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

the quilt down and stared for a moment as though assessing the situation. “Do you want to run now?”
    It was a kindness to even offer. Bron forced her attention to the here and now. She owed Gillian much more than her life. “We have to have coin. I know that. I can handle Micha. He’s a nasty old man, but I can manipulate him.”
    Gillian sat on the edge of the bed, her hands in her lap. “I tried to turn his eye to me so you wouldn’t have to.”
    Bron rushed to her side. “Gilly, don’t. I can handle him.”
    Gillian was so still, Bron thought she wouldn’t say another word. “He didn’t even look at me. Not that I wanted him to, but still. I know I’m not a youngling any more, but I thought I still had some charm.”
    Too, too often Bron sank into her own grief and forgot just what Gillian had given up for her. Gillian had lost her own kingdom. She’d been cut off from it as surely as if someone had taken it. All doors had closed because Gillian hadn’t left her behind. She’d given up her youth. What would have happened if she’d been safe on the Unseelie plane when Torin had started his nasty game? Would she be married by now? Have a child?
    Bron let her hand drift over Gillian’s, feeling the calluses and scars that hadn’t existed before she’d saved a dead, young princess. Her voice choked with emotion. “Gilly, I think you’re the most beautiful woman in all the planes.”
    Unshed tears made Gillian’s dark eyes shine. “You haven’t seen much, little one.”
    Bron shook her head. “I’ve seen enough to know I love you very much.”
    Gillian hugged her, a tight embrace. “And I love you. You understand that whatever I did, whatever reason I did it, I have come to love you, Bronwyn. I would place you first now.”
    “Why did you do it?”
    Gillian sat back, taking a long breath. “I thought if I saved you, you could bring the kingdoms together. I intended to talk to my father and marry you off to my brothers.”
    A part of Bron was offended, but it was the childish bit that clung to shadowy vestiges of her former life. She was more practical now. “I was only fourteen at the time. I’m not sure I would have made a decent wife.”
    “You would have been brought up to be an Unseelie princess. I would have seen to it, and your brothers would have been welcomed. They would have had a place until such time as an army was ready. We weren’t always two tribes, you know.”
    It was radical what Gillian proposed. “That was thousands of years ago.”
    “I know. I wasn’t trying to unite the crowns, merely to have a closer relationship. We fight far too often. In the end, it will make us vulnerable. I’ve studied this plane called Earth. They are a little like the vampires, though they’ve been closed off for so long, they don’t understand the way the planes work anymore. They do understand what it means to conquer. Think about vampires without any ties to other planes. When the humans discover our secrets, I doubt they’ll be content to leave us be. We will need each other. Whether it’s tomorrow or a thousand years from now, we will need to stand together if we’re to survive.”
    Gillian always thought ahead. It was, she claimed, the mark of a true leader.
    “The humans could certainly take us now,” Bron said with a sigh. “Is that why you were here in the first place? To negotiate a marriage?”
    “I tried to negotiate a marriage between myself and your brothers,” Gillian admitted. “I am capable of bonding, just as you are. I could have bridged the kings. But your father had already selected a bondmate.”
    Bron’s nose wrinkled. “I think if Cian had known you were trying to push Maris out, he would have sent her over the edge of the moat. He couldn’t stand her, and she hated him. I always wondered what father was thinking selecting a mate who hated one of her proposed husbands. You would have been a better choice. Do you think they bonded?”
    Gillian’s mouth