Page 4 of A Beastly Court

I leaned back in my chair. “Spoken by someone who seems to have first-hand experience with such methods.”

Iris dropped her gaze to her wrinkled hands. “You have what you need. Leave us in relative peace and go.”

“I don’t have all that I need, actually,” I said, rising and holding out a hand for her.

It took her a second or two to raise her lowered eyes, first to my outstretched hand, then to the gemstones at my neck. A few twinkled, most were dormant and drained. Were I in Elfame, I would have no need for these caches. Here, it was exhausting work to keep the various wards, illusions, and my glamour intact, and I needed refreshing since the magic of this realm was cut off from me. No doubt as Meadow unlocked her magic, I would need more at my disposal to keep her under control.

Iris erupted from her seat, backing away. “Absolutely not!”

This witch was a smart one, I’d give her that. My hand remained outstretched. “Come, come, Iris. You said you would do anything to help Meadow, even if that meant helping me.”

“You don’t need—”

“It’s you, or it’s all of them,” I told her sternly. “I cannot take that which is not already mine, but I have methods of persuasion you’re quite familiar with.”

At my words, the golden aura radiating from my skin thickened, like mist condensing into a fog. Influence and lust, whether for my body or for the power I represented, filled the air between us. It didn’t matter which—it was an angler’s lure that always made mortals succumb to my will, eventually.

“Alec and that wretch of a hobgoblin have been very good at supplying me with supes to feed off of, but none of them compare to you, Iris Hawthorne. I might not even need the others if I have you. Your magic supplements my own, which I have vowed to use to help Meadow unlock her true potential. And I will. But I can’t do that outside my court, and magic is needed to sustain it. You see my dilemma.”

“And those gemstones around your neck, what of those?” she snapped.

I kept the frustration off my face. Though she swayed on her feet from the power of my aura, she must’ve learned from last time and had taken steps to guard herself from my influence. She would come around, though; she was a practical mortal.

“All batteries must be recharged,” I answered. “These caches have become low.”

“And that big blue one in the center? That one seems healthy enough.”

I fought the urge to touch it, to convince myself it was still there and unharmed. What looked like a gemstone was actually a cloch, a crystalline prison, and what was trapped inside was not magic. It was an easy mistake to make, and I wasn’t going to correct her. Not when a well-placed strike could rupture it and release the hold I had on that cursed bear.

My gaze narrowed as I increased the output of my aura, the gemstones twinkling madly. “Stop. Stalling. Your choice is truly only between whether it is just you who comes with me or your entire family.”

Iris gasped, but it was Forsythia and Tod who moaned in response to my lusty persuasion. In the kitchen, the two witches who huddled together, the fat one and the stick one, sagged against the countertops, breathing heavily. In the den, the trio performing the obscurity spell stammered to a halt, the green light fading from their eyes as their concentration was overpowered. It was an obscene expenditure of magic to intensify my aura this way, but the effect was worth it. They had to know they had no true power before me. That despite everything they had done, from keeping Violet’s daughter from me, from cursing their own grimoire to fuel a protection spell, all of it, they had lost.

“Oh,” I purred as the two younger witches at the table started to pant with longing. “It looks like I have some willing volunteers after all. Come here, loves.”

Forsythia stumbled on her way around the table while Tod dragged himself out of his chair, fighting to keep his balance by using the table edge as a prop.

“Stop.” Iris snatched Tod’s shoulder and shoved him back down, then grabbed the back of Forsythia’s sweater and yanked her into Tod’s arms. But their desire was only for me, and the two of them strained to get back up. “Stop it, Stag Man. I’ll go with you. But only if you—”

“There will be no bargaining, Iris. I told you the choice you had, and you’ve made it. Remember, the bargain I made with Meadow prevents me from harming her family.” Coming around the table, I took her hand off Tod’s shoulder and pulled her close. She shuddered in a mixture of revulsion and desire. By the Old Gods, she was a strong one. I would enjoy bending her into submission. “Because of that, I’ll make sure you enjoy this, unlike the others in the dungeon.” When my hand framed her face, she didn’t struggle. Her lips parted, her breath whisper-soft with anticipation. “In fact,” I promised her, “you won’t be able to resist me.”

Iris swallowed thickly, her ivy-green eyes, so much like Meadow’s, so much like Violet’s, beginning to glaze over from the power of my aura. “I might not,” she forced out, “but in the end, you’ll regret the day you ever met my granddaughter.”

I lowered my face for the first of what were to be many magic-draining kisses, my hand shifting from her face to her throat and tightening. “I sincerely doubt it. No witch, Violet’s daughter or not, can ever fell me.”

CHAPTER ONE

Scritch.

Scritch… scritch…

Feigning sleep, I strained my ears to locate the origin of my incessant nocturnal tormentor. Every night for the last few nights—or perhaps forever—something had been chewing in the bedroom walls and ceiling. Mice, probably, though this castle was so old and rickety and full of hidey-holes that maybe it was a family of squirrels making a nest for the winter. Whatever it was, it was disturbing my sleep no matter how many cotton balls I stuffed into my ears.

Scritch, scritch, scritch.

I’d tried banging on the walls with a broom handle, even verbally evicting the little pests like I had done with spiders and the like, but this creature was tenacious. And tenaciously sprinkled ceiling plaster all over my face every night as a byproduct of its nibbling—never getting even a crumb on my pillow, by the way. I’d had enough. How was I going to dismantle the curse Grandmother had placed over my magic, let alone summon and open a portal to Elfame, if I didn’t get my beauty sleep?

So, it had come to force.