Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 132138 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 661(@200wpm)___ 529(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132138 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 661(@200wpm)___ 529(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
I stare down at the shit on my desk. It better do what’s expected. It better lead me to my niece and her husband.
One way or another someone is going to die. And I’m going to wipe that fucking mountain town off the map.
Chapter Thirty-One
Lachlan
Two days later, I wonder if we’re ever going to get home.
Roan finally calls a halt to the march. Since we left the village, we spent long hours trudging through forests with little rest.
And I’ve never felt better physically. Emotionally it’s another story.
“I’ll go set up.” Shim gives me a smile. He’s eager to get the night started, but Shim is thinking about the sex and not the forlorn look that I keep seeing on Bron’s face.
She’s exhausted. She’s confused. And there is a core sadness that is killing my soul. The last two nights she didn’t even fight us. She came to the bed we made and offered herself up. She made love with us, shared her blood and her body. She submitted in the loveliest of ways.
And it isn’t enough because every time I offer her the true bond, she retreats. I look over and she stands by a huge tree, her back leaning against it. She holds herself apart from the group. She hasn’t simply retreated from the true bond. She retreated from everyone. Bronwyn answers all questions in two or three words. She doesn’t even look at Gillian, a fact that seems to add to my sister’s misery.
If I didn’t need Roan, I might kill him. Except I overheard Roan and his lieutenant talking the night before and I watched them all day. Their every move is about Gillian’s safety and comfort. Their talk the night before was a long, slow dialogue about how to tempt Gillian into giving them a chance.
I understand Roan and Harry. Damn it.
“You’re hungry?” She won’t let me carry her through the forests. She won’t let me shield her. At least she accepts that I can feed her.
She gives him a wan smile. “I am.”
I nod and move away, walking up to Roan. We’re running out of supplies. We’re running out of time. And every village we stop in, my wife insists on riling up the inhabitants.
And it’s fairly easy since the villages are empty of guards. They’re all patrolling around Aoibhneas now, a phalanx I’m not sure we can break through without some loss of life.
Roan looks up from his tablet. “Can I help you, Your Highness?”
“You can tell me when we’ll be able to get my wife home. The Seelie princes are due here any day now. You know that they’re just waiting for a big enough hole in the wall to come through with an army.”
“I’m doing my best.”
The words come out with Roan’s clipped efficiency, but something about the way he says it makes me suspicious. “Tell me why we’re moving the way we’re moving. Aoibhneas is in the opposite direction.”
Roan’s eyebrow rises and his mouth turns down. “Every time we attempt to move to Aoibhneas, we get cut off by the guard. We talked about this last night. We’ve moved from village to village in an unorthodox path in order to deceive the guard as to where we are going.”
There’s a major flaw in the mercenary’s logic. “We’re not deceiving anyone since you allow my wife to be put on display. She’s giving speeches. She’s making herself a target.”
“She’s building her brothers an army.” Roan looks over to where Bron stands. “She needs to feel like she’s a part of this. Can you not understand that?”
“He’s right. You can’t understand.” Duffy takes a place at my side. “You don’t know what it means to want to fight and not be able to. I know I’ve played around, but we all know I wouldn’t be able to do anything at all on the battlefield except let warriors trip over me.”
My brother’s sorrow makes my heart clench. I never meant to make Duffy feel this way. And I certainly never meant for… I’m not going to think about that moment in anything but the broadest of terms. “You saved me, Duff.”
“By throwing my body in front of a cloud.”
Gillian gets to her knees in front of Duffy. “You saved Lach with more than your body.”
Gillian’s words are a bit shaky. I’m rather glad to see it. She’s as shut down as Bronwyn.
Duffy flushes and looks toward the ground. “It pretty much felt like me body.”
“It wasn’t your body that made you leap in front of that cloud. It was your strong, brave heart,” his sister insists.
Duffy shakes his head. “I ain’t brave, Gilly. Not for a second.”
She puts her hand out, lifting his face up to hers. “How can you say that?”
“Because I ain’t never said the thing I wanted to say,” Duffy admits. “I won’t say them. I’m small and insignificant. I know how Bron feels. She wants to fight but no one will let her. They’ll pat her on the head and tell her she’s doing fine. They might let someone train her so’s she doesn’t complain too much, but when it comes down to it, she’s not going to be allowed to fight.”