by Sophie Oak
First blood was supposed to give him strength, and it seemed it had. Shim was stronger than he’d been in thirteen years, but it also seemed to have enhanced his vampire half. Shim closed his eyes and tried to step out. Lach shoved him back.
“You’re no good if you can’t see.” Lach could see. It was irritating, but he could keep his eyes open.
Roan had a sonic charger in his hands. It sent pulses of sound waves that incapacitated or killed its victims if the setting was high enough. “Let’s see who’s come to greet us. They could be friendly.”
But Lach was pretty damn sure they wouldn’t be. And now he was glad Bron was gone. He would find her. Kaja would protect her, and according to Gillian, she wasn’t bad at protecting herself. But whatever was about to drop from that cloud was bad. Lach could feel it.
“Stay inside.” Lach looked back to where Duffy and Shim stood. He could protect them both. “Duffy, you stay here and guard Shim. Gillian, please.”
Dark eyes narrowed on him, letting him know she wasn’t pleased with being relegated to the house. “I’ll stay here. For now.”
The air around them cracked and sizzled. Lach looked up. It was hard, but he could see Fae dropping from the cloud. An eddy wind was difficult to locate and harder to catch. He counted ten and then twenty and then thirty soldiers drop from the savage-looking cloud.
Dellacourt cursed as Roan had them stop, signaling the halt with a single fist in the air. Dellacourt leaned over. “Have you ever seen an eddy cloud that size? My uncle showed me one once, but it was tiny. This is at least a hundred yards across.”
Lach squinted as he looked up. “I’ve seen bigger ones back home, but I don’t know a single person who could ride one that big. They’re hard to maneuver. It takes a lot of magic to make an eddy cloud do your will. And to take that many passengers. Gods. Who is it?”
Roan let them move once more, creeping carefully along the sides of buildings as they approached the town square.
Lach got a glimpse of what was ahead of him. The square was covered with soldiers. Guards wearing the livery of the Seelie King stood in rigid formation. The cloud hung overhead casting a dark, ominous shadow. It was as though the cloud almost made the sky seem like twilight. He could see much more comfortably here. Even the vampires’ implants had disappeared in the absence of ultraviolet light. Lach was able to see that the villagers had made their way out of their homes and stood watching the guard, fear on their faces. The last twenty-four hours hadn’t been kind to this village. The war had come to them in a brutal fashion, but up until now only Torin’s guards had been killed. He could see the villagers now deeply feared for their own lives.
“It looks like they’re going to make an announcement. Once we hear what they have to say, we need to get back, pick up the others, and make a break for it. I don’t want to be seen.” Roan’s voice came over the comm system he’d been given this morning. It was a tiny device that fitted to Lach’s ear and allowed them to talk to everyone on the team over short distances.
There was a final pop and a woman appeared in the middle of the square. She was a vision in black, her dark hair perfectly coiffed, not a strand out of place. Her black dress had silver threaded through it. She was lovely. And Lach knew immediately that she was a hag.
“Crap me a river. I’ve seen that face before though she was a blonde. That’s one of Torin’s hags.” It was Dellacourt whispering now. “Does anyone see a cat? Kill the cat first. I’m serious.”
The hag smiled a superior-looking grin as she looked around. She was surrounded by soldiers, but Lach knew who had the real power here.
“Good afternoon. I bring you greetings from your king.”
The village was silent. A horrible sense of anticipation hovered in the air. It seemed to have weight as though a heavy, stifling blanket had been placed over the whole village just waiting to smother everyone.
The hag stopped her pacing. Crimson lips turned down and one eyebrow arched. “You have nothing to say? This village does not respect our glorious king?”
This village was full of peasants. They were up against well-trained soldiers with weapons, and all the peasants had were farming tools. And they were burdened with their children. Lach was happy when someone was smart enough to shout, “Hurray for King Torin.”
The rest joined in though it was a half-hearted shout.
The hag’s foot tapped against the dirt. “Where is the mayor of this village?”
