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)
My coup was carefully prepared. I took no chances. I planned for years, including paying soothsayers across three different planes. Each saw the same thing—Bronwyn, his ridiculous puffball of a niece, was the one who could strike the killing blow. Beck and Cian could take the throne back, but they couldn’t kill him. Only that nitwit Bronwyn could.
But I buried her.
I turn to my brother, his prior words sinking in. “You said you hated me for killing your wife.”
The hags stare at me like I’m insane.
“Your Majesty, we don’t hate you.” Una looks around as though she can suddenly feel something but can’t see it. Glannis glances around, too, but neither can catch sight of Seamus, it seems. Seamus shows himself only to me.
I don’t waste time on them. There are no explanations that will make sense, and I struck on something important. Seamus loses his smile.
My brother rails at me for the loss of his throne and his wife. He often speaks of Beck and Cian. And he never, ever mentions Bronwyn. I thought it was because a daughter is of no use outside what her hand in marriage can bring a kingdom. Seamus ignored the girl except to lift her in his arms and twirl her around on occasion. He would pat her on the head and call her “little pixie.” She was insignificant before she died.
Or was she? His brother changed since his death. He fucking loves everyone now. Everyone except his little pixie.
“She’s alive.” It’s the only explanation. Somehow the twit survived and laid out a body to be mistaken as her own. Perhaps that’s why she’d set the fire.
Seamus shakes his head, but he wasn’t a decent liar in life, and his turn as a sluagh didn’t fix the problem.
I roar, the sound combining with the bean sidhe’s wail. I put a hand to Glannis’s throat and squeeze until the hag’s eyes bulge.
“Find Bronwyn Finn.”
Chapter Seven
Shim
I stare out over the ocean. The temptation to grab the invisible thread that binds me to Bronwyn is nearly overwhelming. This is where the thread is always its strongest. Here on the beach. Now, I understand why. There’s a crack in the veil here that we will shortly slip through. It will lead us to Tír na nÓg.
The night before I felt so close to her. We drew her in, bringing her to the chamber that will one day be ours and stripping her bare. She was so beautiful, her skin nearly pearlescent in the moonlight. At first, she stayed in the bright light of day, her domain. In those moments when she turned her face up to the sun, she was a goddess, remote and untouchable, a true vision of pure Seelie beauty. But once she was in our domain, she looked perfect—sexy and so fuckable that my dick is still in agony hours later.
“Do you think she woke up?” Lach asks, joining me. Lach is already dressed for travel, in plain clothes and worn boots. Nothing that will give away the fact that we’re royalty. It won’t work here in the Unseelie kingdom, but once we get to the Seelie plane, we hope we can blend in. If anyone asks, we’re merchants traveling to the agricultural provinces. That will explain the guard. Merchants have more rights than peasants but are far less interesting than nobles.
Though the sheer fact that we’re traveling with a group of mercenary vampires, a gnome who thinks he’s the next coming of Lugh, and a young woman who can change into a wolf might hurt us in the blending-in department.
I sigh. The dream the night before was the most vivid since our childhood. It hurt when she disappeared. “I suppose so.”
“You don’t think she cut off contact herself, do you?” Lach asks, his expression blank, but that doesn’t work on the man who holds the other half of my soul.
The smarter half. I see right through him. “No. She was right on the edge of a massive orgasm, Lach, so no, I don’t think she decided to cut us off. She woke up. It happens. Besides, as far as I can tell, she hasn’t learned how to tune us out.”
I turn. The mercenaries began walking at daybreak, trudging back and forth along the beach, looking for something William Roan, the mercenary, calls a weak point. He paused every now and then, used his tablet to take readings, and then moved on. Finally, they stopped here. And then the waiting began.
Lach shrugs as though it doesn’t really matter. “I was wondering if she figured out something.”
I look at my brother. Though we’ve known all of our lives that this one woman is meant for us, I’m sure that things seem to be happening very quickly for Lachlan. “I had more control last night. Did you feel it?”