she owned his cock, too. Lach turned away, knowing his desires would have to burn through him. There was no relief here.

  Listening to his father talk to his advisors. Humiliation was a rolling wave as they spoke about the fragile princes. Shim was weak in body and they worried Lach’s mind wasn’t strong. Lach didn’t try to defend himself. It wouldn’t make a difference. They wouldn’t listen. If only they would bond, the king bemoaned.

  I am bound. I am bound. I am bound.

  And yet he was alone.

  The hag continued her tour of his brain, seeking knowledge. He felt her satisfaction that he was bound to Bronwyn. It was something she could use, but where was the bitch? The question pounded through him.

  Where is Bronwyn?

  Each time she asked, his heart squeezed tighter. The hag was everywhere, in every cell of his being, crawling across every inch of his skin. He could smell the rank scent of the hag filling his nose and the clammy touch of her hand on his head.

  This was what she wanted to do to Bronwyn. He could see it plainly. The hag wanted Bronwyn for much more than just a quick execution. She wanted to take her time with Bronwyn. She was curious. Bronwyn had survived when she shouldn’t have. The hag wanted to know why, and when she figured it out she would find a way to make that power her own.

  The vision of what the hag really wanted made Lach gag. He felt bile bubbling up. The hag had him in her hand. He didn’t know where Bronwyn was. He said it like a mantra. Over and over until he was singing it in his head.

  Then you are of no use to me.

  That cold hand squeezed, and Lach’s heart skittered and froze, an aching agony invading every inch of his limbs. He wasn’t Lachlan anymore. He was pain. He was despair. All the loneliness he’d ever felt seemed to have been distilled and poured down his throat like a noxious poison.

  This was how he ended. This was what he’d been moving toward all of his life.

  And then it stopped, the hand on his heart pulled away. Lach felt the dirt on his face, but he could only groan.

  “Your Highness, we need to move.” Roan had a hand on his arm, pulling him up.

  “What he means is we’re getting our asses kicked. Move yours, McIver.” Dellacourt didn’t mince words.

  Lach forced himself to focus. The dead lay all around him, but the hag had cut his connection to them when she’d found her way inside his brain. Without the added soldiers, they were woefully outnumbered and Lach was still feeling muddled.

  He struggled to his feet, reaching for his sword. The villagers had come out in mass. They fought for their daughters and wives and sisters. They fought with pitchforks and frying pans and bows and arrows.

  “What made her stop?” Lach asked.

  “Bron.” Roan pointed to spot a hundred feet to the left where Bronwyn stood staring at the hag.

  As though the hag had a direct line to the remaining soldiers’ brains, they all turned, abandoning their personal fights and started toward Bronwyn.

  “No.” Lach didn’t give a shit how unsteady he was. He wasn’t letting that fucking hag get close to Bron. He pulled free of Roan.

  “Lachlan, don’t.”

  But Lach wasn’t listening. He had to get to Bronwyn before those soldiers did.

  Gillian stood to the side and Duffy close to her. Shim was next to Bronwyn, his eyes watching as the soldiers came near.

  “I want that bitch alive.” The hag’s voice echoed through the square.

  Of course she wanted Bron alive. She wanted to dissect her and find out what made her tick. The image of what the hag intended to do to his bondmate made Lach run toward her, willing to do just about anything to keep it from becoming truth.

  Bron put a hand out to Shim, who just stood there doing absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. His twin simply stood there like he was perfectly happy to let the soldiers take her. Duffy turned, and his small face went white with surprise. He dropped his axe and started running Lachlan’s way.

  “Lach, no.”

  Duffy hit his center with the force of a very small but stubbornly powerful train. Lach was knocked back, his ass hitting the dirt, his sword falling from his hand.

  Duffy leapt up, putting a hand on his chest. “Let Shim do his job.”

  Lach sat up, ready to get to his feet and throw himself in front of his bondmate when he noticed that the fighting had stopped. The villagers had moved back, disappearing into houses or creeping close to walls. And all eyes were on one woman. Bronwyn.

  The soldiers began to rush, but Bron nodded Shim’s way and there was a whooshing sound that filled the air. Heat smoldered as a ring of fire appeared, surrounding the soldiers and trapping them in a neat cage of flames.

  But his brother wasn’t satisfied. The flames grew and engulfed the soldiers, their dying cries filling the air.

  It was all over in seconds, the flames so hot they disintegrated everything that had stood in the ring.

  Shim turned to the hag, a smile on his face. With a flick of his wrist, he sent a long line of white and blue flames toward the hag.

  “Damn it. Get down!” Roan roared over the crowd.

  Lach hit the deck, taking Duffy with him just as Shim’s flames hit the shield the witch had in play and bounced back toward them. Scalding heat brushed over Lach, reminding him that he knew what it meant to be caught in his brother’s power.

  “Sorry!” Shim yelled his way. “I didn’t know about the shielding.”

  Bron stepped forward, not seeming to care that there was still a powerful hag who had been sent to ensure her death. “Did my uncle send you?”

  The hag smiled showing perfectly even teeth that seemed a bit too sharp for her face. “The king sends his greetings, Princess Bronwyn, and promises a glorious family reunion.”

