Page 69 of Lord of the Hollow Court
What she wouldn’t give to have awakened from that life sooner.
If Katty was angry before, the smarmy offer of goodwill was the final blow. With the best unladylike grunt she could muster, Katty lunged for Katrina, her arm shooting high. Katrina yelped and ducked away, but it was too late. Katty felt her hand close around the top of the tiara—and then, with an otherworldly shriek that could shatter glass, the world was lost to the blinding brightness of fae magic.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Burning
Braam was yet hours away from Hollow Hall, his hip screaming despite the smooth gait of the horse stolen from the Court of Claws. His silver wedding band danced in the light of a will o’ the wisp who came to lead his way, guiding him to the overgrown faerie path that would speed his travels.
Braam tightened his grip on the walking horse’s mane. That silver ring on his finger meant as much to him now as the ruby ring of his court; the two were now as twined together as the strands of silver that made the wedding band.
He would not take it off. Never again. It was a symbol of his vows as well as his link to Katty through the spell he’d put upon it, knowing marriage to a human was an entirely different commitment. Katty was delicate. Fragile. The revel had proven that. They were from foreign worlds and cultures, but this ring tied them together through it all—and offered him the chance to better protect her when next she was in need.
Perhaps, with all their differences, their marriage would never be founded on love. It did not matter. He intended to give her a comfortable life, to make her his equal in whatever time they had left to rule the Hollow Court. Most of all, he wished to keep her safe. It was his duty as her husband.
He wouldn’t mind tending to that robust figure of hers, either. Her body was so different from those of fae women, so unexpectedly curvaceous. When he returned to her—the moment he had earned her forgiveness—Braam would find a way to express his delight in her. For even if the connection he’d experienced with her in the Lord’s Grove was the lone bond between them, he would gladly tend that flame.
Yet he was filled with certainty that they could learn to be friends outside of it. With both friendship, passion and respect to sustain them, theirs would be a happy existence indeed. He promised himself it would be.
He saw the course of his life with Katty as clearly as the winding stretch of faerie path ahead of him, his fae eyesight rendering the dusk-cloaked grasses distinct. He would spend the rest of his days with her and not look back, disabused of his former notions of love. He’d known love as a possessive and viciously consuming thing, one that would sooner burn him to ash than sustain him. He wished for something kinder, something gentler to fill the remainder of his days.
But before he could accomplish any of that, he must make sure Katty was secure, in condition as well as her position as Court’s Lady. He would do anything for that, for her.
As the will o’ the wisps disappeared into the forested slopes, darting and weaving so that they demanded all of his concentration, Braam felt a touch of discomfort, as if an unpleasant thought brewed deep in his mind. He had just guided his stolen horse across a stream when he felt that twinge again—then, with a flare of brutal intensity, the twining silver of his ring begin to burn his skin.
He stopped the horse on the silty bank, dropping into soil that squished beneath his boots. The ring was nearly too hot to bear. Unwilling to remove his cane from where he’d tied it to his back and delay his relief even a moment, Braam toddled bowlegged to the water, where he plunged his hand into the icy stream. The ring sizzled and made the water bubble, churning up steam.
Katty was in trouble—worse than what befell at their wedding fete.
The heat of it relieved for now, Braam took two tries to reach the horse’s back again. It took much of his fortitude to pull his bad leg to the other side, his hip so mercilessly cramped now that the outer edge of his leg grew numb.
Mane in hand once more, Braam urged the tireless fae steed on. Whatever was happening to Katty, it was dangerous. He had to reach Katty. He had to.
He would not fail her again.
All sense was lost to the piercingly high note. The tiara emitted waves of magic as Katty grasped it, the violently powerful pulses traveling through her, rattling her teeth and knocking her bones against their joints.
Don’t let go,Katty told herself, gritting her aching teeth. There was screaming in the room, but it was distant, muffled. The guests around her were little more than faint shadows, bending and crumpling. Katty tightened her grip andyanked.
When her vision began to clear, she saw strands of hair still attached to the tiara. Katrina de Vries fell against her mother, who had dropped to her knees like so many. Only the pushy aunt still stood, looking too stunned to remark upon any it.
Katty turned, tiara triumphantly aloft in her hand even as her body vibrated with its unbridled magic, and saw Janus Muis in the doorway.
“Get us out of here,” she said, invoking his name.
As the tiara began to brighten again, forcing down the guests who were beginning to rise, Katty ran toward Muis. The moment she touched his outstretched hand, the world twisted into a blur of colors, then disappeared.
She opened her eyes to a spinning wood. Stumbling backward, Katty nearly lost her grip on the tiara.
“Quickly,” Muis said, seizing her arm to guide her. They stumbled into the trees together, until Katty doubled over, dry-heaving. She’d never been so glad to have missed her dinner.
The moment she could move again, Janus Muis rushed her on. She stumbled along beside him, tiara growing increasingly heavy alongside the air. At least the pull she felt to return to the Hollow Court had vanished; they must already be in the court’s lands.
But this wasn’t right.
Sleepy Hollow sat in a later stage of autumn than the fae court. But this part of the woods was even slower to change than the Hollow Court, more August than autumn. The woods here were full of unrelenting humidity, the hot air thickened until it required effort just to breathe.
“We need to stop,” Katty said, panting. “I need to rest.”
