Beyond the Pale: A Thin Veil Novella (The Thin Veil Book 3) by Jodi McIsaac Page B

mother’s chest. The sweet chimes of her Lýra stopped, and Kier released a shallow breath.
     
    * * *
     
    Lorcan felt it the moment she died.
    He had been raging at Brion, demanding that Kier be found at once, when suddenly it felt as though all the air had been sucked out of the room. Where before he had been filled with anger, there was now only emptiness. He sat down hard on the chair behind him.
    “Are you all right, my lord?” Brion asked. Lorcan had stopped speaking mid-sentence.
    “Leave,” was all he could reply. Brion did not hesitate to do his bidding.
    “Kier…come back…” Lorcan gasped as soon as he was alone. He couldn’t say how he knew—was this some new ability he had inadvertently acquired? But the truth settled around him like a millstone—undeniable and inescapable. She was gone, the one spark of light in his whole miserable existence, the one person who had ever cared for him. Unbidden, hot tears forced their way to the surface, and he brushed them away. “Kier, come back,” he whispered. “This was all for you. You cannot love me if you are…”
    A knock at the door startled him, and he stared at it for a moment, shocked that the whole world had not stopped existing with her. “Not now,” he managed to say.
    “My lord, I have important news,” the messenger said through the closed door.
    Lorcan stood, struggling to master his expression. “Enter.” The man who came in was visibly afraid. So the news was not good.
    “Be quick,” he said.
    “I know…I know you wanted the king brought to you alive. But I have just received word that he was killed—far from here. Some of the warriors tried to ambush him and Ruadhan, but the king and his steward slew them all. Ruadhan seems to have escaped, but…we found the king’s body. I’m afraid it is too late for…for what you intended.”
    “And Kier? She was with him when this happened?”
    “No, my lord. But one of the other warriors said he saw her appear out of nowhere while they were battling the king’s forces on the western ridge earlier today. She was wounded badly. The king escaped with her through a sidh, but he returned alone.”
    Where did you hide her, Brogan? “Did the warrior see where he took her?”
    “No, my lord.”
    “It doesn’t matter. She’s dead.”
    The messenger looked surprised. “You…you know this?”
    “Yes.”
    “And the child as well?”
    The child. He had been so fixated on Kier that he had forgotten about this child, whom he knew now for certain could open the sidhe. Kier had been far enough along; the child might have survived. Well, he would find her, even if he had to tear Tír na nÓg apart. The king was dead, but as long as his child still lived, Lorcan could still conquer Ériu.
    He dismissed the messenger and sat back down, closing his eyes. He pictured her face, the curve of her jaw, the way her hair always fell in front of her eyes when she laughed. He lifted his fingertips to his mouth and kissed them, imagining that they were her lips. And then he opened his eyes, and felt more alone than he ever had in his long life. He tried to reach inside for his anger, his hatred of Brogan, his loathing of humanity, wanting to feel something other than this desolation. But all that was left was the gaping abyss of an empty soul.
     
    * * *
     
    Maeve gently lifted the squirming infant from her mother’s cooling chest. The baby blinked at her, and Maeve looked into her tiny face for the first time. She had her father’s eyes. “Oh, Brogan,” Maeve whispered. “She’s beautiful.” Something stirred in her heart, something she hadn’t felt since Brogan had so cruelly abandoned her several months ago. It was love, and with it came the seed of something entirely unexpected: hope.
     
    THE END

 
     
     
AMONG THE UNSEEN
     
     
    An exclusive sneak peek at the third book in the Thin Veil series. Among the Unseen will be available May 20, 2014 (but you can preorder it today!).