by Lexi Blake
Glancing back at Neil and Sarah, I started to walk toward my brother-in-law. “I’m going to talk to him. The way he looks, he might start a fight and that’s the last thing Dev needs. Stay here.”
“Lee will kill me,” Neil protested.
“I’m not leaving the ballroom.” Lee was attempting to track down the servant who had brought breakfast to the archer this morning. He was tracking his scent through the countryside. “I’ll be fine. I just want to talk to him.”
I crossed the full ballroom, making my way around the edges of the dance floor. Miria was dancing in Padric’s arms, but her eyes constantly strayed to Dev’s table. It was like she worried if she took her eyes off of him he would disappear again. I made it just in time. Declan was watching that table, too. He cursed as he set the bottle down, and I could see he meant to go and have a word or two with someone. I was pretty sure he wasn’t planning on talking about the weather. It wouldn’t go well and a fight would set back any progress Dev had made. I reached out and grabbed Declan’s hand. He whirled on me. “What do you want, Zoey?”
“I want you to not make an ass of yourself.” He didn’t get to be annoyed with me when I was so busy being annoyed with him.
I tried to pull my hand back but he held it firmly. “Fine, then you will have to give me something else to do, Your Grace. Making an ass of myself was the only plan I had for the evening.”
He hauled me onto the dance floor and settled his free hand on my waist. He held me closer than decorum dictated, but I was just happy he could stand. He must have started drinking early in the afternoon to have gotten to this point. I looked around for one of his servants to see if someone could help me get him to his rooms.
“I’m fine, Zoey,” he insisted, reading my mind. “Welcome to the royal court. This is what we do. We have parties and get drunk and plot behind each other’s backs.”
“It sounds like a charming life.”
“It was,” he said quietly. “I was perfectly happy until about eighteen months ago.”
That was when Devinshea had chosen to leave the Faery mound. There was a strange phenomenon that occurred between the Earth plane and the sitheins. Time moved differently in the sithein. Dev had experienced almost seven years of maturing on the Earth plane while his brother was still twenty-two. There was a big difference between twenty-eight, married with a kid on the way, and twenty-two and single, still rolling around with strange women in the grass. Devinshea now had much more in common with Daniel than he had with the brother he’d shared a womb with. It must be difficult for Declan. His brother had returned an entirely different person with different priorities.
“What I cannot understand is why I am being punished.” Declan stared down at me. “I had nothing to do with the plot. I helped Dev leave when I was certain it was what he needed. If I had known what Mother intended, I would have warned him. Why is he so distant to me?”
“He’s a different person, Declan,” I tried to explain.
“But I am not different. I am the same brother he loved before. I am the same brother he used to play with and drink with and whore with. It was a good life.”
Declan maneuvered us around the edges of the dance floor and before I knew it, I found myself hauled into a small room off the ballroom. It was lit only with moonlight and had the same view of the field and stream as the east wall.
“Zoey.” Declan pulled me in with him. I noted the room’s door was a simple curtain that Declan let drop. It was furnished with a large couch that could certainly double as a bed. He pulled me close. “Let me in.”
“Dec, what the hell is this?” I asked, trying to get away from him.
“It’s a room for privacy,” he explained. “You said you wanted to talk.”
“No, I wanted to keep you from starting a fight.” I could guess that most people who wanted privacy weren’t interested in talking.
“Then give me something better to do,” he insisted.
Now I planted my feet, a bit of fear creeping in. I was in a terrible situation. I didn’t want to scream, but I knew I might have to. “Declan, don’t do this.”
He drew me to the couch. “What am I doing?”
“If you try to force me, I swear…”
Even in the moonlight, I could see how his face went pale. He dropped my hands and put some distance between us. “You think I was going to rape you?”
“Well, you dragged me into a convenient little room,” I replied. “What am I supposed to think?”
Declan put his head in his hands, unwillingly sobering up. “I have no idea what happened to me that my pregnant sister-in-law thinks I would drag her into the night and force myself on her. I was going to do something much worse, Zoey. I was going to beg.”
“Beg for what?” I settled down, fairly certain I wasn’t about to be assaulted.
He shrugged, and his wry smile reminded me so much of his brother. “Well, I was going to beg for sex, but I wasn’t going to force you. I would be very gentle given your condition. If you let me in your bed, Devinshea would be all right with it. It would bring us closer. You’ll see it would be the best thing for our whole family. It is what we always planned, Zoey. We planned to find a woman we both liked and settle down.”
“That’s ridiculous, Declan,” I said, disgusted at the thought. “Dev wouldn’t be all right with it and Daniel would kill you.”
“Well,” he admitted, “my plan does require getting rid of the vampire. You have to think clearly now, Zoey. I am sure the vampire has been exciting and he is probably a pleasure in bed, but you are a wife now and you carry a faery child. Your ties to Faery are much more meaningful than anything the vampire can give you. You owe us.”
I stood up, ready to plead exhaustion and be done with all of this for the evening. If Declan wanted to start a fight, then maybe I should let him. “I don’t owe you anything. I married Daniel and I’m happy with him. Dev is happy with him.”
I was almost out the door when I heard his sad response. “Devinshea replaced me.”
