Page 59 of A Lady’s Guide to Fae Kings

“Piss on that,” someone grunted behind her. A Redcap goblin. He was sturdy and strong, his hat stained with blood. Human blood mostly, witch blood preferably. His teeth were disconcerting. He spat on the ground. “Not worth the Hunt.” He grinned at her. “Though you do look like a morsel, and my cap is fair faded.” He stepped closer.

An owl dove down, talons aimed for the Redcap’s eyeballs. The goblin hollered, stumbling back. The owl did not relent, diving again and again, chasing him screaming into the woods. Another owl joined him, and another.

Pippa tried to scramble away from the circle, but a hand reached through from the other side, clamping around her wrist. It was a vicious, bruising grip. It dragged her closer and closer, farther and farther into the forbidden circle.

She was not trying to escape Elphame or the Tithe. She was being pulled.

The gate did not know that. And the Wild Hunt would not believe her.

She grabbed at a sapling, the scraggly, thorny stem of wild rose studded with watching eyes. She could not gain purchase. She tried to hook her ankles around a tree, a rock. Anything at all.

The clouds boiled overhead, turning plum and silver and black.

They ate the sun.

The chorus of hooves and howling hounds silenced the birds, the crickets, even the squirrels chittering at her, and they feared nothing.

The fingers bit deeper into her flesh, clamping over her bracelet. She could not even slip it off to burn her way free. Her heels left grooves in the dirt. Her sweaty palm slipped off a boulder, blood smearing. “It’s not me,” she yelled at the clouds as they started to form the shapes of glowing, white, red-eared hounds. “I’m not doing this!”

She was dragged forward another inch, and another. Her entire arm was inside the ring now, her head hovering over the mushroom circle. Magic nipped at her. Fear bit.

A shadow fell over her.

Cold wrapped around her arm, snaking to the hand that tried to pull her through. The fingers spasmed, ice crackling over the knuckles.

Lachlan crouched, curling his arm around her waist, keeping her tethered. Anchored. His eyes flashed silver.

The hand gripping her wrist went white with cold prickling with frost before turning to ice. Dispassionately, Lachlan made a flicking motion toward it.

The icy hand shattered.

A scream echoed faintly.

Lachlan pulled Pippa free of the fairy ring. The boiling clouds dissipated but the mists lingered, curious and watchful. Unnerving. Lachlan’s arm was still wrapped tightly around her. His expression was cold but his eyes burned.

Pippa groaned, dropping her head back. “I’m never making a wish ever again.”

Lachlan Thorn, feared professor and Fae king, was fussing.

Over her.

His scowl could have terrified an army of rampaging ogres, but his touch was excruciatingly gentle as he examined her wrist. The bruises were already rising to the surface, ornamented with bleeding scratches for that very stylish look, so popular in royal ballrooms and Fae courts. Her wrist ached but it wasn’t broken. She didn’t think it was even sprained. When she mentioned it, Lachlan only scowled harder. His fingertips were cool and soothing on her burning skin. She tried not to lean into his touch.

He had cut a man’s hand off for her.

She probably ought to be horrified. But since that blighter had tried to sabotage her at best and kill her at worst, she decided he did not deserve his fingers. She would not even feel bad about it. Was it progress? Or a deeply concerning change in character? She decided she would worry about it after the Tithe.

“I thought Librarians were staid, quiet sorts,” Lachlan said.

She scoffed. “Everyone thinks that until they mistreat a book.”

“I remember.”

“Or until a troll comes calling.”

“You sound rather smug,” he murmured.

As well she should. The last troll had been excessively large and aggressive. Usually, she was able to convince them to leave the Library in exchange for a meal of paper scraps from the student study rooms, mixed with blood bought from the butcher. The books were safe and no one had to be dismembered.

Occasionally, no one wanted to be reasonable.

“What were you doing out here?” Lachlan asked, his fingers still around her wrist. “At the ring?”

“I wasn’t trying to sneak back home to Hallow,” she said. “I am not that daft.” At least, not in that way. She was daft enough to not be able to look away from this version of Lachlan, gentle but still inexorable. Enigmatic.

The pull of him had to be Fae magic.

“Redcaps only want one thing, and that is blood for their caps. If he tried to push you through, he was following orders. And if these rules have changed”—his slow smile was distinctly menacing—“then all of the rules change.”