Chapter One
Lachlan
The dead things of the world love me. It’s the shame of my life that I can’t return the affection.
I look down at the small dog barking and jumping at my feet. I take a deep breath of the forest air and pray to the gods for patience. I walked into the woods behind the palace because I looked for Shim in all his other haunts. My brother isn’t at the tavern in the village. He isn’t in the kitchens. He isn’t sitting in our room staring out the window toward the west, the direction of the door to the Seelie plane. It’s where I often find Shim these days, a vacant look in his dark eyes.
I need to talk to my brother about the morning’s news, but I find myself alone with a dead dog. If Shim was here, he would more than likely laugh and pet the damn thing. Shim wouldn’t even notice that something took half the yipping dog’s side out. Likely a bear, or maybe a troll who was lucky enough to catch it, but not lucky enough to finish its meal.
“Go away.” I try to put some distance between me and the now-reanimated corpse of the former terrier. It simply yips and follows me.
I attempt to ignore the creature. It’s not the first dead thing to imprint on me. I’m coming into my power, and without my bondmate near, it tends to go a bit wild.
Bondmate. I close my eyes as the thought of her coats my senses. I don’t need to be near her to feel her. Gods, I’ve never been close to her, but she’s in my heart. I feel her every minute of every day. But what would I do if I had to stand in front of her? When Shim and I invade her dreams at night, I’m whole, my face as perfect as my brother’s. Will she turn away from me when she sees the real Lachlan McIver? I rather think she will. She’s a beauty, a pure Seelie princess, who will probably run from her beast of an Unseelie prince.
It is, perhaps, better to see her only in dreams, but like many things in my life, I have no choice. I must find her. My powers are flaring, going wild.
And Shim...
I sigh as I realize where my brother is. I turn and jog toward the beach, praying my idiot brother didn’t fall asleep where selkies will take him.
I jog across the grounds, reaching the highest point. From here I can turn back and see the Dark Palace shining like a jewel in the distance. To the east I can see the road. A small party is approaching. My father’s advance guard already confirmed it’s my cousin Julian leading the rebel Seelie kings.
Her brothers.
Gods, I’m going to meet Bron’s brothers, and I haven’t figured out if I plan to tell them a damn thing. If I tell them the truth, they’ll scoff and tell me I’m bloody insane. My father will shake his head in a way that lets me know how disappointed he is. Only Gillian and Duffy in all the plane believe our secret—that we already bonded to the Seelie princess. Without permission or even her real knowledge. It was instinctive, a cry that crossed two planes, saved her life, and inadvertently ruined my face.
I shake off thoughts of that terrible day and turn back to the sea. I can’t see my brother, but there’s a small figure awkwardly moving on the rocks that make up the beach.
Little gnome. Big axe. That’s Duffy. And where Duffy is, my brother can’t be far behind. The gnome hefts the axe Shim gave him months before on the date they mutually decided on for the celebration of Duffy’s birthday. Duffy wanted an axe. The damn thing is nearly bigger than the gnome, and more than once he fell on his ass from trying to swing it. The year before, Shim and I bought our lifelong friend a set of custom-made armor. The blacksmith laughed the whole time he made it.
It isn’t that no one told Duffy that gnomes aren’t warriors. Duffy is just terribly hard of hearing when he wants to be.
The dog at my feet yips and pants as though waiting for the fun to begin.
“Go away.” I start down the trail that leads to the beach, the dog at my heels. I try to give the dog the command to stay, but it isn’t a well-trained thing. More than likely his lack of discipline is what led to his untimely death.
“Duff!” I yell the minute I hit the beach. Now I can see Shim, lounging with his back against a boulder, one hand over his heart. His legs and feet have sunk in the pebbles beneath, telling me that he’s been here for a while. No soft, warm, sandy beaches on the Unseelie plane. Everything is hard and deadly. I’ve been to the Vampire plane, with its tropical beaches. I stood looking over the peaceful sea in someplace my cousin called Hawaii, and I wanted to bring Bronwyn there. I imagined sinking into the soft sand and reveling in her body. Bonding time, the vampires call it. First bite. Oh, that first bite would be amazing. First blood.
