Sophie Oak - Beauty

“Don’t you dare talk about him like that, you idiot. How could you? After everything he did for you, you could say that to him?” Her eyes were bright with tears as she looked up at him.

Shim felt a little sick. What was he doing?

Lach, his brother, his other half, his protector, turned away.

Shim held his hand to his cheek, a horrible wave of guilt crashing over him. “Lach.”

“Don’t. There’s nothing to say. I always knew it would be this way. Don’t you think I knew you were the better part of us? It’s why I couldn’t let you go. But you aren’t dead. I gave you some of my life or my soul, I don’t know how it worked. I just know I pulled every ounce of power I could and I focused it on you. Maybe you weren’t dead. Your power was still flaring. I just know that I focused everything I was on saving you. And I’ve done worse things, brother. Things you don’t know about. Things you and Duffy won’t ever forgive me for. But I did it because I love you both. I don’t know how to live without you. But I’ll figure it out. I’ll see Bronwyn home, and then I’m going to leave. There’s no place for me here.”

Lach stalked off. Shim felt a roiling shame. Now all the memories were surfacing. How sick he’d been. How long he’d lain in an odd fugue state, somewhere between living and dead and how his brother had never left his side.

How could he have said that to him?

Bron got out of bed, her every movement a brisk and angry testament to her emotional state. “I don’t know that I will ever forgive you for that.”

“Bron, I’m sorry.” The words sounded stupid. Idiotic. Futile.

“You know how he feels and you still say such things to him? He was trying to save you because he thought he was worthless without you. He thought he was a dumb animal without your half of his soul.” She pulled Shim’s shirt over her head. “I have to find him.”

Shim got to his feet. So much had gone wrong. It should have been a beautiful thing, their true bond. It should have been followed with more lovemaking and the taking of her sweet blood. But it felt as if everything was ashes and he was the reason.

And he’d forgotten what he’d learned of Bron.

He’d seen her. He’d seen what a sweet child she’d been. Loved and coddled and slightly marginalized because her brothers were so much more important. He’d felt her overwhelming will to live and not simply because it was an animal instinct, but because she hadn’t been finished. She hadn’t done what she’d needed to do.

She needed to make a difference. She needed to matter in some tangible way, in some way past her soft body and sweet looks.

Bronwyn Finn McIver needed to fight.

Shim sat down on the bed, his head in his hands and his heart aching in his chest. He’d messed everything up because he’d refused to really listen to the two people who mattered most in his world.

Lachlan needed to protect his heart, and he wrongly thought it resided in Shim’s soul. Bronwyn needed to matter and Shim had locked her away so she could never be what she needed to be.

He’d fucked up.

And there was only one way to make it right. He had to talk to his brother, and he had to convince him that Bron’s fight was their fight.

If she wanted a battle, then they would be right by her side. He wouldn’t lock her away. The things he loved most about her were her fierce heart and the love she was capable of. If he locked her away, some beautiful piece of her would die and he couldn’t be the one who did that to her.

There was a loud crack. Shim froze in place because he’d heard it before. The sound of an eddy wind charging in.

Shim took off running because it looked like the battle had found them.

Lach felt the moment the eddy wind covered the air above him. He had a split second before there were soldiers on the ground.

And his sword was back at camp. He’d walked off without his sword.

Immediately Lach reached out to try to find the dead and call them to aid, but his power was so much weaker now.

Why couldn’t he call it?

“Lach?” Bron’s voice called through the trees just as the soldiers surrounded him.

How many? Too many. And he wasn’t sure where Bron was. He struck out, his fists his only weapon. There were dead around, but only animals and small ones at that. He was in a forest, far from the cemeteries and crypts that would have brought him an army.

He felt a burning sensation at his side.

He threw his elbow behind him and caught a soldier in the face. Where was Bron?

And then a shout came up and the sound of metal on metal. There was a clanging and a roar.

Duffy wielded his axe, cutting soldiers off at the legs. They fell to their knees, large hacking wounds making it impossible for them to walk. A soldier brought his sword down on Duffy’s head, but Duffy simply kept fighting.

“Get Bronwyn!” Duffy shouted. “Get her and my Gilly out of here. This is my job, brother. This is my fight.”

Lach looked down at his little brother, so much pain in his heart, but Duffy was right.

Lach fought his way out of the throng as the first sonic boom hit. Roan had found his way to them and he and his vampires were fighting. So were the men from Aoibhneas. Nate and Zane were fighting, knives in their hands.

Bron. He had to find Bron.

And then he saw her. She stood at the clearing, facing the river. She was dressed in nothing but Shim’s battered shirt, her sweetly curved legs bare and her naked feet in the grass. She looked so young and fragile.

And the hag held her by the neck.

The hag, with her midnight-black hair and even darker eyes, smiled and held up her hand and in a wink of an eye was gone, her body pulled up by the eddy wind she’d ridden. His sweet Bron vanished.

Shim came running, but the battle was done. He looked up into the air, lifting his hands. Lach could sense what he was going to do and ran to tackle him. He hit Shim full force and held his hands down.

“You can’t use your power. You don’t know what that will do.”

“My power can’t hurt Bron,” Shim insisted. “Fire can’t hurt her. She was in the middle of that fire for minutes when we found her the first time. It knows who its master is.”

“And air? How about that, Shim? If you burn away the eddy cloud and she falls a hundred or two hundred feet, how will you save her this time?” Lach felt sick.

And then he felt her. A calm presence. Bronwyn.

Bring the war to me. Bring them all to me. She won’t kill me. You have time and I have power. I love you. I love you both. Trust in me. Believe in me.

Lach sat back, her words hitting him like a hammer. He knew what she intended to do.

“We have to go after her,” Shim said, standing up. “They’ll take her to the palace.”

It would be the sensible thing to do. He could rally whatever troops were left and he could search for her. He could save her and carry her away and give the fight back to her brothers. He could still have what he wanted.

But it wasn’t what Bron wanted. What Bron wanted was a chance to end the war. She didn’t want the crown and she no longer wanted revenge. He’d felt that deep in her soul. She wanted to end the war to bring back the kingdom of her youth and to give her people their freedom.

His wife was a hero and he’d been a coward.

He shook his head. “No. We go to Aoibhneas. We gather her brothers and whatever troops we have and we march.”

Shim stared at him for a moment. “But that leaves her in danger.”

“It leaves her in a place where she can turn the tide.” He didn’t want it. Every cell of his body revolted at the thought, but Bronwyn mattered more.