I saw Neil open the curtain, but I shook my head to let him know I was fine for the moment. He let the curtain fall back but I knew he would listen in. He would stand beside the entrance and wait for anything strange.
Declan had lain back on the couch, and I could see the pain in his eyes.
“He didn’t replace you.” I said the words, but I wondered if I was lying. Dev and Daniel had become close. Sometimes they worked together so flawlessly, I wondered if they weren’t halves of a whole. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Dev was happier sharing me with Daniel than he would have been having me to himself. I doubted, however, that if Daniel were suddenly gone, he would immediately ask his brother to be our third. Whatever the brothers had shared before, Dev had moved on.
“Yes, he did,” Declan stated surely. “I should have gone with him. When he left, I should have followed him. He would have followed me. I have lost him.”
I sat down beside him, and when he moved to put his head in my lap, I let him. He was that pathetic. He didn’t even try anything sexual. He just rested against me. “You could try talking to him. You could try listening to him. I know he loves you.”
“But he doesn’t like me much,” Declan whispered.
I wasn’t sure what to say to that so I let him rest. I placed my hand on his head and wondered what he was going to do when he realized we meant to live on the Earth plane. I got the sneaking suspicion that my pregnancy was going to complicate our living arrangements. So far the boys had been talking like we would go home and raise the baby there, but I had a feeling Miria and Declan thought something different.
The music stopped and suddenly there were lovely female voices. At first I thought it was just one and she seemed far away, but after a moment, I could hear at least three and the sound was stronger. It was haunting and beautiful, filling the space like a wind rushing in and getting caught. It seemed to whirl around me. I felt a great sadness well up inside me as I listened and
then Declan sat up suddenly.
“Oh, goddess, no,” he said, his voice a small prayer. “Please, no.”
Neil pulled back the curtain and he and Sarah rushed in the room. I could hear the sound of many footsteps scrambling across the floor outside.
“Something’s happening,” Neil said. “Everyone’s freaking out.”
Declan rushed to the open windows of the room. He stared out and I saw him stiffen. “No.”
I followed him and my eyes could make out three women in the distance. They were the source of the mournful song, for I recognized it as a lament now. They kneeled by the stream and seemed to be washing clothes.
“What are they?” Sarah stood behind me.
“Why is everyone terrified by women washing clothes?” Neil asked.
“Bean si,” Declan whispered as though he didn’t want to say the name too loud.
Neil and Sarah looked at me, confusion plain on their faces. Declan had used the Irish name for the washer women. He could just as easily call them by their Scots name, Bean sith, for it all meant the same thing. These women popped up in all Fae worlds.
I shook, a chill blanketing my body because I knew the name. I looked at my friends and used the term they would understand.
“Banshee.”
Chapter Ten
“So these women sing and wash stuff and then kill someone?” Neil asked, staring out at the banshees. We had moved out of the small room and back into the ballroom where we had a much better view of the stream.
The three women were dressed in white and each had flowing blonde hair. I couldn’t see their mouths moving, but I knew the song emanated from them.
“No, wolf. The banshees warn of coming death. They are not the ones who carry out the deed.” Miria looked pale as she watched the women. The queen stood beside us, at the front of the crowd that had gathered.
The entire ball had stopped and everyone stood at the open windows, staring out at the sight. The sound of their voices was oppressive, as though it had weight and motion. Their song filled the ballroom as the previous music couldn’t. It vibrated along the marble, and I could feel it on my skin.
“They are not harmless, though.” Herne watched the scene with dark eyes. The goblins guarding him were the only ones who looked excited at the current events. Their red eyes danced as they looked around, probably wondering which of the sidhe would be a corpse soon. Herne’s voice was serious. “I wouldn’t approach them if you have a set of balls. They don’t take kindly to men in their space. Apparently grief is women’s work.”
“Don’t stand too close.” Daniel tugged on my waist. He tried to pull me away from the window.
“Yes, why don’t we take her back to our apartments?” Dev suggested, his face tense. He didn’t like the banshee’s appearance any more than Declan had. “She’s probably tired, and I don’t want her around something so unsettling.”
“I’m not unsettled, Dev,” I said irritably. I was going to fight them for nine damn months. I was pregnant, not an invalid. I had no intention of spending the next nine months of my life in a bubble. “I am, however, curious.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” Braden looked strangely aggressive when everyone else was cowering a bit. “I find it curious that the banshee wail not a day after the Unseelie invade our territory.”
“It was hardly an invasion,” Dev argued. “They sent an envoy.”
“What exactly are you accusing me of?” The vessel was completely gone, his personality wiped out by the dominance of the Hunter. His brown eyes pinned the duke, who had to look away.
“I was just making mention of the coincidence in the events,” the duke said, fooling no one.
Declan was far stupider than the duke. He stepped straight up to the Hunter. “You know damn well what Braden is saying. You show up with your demon dogs and suddenly one of us is going to die. I do not think there is anything coincidental about it. I think you planned it this way.”
The Hunter’s smile was savage. “You think it’s going to be you, don’t you, Declan? You think I’m going to kill you.”