Utter silence and then someone was brave enough to step up. Reymon. The shopkeeper left his wife standing with their daughter and son. The daughter looked to be of marriageable age, but the son was still a youngling, his hand clutching his mother’s.
Reymon took a deep breath, his hat in hand. “The mayor’s gone. It’s harvest time. The mayor took the guards to the next province. He’s guarding our shipments himself to make sure King Torin gets the percentage he needs.”
The hag pursed her lips. “Well, it is harvest time, and I don’t really care about the mayor anyway. He’s an unctuous little prick. So the good news, my soldiers, is we don’t have to worry about upsetting the local politicians. The bad news is all for you, Tuathanas’s people. The king is in danger. I need all young women past the age of sixteen to be gathered in the square. Any woman between the ages of sixteen and forty must report here immediately.”
Lach heard Roan curse. “It’s time to get out of here. Everyone fall back to the shop. We’ll locate our two lost packages and hit the road.”
“What are they going to do with those women?” Lach asked. He saw Reymon hurry back. Both his daughter and his wife looked to be in danger.
“It doesn’t matter. It only matters that whatever would happen involves two of our team members, perhaps three if Kaja isn’t in her other form when these soldiers catch her. Now fall back.”
The soldiers were moving, picking women out of the crowd and pulling them from crying children or angry men. One villager attempted to defend his daughter. Lach watched as a sword sliced through his belly.
It was wrong. There it was. That feeling in his gut. It wasn’t just triggered by Bronwyn. The warrior inside him had had his first blood and the utter injustice he saw had him begging for more.
“Your Highness, you said it yourself. This is not your fight.” Roan had made his way back, placing a hand on Lach’s shoulder. “What is your mission?”
“To save my bondmate.”
But Rachel Harper’s words were ringing in his head. These might be Seelie Fae but damn if they didn’t bleed like he did. And they loved their wives and children. The old and the infirm were struggling alongside the healthy, but they were going to lose.
“Your Highness, I see the light in your eyes. This is a mistake. There are too many soldiers. There’s thirty of them and nine of us and three of us shouldn’t be fighting. Shim won’t be able to handle the sunlight if the cloud disperses and Gillian and the gnome should stay hidden.” Roan shook his head. “I understand the need to stop an injustice, but we have to think about our own women.”
A soldier hauled Reymon’s daughter to the center of the square. She stood, shaking in front of the hag.
Reymon hadn’t been thinking of himself when he’d offered his home. Reymon had opened his own bedroom and thanked the goddess that the Unseelie kings had come.
Was Reymon standing out there wondering where the kings were now or had he figured out that his own life and that of his whole family would be weighed and judged as meaningless in the wake of Lach’s own?
He’d spent years trying to be taken seriously as a prince.
What did it mean to have this power inside him if he never used it? What kind of king was he if he kept walking away from people like Reymon and the Harpers because he was waiting for the right fight?
“Your Highness,” Roan began.
Reymon ran for his daughter. Lach could see plainly what would happen. Two soldiers moved to intercept the shopkeeper. It wouldn’t matter that he was trying to
protect his child or that he was woefully unarmed. They were smiling and hauling swords over their heads.
The right fight was the one in front of him.
“Go on then, Roan. Protect my sister.” Lach broke from the group.
Roan growled in his ear. “And let you have all the fun? Not on your life, you bastard.”
Lach heard the sonic boom blast past him. It sent the soldiers scattering.
Chaos ruled around him as everyone started to run.
Lach hoisted his sword and a fierce joy took hold as he finally gave in to his instincts and began the good fight.
* * * *
“Princess, what are you doing?” Niall jogged beside her, churning up dust as they ran. “We need to go the other way. Is there something you need from town? I don’t think we should go back there.”
Damn straight they shouldn’t go back there, but she couldn’t run. Not this time. The village was under attack, and it had something to do with her.
And she wasn’t about to let the village go down in flames without her there to defend it.
