Beauty (A Faery Story 3)

She was exhausted. She was confused. And there was a core sadness that was killing Lachlan’s soul. The last two nights she hadn’t even fought them. She’d come to the bed they made and offered herself up. She’d made love with them, shared her blood and her body. She’d submitted in the loveliest of ways.

And it wasn’t enough because every time he offered her the true bond, she’d retreated. He looked over and she stood by a huge tree, her back leaning against it. She stood apart from the group. She hadn’t simply retreated from the true bond. She’d retreated from everyone. Bronwyn answered all questions in two or three words. She didn’t even look at Gillian, a fact that seemed to add to his sister’s misery.

If he didn’t need Roan, he might kill him. Except he’d overheard Roan and his lieutenant talking the night before and he’d really watched them all day. Their every move was about Gillian’s safety and comfort. Their talk the night before had been a long, slow dialogue about how to tempt Gillian into giving them a chance.

He understood Roan and Harry. Damn it.

“You’re hungry?” She wouldn’t let him carry her through the forests. She wouldn’t let him shield her. At least she accepted that he could feed her.

She gave him a wan smile. “I am.”

He nodded and moved away, walking up to Roan. They were running out of supplies. They were running out of time. And every village they stopped in, his wife insisted on riling up the villagers.

And it had been fairly easy since the villages were empty of guards. They were all patrolling around Aoibhneas now, a phalanx Lach wasn’t sure they could break through without some loss of life.

Roan looked up from his tablet. “Can I help you, Your Highness?”

“You can tell me when we’ll be able to get my wife home. The Seelie princes are due here any day now. You know that they’re just waiting for a big enough hole in the wall to come through with an army.”

“I’m doing my best.”

It was said with Roan’s clipped efficiency, but something about the way he said it made Lach suspicious. “Tell me why we’re moving the way we’re moving. Aoibhneas is in the opposite direction.”

Roan’s eyebrow raised and his mouth turned down. “Every time we attempt to move to Aoibhneas, we get cut off by the guard, Your Highness. We talked about this last night. We’ve moved from village to village in an unorthodox path in order to deceive the guard as to where we are going.”

“We’re not deceiving anyone since you allow my wife to be put on display. She’s making speeches. She’s making herself a target.”

“She’s building her brothers an army.” Roan looked over to where Bron stood. “She needs to feel like she’s a part of this. Can you not understand that?”

“He’s right, Lach. You can’t understand.” Duffy stood at his side. “You don’t know what it means to want to fight and not be able to. I know I’ve played around, but we all know I wouldn’t be able to do anything at all on the battlefield except let warriors trip over me.”

His brother’s sorrow made Lach’s heart clench. He’d never meant to make Duffy feel that way. And he’d certainly never meant for… He wasn’t going to think about that moment in anything but the broadest of terms. “You saved me, Duff.”

“By throwing my body in front of a cloud.”

Gillian got to her knees in front of Duffy. “You saved Lach with more than your body.”

Gillian’s words were a bit shaky. Lach was rather glad to see it. She’d been as shut down as Bronwyn for days.

Duffy flushed and looked toward the ground. “It pretty much felt like me body.”

“It wasn’t your body that made you leap in front of that cloud. It was your strong, brave heart.”

Duffy shook his head. “I ain’t brave, Gilly. Not for a second.”

She put her hand out, lifting his face up to hers. “How can you say that?”

“Because I ain’t never said the thing I wanted to say. I won’t say them. I’m small and insignificant. I know how Bron feels. She wants to fight, but no one will let her. They’ll pat her on the head and tell her she’s doing fine. They might let someone train her so’s she doesn’t complain too much, but when it comes down to it, she’s not going to be allowed to fight.”

“Damn it, Duffy. It’s not the same. And I was just trying to protect you. Can’t you understand that? I didn’t want you to die.”

“But, Lach, there are some things that are worth dying over. Haven’t you figured that out yet? You would die for Bronwyn. Do you think she’s less a woman than you are a man? Do you think she doesn’t want her life to matter?”

What the hell was Duffy talking about? Didn’t he understand that everything he’d been doing was about how precious Bronwyn was? How precious he himself was?

He was about to answer when a little trilling alarm went off and Roan’s whole body shifted to full alert. He had a sonic blade in his hand in an instant, and he and Harry pulled Gillian behind them.

“I have alarms set up all over. I placed them before we settled into camp. It could be a deer or it could be Torin’s guard. The last village said their guards had been pulled out just the day before to hunt for the princess.”