Page 82 of The Filigree Key

“A nation’s opinion! We were to be wed, our combined power then used to fight off the Blight infecting not just my court, but all of them. She turned her back on her responsibility and kept her magic for herself!”

“Sounds like your little ego can’t stand the fact that she’d rather mother a line of witches and die in the mortal lands than live an immortal life with you. With your charming personality, I can’t imagine why.”

Oh my Green Mother, how good it felt to not pretend anymore.

“Bet she saw through every gift you sent her too.” I yanked every ruby he’d given me off my body and hurled them into the river.

His handsome face twisted in centuries-old loathing. “I will reclaim what that wretch caused me to lose and more. You will come to heel, Meadow Ní Violet, by any means necessary.”

Ossian’s temper turned icy as he regarded the striped tomcat still clutched in his fist. Sawyer had made no move to fight his way free, which probably had everything to do with the Stag Man’s massive hand clamped around his neck.

“It’s a pity you never bonded him,” he mused. “I warned you, back at the farmhouse. He is neither friend nor family, and thus outside the limitations set by our bargain. I wanted our relationship to go as smoothly as possible, for you not to hate me, as one learns better from a teacher when there is no animosity. But now . . . well, you’ve forced my hand, haven’t you?”

“To bond him wasn’t my decision to make.” Sweat broke out along my palms and trickled down my spine despite the cold, making my skin itch. My fingers twitched. The thorny battle magic vines writhed like impatient serpents, waiting for my command to strike.

“All your power,” the Stag Man mused, “and still a fool.”

His fingers crushed down.

Instantly a burst of black light—shadows?—blasted the two of them apart. With a yelp, I threw up a glowing green net and caught my cat, the net funneling him straight into my arms. The Stag Man cratered into the beach, sending up a spray of pale gray pebbles into the air like hail.

He howled, digging himself out of the hole, and shrieked as the black shadows slid up his arm from his palm. Fight as he might, he could not snuff them out, could not shuck them, could not rip them away.

Sawyer shoved out of my arms to stand in front of me, ears pricked forwards and tail held high. His claws dug into the pebbles at his feet. “The decision to bond a witch has always been mine! And I have. So you, Buck Boy, just tried to hurt someone protected by the bargain.”

The Stag Man screeched as the black shadows attacked. The magical repercussions of breaking his word felt no pity, no remorse, just the drive to extract their cost. They encircled his hips like a belt and began to spin.

“My lord!” Alec cried.

Without even looking at the Brothers, I flung up a shield that not even the strongest of them could even crack. By the Green Mother, it felt so good not to pretend anymore.

The shadows whizzed around Ossian’s hips like a furious black tornado for only a second or two, then vanished without even a wispy trace of them upon the wind. What remained had the Stag Man screeching all over again.

The magic of the fae bargain had administered its punishment: accelerating his curse to become a stag all the way up to his bottom ribs.

It had whisked away his illusion too, forcing him to expend his own magic, or that stored in his necklace, to recover it. Flawless bronze skin blended seamlessly with copper stag fur; shiny cloven hooves balanced his muscled frame upon the uneven surface of the pebbled beach. He stood ten feet tall with the tips of his antlers mimicking the skeletal branches of the nearby trees and piercing the deep blue sky. He was just as beautiful and alluring as before, that strong jaw and those full lips and the dusting of freckles over his nose and eyes green as the finest emeralds and bright copper curls thicker and lusher than a field of clover after the rain.

And he was just as ugly, too.

Red-faced and shaking with rage, the Stag Man bellowed his hatred at us.

“This guy really can’t take a set-back, can he?” I mused.

Sawyer snorted.

Okay, it was so, soooo good not to pretend anymore.

“You think you’ve won anything?” Ossian spat, sobering us immediately. “My magic enthralling Redbud still stands. Our bargain still stands. And I still have the knife over your throat. Or rather, his.”

The Stag Man vanished. Between one blink and the next, he was simply gone.

With a shout, Alec gave the Brothers the command to retreat.

“Oh no,” Sawyer whispered, lifting horrified eyes. “Arthur.”

Every thought flew from my head except one.

Sawyer yowled in surprise as I snatched him into my arms, snuffed out my battle magic, and activated the Rabbit Step Spell.