“You don’t have to come with me, Niall. Just give me my knife and we can part ways. My father should have told you. I’m rather stubborn when I want to be.”
Niall reached out and grabbed her elbow, hauling her around. His eyes were fixed on hers. “I can be stubborn, too, princess. I say we’re leaving. I cannot allow your soft heart to put everything in jeopardy.”
He started to pull her close, most likely to haul her over his shoulder, but there was a low growl from her right. Kaja stood at her side, staring up a Niall. The brown fur on her back stood straight up, her perfectly white teeth on display.
Niall gasped as he looked down at the wolf.
Bron rather liked having a wolf for a cousin. “I would back away. Kaja has been looking for someone to eat, and you don’t want to be on her menu.”
Bron tried pulling herself free, but Niall held fast. His face, previously worried, settled back into the stubborn mask of one who wasn’t going to allow himself to be swayed by anything.
“I think I’ll take my chances. I’m quite a hunter myself. There’s no dumb animal alive who can take me down. Call off your dog. I really don’t want to hurt her. But I have a mission to complete, and I intend to do so.”
She heard a shrill cry and then the unmistakable sound of a sonic weapon being fired in the distance. Vampire tech. Her cousin really was in that village. “You would sacrifice a whole village to complete your mission? You’ve been living here for months. Those are your neighbors, Niall. They’re dying.”
If her words moved him, he didn’t show it. “And more will die if Torin isn’t stopped. This is a small village, princess. People are dying all over the country. So yes, I will sacrifice whoever I must in order to see you safely to Sir Giles and the army he will be able to build around you. You will be a figurehead. That is your true value, not as some crazed woman wielding a sword in the defense of peasants. The nobles will back you. You will be the rallying point. You’re far too important to risk.”
There would be no reasoning with him. He was a true believer, an absolutist, and he didn’t really care about her beyond the fact that she could further his mission. “Then take the damn knife. Find another girl to play my part. You were going to do it earlier. I don’t need the knife anymore. My brothers will know who I am.”
Niall’s eyes widened. He finally dropped her arms. “Beckett and Cian? The kings are still alive? They must have gone mad by now. They’re years past the time to bond.”
That was exactly what Torin wanted everyone to think. It was one more reason he’d closed off Tir na nÓg. “No, they are alive and well. They’ve bonded and ascended. So I’m turning this whole figurehead thing over to them, and I’m going to go and do something right for a change. I’m going to fight for the people around me. Let me go.”
He shook his head, grabbing her arm once more. “I can’t let you go. You’re our best bet. And you could be lying about the kings.”
“She is not lying and I am no dumb animal.” Kaja had taken her human form. She also proved she could fight on two feet. She reared her fist back and slammed it into Niall’s nose, blood splattering in an arc. Niall’s head snapped back, and he dropped to the ground with a thud, unconscious. Kaja stood over him. “He is not a smart man.”
But he was an armed man. Bron took the knife on his belt. A small guilt assailed her, but it wasn’t like she was leaving him unarmed. He seemed to have a blade strapped to every inch of his body. She thought about taking the sword, but she was better with a knife, and the sword was heavy. She held out the sword to Kaja who stared at it like it was a bug.
“You don’t use weapons, do you?”
Kaja shrugged, one shoulder moving up and down as she eased the pack off Niall’s back. She rifled through it, coming back with yet another blade.
“I fight with tooth and claw. It’s the way of my people. And my main person is about to be in trouble. Dante is fighting. They’re all fighting, and there are so many of them. He’s telling me to get you someplace safe and then hide with you. He’s being quite loud about it. Does he have to scream at me like that? Doesn’t he know I can hear him?”
It struck Bronwyn suddenly that Kaja really was her family. She was Dante’s true consort if they could speak to each other like this. Her cos was here. He’d come for her. And if he’d come for her then it was because Beckett and Cian had sent him. Her brothers.
Dear goddess, she had a family again.
“Do you know how to use that thing?” Kaja asked, pointing to the knife.
It wasn’t her father’s knife, but it would do. And she was running out of time. Niall probably had it hidden on his person.