My fangs descend. The damn things do it at the worst times, but I’m used to it. And I’m used to ignoring the hunger. When I want real blood in my mouth, I go hunting and gorge myself on predatory creatures. The hunt feeds me as much as the blood does.
My brother has another coping mechanism.
Shim lays with his eyes on the ocean, but I know damn well that isn’t what my brother is seeing.
The dead dog barks, warning Duffy of our approach since apparently my yelling his name didn’t do the trick. The gnome shrieks, and his axe comes down on the pebbled sand, barely missing his feet.
“Lachlan. You scared ten years off me life.” Duffy leans over, resting his hands on his knees and dragging cool air into his lungs.
I narrow my eyes, standing over the gnome. At six feet five inches, I know I can be intimidating to the four-foot gnome. “And what do you think you’re doing to me, Duff?”
Wide blue eyes look back up. “Ain’t doing nothing but protecting Shim.”
I point out at the sea. Not forty feet off the shore is a telltale froth of water. That white churning proves how reckless my brother has become.
“Were you going to use that axe on the mermaids?”
Duffy turns quickly, his hat falling off his head. “Mermaids? Bloody hell.”
“Yes, bloody is the key point. It’s going to be your blood and then Shim’s all over this beach, and all because my brother here can’t deal with reality.” I nearly growl when I turn back to my brother and roll my eyes. Shim has a smile on his face, his eyes blank. He doesn’t even notice that half a dog is licking at his chin.
“What the bloody hell is that?” Duffy asks, staring at the dog.
“A straggler.” I’m not sure what Duffy is so squeamish about. It isn’t the first time some dead thing followed me around. “Try to wake Shim up. We have trouble coming.” I walk to the edge of the water. The icy tide laps at my feet as I face the creatures who will one day be my subjects. If they don’t manage to eat my other half… “I don’t need this shit!”
A shimmering presence rises from the foam. Gorgeous and deadly, the mermaid smiles, shrugs, and then dives back down to the depths.
Everything, it seems, is coming after us. There isn’t a creature on the plane who can’t sense our weakness, and every single one of them is ready and waiting to pounce.
I turn back to my main problem. We’re weak because Shim stopped fighting.
“Where is he?” I ask, staring at my brother, the other half of my soul.
“He was mumbling something about fields and wheat.” Duffy comes to my side, his mouth turned down in a flat line. “I think he feels her
more clearly here.”
Shim chuckles, but I know damn well he isn’t laughing at anything he heard on this plane. I get to my knees and put both hands on my brother’s shirt, hauling him up.
“Wake the fuck up, Shim.”
Dark hair covers half of Shim’s face as he shakes his head. “No. Don’t want to.”
I groan. It’s so much worse in the last year. Shim started to sink into a world where he can see her, feel her emotions. I can only do that in my dreams, when an invisible thread tethers me to my bondmate. Sometimes I envy my brother the deeper connection, but this isn’t one of those times. Shim has begun to seek the connection to her instead of living his damn life. Our life. My brother is slipping away, and I can’t allow it.
I’m not ready to give up yet. I want a real life with her, not some half life where I only hold her in dreams. She’s mine, damn it. I’ll prove it to her when I find her. Ruined face or no.
“Do I have to punch you again?” I ask.
Shim’s eyes focus. “Bloody hell, no. Why would you do such a thing?”
Finally, a wee bit of sense. “Because you’re acting like a drunk. I can’t wake you anymore. It’s harder and harder when you give in during the day. Hell, it can be hard enough to wake you at night. You can’t go looking for her in the day.”
A smile crosses Shim’s face. I’ve seen that smile on the face of many a man who had too much whiskey. “She’s here, Lach.”
