Page 36

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Crashing in the forest behind us overcame the rush of the water and the drumming of my heart. Battle magic resurfaced as I snapped my gaze over my shoulder.

The forest had changed.

Dozens of trees had grown, perhaps hundreds, and they weren’t saplings, either. Walnut, cedar, maple, sycamore, scrub pine, beech, and elm, they all packed together shoulder to shoulder like Roman infantry. Autumn olive trees and wild rambler roses knitted between them all in a maddening lattice.

Buying me time.

I wrenched my attention back to the soaked cat, his paws pressing on my bare thighs squeezing the water out from between his toes to trickle in runnels down the slopes of my knees.

“Oh.” It was more exhale than sound, and with a twirl of my fingers, the cold water left his fur in one sinuous tendril that funneled back into the river.

“Meadow,” the tomcat wailed, leaping into my arms. Sawyer thrust his head up hard under my chin, rubbing against me with all his strength. His paws, still so ridiculously large, kneaded against my shoulder. Then his purrs began, robust enough to set my teeth vibrating.

I crushed him against me, just once, just long enough for my heart to break, before I pulled him away.

“No!” His claws stabbed through my woolen dress and into my skin like thorns. They left stinging red wounds as I pried him off and set him firmly on the pebbled shore.

“You need to go.” As the words left me, my body was suddenly robbed of warmth. The abrupt cold set me shivering, trembling uncontrollably. I swallowed thickly, my throat threatening to glue shut as if I’d just gulped down a large spoonful of peanut butter.

With one hand braced against his chest, preventing him from jumping back into my lap, I smoothed the other one over his head. “Don’t you understand? He knows you’re mine. He already has Arthur. He can’t have you too.”

He shoved against my hand. “But we’re in this together!”

“I can survive this, but you can’t, little cat, not unless you run.” One hand left his striped fur to slice through the air. Another channel appeared in the river, connecting our pebbled beach to the rocky bank on the opposite side.

Sunlight glittered along the bits of quartz stuck in the silt, beckoning. In the trees on the opposite shore, a chickadee twittered. Hurry its dee-dee-dee seemed to say. They’re coming!

“Get away from here,” I urged, giving him a little shove towards the channel. His massive paws and even larger claws dug into the pebbled bank. “Leave Redbud. Go to Grimalkin, beg Fanga Longclaw to keep you safe until this is all over.”

Behind us, the cracking of trees as they were blown apart by copper-colored blasts grew frighteningly louder. The potent scent of tree sap and pine resin permeated the air, and the nearby birds fled with startled chirps .

“But you need me!” Sawyer’s large amber eyes turned glassy with tears. “We can figure this out. We can trick him again.”

His tears speared my heart until I couldn’t hold mine back any longer. “I’ll break if he hurts you. I’ve already lost some of myself to him, and you’re too good . He’ll take that from you, Sawyer, and I can’t let that happen. I won’t let him ruin you like he has—”

I couldn’t finish. It hurt too much to admit aloud that the Stag Man had changed me. I had more anger, more hatred, in my heart than I had ever known, and it was poisoning me. The daily lies I’d been forced to maintain had bored into me like carpenter bees into wood and now I was riddled with holes. Where was my honor and integrity and kindness? I don’t know when I’d set those aside for survival, manipulation, and revenge.

If the Stag Man twisted the last truly good thing in my life, he would take away my hope. The one virtue that promised me a pathway to redemption when this was all over.

“Oh, Sawyer,” I begged, stroking him one last time. By the Green Mother, his fur was so soft, so stretchy since he still had more to grow into. More life to live. His white whiskers, that ruddy pink nose, the way his top canines always seemed to peek out below his lips, amber eyes as beautiful and warm as fine cognac. “Please go.”

“But I love you.”

I choked on a sob, weakening, and the tomcat pounced.

With his paws pressed over my heart, his faithful gaze capturing mine, he said solemnly, “ Animus ligare totum .”

My fears and worries and heartbreak melted away. Joy, and a presence I’d sensed before, flooded into me. A glowing cat seemingly made of amber stars appeared in my mind’s eye and leapt this way and that, leaving a shimmering trail in his wake. Sawyer’s spirit pranced and frolicked his way to the magic oak tree. The wide-reaching canopy of leaves shivered in anticipation. Danced .

The tree’s golden-green light brightened, swelling to the crescendo of unheard music. The glowing cat had reached its base and now craned his whiskered head back before placing a paw firmly against the trunk. The tree rippled with delight.

With a large grin, the cat leapt, ran up the trunk in a streak of amber, and disappeared into the knotty hole that led to its heart.

I gasped, feeling Sawyer’s spirit bind with mine. He was imprinted in my heart, the same heart I shared with my magic oak tree. He diffused into me, and me into him, thousands of little threads joining the few that already connected us and knitting ourselves even tighter together. I felt his own joy, his optimism, his fortitude. He felt my tenacity, my steadfastness, my unbreakable will to be the shield between Ossian and any he would hurt.

I felt his magic too, wild in the way all animals were, and surprisingly potent. No wonder Brandi had wanted to bind him. He was one of a kind.

The sensation of a soul-soothing hug enveloped me, enveloped us.

“You’re mine now too, Meadow,” Sawyer purred into my mind, before the last of the guarding trees were torn asunder.

“Don’t know him, do you?” Ossian sneered, storming onto the beach.

A copper rope coiled around Sawyer’s chest and yanked him from my embrace just as another rope tightened around my throat. It yanked me upright by my neck before my own magic dispelled it with a formidable burst of dark green light.

Battle magic.

The runes on the iron cuffs smoldered.

“Let him go,” I snapped.

