Chapter 23

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

"Gods, hold her still, Alec!" Ossian roared.

Pinned on my back against the stone floor, I thrashed and raged and struck with everything in me. My screams were echoed by the roars of the grizzly bear locked away in the great hall, and by the way the castle was shuddering, dust and crumbs of mortar sprinkling to the floor, he was using every ounce of his strength to break free of his chain.

I'd gotten in a few good hits, but with a cursed core and the exhaustion of the day, I'd been taken down in a matter of seconds. Alec, blood pouring from a cut across his eye, fought to capture my right arm, my left already grating into the stone floor under Ossian's bare foot. He'd been unable to do anything else while my magic raged, not even with half those gemstones on his necklace blazing away. Thorny tendrils of green magic simultaneously repelled the fae king's coppery blasts and battled Alec's own bluish-green vines like the tentacles of dueling octopi. It was no way an even match, but I had to try. To get free.

An inevitable shot cracked me across the face, slamming the back of my head against the stone floor, and I lay momentarily stunned senseless. There was a mad scrambling then, both from Ossian grabbing at a pouch on his belt and Alec binding my legs with his vines. With stars still twinkling across my vision, I didn't have the control to summon my magic again, but I could still shove my hand into my foraging bag for my witchy bits and bobs.

Oh my Green Mother, please let it work this time.

The black tourmaline crystal detonated when I slammed it into Alec's foot.

White-blue light exploded, releasing a shock wave that shot the man across the atrium and into the opposite wall. I caught the briefest glimpse of Alec plastered against the gray stone like a crow who'd flown into a window before I turned the crystal on the male who was supposed to be my mate.

The fae king seized my wrist and slammed my hand against the stone floor, trying to bludgeon my fingers into releasing their weapon. They never did.

"Just like your father," Ossian snarled, giving up and swiveling his body so he now crouched over me, pinned me under knee and foot. "He wouldn't give up his knives either."

He barked a laugh when I twisted against his hold, threatening to rip my own shoulder out of joint. Thistle thorns, his foot was as sturdy and immovable as a draft horse's hoof. The necklace around his throat blazed with power, the aura emanating from his skin visibly trembling. His control, his magic, was faltering, and something like the spectral outline of antlers appeared from his forehead.

The Stag Man leaned down to sneer right into my face, "It's no use fighting, Meadow. No witch, Violet's daughter or not, can ever fell me."

Wanna bet?

My purgatory in the rose courtyard had taught me to be flexible with what I considered "grounding" to be. As the snarling fae king tore at the big pouch on his belt, I curled my free hand around his ankle.

It's just like a sapling , I convinced myself, ignoring the horror of what I was about to do. I wasn't even sure if it was possible, but Hawthornes had control over both aspects of Nature: Life, and Death.

Ceasing my struggle against him, I drew in a calm, grounding breath, and tapped the magic infused in the fae king's—the Stag Man's—flesh. It wasn't the green life energy of plants, but something just as wild. And since there was no divide, no barrier, between him and his magic like there was in a witch, there was nothing to stop me. It resisted my pull, but I'd tenaciously honed this technique over hours and hours in the rose courtyard, and I would not be denied.

My life was at stake.

I couldn't take his magic into me—my whole body resisted that as much as it resisted Ossian's channeling through our fated mate bond—but I didn't need it, not necessarily. I just couldn't let him have it. So I let it bleed away like the air from a balloon.

Ossian yanked his fist out of his pouch, white Caer powder streaming from the gaps in his fingers. By the Green Mother! That amount would be enough to dampen and even rewrite someone's base personality if enough magic and intent were put behind it.

I pulled harder, desperate to weaken him.

The fae king's jewel-bright eyes snapped wide. His gaze dropped down to where my fingers were wrapped around his ankle, then he kicked me away with a cry. Fully corporeal antlers sprouted from his head then, arcing wide like an elk's. His face twisted in a fury I had never known, the bronze of his skin darkening to purple with his rage, and he screamed down at me an unintelligible curse.

His fist came crashing down against my face next. White, flour-fine powder flooded my mouth, my nose, even my eyes.

I thrashed, choking and desperate for air. His fingers clamped over my cheeks and chin with an immovable iron grip, smothering me. The Caer powder was in my lungs, coating my tongue, trickling into my brain. It rolled through me like a fog, shrouding everything in white. In oblivion.

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.