Sophie Oak: Beauty

Shim chuckled a little, but Lach knew damn well he wasn’t laughing at anything he heard on this plane. He got to his knees and put both hands on his brother’s shirt, hauling him up.

“Wake the fuck up, Shim.”

Dark hair covered half of Shim’s face as he shook his head. “No. Don’t want to.”

Lach groaned. It had been so much worse in the last year. Shim had started to sink into a world where he could see her, feel her emotions. Lach could only do that in his dreams, when an invisible thread tethered him to his bondmate. Sometimes he envied his brother the deeper connection, but this wasn’t one of those times. Shim had begun to seek the connection to her instead of living his damn life. Their life. His brother was slipping away, and Lach couldn’t allow it.

He wasn’t ready to give up yet. He wanted a real life with her, not some half life where he only held her in dreams. She was his, damn it. He would prove it to her when he found her. Ruined face or no.

“Do I have to punch you again?” Lach asked.

Shim’s eyes focused. “Bloody hell, no. Why would you do such a thing?”

Finally, a wee bit of sense. “Because you’re acting like a drunk. I can’t wake you anymore. It’s harder and harder when you give in during the day. Hell, it can be hard enough to wake you at night. You can’t go looking for her in the day.”

A little smile crossed Shim’s face. He’d seen that smile on the face of many a man who had too much whiskey. “She’s here, Lach.”

“No, she’s not.” That was the problem. She wasn’t here, and they hadn’t been able to find her. “But her brothers are.”

Shim sat up on his own. “What are you talking about?”

Duffy leaned in. “Is it true, Lach? Are the Seelies coming?”

Lach nodded. “Julian’s bringing them in. The Vampire plane has declared for Torin. Beckett and Cian Finn are on the run.”

“A sad day when the Seelie kings come looking for a place to hide here,” Duffy said with a frown.

Lach lightly smacked the side of his head. “Don’t be talking like that. It’s talk like that got us in trouble in the first place.”

Duffy rubbed his head. “Well, it seems weird to me, Lach. They hate us.”

“Not more than we seem to hate them,” Lach shot back.

“I don’t hate them,” Shim said. He seemed to be coming out of his fog. “I don’t hate anyone.”

Duffy leaned in. “Gods, Shim, don’t let your da hear you saying crazy shit like that. He’ll beat you for sure.”

Lach rolled his eyes. Despite his father’s rather intimidating presence, he’d never once beaten them. Not that they didn’t know how to take or give a sound thrashing, but it had been part of their training, not at their da’s hand. King Fergus of the Unseelie was a ruthless bastard. He wouldn’t have remained king if he wasn’t, but he cared for his sons.

“Da was the one who sent Gilly in there in the first place, Duff. He wanted a treaty with the Seelie. And given what we’ve seen is going on there, it’s no surprise he’ll back Beck and Cian Finn.” It went unsaid that, after all, they were family. Beck and Ci Finn didn’t know it, but the future Queen of the Unseelie was still on the Seelie plane, trapped and in constant danger. Only her death had saved her from, well, death.

“Do you think they know, Lach?” Shim asked, struggling to his feet.

“No,” Lach replied. He straightened his tunic. He should change, but there wasn’t time. “Julian would have told us.” He put a hand out to steady his brother. “Even if someone told them, our father would let it be known that we’re crazy. They won’t believe us. They won’t believe until the full and true bond is in place, and we can’t do that until we’re in her presence.”

“It feels full and true to me.” Shim stretched and looked down at the dog at his feet. “Lach, why is that dog’s guts on his outside?”

The dog sat and panted, his tail thumping.

“Don’t worry about the dog. Worry about the kings. They’ve brought the queen along.”

“Is it time then?” Shim asked, his voice getting serious.

Every muscle in Lachlan’s body clenched. It was almost time. They would find their bondmate or they would die trying. And their plane would fall…“It’s time.”

It had to be.

Shim smiled, his whole face lighting up. “We’re going to find her. I just know it. I have all the clues we need. Surely the kings will know the place.”

Shim slapped Duffy on the back and handed him his axe.

“I bet the queen is going to be crying by now,” Duffy said, his little chest puffing out. “I can’t imagine a sweet little Seelie queen having to deal with us rough Unseelie. If she lasts the night, I’ll be shocked.”

“We have to be on our best behavior, Duff,” Shim said seriously. “And we might want to clear the goblins out. They could scare the queen. And the trolls. You know, we might just want to clear the palace.”

Duffy and Shim started up the road, talking about all the things that might frighten the gentle Seelie queen.

Lach stopped. The dog was dead again, his body lay across the rocks, a symbol of all that was wrong with Lach’s life.

He should be as thrilled as his brother, but what would their sweet Seelie wife think of him? What would happen when she saw his decimated face? What would she think when she learned of his power, the power she would make stronger by bonding the two parts of his soul together? Would she enjoy knowing her power would unleash a pure necromancer?

Lach stared down at the dog who had briefly flared back to life. Shim could offer her life and fire and a perfect face. All Lach could offer was death.

And still he turned and followed his brother. He knew it would be disastrous, but he couldn’t resist. After a lifetime of longing, he would see her.

Perhaps then and only then he could be free.

* * * *

Shim stared at the sweet little Seelie queen and had to admit that he was slightly afraid of her.

“Look, you little shit, I know you have coffee. I can smell it.” She was small, but she showed no fear of the goblin. Shim had heard the rumor that she was from some backwater plane called the Earth plane, but she looked sidhe to him. Short, though she was curved in all the right places.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Your Highness. I have no idea what this thing called coffee is.” The goblin flashed a mouthful of sharp teeth before trying to hide a silvery flask behind his back.

A girl dressed in simple but expensive clothes walked up behind the queen. She was pretty, a slender, innocent-looking thing. Then she started sniffing the air. There was something almost feral about her when she scented the world around her. “He is lying. He has the coffee.”

Queen Meg threw her an affectionate look. “Yes, I believe so, Kaja, since he’s drinking it right in front of me.”

She drank goblin whiskey? Most sidhe avoided it, but Shim rather liked the stuff. He preferred it the way the goblins prepared it. Hot and sweet. Someone, a gnome if he remembered correctly, had cooled the liquor, but Shim had thought it vile in that form.

A Seelie queen who drank goblin liquor? And whose handmaiden appeared to be a bit feral? The slender woman was again scenting the air.

“The food here smells good. And the small ones look easy to catch.”

“Kaj, Dante told you not to eat the brownies.”

Kaja wrinkled her nose. “Dante tells me not to eat anything. It’s sad. Don’t eat the brownies. Don’t eat the pixies. Don’t eat the trolls. He would not even allow me to eat our enemies.”

Queen Meg shrugged. “Well, he was definitely right about the troll. It smelled bad. You would have had a tummy ache for days.” Her eyes narrowed, and she leaned forward. “What did Dante say about eating selfish little goblins who won’t even share a drop of their coffee?”