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His brother had another coping mechanism.
Shim lay with his eyes on the ocean, but Lach knew damn well that wasn’t what his brother was seeing.
The dead dog barked, warning Duffy of their approach. The gnome shrieked a little, and his axe came down on the pebbled sand just barely missing his feet.
“Lachlan. You scared ten years off me life.” Duffy leaned over, resting his hands on his knees and dragging cool air into his lungs.
Lach narrowed his eyes, standing over the gnome. At six feet five inches, Lach knew he was intimidating to the four-foot gnome. “And what do you think you’re doing to me, Duff?”
Wide blue eyes looked back up. “Ain’t doing nothing but protecting Shim, Lach.”
Lachlan pointed out at the sea. Not f
orty feet off the shore was a telltale froth of water. That white churning proved how reckless his brother had become.
“Were you going to use that axe on the mermaids?”
Duffy turned 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 that’s going to be all over this beach and all because my brother here can’t deal with reality.” Lach nearly growled when he turned back to his brother and rolled his eyes. Shim had a smile on his face, his eyes blank. He didn’t even notice that half a damn dog was licking at his chin.
“What the bloody hell is that?” Duffy asked, staring at the dog.
“A damn straggler.” Lach wasn’t sure what Duffy was so squeamish about. It wasn’t the first time some dead thing had followed him around. “Try to wake his ass up. We have trouble coming.” He walked to the edge of the water. The icy tide lapped at his feet. “I don’t need this shit!”
A shimmering presence rose from the foam. Gorgeous and deadly, the mermaid smiled, shrugged, and then dove back down to the depths.
Everything, it seemed, was coming after them. There wasn’t a creature on the plane who couldn’t sense their weakness, and every single one of them was ready and waiting to pounce.
He turned back and saw his main problem. They were weak because Shim had stopped fighting.
“Where is he?” Lach asked, staring at his brother, the other half of his soul.
“He was mumbling something about fields and wheat.” Duffy came to Lach’s side, his mouth turned down in a flat line. “I think he feels her more clearly here.”
Shim chuckled a little, but Lach knew damn well he wasn’t laughing at anything he heard on this plane. He got to his knees and put both hands on his brother’s shirt, hauling him up.
“Wake the fuck up, Shim.”
Dark hair covered half of Shim’s face as he shook his head. “No. Don’t want to.”
Lach groaned. It had been so much worse in the last year. Shim had started to sink into a world where he could see her, feel her emotions. Lach could only do that in his dreams, when an invisible thread tethered him to his bondmate. Sometimes he envied his brother the deeper connection, but this wasn’t one of those times. Shim had begun to seek the connection to her instead of living his damn life. Their life. His brother was slipping away, and Lach couldn’t allow it.
He wasn’t ready to give up yet. He wanted a real life with her, not some half life where he only held her in dreams. She was his, damn it. He would prove it to her when he found her. Ruined face or no.
“Do I have to punch you again?” Lach asked.
Shim’s eyes focused. “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 little smile crossed Shim’s face. He’d seen that smile on the face of many a man who had too much whiskey. “She’s here, Lach.”
“No, she’s not.” That was the problem. She wasn’t here, and they hadn’t been able to find her. “But her brothers are.”
Shim sat up on his own. “What are you talking about?”
Duffy leaned in. “Is it true, Lach? Are the Seelies coming?”
