Page 47 of A Beastly Court

Abandoning my physical struggle, I did the only thing I could do. I fled to the oak tree, wrapping my arms around the trunk and the fading cat silhouette left by Sawyer’s spell. As the consuming fog reached this inner sanctum, my focus, the entirety of my being, concentrated on only one thing.

Remember.

The Stag Man’s voice sounded like it was underwater. Water that was being churned up by a ferocious tempest. “What have you been doing in here?”

My eyelids fluttered, revealing blurry snatches of a familiar cathedral ceiling and burgundy drapes.

Sawyer, came a faraway thought. A plea. Stay away.

“Where is that owl?” Ossian growled. With my ear pressed against his chest, it sounded more like the roar of a crashing wave.

I fought for consciousness, but that meant leaving the oak tree and taking my chances with the heavy white fog. Some force kept it swirling, roiling, plucking at me as I clung to the tree. If I let go, I would be lost. My palms dug into the coarse bark, gripping tighter. That fog was so cold, like the touch of sluagh, but the fading silhouette of the cat remained warm against my chest. My heart.

My physical vision blurred again—I’d been tossed onto the bed. The two posts at the end of the bed framed the fae king as he paced the room, sniffing and overturning furniture. Then he wrenched his gaze to the ceiling with all its holes.

“Mortals. So crass,” he spat in my direction. With a flick of his copper-laced fingers, he repaired all the holes in the ceiling. Then he turned back to me.

I couldn’t move. Couldn’t whimper. Couldn’t do anything more than drool into my duvet. The fog kept me helpless, but my magic allowed me to witness.

Dimly, I became aware of him snatching my hair and wrenching my head off the bed. There was a good deal of jostling, then something cool pressed against my throat. And my neck.

A collar?

“Perhaps now you’ll be a good little pet,” the Stag Man sneered.

There was a crack, a faint bloom of heat across my jaw, and I was staring at something other than the foot of the bed. The ceiling again.

Then came a spark of copper light and his voice, so luscious and warm like the perfect cup of hot chocolate. Perfectly controlled, perfectly sensuous, perfectly… perfect. I clung harder to the tree as the golden haze joined the white fog of the Caer powder to drag me away. They coiled around my legs and waist, and my hands were slipping.

“You will fear the grizzly,” he told me, his words pulling at me like a tide. “You will forget everything but the memories I leave you. You will love me above all others. You will remember nothing about what happened in the atrium…”

“Meadow. Meadow!”

Such a young voice.

Pricks like those of a pin irritated my skin. Claws?

“Don’t swing at me. What is that?”

Something cold and wet nudged around in my fingers, coaxing them to open, and another thing cool and smooth and spherical slipped from my fingers.

“Oh no. What did he—”

Whiskers tickled my nose, but it was the speaker who sneezed.

“Caer powder? Oh Meadow, hold on!”

Only my fingernails clung to the oak tree now, the white fog and the golden haze threatening to swallow me in the next few seconds. Thistle thorns, I was so cold, my mind utterly numb.

More of those pinpricks and now two paws pressed against my cheek.

“Animus ligare totum!”

The faint cat silhouette emblazoned on the trunk exploded with amber light, and I knew nothing more.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“Be careful!” a familiar voice panicked. “Don’t stab her in the eye.”