Page 16 of A Beastly Court

My dashed excitement was a dropped clay bowl of fresh-picked blackberries—shattered and ruined and staining everything dark. I wrested free of him, my heart beating wildly at this betrayal.

“But you promised,” I began.

“I did no such thing,” he said, looking down at me coolly from his greater height. “I allowed you to pursue a theory. And you’ve proven you can extract vital energy from plants in your weakened state, removing more of the curse than you can do on your own. Thus, you can remain inside the safety of the castle and I’ll bring you all the potted plants you want.”

“But, Ossian, I’m a green witch. I need—”

“Except you’re not just any green witch, Meadow, and you know it. Wystan is hunting people like you, draining them of their magic. And if he can’t get yours, he’ll use you to get to me.” He took a step closer, brushing the back of his fingers down my cheek. It felt more patronizing than enflaming. “We are so close, love. My work prevents me from keeping a constant eye on you, Alec and the Brotherhood are gone, and I don’t trust any one of those beasts in my court to protect you properly. You’re staying put.”

Trembling with anger, I fought to keep my voice level. “I thought this was a partnership, Ossian. Not employment or servitude. My wants and needs matter. I’m going insane in here!”

The fae king’s expression hardened as he pinched my cheeks in his hand. Not hard, but firmly enough to prove we both knew who was the stronger in this relationship. “I wasn’t the one who insisted on a deadline on opening the portal, Meadow. My refusal is not the byproduct of misogynistic possession. It is quite literally keeping you alive.”

“Something I might not remain if I don’t unlock the rest of this curse in time!” I shoved his hand away, the pressure of his pinch not dissipating fast enough. “And become one with my magic! Can’t you see this is something to take advantage of?”

“I do,” he said flatly, his patience gone. “And we will. With potted plants.”

“You’re not listening—”

“You’re not listening to me!” Ossian thundered, his golden aura vanishing. He seemed impossibly tall then, gaining another foot or two in height, a halo like branching antlers crowning his head. His jewel-green eyes sparked with power.

“A-antlers?” I sputtered, every alarm bell sounding in my head. I shrank back as Grandmother’s favorite warning surfaced from a suppressed part of my mind:

Beware the Stag Man who hunts in the forest deep.

His arrows never miss a maiden’s heart to keep.

I felt a pain then in my heart, like something tugging on my heartstrings, a parasite feeding off that which did not belong to it. Distantly, in the great hall, the grizzly bear roared.

Oh my Green Mother, that wasn’t the high fae I’d come to know as my lover. That was my enemy.

I couldn’t call upon my feeble magic fast enough before the Stag Man seized my wrist, wrenching me close. “You’re as troublesome as Violet ever was,” he snarled down at me.

Then, before I could scream, or suck in a breath to curse him, the fae blew white Caer powder into my eyes and I knew nothing more.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Scritch, scritch, scritch.

I forced open encrusted eyes and glared murderously at the bedroom ceiling. From the gray gloom shrouding everything in shadow from the wardrobe to the settee, it was nearing dawn. Thistle thorns, I was exhausted. And starving. Had I not eaten anything last night? It wasn’t like a Hawthorne to miss a meal.

Scritch… Scritch…

“I thought I told you to go away!” I shouted at the creature chewing and scratching around in my walls.

The bolt of green magic I sent up at the cathedral ceiling blew a grapefruit-sized hole in the plaster. Yelping, for it was no longer crumbs falling onto the bed but actual chunks, I threw the duvet over my head. The goose-down stuffing dampened the impact of the plaster hail, but it did nothing to deafen me again the shrill screech that reverberated through my bedroom.

In a panic, I tore off the duvet to discover a barn owl rising from a perching stand on the fireplace mantel. Ossian’s owl! The ethereal hunter flapped tawny wings, soaring towards the holes I’d peppered into the ceiling. It swung two sets of dark talons up at the fresh wound in the plaster, right at the two judgmental yellow eyes that were staring down at me.

I yelped again, summoning another bolt even as the barn owl attacked, ripping into the plaster and screeching again. How well fed were these mice? It was the size of a cat!

But the creature was too fast for me or the owl. It receded into the network of tunnels it had no doubt created in the walls, and try as I might, I couldn’t hear it nibbling or clawing about. The barn owl gave a frustrated hiss before circling back to its stand on the fireplace and perching. It directed two glowing blue eyes at me, so startling a color that I yelped for a third time.

Ignoring me, the owl settled its wings and closed its eyes to slits. In the predawn darkness, they resembled two blue crescent moons. After taking a deep breath, I snuffed out my magic and took a minute to truly absorb the implication of that grapefruit-sized hole above me.

I’d unlocked more of my magical core yesterday than ever before, aside from the Hawthorne hearth ember, thanks to the donation of the green life energy from the rambler roses. I’d run to tell Ossian, to show him with the cloch na wight, and then…

I couldn’t remember what happened after that. Had we celebrated? Thistle thorns, had I gotten drunk and passed out? He was always warning me about fairy wine, and my head was certainly throbbing. No doubt he’d carried me all the way back here, along with that owl, and put me to bed… in yesterday’s clothes. Though, the white fur coat could be seen hanging in my wardrobe.