Page 1 of A Beastly Court

PROLOGUE

The front porch steps protested my every step with the creaking of wood and the squeaking of nails, as if the farmhouse was channeling the spirit of a banshee in an attempt to scream and scare me away.

The farmhouse, while not sentient, did have remnants of long-lost magic in its fibers, so I was not necessarily imagining this objection to my presence. No doubt the human who’d built it so long ago had mistaken a sleeping forest spirit for an actual tree and had used its body in the framework. It was the reason the hobs and the pixies—wisely hiding away or feigning hibernation in that little house by the fence—had been attracted to this place. Its dormant magic had woken with the presence of the witches, one in particular.

My knock on the front door sounded dull, the farmhouse purposefully and defiantly dampening the sound.

“I don’t have to be cordial,” I warned. I didn’t even have to knock, but I’d learned from my centuries here that shattering doors from hinges did not provide the subtlety needed when dealing with mortals. Most mortals, anyway. Though, my patience was already quite thin.

I was an enduring creature by nature, but everything had its limits. I’d been able to stave off my curse’s effects by consuming the magic and life essences of others, but only those who had been loners in secluded villages and towns, lest the rabble discover me and overwhelm me with sheer numbers. Not so in Redbud. This Meadow had an entire coven of Violet Ní Dara’s descendants and that Coalition behind her. Pride be damned, I did not have the strength to thwart them all, and it was only a matter of time before they discovered what was happening here.

My next knock resounded strongly, rattling the closest windows in their frames.

Footsteps echoed from within, and the gauzy curtain obscuring the window to my right was swept aside to reveal two glaring ivy-green eyes. The face jerked back almost instantly, and there was a frantic stampede of footsteps before the front door opened just a crack.

“Stag Man,” Iris Hawthorne spat.

Such venom, especially since she’d been quaking before me not four days ago. Then again, I had resembled something less than human, and that always set these mortals’ teeth on edge.

The soft smile I gave her didn’t reach my eyes. “You sound like a jilted lover, Iris. Still stewing about that kiss?”

Only a light push from my bronze hand threw open the door, the haggard old witch leaping back as she raked the iron cuffs on her wrists against each other, activating red runes.

Battle magic.

No other green witch other than a Hawthorne—Violet Ní Dara’s offspring, I’d learned—had such magic, the Death aspect of Nature. But there was no reason for worry; they couldn’t use it on me if they wanted Meadow back alive. If summoning the portal to Elfame didn’t claim her life, like it had all the other witches before her.

Maintaining an unfazed expression, I ignored Iris and swept my gaze through the farmhouse. The air was stale and hollow, and despite its furnishings, it seemed lifeless. Shrouded in despair. Down the hallway and through the kitchen was the hearth, its flame pitifully small without the presence of its mistress.

Three witches—a wife, husband, and son trio—had clasped hands and formed a circle in the den, green light glowing from their eyes as they chanted softly in unison.

An obscurity spell, much like the glamour maintained by the golden aura of my skin. They don’t want me to find their grimoire.

I didn’t have any use for a coven’s spell book, but let them tire themselves out. Costly wards and illusions placed around the farmhouse prevented any of them from going outside and grounding themselves, from replenishing their magical cores. And with their hearth’s ember in the censer hanging from Meadow’s belt, they had no hearth magic. They would drain themselves dry and be as mortals come the winter solstice. Maybe even sooner. And there’d been nothing about that in the fine print of my bargain with Meadow.

In the dining room, where I’d clearly interrupted afternoon tea, were Meadow’s mother and father, both with deep hollows under their loathing eyes. In the kitchen was the fat one, wooden spoon in hand, and the stick one with the kohl-lined eyes was in the hearth room trying to coax Meadow’s flame into accepting them as its new master.

It never would.

And its stubbornness would further their undoing. Even the young lanky one casting the obscurity spell with his parents looked ashen, new lines seaming the corners of his eyes. Drake, one of Alec’s new recruits into his Brotherhood after that devastating fiasco with that silver mallaithe, had been by just a day or two ago to resupply them before continuing on to their ancestral home, but it wasn’t food that wholly sustained them.

Outnumbered seven-to-one, I still closed the door behind me, knowing, as they surely would soon realize, that these little magical displays were just empty threats or wasteful endeavors.

There was no creak of battle leather, no minuscule twitch of his fingers, but two bright knives slid into Meadow’s father’s hands just the same.

Definitely not an empty threat. I was immortal, not impervious.

Had I not made a bargain not to harm them, before his heart could beat again, I would have had that witch by the throat and his body slamming down on top of the dining room table.

Instead, I wagged a chastising finger. “Hurt me and you’ll never get your witch back. Meadow, or the one in the Unseelie prison.” I’d overheard everything in the woods—it’d been impossible to ignore that surge of power contacting that despicable demon.

“Tod,” Meadow’s mother whispered. Forsythia, that’s what Alec had said her name was. As if that was important.

The knives disappeared.

My green eyes flicked to Iris, her iron cuffs still humming with power. I kept the displeased sneer from my face. Iron, in the human tongue. Faebane to the rest of us Seelie.

Stalking to the table, I pulled out a chair and sat, helping myself to the tea. It was cold outside and barely warm in here. The hearth might consume wood for heat, but it didn’t warm the place like it had when this had been Meadow’s home. I’d felt the blast of heat come roiling out the back door when the hobs had carried the unconscious witches inside just a few days ago.