The copper rope had placed Sawyer’s scruff in Ossian’s grip again, but this time, the cat didn’t struggle. He held his paws tucked against his belly, tail wedged between his hocks, and his eyes were wide and unblinking.

“I’m okay. I got this.”

I was still reeling from the first time he’d spoken into my mind. And how did being immobilized by our enemy merit “I got this” in any way, shape, or form? Shaking off my confusion, I faced off against the Stag Man.

He was staring at me as if he’d seen a ghost, his gaze flitting from my long unbound hair to my dark eyes and darker fingernails, to the mud that stained my bare feet and legs and the rents in my dress. To the dark green magic that coiled around not just my arms, but my entire body.

“Let. Him. Go .” The power of my voice blew the copper curls out of his eyes to tangle in his glamoured antlers, but the Stag Man dug in his feet and stood his ground. Behind him, the trees quaked.

“How long have you been awake, Meadow?” He gave Sawyer a vicious shake when I didn’t immediately answer. “How long ?”

“Long enough. Now release him!”

“Convince me.” His eyes trailed down my lips to my breasts to my full hips and back again with a lascivious sweep of his gaze. I recoiled, fighting down the desire to pluck those beautiful jewel-green eyes from his head and throw them into the river for the fish to swallow.

“No? But you’re such a good actress, Meadow Hawthorne,” he sneered. “I suspected once or twice since you summoned the portal, but only just. All those spies I sent to your room—they never returned. Not unusual, they’re just mice, but rats are much smarter than mice, but even they did not scurry back to tell me your secrets. And the owl.” He shook his head. “That could be explained away too, but when I found this ”—he jerked Sawyer again—“lurking where he didn’t belong and setting off all kinds of alarms, I knew he couldn’t be operating on his own. But, just to be sure . . ..”

Another leering grin had me filling in the blank at double-time. I’d let him kiss me and touch me as he’d desired to maintain the ruse that I was still under his thrall. This morning he’d been particularly amorous, and I hadn’t protested once. While I hadn’t encouraged him, I hadn’t shoved him away either.

“Does your precious, honorable bear shifter know what a whore you are?”

The battle magic vines twisting around my body suddenly reared, thorns growing to the size of stakes. They’d impale him like crossbow bolts stingers with just a thought.

“Easy, love.” Ossian hefted Sawyer in front of him, dangling the cat from side to side.

“I’m not your love . I doubt you’re even capable of the emotion.”

“Perhaps once. But you still are.” Once again, he dangled my tomcat in front of me like an angler’s lure. The threat was simple—move against him, and he’d make sure it was Sawyer who got hurt instead. “Now, what have you been up to?”

With a spiteful smile, because I knew it would piss him off, I answered, “Why, charging the filigree key, of course.”

“ Tell me ,” he thundered, “or I’ll break his neck!”

“Stop it! You’re getting everything you want, Ossian. I’m charging the key to open the portal, just like in our bargain. You didn’t need to tamper with my memories or imprison Arthur or turn everyone into a beast.”

“Oh, but I did. You are Violet’s daughter, and her unruly, self-righteous streak lives within you. She needed to be curbed, tamed of her wild ways so her magic could be used properly.”

“One male ’s opinion,” I sneered.

“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.

“Here!” the little cat cried.

A considerable boost of magic flooded into the working of my spell from my familiar. My feet flew over the forested hills, then the street, the fields, through town, over the bridge, and finally into the great hall.

The double doors had already been thrown wide, and Ossian stood with Faebane unsheathed and poised just above the trough of flesh between the grizzly bear’s shoulder blades. The Stag Man’s chest heaved; sweat dappled his brow. He gave me a wild look of disbelief that I had caught up so quickly to him .

Not quickly enough.

Eight Brothers restrained the bear with their magic, flattening him against the ground even as he fought to rise. The bear growled, clawing at the floor beneath him and sending sparks skipping across the stones. There was no sign of Auggie, no smear of shell upon the floor or oozing out of the Stag Man’s grip.

“Not another step,” Ossian bellowed. “Or his beating heart will saw itself apart upon my blade!”

“Stop, Ossian,” I pleaded. “Why are you doing this? You already have the tree and you’re getting the key, the portal—”

“Because I want everything !” He swept his hand towards his stag legs. “Because I have been tortured long enough and I will have satisfaction. And you, Violet’s Daughter, will give it to me.”

With a guttural cry, he rammed the tip of his rapier into the Bear Prince.

“ Arthur! ”

The grizzly roared, flinging his head back and heaving upright. The Brothers tightened their bindings, the ivy-like vines blazing bluish-green from the tension. Ossian abandoned the blade, leaving it quivering in the bear’s flesh, and marched over to us.

I dropped the tomcat. Sawyer took up his spot between my ankles, back arched, fur fluffed, and spitting. Magic pricked at my fingertips, ready to bloom into whatever it needed to be to knock my enemy on his ass.

“That blade will sink in another inch, followed by another, and another every time you displease me, Meadow,” the Stag Man warned, “and I won’t need to be present to do it.”

Copper magic wreathed Faebane’s hilt like a smoke ring, waiting to seize the handle and plunge down.

Ossian snatched my cheeks in a vise-like pinch. “He will be guarded day and night and so will you. You will not go near him. And you will obey me, understand?”

I kept my ivy-green eyes locked on his so he would understand exactly what I would do to him if that rapier harmed another cell in my lumbersnack’s body.

“You will finish charging the key, we will be wed, and your magic signature will hide mine from Callan’s spell,” he hissed. His fingernails dug into my skin as a sneer ruined the set of his lovely mouth. “And, as you have insisted, I will not be gentle.”