Beauty [A Faery Story 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (33 page)

“She is not lying and I am no dumb animal.” Kaja had taken her human form. She also proved she could fight on two feet. She reared her fist back and slammed it into Niall’s nose, blood splattering in an arc. Niall’s head snapped back, and he dropped to the ground with a thud, unconscious. Kaja stood over him. “He is not a smart man.”

But he was an armed man. Bron took the knife on his belt. A small guilt assailed her, but it wasn’t like she was leaving him unarmed. He seemed to have a blade strapped to every inch of his body. She thought about taking the sword, but she was better with a knife, and the sword was heavy. She held out the sword to Kaja who stared at it like it was a bug.

“You don’t use weapons, do you?”

Kaja shrugged, one shoulder moving up and down as she eased the pack off Niall’s back. She rifled through it, coming back with yet another blade.

“I fight with tooth and claw. It’s the way of my people. And my main person is about to be in trouble. Dante is fighting. They’re all fighting, and there are so many of them. He’s telling me to get you someplace safe and then hide with you. He’s being quite loud about it. Does he have to scream at me like that? Doesn’t he know I can hear him?”

It struck Bronwyn suddenly that Kaja really was her family. She was Dante’s true consort if they could speak to each other like this. Her cos was here. He’d come for her. And if he’d come for her then it was because Beckett and Cian had sent him. Her brothers.

Dear goddess, she had a family again.

“Do you know how to use that thing?” Kaja asked, pointing to the knife.

It wasn’t her father’s knife, but it would do. And she was running out of time. Niall probably had it hidden on his person.

Her husbands or her knife? It was an easy choice to make.

She felt so much better with two knives in her hands. She’d been trained to use two, her body moving in a deadly dance.
Never stop moving
, the goblins had told her. “I can use it. And I’m not hiding.”

She didn’t want to admit it to herself, but Lach and Shim were there. It had been easy to walk away before, but now she couldn’t, not when she wasn’t sure they were safe. Niall lay in the dirt, his chest moving, but his eyes closed. She couldn’t help him. Not if she wanted to help Lach and Shim.

She kept her mental shields in place. It was becoming an easier thing to do. She had to keep them up. If they knew she was coming, they would stop her from fighting and from the sounds ahead, every fighter was needed.

Kaja shifted again. Bron nodded down at her and ran for the village, her heart in her throat.

Chaos reigned. She turned down the street that would lead her to the square. The eddy cloud hung over the square making it a damn fine bet that the worst of the fighting would happen there.

Bron stopped as the door to one of the shops flew open and screaming rang through the empty street. She watched as two guards started hauling a young woman out of her home. The woman wasn’t going quietly. She screamed her husband’s name and tried to fight, but the guards had her firmly in hand.

Bron had been to her wedding. It had been over a year ago, held right in the square. She and Gillian had walked with the bride through the very street where she was being dragged. Litha was a sweet woman who had just borne a daughter to her husband. They made candles and sold them at market. She was being hauled down the street, her face streaked with tears and her legs dragging. Her blonde hair hung in her face.

Kaja’s tail thumped and her graceful face was turned up as though waiting for the command. Kaja was acknowledging that Bron had more at stake. Bron was so deeply grateful to her cousin. “Go.”

Kaja jumped the first guard from behind, her predatory grace and speed on full display. The guard didn’t stand a chance. He let loose a strangled scream before Kaja bit into his neck. There was a loud cracking sound.

The second guard turned and hoisted his sword to bring it down on the wolf’s back. Bron reared back and saw her target. Her peripheral vision fled, so the whole world narrowed to one point on the guard’s vulnerable neck. The rest of him was covered with thick armor, but he still had to move and there was a nice white patch of skin, just the size for a blade to bury itself in.

She let the knife fly, sending the power of her throw through her whole body as the man in the wine-making district had taught her.

Her aim proved true. Just before the guard could start his sword’s descent toward Kaja, the knife found purchase. The sword fell from his hands and the guard’s body hit the ground.

