Beauty (A Faery Story 3)

Rye stalked off after his brother.

“Please forgive him. The last several years have been hard,” Rachel said, smoothing back her strawberry-blonde hair. “At first, when King Seamus fell, we all held out hope that the Unseelie would come and save us. Many of us believed this would be the act that reunited our kingdoms.”

Lach would have assumed the very idea would horrify the Seelie. “I don’t think even King Seamus wanted that.”

Rachel shrugged. “Seamus was a good king, but he was a royal. I have yet to meet a true royal who understood the plight of even the middle class. The best we can hope for is a king who has just laws and the means in place to oust sheriffs and mayors who take advantage. Torin simply takes without caring how it affects us. And he’s systematically killing every creature who isn’t sidhe.”

“Then you’re safe,” Lach pointed out. He meant it to be somewhat comfo

rting, but the minute the words came out of his mouth, a vision of Duffy being slaughtered because he wasn’t sidhe assaulted his brain. He opened his mouth to call the words back, but Rachel Harper rounded on him, her pretty face red with anger.

“Safe? So I should allow the tyrant king to slaughter my neighbors, my sweet kin, because he’s not coming for me? Let me tell you something, Your Highness, if you believe that he will be satisfied with killing only those who don’t look like he does, you’re a naïve idiot. When the brownies and goblins and trolls and pixies are gone, he will come for the rest of us. I will not sit idly by and pray to Danu that he not darken my door. I will not allow him to kill and rape and do as he pleases because he was strong enough to wrest the crown from his brother’s head. I will fight. I will fight for my children. So you take your perfect little bondmate and run back to the Unseelie plane. We do not need you here.”

She began to walk away, and Lach realized just how terribly he was handling his allies. “Mrs. Harper.”

She didn’t turn. “Yes, Your Highness.”

“I apologize if I offended. I am not the diplomatic half.” He wasn’t sure what else to say. “I don’t even know much about the situation here. It didn’t seem to be an Unseelie problem.”

She finally turned to him, tears in her eyes. “We’re living, breathing beings, Your Highness. Call us what you will—Seelie, Unseelie, vampire. It matters not. We want the same things you do. We want our mates and our children to be happy. We want our dreams to come true. We’re dying. How is that not everyone’s problem?”

She sighed and walked away.

Lach watched her, wishing he knew what to say, what to do. It had been simple. Come to the Seelie plane. Get his mate. Get out. Let the war happen or not.

Two hours here and he knew he would have to make decisions he wasn’t ready to make.

He felt his fists clench. His father had done him a grave disservice. Since that horrible day when Bron had died and Shim’s power had surged, burning away half of Lach’s face, his father had treated them both like they were fragile beings, not to be tormented with little things like learning how to run the kingdom they would one day inherit. His father had lost Gillian, seen one of his heirs marred for life, and the other go into a fugue state. It was reasonable that he would be protective, but Lach now lacked the tools he needed. He knew nothing because his father didn’t want to tax his frail system.

Dante stepped out, stretching his long limbs. He nodded Lach’s way. “Almost time to head out.”

But they still had hours left. And Dellacourt had left behind a whole rich life to follow his cousins. Perhaps it was time to toss aside his preconceptions and start asking questions.

Perhaps it was time to become a king no matter what his father thought.

“Could you tell me about the situation here?”

Dellacourt’s green eyes widened slightly. “Are you sure? You didn’t seem at all interested before.”

“I am now.”

Dellacourt smiled. “Then take a seat, Your Highness. Consider this your first briefing.”

Lach sat, and the vampire began to speak.

* * * *

The late-afternoon light was warm on her skin as she stood in the middle of town square, music and laughter all around her. The Festival of Threshing. The agricultural provinces all had their own ways to celebrate the hard work of the season. Here there would be a small party for the threshing and a huge feast after harvest was done. But Bron wouldn’t be around for the feasting this year. She would be on the road, these people she’d come to care about left behind.

Bron watched the children dance around the maypole, the colors blending, making a rainbow as the children bounced and sang. And her heart hurt because she knew how much Ove had wanted to attend. But the little brownie was in hiding. Bron had been forced to leave her in a cold cave with her mother. Gillian had taken food and blankets, but it was only a matter of time before the guards thought to search for them. Torin’s principles of purity had finally reached the outer provinces, and there was nowhere left to run.

Then stop running. You’re of age. The time has come to fight. Gather an army. Be the princess you were born to be.

That angry voice in her head was becoming louder and harder to ignore. She wasn’t a child any longer. Her brothers, it seemed, were not coming back. She was the only Finn left for a rebellion to build around. If she and Gillian left this province, how long would it be until something else sent them running again? How long before they ran out of places to hide? And how many of her friends would die along the way, without her defense because staying alive was all that mattered? Did she really want to spend her life like this, hiding and pretending to be something she wasn’t?

And that brought up the real question. Who the hell was she? She hadn’t been brought up to be a warrior princess. She’d been brought up to be a fluffy little wife. Time and hardship had molded her into something else. Something more.

Who was Bronwyn Finn becoming?