Sophie Oak - Beauty

“And if she dies?” Shim asked.

His heart would be a gaping hole. His life would be over. “Then we’ll find her through that door Duffy talked about. We found her once. We’ll find her again. But if we don’t let her try this, she won’t be the same woman we love.”

Shim took a long breath and held his hand out, gripping Lach’s. “Then we are in agreement. And Lach, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean it. Alive or dead, I am your brother and I love you. I am grateful to be walking and loving our wife.”

Lach stood. The forest around them was quiet now, the soldiers disappearing with their hag. They had found their prize and once it was in hand, none of the rest of them mattered.

“Where is Her Highness?” Roan asked.

“Gone.” The word sounded hollow.

Dante’s clothes were torn, covered in blood though he bore no mark of his own. It was easy to see how he’d healed so quickly. Kaja bore two holes in her neck. She’d obviously forced her husband to feed and heal after the battle. She looked up with tears in her eyes.

“Gone? How?” Kaja asked.

Shim came to his side. “The hag took her, but Bron wanted to go.”

Dellacourt snarled their direction. “She wanted to be taken? She wanted a hag to cart her back to the very man who had her killed in the first place?”

Charlie, the boy from Aoibhneas, walked with an arm around each of his fathers. “I can hear her.”

Shim stepped forward. “What do you mean?”

Nate looked down at his son. “He’s stronger now, but maybe his time there is still affecting him.”

Lach wasn’t about to put up with that. He’d been marginalized for far too long. “No. Listen to him. Let him speak. If he says he hears Bronwyn, then I want to know what she’s saying.”

Charlie looked him in the eye. “She’s not really saying anything, but she’s feeling. She’s feeling strong and she wants the rest of us to feel strong, too. She’s ready.” Charlie stood up, pushed his fathers away a bit. “I’m ready. We’re all going to be ready.”

Lach nodded, his mission clear. To bring the battle to Bronwyn. Like it or not, he was her soldier now.

“Lach, you have to come quick.” Gillian was suddenly at his side. Tears streaked down her face. Harry stood behind her, a deep frown creasing his brow.

Gillian grasped his hand. He allowed himself to be pulled as he looked back at Roan.

“Prepare to move. We’re heading into Aoibhneas. Someone find that damn phooka. He’ll know a way. He’s herded us to this point. The least he can do is get us where we need to be.” He followed after Gillian and then his heart nearly broke.

Duffy.

“He saved me. He fought so hard, but they kept attacking him. Lach, do something. I should be able to heal that wound. I’ve laid hands on him. I’ve sent him everything I have. Why won’t he heal?”

Tears welled in Lach’s eyes. “Because the dead don’t heal.”

Shim gasped behind him. “Oh, gods. He died days ago. That’s how you knew I was alive. Because you’ve kept Duffy with us.”

Duffy’s eyes came open.

“I’m so sorry, brother.” Lach looked down at the wee gnome who had been his heart friend for as long as he’d known what a heart was. Duffy had been their companion, their playmate.

“I knew it. I always knew it, brother.” Duffy sat up, looking down at the wound on his chest. It wasn’t bleeding. “I was mad at first, but now I know why I got to stay. I did it, Lach. I fought and I won. I got me battle and I saved me girl. Even though she never was me girl. It don’t matter. I get that now. It don’t matter that she couldn’t love me back. It just matters that I loved her and I got to be a better man because I loved her.”

Gillian. All those long years, Duffy had still loved Gillian, his childhood crush on her forming the core of his being. Lach had known Duffy had a thing for Gillian. Even from a young age he’d refused to call her sister. He’d loved her from afar and now he’d sacrificed for her.

Bronwyn loved them back. She didn’t deserve any less. Love was something Lach had worried all of his life. He’d called what he felt for Bronwyn love, but he’d always worried it was more about possession and obsession, that his dark heart couldn’t hold a softer emotion.

He’d been wrong. He loved his brothers. Loved his father and mother. Loved his sister.

Gods, he loved Bronwyn Finn and there was nothing dark about it. She was his light, not Shim. However their soul had split, it was in him to love. His heart wasn’t a cold, dead thing. It was huge and it could only get larger. He loved Bronwyn and that meant loving every piece of her, including the piece that demanded she fight.

He’d adored the girl who ran through his dreams. He’d lusted after the lover, but he worshipped the woman she’d become. Not simply a princess, but a queen. A woman was always a queen. She was the queen of her home and her family. Bron’s was just bigger than most and like every woman with a family, she would sacrifice. She would make the world right for them, giving her body and soul to those she nurtured and loved.

He would be strong. His woman had just taught him what his father never had—how to truly be a king.

He looked at his sister and whispered. “He’s loved you for always. Give him something.”

She nodded and sank to her knees, tears falling like raindrops. She leaned over and kissed him. “You are my hero, Duffy.”

A brilliant smile lit Duffy’s face. “That’s all I ever wanted to be.” He gripped her hand, his small compared to hers. He looked up at Lach. “You have to let me go now, brother.”

Lach knew the moment had been coming from the instant he’d reached out and pulled Duffy from death. He’d felt Duffy die in that black cloud that had been meant for him and he’d reacted. He’d called on his power and brought him back. “I didn’t want to let you go. Not alone, Duffy. I don’t know what’s out there. I didn’t want you to die.”

Duffy smiled up at him. “Dying ain’t nothing to be afraid of, brother. Be afraid of not living. I got me battle. I got what I always wanted. I got to be a hero. Now, it’s time for me to find another adventure. There’s a door, Lach. It was right there and it was calling to me. And I weren’t alone. I saw me mothers. Both of them. The one what raised me and the one what gave me birth. Lach, death is a doorway. I want to know where it leads. I want the adventure that waits for me and whatever happens, I’ll see you again. I’ll conquer whatever is out there and make a place for us.”

His tears fell now. For Duffy, for Bron, for himself, for Shim.

“I love you, brother.” Shim got to his knees and put a hand on Lach and reached for Duffy.

“Love you, too. You were the best brothers I could have hoped for.”

Lach reached out and completed the circle. He and Duffy and Shim. His childhood in a circle of hands grasping. “I love you both. My brothers. I will keep you in my heart, Duffy.”

“That is a good place to be.”

Lach released his hold.

Duffy smiled, closed his eyes, and walked into eternity.

Lach rose to his feet a completely different man. He looked to Roan. “Gather what we need. We make for Aoibhneas tonight after I bury my brother.”

He expected an argument but Roan bowed deeply. “Yes, Your Highness. I am at your service.”

“As am I.” The phooka leapt from the trees and, in an instant, switched to his horse form. “I will get us to Aoibhneas. I know a secret way in.”

“Dad, isn’t that Uncle Max’s horse?” Charlie asked.

Zane shook his head. “We’re just going to go with it, son. And I know exactly what you’re talking about. The mayor has a series of caves he keeps hidden. We know how to get home.”