Sophie Oak - Beauty

Rage threatened to take over. He’d been promised. He and Lachlan. She’d been promised to them. More than any crown or kingdom, she was their birthright and he wouldn’t be denied.

He heard his brother shout as he did the only thing he could. He reached across the cord that connected them and sent his life to her.

As he felt her breath, he took his final gasp, and the world became fire.

Feet pounding. Panic was flooding his system. Shim. Something was wrong with Shim. Something had changed, in his head, in his soul, in the whole fucking world. He’d been standing there talking to Duffy and suddenly he’d known where Shim was, been able to feel what he felt, sense what he was thinking. He’d always been able to feel his other half, but not like this. This was overpowering, overwhelming.

And then it was over. Lach felt the connection cut and silence reigned. Nothingness. He couldn’t feel Shim at all, as though he didn’t exist.

Lach ran. He knew where his brother had been. The stables. And now he saw something that terrified him.

Fire blazed, engulfing every wall of the small stables where the best horses were kept. The family’s private stock. And it looked like nothing would be saved.

But Shim was in there and if he couldn’t be saved, then Lach had nothing left at all.

Shim was the smart one. Shim was the one who could love. Shim was the beautiful part of his soul. Without Shim, there was only Lach and Lach was violence and dominance and cold power.

Lach didn’t wish to live without the best part of his soul.

He heard Duffy screaming at him to stop, but he couldn’t. If Shim was gone, then the fire could take him.

Heat assailed him so strong that for a moment he couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. The smoke was so thick he almost couldn’t focus. His eyes watered and his lungs burned. Something large knocked him down, and he watched in horror as Shim’s horse fled, its entire body on fire.

But there he was. Shim lay on the floor, his body still as the flames leapt around. Some seemed to shoot from his body, but he didn’t seem to be burned. His clothes were a mess, but his skin was pristine.

“Shim!” Lach screamed over the cracking of the fire. He looked overheard. The beams would come down any minute. He didn’t have a second to lose. He had to get his brother out of there. He leapt across the flames, his skin scorching, and picked up his brother.

He dropped him. His flesh was on fire. Horrible burns erupted on his flesh where he’d touched his brother. The skin bubbled and boiled.

And he couldn’t give up.

Lach gritted his teeth against the agony and lifted his brother again.

He screamed, the pain filling his every sense, but somehow his feet moved toward the door. Somehow he made it outside where the grass was cool.

He fell to his knees and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that his brother was dead.

There was nothing inside Shim. Nothing at all. His body was a shell and a molten one at that. Lach’s body was burned, his skin torched, every inch an agony, but something cool and calm came over him.

Power flowed for the first time. It started in his center and reached out. He could feel them. The dead. There was power in them, an unspoken essence that they each retained, whether bone or ash. Power remained and Lach called on it.

And his brother took a deep breath.

Lach fell back, his vision fading, the pain taking over. His brother was…alive? He wasn’t sure. But Lach could feel his soul once more.

* * * *

Shim came out of the bond, his whole body shaking. He clenched his fists and looked down at his skin. It looked normal, but he knew now it wasn’t.

He was a corpse. He had been since the day he’d given his life to save Bron’s.

He was a walking, talking corpse.

“You aren’t dead,” Lach said harshly. His voice was strained, as though he really had been screaming and not just in the dream. “You aren’t dead. Maybe you were, but you aren’t now.”

Tears streamed down Bron’s face. “I killed him. I killed Shim.”

Gods, he didn’t want her to take it that way. “No. I gave my life to you, a chumann . I didn’t want to live without you.”

She sat up, her breasts exposed in the moonlight. “Gillian didn’t bring me back. Shim did.”

“Yes, and somehow I brought Shim back,” Lach insisted. “He isn’t dead. I know when I’m reanimating someone. I can feel it.”

Shim felt his eyes narrow. “And how many corpses have you reanimated over a long period of time, brother?”

Lach’s face was pale, except for the scars which appeared as red as the day he’d gotten them. “More than you know. More than I want anyone to know. Shim, you’re alive. I didn’t remember much, but I remember now. I called on my power and it flared, like your fire. It flared in a big way and it brought you back to life. Damn it, Shim, use that brain of yours. You eat and sleep and you can feel your body. A corpse can’t do that.”

“You don’t know. You don’t know that.” The thought horrified Shim. He was dead. He’d been dead. Was he still dead?

“I killed you.”

Bron. He had to hold on to Bron. His head was swimming. His body felt like a foreign thing, but he moved to hold her. “You didn’t kill me. You didn’t.”

“I felt it. I was you in that dream, Shim. I felt my hand reach out and pull at your soul. I reached out and took your life to save mine. How could I do that? You’re dead because I killed you.”

“He isn’t dead,” Lach insisted. He got off the bed and shoved his legs into a pair of trousers. “Will either of you bloody listen to me?”

“You should have left me, Lach,” Shim spat back, his anger bubbling to the surface. How could he go on knowing what he was? How could he make love to his wife when he was a dead thing animated only by his brother’s power? He’d given his life for her, but Lach had brought him back and turned him into a monstrous thing.

Lach’s fists clenched. “You would rather be dead than dependent on me? Is that how much I mean to you?”

Shim felt Bron stiffen in his arms. “He didn’t mean that, Lachlan. He values you.”

“What are you talking about?” Shim asked.

Bron turned her face up to him. “You said I didn’t listen, but I think you’re the one who missed something here. Didn’t you see what he did for you? Didn’t you feel why he did it?”

Shim shook his head as though he could sharpen his memory by getting rid of the cobwebs polluting his brain. They were all there now. His and Lach’s and Bron’s memories were shuffling through his head like a wild mixed-up stew that had been stirred and now bubbled. Lach had run into the burning building. Lach had been horribly burned—by his body—and yet he’d picked Shim up again.

And Shim was dead. Dead. Dead.

“He won’t listen.” Lach turned away. “And it’s not about this bullshit. He felt what it’s like to really be me for the first time and he doesn’t want anything to do with it. Well, guess what, brother, get used to it. We’re bonded, fully, and now you have a piece of my darkness inside you.”

Shim didn’t know what exactly was fueling him. He knew deep down he needed to take a moment, but that word kept riding him. Dead. Dead. Dead. He wouldn’t have children. They would all be Lachlan’s. Bron would turn away because she couldn’t want a dead body in her bed. Lach had set himself up to win everything. “And you have what you always wanted, brother. You have a tiny piece of light to illuminate that wasteland you call a soul.”

There was a sharp crack and a flare of pain. It took him a moment to realize where it had come from. Bron. Bron had hauled off and smacked him right across the face. Smacked him hard enough that his flesh ached.