Chapter 28

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

I pretended he was Arthur. My lumberjack. My bear. This high fae lord needed to know how serious I was about this bargain, and this was the only way I knew how to convey it. My fingers knitted into his copper curls, fingernails sliding against his scalp until they found where his antlers protruded. Gripping the thick antlers at their base, I used them to haul myself closer, to kiss him deeper.

Ossian grunted in surprise, then his arms banded around my waist and lifted. His chest crushed against my breasts as his tongue plunged into my mouth, delving deep. His lips were the same chiseled softness I'd come to know from Arthur, but the lumberjack's kisses, while devouring, weren't savage. Ossian was rough, demanding, greedy. My lips bruised under his attention, but only a fraction of me protested. I faintly remembered something Sawyer had said about auras, but the all-consuming nature of the fae lord I was kissing was hard to resist.

Arthur , that little voice inside me whispered, the chain thrumming. Remember Arthur. Remember Marten.

With a gasp, I broke the kiss, forcing Ossian away from me by jerking on his antlers. His green eyes fluttered open, their jewel-like depths enflamed with lust and power and possession.

"I accept," he breathed.

With his words, it wasn't a puff of wind I felt against my face signaling my bargain with an invisible mark. It was a shock wave.

When it passed, I was boneless in Ossian's arms. Literally. My lips were tingling liked I'd gotten a little too frisky with the hot sauce on my tacos, but that was all the sensation I could feel.

The golden aura was gone.

"How do you feel, love?" he asked, lowering me to the ground. His voice was just as luscious as before, but it held no warmth in it.

Were my feet touching the frozen earth? I couldn't tell. "I-I—" I gave him a wild look, realizing how fatigued my body was without the same strain affecting my mind. "What did you do to me?"

"I took nothing you didn't offer," he replied lightly, releasing me. "And you were very convincing, love. I think I'm actually jealous of the bear."

My legs buckled immediately. I managed to catch myself on my hands so I didn't face-plant, but my arms began to tremble with the exertion.

"Meadow!" Sawyer gave Ossian a wide berth and bolted over to me, pressing against my left forearm hard. I felt a trickle of magic like a bloom of heat where we made contact, and the tremors in my left arm vanished.

"None of that," the Stag Man said sharply, scruffing the tomcat and yanking him into the air. Sawyer snarled, slashing.

Unfazed, Ossian stalked forward on legs that were no longer reverse-jointed. They were human legs, thickly muscled and strong as tree trunks, and his antlers had disappeared too. Glamoured? Or wholly changed? He was even shorter than before, no longer a towering seven feet but a modest six or six-two, and all trace of pointiness to his ears had vanished. Despite these changes and how human he looked as a result, my grandmother still trembled at his approach.

"Leave them alone," I shouted, but my voice came out only a breathy protest. Fearful, I examined my magical core and found the oak tree dormant, its leaves and trunk and roots no longer radiating light. Drained.

The Stag Man had stolen my magic.

"We had a deal," I yelled at him. "Arthur—"

"Is not dead yet," came his calm reply. "I am well aware of our bargain, Meadow. I accepted it, after all. He will not die from my neglect. But first things first."

It chilled me to hear my mantra on his lips.

The Crafting Circle ladies fled before him, circling wide, but Iris Hawthorne faced the Stag Man with her head held high. Around her feet, the rest of our family laid exposed, vulnerable, and she would die protecting them.

Ossian held out his hand. "I require what's in your pocket, Daughter of Violet."

"Don't you dare take one step closer, Stag Man," she barked, the spell of silence he'd cast obviously having worn off.

We all knew it was a threat with no teeth behind it.

"Despite stunting your granddaughter's growth," Ossian said, "you raised her well. You and the other witches are not to be harmed. But there are other ways to get what I want, witch, and you know it. Now, give me what's in your pocket."

Glaring the entire time, she slowly removed the moonstone collar she'd fashioned for Sawyer from her trouser pocket.

"No," Sawyer screeched, thrashing. "No!"

"Ossian," I roared. "He is family! He's not to be harmed."