Her husbands or her knife? It was an easy choice to make.
She felt so much better with two knives in her hands. She’d been trained to use two, her body moving in a deadly dance. Never stop moving, the goblins had told her. “I can use it. And I’m not hiding.”
She didn’t want to admit it to herself, but Lach and Shim were there. It had been easy to walk away before, but now she couldn’t, not when she wasn’t sure they were safe. Niall lay in the dirt, his chest moving, but his eyes closed. She couldn’t help him. Not if she wanted to help Lach and Shim.
She kept her mental shields in place. It was becoming an easier thing to do. She had to keep them up. If they knew she was coming, they would stop her from fighting and from the sounds ahead, every fighter was needed.
Kaja shifted again. Bron nodded down at her and ran for the village, her heart in her throat.
Chaos reigned. She turned down the street that would lead her to the square. The eddy cloud hung over the square making it a damn fine bet that the worst of the fighting would happen there.
Bron stopped as the door to one of the shops flew open and screaming rang through the empty street. She watched as two guards started hauling a young woman out of her home. The woman wasn’t going quietly. She screamed her husband’s name and tried to fight, but the guards had her firmly in hand.
Bron had been to her wedding. It had been over a year ago, held right in the square. She and Gillian had walked with the bride through the very street where she was being dragged. Litha was a sweet woman who had just borne a daughter to her husband. They made candles and sold them at market. She was being hauled down the street, her face streaked with tears and her legs dragging. Her blonde hair hung in her face.
Kaja’s tail thumped and her graceful face was turned up as though waiting for the command. Kaja was acknowledging that Bron had more at stake. Bron was so deeply grateful to her cousin. “Go.”
Kaja jumped the first guard from behind, her predatory grace and speed on full display. The guard didn’t stand a chance. He let loose a strangled scream before Kaja bit into his neck. There was a loud cracking sound.
The second guard turned and hoisted his sword to bring it down on the wolf’s back. Bron reared back and saw her target. Her peripheral vis
ion fled, so the whole world narrowed to one point on the guard’s vulnerable neck. The rest of him was covered with thick armor, but he still had to move and there was a nice white patch of skin, just the size for a blade to bury itself in.
She let the knife fly, sending the power of her throw through her whole body as the man in the wine-making district had taught her.
Her aim proved true. Just before the guard could start his sword’s descent toward Kaja, the knife found purchase. The sword fell from his hands and the guard’s body hit the ground.
Litha looked up, her eyes wide with fear. “Isolde?”
It was time to begin to reclaim herself. Niall was right about one thing. She could be a figurehead. It just wasn’t all she intended to be. “That’s the name I gave you, Litha, but it is not my own. I have kept a secret from you.”
Litha stared for a moment and then got to one knee. “Princess Bronwyn. You’re the one they’re looking for. The guards came into my home and beat my husband. They mentioned the Princess Bronwyn, and that they’re rounding up anyone who could possibly be you. I fear they intend to slaughter us all in the hopes that one of us will be you. Just last night as you were in your cell, Gillian told us the secret. We were ready to attack the guard to free you when the dark man came. The necromancer killed them all. Will he save us now? Where is he?”
Bron took a long breath. At least she wouldn’t have to prove who she was to the villagers. It seemed Gillian had convinced them.
“She is right. Those guards intend to kill everyone who could possibly be you.” Kaja stood over her victim, heedless to her nude state. “They won’t settle for the ones who look like you as you could easily change your appearance.”
Litha screamed and ran, hiding behind Bronwyn, though she had four inches and twenty pounds on Bron. Litha was a muscular woman, but the scream that had come from her throat was pure girl. “It was a wolf! Kill it, Your Highness. It must be the hag the guards spoke of.”
The hag was here? How many? The rumor was Torin had three in his employ, but one was off plane seeking her brothers. If the hags were here, then they would be the ones in charge. “She isn’t a hag, Litha. She’s my cousin. She’s an ally.”