“No, she’s not.” That’s the problem. She isn’t here, and we haven’t been able to find her. “But her brothers are.”
Shim sits up on his own. “What are you talking about?”
Duffy leans in. “Is it true, Lach? Are the Seelies coming?”
I nod. “Julian’s bringing them in. The Vampire plane has declared for Torin. Beckett and Cian Finn are on the run.”
“A sad day when the Seelie kings come looking for a place to hide here,” Duffy says with a frown.
I lightly smack the side of his head. “Don’t be talking like that. It’s talk like that got us in trouble in the first place.”
Duffy rubs his head. “Well, it’s not normal. They hate us.”
“Not more than we hate them,” I shoot back.
“I don’t hate them.” Shim seems to be coming out of his fog. “I don’t hate anyone.”
Duffy leans in. “Gods, Shim. Don’t let your da hear you saying crazy shit like that. He’ll beat you for sure.”
I roll my eyes. Despite my father’s rather intimidating presence, he never once beat us. Not that we don’t know how to take or give a sound thrashing, but it was part of our training, not at our da’s hand. King Fergus of the Unseelie is a ruthless bastard. He wouldn’t be king if he wasn’t, but he cares for his sons.
“Da was the one who sent Gilly in there in the first place, Duff. He wanted a treaty with the Seelie. And given what we’ve seen is going on there in the Seelie plane, it’s no surprise he’ll support Beck and Cian Finn in taking back the throne.” It goes unsaid that, after all, we’re family. Beck and Ci Finn don’t know it, but the future queen of the Unseelie is still on the Seelie plane, trapped and in constant danger. Only her death saved her from, well, death.
“Do you think they know, Lach?” Shim asks, struggling to his feet.
“No.” I straighten my tunic. I should change, but there isn’t time. “Julian would have warned us if they had any suspicions.” I put a hand out to steady my brother. “Even if someone told them and they brought the rumor forward, our father would let it be known that we’re crazy. They won’t believe us. They won’t believe until the full and true bond is in place, and we can’t do that until we’re in her presence.”
“It feels full and true to me.” Shim stretches and looks down at the dog at his feet. “Lach, why is that dog’s guts on his outside?”
The dog sits and pants, his tail thumping.
“Don’t worry about the dog. Worry about the kings. They’ve brought the queen along.”
“Is it time then?” Shim asks, his tone getting serious.
Every muscle in my body clenches. It’s almost time. We will find our bondmate or die trying. And our plane will fall… “It’s time.”
It has to be.
Shim smiles, his whole face lighting up. “We’re going to find her. I know it deep down. I have all the clues we need. Surely the kings
will know the place I keep seeing.”
Shim slaps Duffy on the back and hands him his axe.
“I bet the queen is going to be crying by now,” Duffy says, his chest puffing out. “I can’t imagine a sweet Seelie queen having to deal
with us rough Unseelie. If she lasts the night, I’ll be shocked.”
“We have to be on our best behavior, Duff,” Shim says seriously. “And we might want to clear the goblins out. They could scare the
queen. And the trolls. You know, we might want to clear the whole palace.”
Duffy and Shim start up the road, talking about all the things that might frighten the gentle Seelie queen.
I stop. The dog is dead again. His body lies across the rocks, a symbol of all that’s wrong with my life.
I should be as thrilled as my brother, but what will our own sweet Seelie wife think of me? What will happen when she sees my decimated face? What will she think when she learns of my power, the power she’ll make stronger by bonding the two parts of my soul together? Will she be able to live with herself knowing she’ll be responsible for unleashing a powerful necromancer?
I stare down at the dog who briefly flared back to existence. Shim can offer her life and fire and a perfect face. All I can offer is death.
And still I turn and follow my brother. It will be disastrous, but I can’t resist. After a lifetime of longing, I will see her.
Perhaps then and only then I can be free.
Copyright 2026 Lexi Blake
Retailer Links:
