Page 46 of A Beastly Court

I’d heard enough. More than enough. Hardly daring to breathe, I inched away from the archway and pressed a hand over my aching heart. I didn’t know what would happen if I rejected this bond, but I could no longer in good conscience love this fae male or stay here any longer.

He was allowing the hobgoblin villain Wystan to terrorize the very people he was supposed to protect, including my friends. The very people he was apparently feeding off of, siphoning away their magic. And the Brotherhood wasn’t patrolling the court—they were the wardens of this town-wide prison! If that wasn’t enough…

Toirchim tonic, Caer powder—I almost ripped the rubies from my ears except that would’ve left a possible blood trail to be discovered. He’d been manipulating me for, for— Thistle thorns, I didn’t know for how long, and that was kind of the point. I still couldn’t figure out why, though. I knew my desire to go to Elfame was my own, and he was clearly desperate to get back to his home realm, so why the deception? Unless it had something to do with the bear.

You can figure that out later, Meadow, but only if you don’t get nailed by Caer powder again.

Forcing my pulse to calm down, I steeled myself for what was to come. I would run back to my room and collect my cat. My Sawyer. The one who had been my true friend all along. Then I would flee this castle, find Flora, Daphne, and Shari, alert the others, and get back to that farmhouse before—

Having been ignored long enough, my empty stomach snarled.

Between one shuddering blink and the next, the fae king stood in front of me, jewel-green eyes gleaming in the gloom. “Hello, love.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“Gods, hold her still, Alec!” Ossian roared.

Pinned on my back against the stone floor, I thrashed and raged and struck with everything in me. My screams were echoed by the roars of the grizzly bear locked away in the great hall, and by the way the castle was shuddering, dust and crumbs of mortar sprinkling to the floor, he was using every ounce of his strength to break free of his chain.

I’d gotten in a few good hits, but with a cursed core and the exhaustion of the day, I’d been taken down in a matter of seconds. Alec, blood pouring from a cut across his eye, fought to capture my right arm, my left already grating into the stone floor under Ossian’s bare foot. He’d been unable to do anything else while my magic raged, not even with half those gemstones on his necklace blazing away. Thorny tendrils of green magic simultaneously repelled the fae king’s coppery blasts and battled Alec’s own bluish-green vines like the tentacles of dueling octopi. It was no way an even match, but I had to try. To get free.

An inevitable shot cracked me across the face, slamming the back of my head against the stone floor, and I lay momentarily stunned senseless. There was a mad scrambling then, both from Ossian grabbing at a pouch on his belt and Alec binding my legs with his vines. With stars still twinkling across my vision, I didn’t have the control to summon my magic again, but I could still shove my hand into my foraging bag for my witchy bits and bobs.

Oh my Green Mother, please let it work this time.

The black tourmaline crystal detonated when I slammed it into Alec’s foot.

White-blue light exploded, releasing a shock wave that shot the man across the atrium and into the opposite wall. I caught the briefest glimpse of Alec plastered against the gray stone like a crow who’d flown into a window before I turned the crystal on the male who was supposed to be my mate.

The fae king seized my wrist and slammed my hand against the stone floor, trying to bludgeon my fingers into releasing their weapon. They never did.

“Just like your father,” Ossian snarled, giving up and swiveling his body so he now crouched over me, pinned me under knee and foot. “He wouldn’t give up his knives either.”

He barked a laugh when I twisted against his hold, threatening to rip my own shoulder out of joint. Thistle thorns, his foot was as sturdy and immovable as a draft horse’s hoof. The necklace around his throat blazed with power, the aura emanating from his skin visibly trembling. His control, his magic, was faltering, and something like the spectral outline of antlers appeared from his forehead.

The Stag Man leaned down to sneer right into my face, “It’s no use fighting, Meadow. No witch, Violet’s daughter or not, can ever fell me.”

Wanna bet?

My purgatory in the rose courtyard had taught me to be flexible with what I considered “grounding” to be. As the snarling fae king tore at the big pouch on his belt, I curled my free hand around his ankle.

It’s just like a sapling, I convinced myself, ignoring the horror of what I was about to do. I wasn’t even sure if it was possible, but Hawthornes had control over both aspects of Nature: Life, and Death.

Ceasing my struggle against him, I drew in a calm, grounding breath, and tapped the magic infused in the fae king’s—the Stag Man’s—flesh. It wasn’t the green life energy of plants, but something just as wild. And since there was no divide, no barrier, between him and his magic like there was in a witch, there was nothing to stop me. It resisted my pull, but I’d tenaciously honed this technique over hours and hours in the rose courtyard, and I would not be denied.

My life was at stake.

I couldn’t take his magic into me—my whole body resisted that as much as it resisted Ossian’s channeling through our fated mate bond—but I didn’t need it, not necessarily. I just couldn’t let him have it. So I let it bleed away like the air from a balloon.

Ossian yanked his fist out of his pouch, white Caer powder streaming from the gaps in his fingers. By the Green Mother! That amount would be enough to dampen and even rewrite someone’s base personality if enough magic and intent were put behind it.

I pulled harder, desperate to weaken him.

The fae king’s jewel-bright eyes snapped wide. His gaze dropped down to where my fingers were wrapped around his ankle, then he kicked me away with a cry. Fully corporeal antlers sprouted from his head then, arcing wide like an elk’s. His face twisted in a fury I had never known, the bronze of his skin darkening to purple with his rage, and he screamed down at me an unintelligible curse.

His fist came crashing down against my face next. White, flour-fine powder flooded my mouth, my nose, even my eyes.

I thrashed, choking and desperate for air. His fingers clamped over my cheeks and chin with an immovable iron grip, smothering me. The Caer powder was in my lungs, coating my tongue, trickling into my brain. It rolled through me like a fog, shrouding everything in white. In oblivion.