Beauty (A Faery Story 3)

nbsp; “Why don’t you go back to the camp. Roan has devices to warm you.”

“No. I think I’ll sit here a while and watch the stars. Like I said. I don’t feel the cold no more.”

Bron nodded and walked off. She wasn’t afraid of the cold, but the heat was another matter. She was worried the heat of their true bond would burn her, singeing away all that was Bronwyn Finn and leaving only a consort in her place.

* * * *

Torin looked from one hag to the other. “What do you mean she got away?”

It had been a simple fucking plan. Go to the district where the hags themselves had promised him Bronwyn resided. Go to the district and kill every woman who could possibly be Bronwyn. Simple. Easy. All fucked up.

“The Unseelie princes are here.” Glannis didn’t look up from her perch. She stared down at the bones she’d just thrown. She’d rattled them in an open skull, chanting and spitting and offering up blood. Now she studied them. It looked like a nasty mess that some forest creature had crapped out, but Glannis apparently saw something in it.

“Why the hell are they here? They’ve stayed out of things. Why do they give a shit?” The last thing he needed was trouble with the Unseelie until he was ready to deal with them. The Unseelie king had his own trouble. He had idiot sons, the dumbass versions of the Seelie princes. He’d heard something had gone desperately wrong with the princes. They had been injured in a fire and Fergus was trying to deal with his own kingdom. He didn’t have time to fight with Torin. And Torin liked it that way.

Una cocked a hand on her ridiculously gaunt hip. “Glannis thinks they might be bound.”

Torin threw his head back and laughed. The defective princes had snuck onto the plane to retrieve Bronwyn? “So why didn’t you kill them?”

Glannis finally looked up, her rheumy eyes serious. “I tried. I failed. And they are not defective. Not in the least. The Warrior King has already come into his power. He’s a Death Lord.”

A shiver went up Torin’s spine. He’d always wondered about that damn divination the hags had given him before his ascension. They had told him he would win the day, he would be the king. Only one person could harm him in the end. He’d leaned over and been prepared to hear the name Beckett Finn.

Bronwyn had been a surprise. But if Bronwyn had somehow bonded with a fucking Death Lord, he might just be in trouble. Perhaps that damn prophecy had been about his niece’s husband and not his niece.

“Why didn’t you kill him?” Surely his hags could do something about it now that they knew what the real problem was.

“I tried, Your Majesty. It would have worked but some filthy gnome got in my way. I couldn’t hex him again. The first one took too much and now he’ll be ready for it so all I got to do was kill a damn gnome. But I’ve come up with something else. His necromancy only works on creatures, Fae and animals and other somewhat sentient beings. So I intend to attack him with something he can’t take control of. I just need to find him. I believe he’s in the forests. He’s going to move toward Aoibhneas. It’s how he got in.”

Yes. He didn’t understand that, either. “How the fuck did he get in? I have guards on the entryway.”

The two hags shared a long look before Una answered. “There are always small rips and tears. A smart Fae would be able to get through.”

“I don’t want anyone to be able to get through.”

Una took a long breath. “Your Majesty, it is impossible to tell where these weak spots are unless you happen across one. And that village wouldn’t have told us. It keeps its secrets.”

Yes. Aoibhneas was the perfect fuck storm. High in the mountains with both natural and magical defenses. And the Fae who lived there were rebels by nature. He’d kept them contained with heavy guards on the roads and a long history of leaving them be, but he would come for them and they had to know it. Aoibhneas would be the logical place to launch a rebellion. But it was small and so isolated.

What if the Unseelie decided to invade?

“You have to kill him.”

“That is my plan. Now I just need to find them. I stole back to the village and found what I believe is her hair and his blood. The intellectual half was there. I don’t have anything from him, but if those two do anything magical, I can find them.”

Torin stared down at the shit on his desk. It better do what was expected. It better lead him to his niece and her husband.

One way or another someone was going to die. And he was going to wipe that fucking town off the map.

Chapter Seventeen

Two days later, Lach wondered if he was ever going to get home.

Roan finally called a halt to the day’s march. He’d been on his feet for days it felt like.

And he’d never felt better.

“I’ll go set up.” Shim gave him a smile. He was eager to get the night started, but Shim was thinking about the sex and not the forlorn look that Lach kept seeing on Bron’s face.