Beauty [A Faery Story 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read Online Free PDF

and he hadn’t blinked an eye when she’d come to him with an extra. Her servant, a young man named Quinn, had stowed away and fought to remain by her side. In true Julian Lodge fashion, he’d simply taken them both, and now everyone was happy.
    Shim couldn’t find his bondmate because he couldn’t convince his father that she was still alive.
    What if her brothers proved to be more reasonable?
    “How old are you?” Meg asked.
    “Thirty,” Shim replied.
    Shrewd eyes studied them. “Well past the age of bonding. Shouldn’t you be all crazy and stuff? Beck and Ci were. Beck hid it, but I understand now how close to the edge he was. I don’t sense that from either of you.”
    Lach tensed beside him. “Because we bonded thirteen years ago.”
    Shim watched as Meg’s eyes registered shock, but not quite disbelief. “You bonded, but you lost her?”
    “We were never physically with her. We bonded only in our minds,” Shim explained.
    He was about to continue when a shout went through the hall. One of the guards ran in, his sword on his hand. “Your Majesty, the sluagh…”
    The guard had to take a deep breath. It was obvious he’d run long and hard from his post.
    Shim had to take a deep breath because a couple of sluagh coming to the palace wasn’t a good sign. The sluagh normally kept to their caves, feasting on the rotten things of the world.
    His father sighed. “How many?”
    The guard’s eyes tightened. “All of them, Your Majesty.”
    Shim took the cup out of Duffy’s hand. He was going to need the courage because it looked like they were all fucked.

Chapter Two
     
    Bron let the sunshine warm her face and the soft sound of the wheat swaying in the breeze calm her. It was nearly time for the threshing, but she had a few days of peace left. When the time came, she would work from morning ’til just after the sun went down, and then she would barely manage to eat before she passed out from exhaustion.
    She would sleep too deeply to dream. She would miss them.
    How could she miss two men she’d never met?
    “Issy! Issy!” A high voice pierced her solitude.
    Bron smiled. Even after all these years, she still was somewhat shocked to hear herself called by another name. Isolde. She’d selected it when Gillian had finally given up on finding a way off the plane. She could still see Gilly’s face, the tears streaking down as she’d told her she had to give up her name.
    This plane had been hard on her foster mother.
    “Issy!”
    “I’m here, Ove!” There was nothing for it. The little brownie would call out for her until she found her quarry. Ove was a tenacious little thing.
    The shafts of wheat moved and shuffled as the brownie ran toward her. Bron braced herself for impact.
    “Found you.” Ove launched herself into Bron’s arms.
    “Yes, you did.” Bron held her, enjoying the feel of her frail body. She loved the brownies. Their rough faces and scraggly hair evoked a tenderness that called her childhood back. The nannies and housemaids had almost all been brownies, working diligently for their cups of cream.
    Ove was a youngling, barely past two, but brownies aged differently. She was still a child but well on her way to her own work. Still, the light of youth was in her wide black eyes. She clung to Bron for a moment. Brownies were deeply affectionate creatures when they were allowed to be. Her own nanny had carried her until she’d gotten too big, and then Flanna had stroked her hair and held her hand whenever possible. Her mother had loved the affection between them, and her father had tolerated it.
    Where was sweet Flanna now? Probably buried in the wide mass graves she’d seen Torin’s men digging as she’d fled the palace.
    She shook off the thought and looked down at little Ove. “So tell me, little one, why were you looking for me?”
    “The mayor’s coming.”
    Three words and her whole day was wrecked. Micha O’Donnell was a pompous ass who eyed her with far too much