Beauty (A Faery Story 3)

The wolf stopped and stared at her for a moment and then began to bounce up and down in apparent glee. Well, at least her new pet was on the same page. The wolf’s tail thumped against the hard dirt, and she watched her prey with anticipatory joy.

Bron wished she had a weapon of some kind. Anything really but her brand-new husbands hadn’t seen fit to arm her. They had preferred her without her clothes.

The feeling of their skin wrapped around hers assaulted her, and for a moment she could feel them. Their panic. It flared to life in her and she couldn’t breathe before she slammed the connection closed. She couldn’t afford it. No matter how nice it had been, she wasn’t going to allow herself to be used to gift the Unseelie royals with her brothers’ throne. Until she saw their dead bodies for herself, she wasn’t going to give up. She’d made up her mind to stand up and be the princess her people needed her to be.

And that started by having a little chat with Niall.

He began to walk toward the road. Bron took a step out, showing herself. At the very least she had the wolf by her side. It might make him think twice. She was going to have to come up with a suitable name for her pet since it seemed like the wolf was the only creature on the plane she could trust.

Niall started and then stopped, staring at her. “Princess Bronwyn.”

“Incredible jackass Niall.”

The wolf seemed to snort.

Niall’s face flushed. “Your Highness, there was nothing I could do. I was surrounded by Micha’s men. They would have killed me. I didn’t have an army.”

She thought about what had happened in the square. It had seemed to be a nightmare at the time, but now she could start to process what she’d seen and heard. “Neither did the man who saved me. He didn’t have an army. He just had his brother.”

Niall looked around as if expecting someone to show up. “Where is he? Who is he? It doesn’t matter, princess. We need to leave here. It was incredibly smart of you to get away and come looking for me. Your father is going to be very proud of you.”

He’d had an incredible story concerning her father. “Why should I believe you about my father?”

“Because it’s true.” He gave her a warm smile and walked far too close to her. “Princess Bronwyn, everything I have told you is true. Your father trained me to find you. He gave me explicit instructions. I’ve been searching since I became old enough to be a guard.”

“If my father is truly a sluagh, then why didn’t he search for me himself?” It was impossible to think of her rigidly polite father as an eater of the dead. The sluagh were unshriven dead, dead who refused to move on to the after.

“I believe his essence is tied to his brother’s and he cannot be free until his brother is dead.” Niall sighed. “I do not expect that you will understand any of this, princess. Just know that your father trusts me. Ask me something only he would know. He spoke of you so often. He made me memorize everything about you.”

“What did he call me as a child?” It was a secret between the two of them. Or at least her father had told her so.

“He called you his little pixie because your hair was so big he thought it looked like pixie wings when your nanny didn’t braid it. He thought your hair was half your body weight when you were a child.”

Tears pricked her eyes. Little pixie. It was a sweet memory. “All right, let’s say I believe you. What does he want me to do?”

He smiled, a self-satisfied look. “He wants you to follow me. He wants you to trust me. I’m going to take care of you. We’ll go to Sir Giles’s manse. He’s been looking for a person to rally behind ever since your cousin died. He’s tried several times to get ambassadors off the plane to talk to friendly vampire families. He will give us a safe place and he has a long history with the military.” Niall was silent for a moment and then seemed to come to a decision. “And he will see us properly wed.”

The wolf put her head down and Bron groaned. “I am not marrying you.”

“’Tis the only way, princess. We shall marry and I will take care of the political part of this. You will need only to be your sweet self and let the people see you. It is all that is required of you.”

Her wolf growled and Bron understood the sentiment. “I want my knife back.”

Niall stared. “There is no need, princess. I will handle everything.”

“I don’t want you to handle everything. I want you to give me my knife back. And I don’t need another husband.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” His face flushed, his shoulders squaring.

Bron would have sworn her wolf rolled her eyes. “It means that I find myself wed to the princes of the Unseelie. I doubt they would be happy to share their wife. But I find myself in a small disagreement.”

“You can’t be married.”

“Oh, yes, I can. I’m bonded to them. Trust me. I feel the connection. I think they both want to murder me right about now.” She’d felt their panic, and now even though she had her shields up, she could still feel the fine edge of fear and irritation. She wondered if they could feel her willpower.

Niall huffed a little. “No one on this plane will recognize the marriage, Your Highness. They are Unseelie and obviously up to no good. We will wed, and our people will accept it.”

“Niall, I am not marrying you. And I might not know my husbands very well in this reality, but I know they will take you apart limb from limb, or rather Shim will burn you to a crisp and then Lachlan will play with your corpse.”