Litha looked up, her eyes wide with fear. “Isolde?”

It was time to begin to reclaim herself. Niall was right about one thing. She could be a figurehead. It just wasn’t all she intended to be. “That’s the name I gave you, Litha, but it is not my own. I have kept a secret from you.”

Litha stared for a moment and then got to one knee. “Princess Bronwyn. You’re the one they’re looking for. The guards came into my home and beat my husband. They mentioned the Princess Bronwyn, and that they’re rounding up anyone who could possibly be you. I fear they intend to slaughter us all in the hopes that one of us will be you. Just last night as you were in your cell, Gillian told us the secret. We were ready to attack the guard to free you when the dark man came. The necromancer killed them all. Will he save us now? Where is he?”

Bron took a long breath. At least she wouldn’t have to prove who she was to the villagers. It seemed Gillian had convinced them.

“She is right. Those guards intend to kill everyone who could possibly be you.” Kaja stood over her victim, heedless to her nude state. “They won’t settle for the ones who look like you as you could easily change your appearance.”

Litha screamed and ran, hiding behind Bronwyn, though she had four inches and twenty pounds on Bron. Litha was a muscular woman, but the scream that had come from her throat was pure girl. “It was a wolf! Kill it, Your Highness. It must be the hag the guards spoke of.”

The hag was here? How many? The rumor was Torin had three in his employ, but one was off plane seeking her brothers. If the hags were here, then they would be the ones in charge. “She isn’t a hag, Litha. She’s my cousin. She’s an ally.”

Kaja grinned as though the very act of being called family brought her enormous pleasure. “I am Kaja. I am a wolf sometimes and always a woman.”

Then Litha’s husband staggered out, a frying pan in his hand. The candlemaker had been badly beaten, but it was obvious he wasn’t going to stop. He would have fought until the guards killed him. Litha cried and ran to him. He fell into her arms.

“Get your husband inside, Litha. Tell everyone you see to hide. We will take care of this.” She would. One way or another. She wouldn’t allow the women of her village to be rounded up and slaughtered.

Litha nodded, tears in her eyes as she helped her husband up. “Thank you, Your Highness, but we will fight. You are our hope. Now that we have hope again, we will not give up.”

Bron had to take a deep breath. This was what Niall had wanted of her, but he’d wanted a china doll to put on banners and keep protected. That wasn’t who Bronwyn Finn was anymore. Goddess, she wasn’t Bronwyn Finn. She was Bronwyn McIver.

A small crowd had gathered, lending aid to Litha and her husband. Bron heard them talking about her. Calling her princess and wishing her luck. Promising to follow her.

“Do not worry,” Litha said to the crowd. “Our princess will save us as she has saved me. Gather what weapons you have. We will follow Princess Bronwyn and her shanimal!”

Kaja growled before changing.

Bronwyn got the message. It was time to join this fight for real.

Shim pounded on the door, cursing the fucking sunlight that was keeping him inside.

What in all the planes had happened? He felt stronger than he could ever remember feeling, and yet something as completely and utterly harmless as fucking beams of light were keeping him out of the fight.

And damn it all, he really wanted to fight.

“Where did Gilly go?” Duffy asked, his small body struggling under the weight of that sword.

“Upstairs, though if she’s become like her charge, she’s probably tied the sheets together and run.” None of the women in his life seemed to want to allow him to protect them. And he couldn’t blame them since he was stuck in this damn house.

There was a loud boom. The sound of a sonic weapon being discharged.

Shim could feel his brother’s adrenaline. It pumped through his own veins.

“They’re fighting. I thought they were doing a recon.” Duffy rushed to the door and out into the street. “Can’t see anything.”

Of course he couldn’t. Duffy was barely four feet tall. Shim was six and a half, but he couldn’t see a damn thing since he was blinded by sunlight now.

Gillian hurried down the stairs, holding her skirt in one hand. She rushed into the room and toward a small closet.