“Well, the thought had occurred to me,” Declan replied through clenched teeth. “You’ve threatened me often enough. Perhaps I should try taking you out first.”
They were almost at each other’s throats when Padric pulled Declan off and Devinshea tried to talk to the Hunter. “Let’s stay calm. There’s no reason to believe Declan is the one who’s going to die. That’s just his paranoia. It could easily be one of the villagers.”
“No, son,” Miria said quietly, but with a resolute firmness. “There are three. The Three would not show up for a villager. It is an important death. It is more than likely someone of royal blood.”
The hall erupted in conversation. Everyone speculated on which of the royal family would die and what the cause would be. Arguments began and escalated quickly to the point of violence. Immortals didn’t handle the potential end of their existence well. I personally was wondering how they thought that yelling at each other was going to solve the problem. As far as I could tell, it would only possibly make the prophesized death happen that much faster. I had an easier way to stop the speculation.
“Neil, could you give me a hand down?” I asked quietly while all the attention was elsewhere.
His light eyes widened. “Zoey, you can’t go down there.”
“Why?”
“Because,” was Neil’s intelligent reply.
Daniel caught the last of that conversation. He knew me well enough to easily discern my next move. “Absolutely not, Zoey Donovan. Put it out of your mind. You are not going down there.”
“Give me one good reason,” I challenged him and Dev, since he was now standing beside Daniel, looking outraged at the thought.
“I’ll give you three,” Dev said, pointing to the women.
I put a hand on my hip. It’s something I do when I’m feeling particularly stubborn, and it should have been a signal to the men in my life that I meant business. “What are they going to do? Sing me to death?”
“Yes,” Dev replied. “When they want to those banshees can shatter human bones with their voices.”
“Come on, Z,” Daniel said seriously. “You’ve read X-Men, baby. That’s some serious shit.”
It isn’t easy to argue with a true geek. He always has some pop culture reference. Danny was wary of the damn goblins because his World of Warcraft character always got killed by them. It was so much easier to deal with Neil, who wouldn’t know a goblin from a leprechaun because the Real Housewives didn’t cover those topics.
“Why shouldn’t I ask them a few questions?” I decided to try logic. If that didn’t work, I would wait until they turned around and run the other way. “They want to come here and wail then they should be ready to answer a few quick, politely asked questions.”
“That is not how it works,” Declan replied as though he was speaking to an unnaturally slow child.
“Zoey, we do not question the bean si,” Padric explained. Though I was sure he knew it would do no good, his hand was on the hilt of his sword. It was the unconscious habit of a warrior. “We do not bother the washer women. We merely pray that they do not touch our house.”
“As plans go, that one sucks.” Was I the only one who wanted answers? I sure as hell wasn’t going to just sit around with my thumb up my ass, hoping they weren’t singing about me. “Look, why would they stand around and wail if nothing anyone can do is going to change things? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“They do not have to make sense.” Declan was subdued now. He watched the women sing and crossed his arms protectively over his chest. He was nervous and had moved away from the Hunter now. He inched closer to his brother, though he did not attempt to speak to him.
“What happened to the last person who tried to talk to them?” I should probably at least know what I was walking into. I’ve discovered that when walking into dangerous situations, knowing how the last idiot to attempt it died helps me to avo
id her fate. I might die a brand new horrible death, but at least it would be my own.
There was a telling silence as everyone looked around. I was greeted with a multitude of blank expressions. I shook my head at all of them. “Seriously? What is wrong with you people?” I threw a leg over the open window sill.
The Hunter smiled even as Dev and Danny started to protest. “She is completely insane. I like her. It’s a shame she’s probably about to die.”
“Not helpful,” I shot back at him. Daniel leapt over the sill and Dev was thinking about it. “Not on your life, mister. You heard what the guy with the horns said. No boys allowed. I’m all full on vamp blood so if they try to take my head off, Sarah will just run down and hold it on until it heals. I’ll be fine.”
Daniel and Dev gave each other a long look.
“If they are willing to talk, and I’m not saying they will be, but if they are, they won’t do it around a man,” Dev said. “I don’t think they’ll harm her if she’s careful. And polite. Try to remember the polite part, my goddess.”
“Fine,” Danny said, crossing his arms and planting his feet. “But I’m waiting right here, and if one of them even starts to make anything like a sonic boom, I’m coming. All right?”
I nodded shortly. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
There was a collective shudder as the queen appeared at the window and asked Daniel to help her down. He gracefully lifted Miria over the sill and onto the grass. She smoothed out her dress and joined me.
“Miria.” Padric said her name with all the masculine indignation he could muster. It was sad because even though she was the Queen of Faery, she still had to put up with some man trying to protect her. I knew the feeling well.
Her hand was already in mine as she turned back to her lover. “If my new daughter can be brave enough to face them, then I can find the strength to go with her. Wait here, Padric. She is right. This is not a place for men. I will return.”
We started down the hill and the lights from the palace waned. We were left with the moonlight shining brightly off the stream. The water flowed from the mountains past the palace and into the valley below. We followed the stream downhill, and in the moonlight, it looked like things were moving in the shining waters. I almost stopped when I saw what looked like a horse’s head staring out from the reeds in the water.