  “I don’t think I’ll take him up on that just yet.” Bron stood, her shoulders back. “You aren’t welcome in my village, hag.”

  The hag sighed, her elegant gown moving with the sound. “I know when to take my toys and go home. By the way, dear, I spent some time in that one’s head. A dark thing he is. Be careful that he doesn’t eat you up with his ambition. He wants the crown. He’ll say he loves you to get it, but you don’t think the Unseelie will really accept a Seelie queen now, do you? Good luck, dear. Even if you get a crown, it won’t mean much when your head is separated from your body. And, Death Lord, I have a parting gift for you.”

  The air around the hag shimmered, and then her hands flew out, a visible cloud racing his way.

  Just before it engulfed him, Duffy leapt, tossing his body into the cloud. Darkness covered the gnome, enveloping his body until there was nothing of him that wasn’t black smoke.

  Duffy screamed. Lach started to reach for him, but Roan and Dellacourt pulled him back.

  “Don’t you dare. You can’t help him now,” Roan said, pushing him back.

  Shim tried to get to Duffy, too, but Bronwyn got in his way. “Please.”

  The eddy cloud shifted as the hag disappeared once more into its depths. The sky cleared and brilliant sunlight rained down.

  Shim dropped to his knees, covering his eyes. Lach squinted, trying to see his little brother, the truly fierce one of their clan.

  The cl
oud was gone and Duffy remained. His body was still, so still. Lach pushed past the vampires whose implants were safely guarding them from the sun’s bright rays. Lach struggled himself, but Gillian and Bronwyn had covered Shim. They struggled to get him under the cover of the buildings.

  Lach put a hand on Duffy’s chest, praying for the beat of his heart.

  One eye opened. “Damn me, Lach, but that was something.” Duffy sat, flexing his muscles. “I don’t think I like that hag. I’d rather just fight soldiers. A sword has got to hurt less than that damn cloud.”

  “Come along, Your Highness. You must both be fitted with the proper devices to protect you from the sun. It won’t take long. One little pinch and it’s over. Well, one really long, horrifyingly painful pinch and it’s over, but we won’t have to worry about ultraviolet light again.” Roan helped him stand. “Hurry. She’ll be back. We have to move and quickly. We need to make the forest by dark or they’ll find us for sure.”

  Lach stumbled toward the shade where Bron sat with Shim. Her chin came up, a stubborn look on her pretty face.

  She’d run. She hadn’t stayed and discussed the situation with them. If she had, they could have run the minute the eddy cloud had shown up.

  He and his bride were due for a very long talk. And perhaps it was time he put the relationship on the proper footing, starting with the wayward princess feeling her husband’s hand on her ass.

  In the background, he could hear Dellacourt yelling at his wife and threatening all manner of punishment.

  Yes, it was time his bride learned the meaning of discipline.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Stay close to me, Duffy,” her husband said to the gnome. “But not too close.”

  Duffy sat on a rock near the river, his face turned up toward the moon. The gnome had been quiet all afternoon. He’d simply shuffled along behind them as they had fled the village. The villagers had all agreed that the hag would be back with reinforcements. They had decided to scatter, forming three large parties moving to the south, west, and north. And their small group was moving toward the east, to the mountains.

  But they had to move carefully and not in a straight line. And that, she’d been told over and over again, was all her fault. Despite her brilliant plan to save them, apparently the fact that they had needed to be saved at all was, again, her fault.

  “I’m going to set up our bed for the night. We’ve got a big bed, but we’re away from the rest.” Lach’s voice was deep and dark and she practically shivered listening to it.

  “You and Shim can sleep wherever you like.” She knew she was being stubborn, but he’d acted like an ass the whole long walk here. And her feet hurt. And she wasn’t about to apologize to him.

  Lach’s handsome face was half hidden by moonlight. “I’ll tie you up if I have to, wife.”

  “Don’t call me that.” Again, she knew she was being stubborn. Even she was thinking of him as her husband.

  “It’s true and your moping isn’t going to change the fact.” Lach stared down at her like an impossibly gorgeous, intensely difficult hunk of granite. He was so big. She knew Shim was just as big as Lach, but there was something about Lach’s presence that just overwhelmed her. “Would you like to know why we’re not staying close to the others?”

  She could just guess what they had in mind. Four hands on her body. Two mouths kissing her. Even thinking about it made her heart race. After the events of the day, she wanted to do nothing more than close her eyes and find them in her dreams and sink into that magnificent safe place that had been hers for all of her life. But they were real now and nothing was safe about any of this.

  Lach’s mouth turned up in an arrogant grin, letting her know she was doing that broadcasting thing again. “We’ll get to that, love. But first we’re going to talk and then we’re going to bond. The full bond. So I always know where you are.”

  “Like Dante did with Kaja?” She couldn’t help her smirk. Dante had been righteously angry with his wolf wife. It had taken him a good ten minutes after the hag had disappeared to remember to greet his cousin. He’d been far too busy yelling at his wife.

  Lach stood staring down at her, those muscular legs of his in a wide, arrogant stance. “I think Dante knows exactly how to deal with his wife. Do you hear them? He doesn’t seem to care who does. Come here.”

  The minute Roan had declared this would be camp for the rest of the too-short night, Dante had taken Kaja toward a small cave above the lake that fed the river. He’d grabbed their supplies and their food. He’d nodded to Roan and kissed Bron on the forehead and then stated plainly that no one was to interrupt him.

  “Not even you, brat.” He’d winked down at her and then hauled his consort away.

  Lach took her hand, and she was half dragged toward the cave that housed Dante and Kaja.

  There was the loud slap of flesh hitting flesh. “You want to shield against this, Kaja?”

  Kaja’s voice was a breathy moan. “I would never shield against this, my love.”

  Dante growled. “Only because you know every time I spank this pretty ass, I feel it on my own. You’re seriously underestimating how much I fucking love my hand on your ass. I’ll take a little pain so you remember this lesson. And, Kaja, I know you left that plug behind. What you don’t know is that gingerroot is plentiful here on the Seelie plane, and I’m going to get damn good at carving so I still have things to shove up your rectum.”

  Bron took a step back. Could that really be her sweet cos? He sounded so…dirty. She remembered him as a teenager, chasing after pretty girls, but never had he talked to one like that.

  “Don’t judge him. He’s with his consort. Whatever play they enjoy is what is right for him. Listen to Kaja. Does she sound upset?”

  Smack and then a long moan. “Dante, please. You can’t hold out on me forever.”

  “You know I can’t, baby. But after the stunt you pulled today, I’m going to try.”

  There was another loud smack, and Kaja moaned. Bron turned away, completely confused.

  “He’s hitting her.” But Kaja didn’t sound like it upset her. Kaja sounded like a woman who was having a good time. Bron didn’t understand. Her father had been so gentle with her mother. “Shouldn’t he be kinder? She’s his mate, but he says impolite things to her and he hits her.”

  And Bron was becoming a little aroused listening to it. What did that make her?

  “No, he’s spanking her, and she likes it. Vampires have a relationship with their consorts they call Dominance and submission. Your cousin is the Dominant in the relationship especially when it comes to the sexual part of the marriage. Kaja submits, and she’s happy to do so. As for the impolite things he’s saying, there’s nothing polite about a marriage. Formality and politeness aren’t going to happen in our bedroom. What you’re hearing is intimacy. That’s the real man, the one who was terrified he might lose his woman. There’s nothing polite about that.” Lach stared down at her. “We’re going to have that relationship, Bronwyn. You have to know that’s what we’ve been headed toward. Even in our dreams.”

  In their dreams, Lach and Shim had dominated her in the most delicious ways. She had wondered about the tone of her dreams. Now she knew she’d been playing out Lach and Shim’s fantasies.

  But she’d been right there with them. What did that say about her?

  She turned and walked back toward the campsite. It was a warm evening. The vampires had eaten meal pills, and the Fae had dined on bread and cheese and meat the villagers had packed. They had also packed wine which Gillian sat drinking straight from the bottle. She stared at the river, pointedly not looking Roan’s or the lieutenant’s way. The vampires didn’t have the same problem. Their eyes never left Bron’s mentor. They didn’t look polite. They looked hungry.

  “You’re going to fight this until the end, aren’t you?” Lach asked. “Do you deny our claim on you? I know you feel the connection. So it has to be something else. Do you honestly believe what the hag
said?”

  The hag had looked straight at her and said that all her husbands wanted out of her was a crown. She’d said they wouldn’t have a problem getting rid of her once they had secured her kingdom.

  She wasn’t at all certain they didn’t want the crown. Certainly Gillian wanted them to have it. But she was fairly certain of one thing. They didn’t want her dead. The hag didn’t understand what it meant to be a bondmate. Lach and Shim might not believe in her abilities, but they would want her alive. They would need her.

  “I’m not an idiot, Lach. I know you don’t want me dead.”

  “And I don’t want your brothers’ crown. I’ll prove that to you when we go back to the Unseelie plane and stay the hell out of this war. Your brothers can have this plane. We have our own kingdom.”

  And that was just one of her problems. This was her plane. “You can’t expect me to walk out on this war.”

  “I can and you will. This isn’t your war anymore. You’re the princess of the Unseelie, and you will rule over that plane. Your children will be in line for the Unseelie throne. I won’t allow you to stay here and be slaughtered for a crown that isn’t your own.”

  She felt her fists clench in frustration. This was exactly what she’d worried about the whole long trek to the river. And she couldn’t even think about children. Except she might have to. Her marriage had been consummated. She’d awakened with the evidence of it all over her thighs, mingled with her virgin’s blood. And still, her children would be half-Seelie. And no matter what Lach said, until her brothers had produced a child, she was still in line for the throne and so would her children be. In line for the throne and in Torin’s line of fire. “I am not leaving until Torin is dead.”

  “You’ll do as your husbands request. And your brothers. They want you safe as well. They don’t want you in this fight.” He reached for her hand, catching it before she could move away. “Come along. Shim is waiting for us. It’s time we had that talk.”