“Gilly, you told Roan you would stay here.” The thought of his sister out in the battle while he was stuck here rankled.

Gillian looked up, her dark eyes narrowed. “I’ll lie to Roan all I like. As it happens, I think I’m likely best served here.” Her arm disappeared into the closet and when it came back, Gillian was holding a bow and quiver of arrows. “Reymon likes to hunt. He’s quite good, and he’s been teaching both me and Bron. The upstairs window has a very good view. If anyone tries to sneak up the back street, I can take them out.” She stopped in front of him. “Don’t take it too badly, Shim. You’re half vampire. I’m not even a true heir.”

Gillian was a bastard by royal terms. She couldn’t inherit since her mother hadn’t been married to King Fergus and had died in childbirth.

“Our mother loved you.”

Tears filled her eyes, and she looked over at Duffy as she nodded. “Queen Constance had a heart big enough for everyone. The Unseelie were blessed with her reign. Do you know how many queens would have thrown me out? How many queens would have taken in Duffy?”

Not many, but then his mother had been an extraordinary woman. “It didn’t matter you weren’t her blood.”

“And it doesn’t matter that Bron isn’t mine. I know what I said. I meant it. You needed to make sure your claim to Bron was unassailable, but I love that child. Child. She’s a woman, but she’s also my daughter. Not by blood or birth but by sacrifice. I seek to honor my true mother, Queen Constance, in all ways, and she would never have sat idly by while others suffered. When I spoke of taking over the Tir na nÓg, it is because I love these people. I would defend them with my life. Please tell Bron that. Please don’t let her hate me.”

“No one can hate you, Gilly.” Duffy looked awkward standing there, looking up at the woman none of them had seen in thirteen years. Shim remembered how Duffy would blush every time the princess would say hello to him.

Gillian got to one knee, placing her at eye level with the gnome. “Thank you, sweet Duffy. I did not say it earlier, but it is so good to see you again.”

Duffy’s face flushed and his eyes turned down. “It is good to be able to place me eyes on you once more, Your Highness.”

Gillian laughed. “None of that, brother.”

She stood, the bow in her hand. “I will watch our backs. Duffy, please shout up if anyone is coming for the front of the store.” She winked down at the gnome and fled up the stairs.

“I am not your brother.” Duffy said it so quietly Shim almost missed it.

Poor Duffy. So in love with a woman he couldn’t have. “Duffy, are you all right?”

“Sure thing, Shim. I’ll patrol.” Duffy cleared his throat and walked outside.

Shim felt helpless. Gods, he was utterly useless. For the last thirteen years he’d been so weak, and now that he had some modicum of strength back, the sunlight was holding him in.

“Shim!”

He ran to the door. Duffy was pointing off in the distance. “That cloud is covering up the sun.”

He was right. Sure enough there were far more shadows and shade than there had been but minutes before. He stepped out and his eyes burned, but he could walk in this. “I need to find Bron.”

Lach would want him to. Lach would want to fight the battles while Shim took care of their wife. He felt his twin’s deep satisfaction with that idea. Since they had been on the same plane as their bondmate, he and his twin had been so much more in synch even without the deepest of bonds.

Lach was fighting. Shim could feel it. He closed his eyes, and he could see it in little flashes. Lach bringing his sword down and skewering an opponent, strength flowing through his veins like never before. They were outnumbered, but not for long. Every foe they brought down became Lachlan’s. The enemy didn’t just lose a fighter. With every death they gained another opponent.

Shim grimaced. Even this low light hurt his eyes. He closed them and searched for some fire. It sparked to his fingertips, but he hesitated to use it. The villagers were running. The scene was far too chaotic. If he started a fire here, how many innocents would he lose?

Bronwyn. He needed to concentrate on Bron.

He opened his mind and sought their connection. Even with her shields up, he knew she was alive. He simply couldn’t see through her eyes or feel what she was feeling.