Page 58 of Thistle Thorns

Gooseflesh rose along a wiry bare chest and arms ropey with muscle, the myriad bluish-green tattoos that covered his skin like ivy glowing brightly.

Blue eyes wild with fanatic delight, Antler Tattoo shot his hand out at me as he bellowed a command in the language of the fae. The ivy-like tattoos leapt off his skin, lashing through the air to entangle me, but I had already struck.

Ivy-green flames shot from the hand that held the censer in a line of fire that ripped across the clearing to engulf the mallaithe tree. The sylvan youth released a pained screech, rearing away from the flames. Daphne and Flora seized Shari and hurled themselves out of the way, rolling back to their feet and sprinting for the coven.

Behind me, Grandmother thrust her blazing hands out wide with a shout, encasing the family and my friends in a glittering green shield. The sluagh crashed upon it like storm-angered waves, a sound like cracking crystal accompanying each attack.

A roar split through the forest then, and the magic hunter’s blue eyes slid towards a hulking shape barreling through the trees.

Antler Tattoo’s arm was still outstretched, the malevolent ivy lashing towards me when the next three things happened faster than the eye could track: Wystan went after Sawyer with his club, the tabby tomcat attacking with tooth and claw; my battle magic briars shot after the magic hunter’s ankles; and a grizzly bear’s massive jaws clamped down on Antler Tattoo’s extended forearm, severing it from his body.

As the magic hunter screamed and clutched his bloody stump of an arm to his bare chest, his glowing ivy attack dissipated into bluish-green smoke and my briars yanked him straight off his feet. The sluagh shrilled and screeched as they bombarded Grandmother’s shield, dozens of them dissolving but weakening her shield with every sacrificial attack until it shattered. At its master’s command, the black mallaithe tackled the bear, both of them crashing to the ground in a maelstrom of slashing claws and striking roots. Sawyer dodged the spikes of Wystan’s club and sank his teeth into the hobgoblin’s ankle, eliciting a howl, and then a loud voice boomed,

“Who dares spill blood in my forest?”

The bare trees shook and spindly elderberry shrubs shivered as the leaves sprang up and swirled upon a whirlwind. An impossibly tall figure stepped into the moonlit clearing on cloven feet. Soft, coppery hair covered his muscular legs, the knees jointed to resemble a deer’s. The hair gave way at his hips to bronzed skin, taut over a sculpted set of abs and a broad chest that at any other time would’ve had me blushing with embarrassment as I ogled him.

The column of his neck was strong, the jaw sharp, a sprinkle of freckles across his nose and cheeks giving the illusion of a more youthful appearance, and those eyes… They were ageless green jewels that burned with an inner fire. Copper curls threatened to obscure those stunning eyes, and an impressive rack of antlers like those of a red deer sprouted from his head. Even in the darkness of night, a soft glow emanated from his skin reminiscent of afternoon sunbeams. He was… beautiful.

Not just handsome. Not just ravishing and alluring and majestic. Truly beautiful, and in the most dangerous of ways. This beauty lowered your inhibitions and enticed you to indulge your darkest, most secretive fantasies, for this beauty promised to satisfy them all.

With a wave of his hand, the stranger dispelled the sluagh.

I saw no magic, though I felt its power, and the vile creatures shrieked as the whirlwind of leaves sawed them apart. The sluagh had overwhelmed my family, leaving all but my grandmother sprawled unconscious on the ground shivering and twitching. But my family had defended my friends; the Crafting Circle ladies cowered, unscathed, next to Grandmother’s legs like frightened children. The leaves settled, the night becoming so quiet that you could hear the fluttering of moth wings against the windowpanes of the farmhouse.

With the forest settled, the fae—for that was the only thing he could be—turned the full force of his attention on me. A wave of power washed over me, and something thrummed through my bones, either his own magic or mine rising in response. On an instinctive level, I recognized him, and it took only that infinitesimal moment when his eyes met mine for him to realize the same. That assessing expression on his beautiful face turned to one of victory as his gaze flicked from my eyes to something behind me and back again. Not something. Someone.

“Violet’s daughters,” he murmured, his voice as rich and luscious as melted chocolate.

And just like that, inevitability tolled.

This is that nexus, I realized, even as my thoughts turned a little sluggish, a little fuzzy, as the golden aura exuding from his skin brightened.

The prophecy was not just about Violet’s heir. Mom’s words from the attic not two days ago fought through the haze creeping into my mind. But the one who seeks her. And the choice she will make when he finds her.

“Green Mother help us,” Grandmother whispered, terrified.

“Who—” Suddenly finding myself trembling with anticipation and more than a little brain fog, I had to swallow to again find my voice. “Who are you?”

“Why, I’m the one your grandmother warned you about,” the Stag Man answered.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Beware the Stag Man who hunts in the forest deep.

His arrows never miss a maiden’s heart to keep.

The Stag Man, the boogeyman of my childhood, was nothing like Grandmother had made him out to be. Surely no one as ruthless and malicious as that fable character could be confused with this glorious creature standing before me. She had to be wrong. She’d been wrong about so many other things, or at least partially incorrect, so why not with him?

And yet, the ornate bow he carried in hand looked as well used as it did well cared for, and the quiver slung low on his hips was well stocked with long arrows as thick around as my finger. Encircling his throat was a necklace of golden wire strands and many rough-cut gemstones, each one shining like it had a tiny star trapped inside. His jewel-like eyes held the same compassion for a lover as they would a deer he was about to claim for supper. There was something both alluring and savage about him at the same time.

“It’s dangerous,” Mom had told me once when I was sixteen, “to anthropomorphize the fae. They might look like us, apart from their height and pointed ears and general etherealness, but they are not human. They are not supes, either. And to confuse them as such would be a deadly mistake. Theirs is the magic of deception and illusion, designed to lull and distract, then strike.”

He was striking. As a lynx, but just as a lynx was not a housecat, this Stag Man, though he had banished the sluagh, was not necessarily my friend. But oh how a traitorous part of me wished he would be.

It physically hurt when he took his focus off of me to glance down at the mewling magic hunter in the nearby leaves. When jealousy speared through me, the rational part of me, which seemed to be diminishing, realized, Thistle thorns, am I so desperate for his attention already?

“You’re bleeding, child of Man,” the fae told the magic hunter. There was no sympathy in his voice; he was merely stating a fact. Crouching down, he passed a hand over the ragged stump and sealed the wound. It healed a moment later with only a gently puckered scar hinting to the trauma he’d just endured. “There you are.”

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