Page 52 of A Beastly Court

“You like this, don’t you?”

A pitiful whimper escaped me as I began to squirm, rocking my hips, impatient for those thumbs to climb even higher. The golden haze permeated everything, reaching for every part of me.

It met resistance in two places—that hollow piece of my heart that had yet to heal, and the oak tree of my magic core. The cat silhouette upon its trunk flared warningly, and the chain mail net locking away the canopy of the tree shivered and brightened, repelling the haze like mist before a wind. Why was a curse reacting that way?

“You smell incredible,” Ossian whispered, stroking harder but no closer to where I was most desperate to feel his touch.

Thistle thorns, I couldn’t stand it anymore. My ardor was waning, and not just because of the conflict warring inside me. My eyes snapped open, and I was a heartbeat away from sitting up and demanding he quit playing around, when I noticed something strange. While he stood against the table between my legs, his hands moving under my dress, his attention—his full attention—was focused on something behind me.

The bear.

Ossian’s mouth was curled into an ugly sneer, a condescending glint in his hard eyes as he taunted the bear with his hands on my body.

“Meadow,” he hummed.

It was alarming to hear his voice convey one emotion while his body language towards the bear screamed something else. He projected lust and ardor down at me but only imperious triumph at the bear. He was… gloating. He was turning my body into putty and using my arousal to infuriate the grizzly.

“Spread your legs for me wider, love. Let me—”

“What are you doing?” I shouted.

Ossian’s hands froze as his gaze snapped down at me, and I saw pure hatred there. Only for a second, quickly replaced by dread. The golden haze of our bond slammed into me, forcing me to submit, to forget, but I was having none of it. That hollow part in my heart ached, and I realized with a start that his declaration of love and marriage hadn’t healed it like it should have. He wasn’t what I was missing.

I kicked him in the chest, shoving him away as I scrambled back across the table, practically hurling myself off the other side. I straightened my dress with a yank and adjusted the shoulder strap of my foraging bag like I was putting on armor.

“Meadow, love, it’s not what you think,” the fae king began, raising his hands in a supplicating gesture.

“Shut up!” I screeched. “Just what was that?” I chanced a glance at the corner of the great hall where the grizzly raged silently behind the copper shield, then back at the fae who’d been tormenting him. “Is that how you get off, Ossian? By… by making love to your fiancée in front of your enemy? That’s sick.”

“Meadow,” he said sharply, the big blue gemstone at his throat glowing brightly.

“Piss off, Ossian,” I spat, and I marched myself right out of the great hall. As soon as I was clear of the double doors, I broke out into a sprint. I didn’t stop running until I was at the end of the east wing hallway and in my bedroom with the door closed and locked behind me. Then I staggered to the bathroom, sloughing off my foraging bag and bracing my hands on either side of the toilet seat. “Thistle thorns, I think I’m gonna puke.”

“Join the club,” Sawyer’s queasy voice rose from the foraging bag, his head wiggling free a moment later. “I’ve already done that. Twice.”

“That… that was you stopping me back there, wasn’t it?”

His ears flattened as his shoulders squared. “It looked like something you’d regret.”

My stomach churned, and I rushed out, “Thank you for having my back,” before I retched into the toilet.

“Always,” the little cat said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Since I wasn’t going to leave my bedroom anytime soon, and Sawyer would start to lose his hair if I kept petting him, I turned to my foraging bag and dragged it out from under the bed covers and onto my lap, displacing the cat. “There’s gotta be something in here that can help me.”

A potion, a spell, some little green or hearth witchery thing I could use instead of relying on the life energy of plants now that the ember was gone. Out came the notebook, the empty jar of masking sand, half a vial of Seeking Spell, a selenite crystal ringed in tiger’s-eye, half a dozen other odds and ends, plus the jug of cold milk and two apples from yesterday.

“I’m not going to starve!” Sawyer pounced on the jug of milk with a jubilant trill.

“We’re going to ration that,” I told him, offering him an apple instead. He flattened his ears. “Suit yourself.”

The apple peel snapped under my teeth, flooding my mouth with sweet juice. As I crunched down, I rearranged the plethora of knickknacks across the duvet where I could see them all.

There were a lot of spell ingredients here, little vials and sachets stuffed with whatever I’d foraged, but without a working hearth and at least a pot, if not a cauldron, I couldn’t create any potions. So it had to be something I already had on hand. Well, good luck with that, Meadow. Let’s see if you can release the curse on your magic with a crocheted pillow and some bleached-out parasite jewelry—

I paused in my chewing when I caught sight of the black tourmaline crystal. It looked… dull. Or at least, duller. Lifting it to eye level, I carefully slid my perceptions into its inky depths.