Beauty [A Faery Story 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) by Sophie Oak Read Free Book Online Page A

a ruined face and everyone took them seriously.
    His hand slid over the left side of his face, touching the ruined flesh there. He stole a glance at Shim, who’d gone pale, his eyes sliding away, guilt evident every time Lach reminded him of that terrible day.
    “So we’re meeting the Host, eh?” Duffy sat forward, watching the door with a fierce look on his face. He’d used the formal name for a group of sluagh. The Host. No one wanted to deal with the damn Host. Duffy’s tiny hands clenched into fists. “I think I can handle them. After all, they’re nothing but shade, right. Warriors of the Fae should be able to take them down no trouble.”
    “They’re non-corporeal dead, Duffy. I doubt your axe is going to work on them,” Shim pointed out.
    If Duffy could hoist his axe at all. Lach worried for the little gnome. Not because he thought Duffy would flee in a real battle, but rather because he knew he wouldn’t. “Let father handle the sluagh.”
    Three faces turned, shock alighting on them. The guests around Lach gasped.
    “Please, Your Highness,” one of them begged. The other two glanced back at the door as though the very fact that Lach had said the name might conjure them up.
    Lach shook his head. “I can’t bring them down on our heads by saying their name. They’re already here, so why don’t we act like we’re not scared of the buggers.” He leaned over to one of the men, a sidhe from the village outside the palace. Madden was the king’s liaison to the villagers. “Do you know if they came from the caves?”
    There had been a nest of sluagh living in the caves by the beach for as long as anyone could remember. They, along with the Planeswalker demons, could slip on and off the planes as they pleased, though none had figured out how. It was a deeply held secret. To discover it, one had to become a sluagh and no one came back from that. Lach glanced down at the box at his feet. It was filled with crap. Trinkets from his travels. A cheap broach he’d picked up, several combs, a set of cards from the Vampire plane. It was a load of junk he’d picked up and didn’t need, but it would be enticing to the sluagh, who lived for such oddities. He’d meant to offer it to his father, but he’d been told to take his seat.
    He supposed no one had need for his negotiation skills.
    “I hear they’re from the Seelie plane,” Madden explained. He threaded his fingers together, glancing back at the door. “They have news.”
    Shim leaned in. “Why would they help? Sluagh don’t take sides.”
    No. Sluagh took people. They took lives and slaves. They took rotted corpses when they wanted a meal. They did not take sides.
    A sudden chill fell across the room like a wave slowly crashing on the shore.
    The Host was close. Lach could feel it. A spark of power shimmered through him. Yes, the dead were coming. It was an odd thing, but he felt more comfortable, his body relaxing as though he’d finally found his place. He leaned back, his eyes focused on the door.
    Madden shivered. “I don’t like this. Perhaps the king should bar the door.”
    Lach felt a smile on his face. Oh, but he was suddenly hungry. “It wouldn’t work. They have no need of doors.”
    They entered from every wall, their forms gliding through rock and wood as though neither existed. A hundred sluagh it seemed formed from near nothingness. Pale and wraithlike, their bodies showed the way each had died. Wounds on a sluagh were like jewels to a high-born lady, an expression of beauty. Even to the Unseelie, who understood the horrors of the planes, sluagh were monstrous.
    And yet, Lach saw an odd beauty to them.
    “We seek the king.” They spoke as one, their voices sending a fresh wave of chilled air through the hall.
    His father stood, along with Beck and Cian Finn. They each nodded to the group of sluagh, not an ounce of fear showing.
    “The Kings of the Seelie Fae welcome you.”
    His father nodded as well. “As does the King of