Beauty (A Faery Story 3)

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.”