"Without a familiar bond, he is just a tamed beast," Ossian declared matter-of-factly. "A basic farm cat, which the magic does not recognize as family or friend. I am within my rights to break his neck, should I wish it. If he truly was so dear to you, you should have bonded him."

He gave me a cool look. "Your connections to this place, these people, are strong. Strong enough to interfere if I do not take action. Our arrangement works better if you do not hate me, so you should be thanking me for this mercy, Meadow. That I let him live."

"Ossian, please don't do this," I pleaded.

"To do otherwise would be counterproductive to my purpose," was his reply, then he shoved the collar over Sawyer's head.

The tabby cat stilled instantly, the spark that made Sawyer that lovable, loyal, brave, sometimes clumsy goofball of a kitten snuffing out like a candle flame.

" Sawyer! " I screamed. I wanted to launch myself at this fae lord, pluck out his eyes with ivy-green briars, but my magic wouldn't come.

Ossian tossed the tomcat aside, the not-Sawyer catching himself on all fours and slinking away with a hiss.

"You got your collar," Grandmother said defiantly. "Now leave me and my family alone!"

"Soon," he promised, lunging forward and seizing my grandmother by her shoulders. She squeaked, but the golden aura radiating from him broke through her protest. It was lust and allure and power all rolled up into one knee-knocking blast of pheromones and fae magic, and she melted against him just as I had. Meeting no resistance, he planted his mouth on hers in another magic-devouring kiss.

"Quick, while the Casanova-serial-smoocher-psycho is distracted," Flora hissed suddenly, stealing up from my left side. "Let's give you a boost so you can kick his butt all the way back to Elfame, shall we, cider witch?"

She put her hands on me, but the trickle of magic was thin. No doubt she'd spent much of her power on defending the Crafting Circle ladies when they'd been abducted by the magic hunter and that rotten Wystan. Slowly, the dormant oak within me mustered a weak golden-green light. Thank the Green Mother it's not dead!

Soon, it was no longer so fatiguing to keep myself propped upright. And with Flora's assistance, my own magic seemed to rouse, eager to recover. A kindling glow spread from the heart of the tree down into the roots and up in the leaves that started to quiver in that unseen breeze.

The garden gnome slumped. "That's all I got, cider witch," she panted.

"Here," Shari whispered then, appearing with her hands and the sleeves of her oversized sweater stained blue. Bits of black bark clung to her boots and knees where she'd obviously rooted around in the mallaithe's remains for the very wand she now held in her hands.

"Jackpot!" Flora exclaimed softly, seizing her wand and wiping the gunk off it. "Now you and I stand a better chance against him, cider witch."

"I can barely even stand," I grunted, trying to do just that. The great oak tree of my magic flared, spurring me upward with what little healing magic it had amassed. By the Green Mother, I shouldn't have revived so fast even with Flora's help.

Movement caught my eye, but the Stag Man was still locked against my grandmother. "Daphne," I exclaimed softly as the older woman, doubled over with one arm hugging her chest, hurried over.

"Got him," she told me, unfolding her arm. "Druid blood for the win!"

The not-Sawyer squirmed in her arms, trying to free himself of her smothering. He wasn't feral, but he definitely wasn't friendly.

"He was over by Arthur," she informed, fighting to keep hold of him when I didn't take him. I couldn't bear to touch him and have my beloved cat claw me to ribbons because he didn't recognize me. "Meadow, that man's in a bad way."

"I know," I growled. "Stay out of the way," I warned them, channeling every ounce of strength and magic I'd regained into my legs to march for Ossian.

The Stag Man either sensed my approach or was finished molesting my grandmother, and he broke the kiss just in time to catch my fist swinging for his head. Moaning, half from pleasure and half from exhaustion, Grandmother slumped to the ground with the rest of our sluagh-chilled family.

"Don't be jealous, love," Ossian said with a beguiling half-grin. "I was just using her for a boost. Didn't want to waste your magic on something paltry."

With that, he snapped his fingers, and the world disappeared with a flash of copper light.