Page 44 of The Iron Vow

Voices caught his attention. A few yards away, a large boy had trapped a smaller kid against the wall and was looming over him menacingly.

“Where’s your money, Brian?” the taller human demanded, shoving a thick finger into the smaller boy’s chest. “You still owe me from last week. Lemme have it.”

The skinny boy cringed. “I don’t have anything,” he responded. “I swear. My mom stopped giving me money after I kept ‘losing’ it.”

“You’re a liar,” the other said, and pushed Brian’s shoulder, shoving him back into the wall. “Turn out your pockets.”

“No!”

“Okay.” Smirking, the bully grabbed the human by the collar and dragged him off the wall. His other hand clenched into a fist. “Guess I’ll have to do it for you, then.”

Watching this, Puck shook his head. Humans never changed. In any era, in any country, in nearly any age, they still bullied, attacked, dominated, and preyed on their own. For a moment, he considered stepping in, if only for the opportunity to cause a little chaos. But he wasn’t here for this; he had another human to find. Besides, if the skinny kid couldn’t stand up for himself, he would never get anywhere in life.

With a shrug, he turned away, intent on continuing his search, when another voice rang out, stopping him.

“What are you guys doing?”

Puck blinked. A third child had appeared, walking out from beneath one of the trees, a book tucked under one arm. She was smaller than the two boys, with shoulder-length blond hair and large blue eyes. When she saw what was going on, her lips thinned, and she stepped forward.

“Hey, leave him alone,” she snapped. “I’m going to tell the teacher.”

Puck smiled. Well, that was fortunate. The girl he was looking for had finally decided to show up. Even if he hadn’t known what she looked like, he would have recognized her instantly. She had her father’s silver-blond hair, and her facial features were slightly too elegant to be purely human. Only another faery would recognize her for what she was, a half fey, but to him, it was blindingly obvious. This was the daughter of his Summer King.

Which meant he was going to have to protect her and keep her away from everything Faery until her mortal life came to an end.

Fun.

The bully turned, and his mouth thinned dangerously. Striding forward, he shoved the girl to the ground and loomed over her as she cried out in pain and fury. The smaller boy against the wall immediately took off, sprinting around the building and out of sight. “You keep your mouth shut,” the bully threatened, clenching his fist. “I’m not afraid to hit a girl.”

Okay, then. Puck’s eyes narrowed, and a flare of glamour went through the air.Big mistake, pal. Let the games begin.

Puck’s body exploded into a cloud of black feathers, and he shot into the air as a large black bird. Swooping from the sky, he plunged toward the bully and flew into his face, beating him with his wings and screaming the cries of an enraged raven. The boy recoiled, raising his arms and swatting feebly, but Puck clung to him easily, cawing and screeching. Scratches appeared on the boy’s forearms as Puck continued his attack, pecking at the boy’s face and buffeting him with his wings.

With a cry, the bully turned to run. But he was too busy shielding his head to watch where he was going. Tripping on a loose rock, he pitched forward and fell face-first in the dirt. The breath left his lungs in a painful expulsion, and he gasped airlessly, mouth gaping.

That should do it.Gleefully satisfied, Puck backed off to let the human go, but suddenly a blow from behind knocked him from the sky. Stunned, he fluttered around to see the girl standing over him, her book raised to smack him again.

“Get out of here!” she cried, aiming another swat in his direction. “Go on! Shoo!”

Ow! What the heck? Puck dodged the second blow, flapping backwards into the sky with a caw. Stepping forward, the girl placed herself between him and the boy gasping in the dirt, the book held in front of her like a shield.

Gazing down at the human he was supposed to protect for the next decade or so, Puck shook his head in disbelief.Are you serious?

“Shoo,” she told him again. “Go on, bird. Get out of here.”

Well, this was unexpected. But he certainly wasn’t going to attack the human he was supposed to watch over. Even if she had whacked him with a book. With a last caw, Puck turned and flapped away, soaring into the branches of a nearby tree. Perching on a limb, he watched the girl turn and kneel next to the bully, holding out a hand.

“Are you all right?”

Unsurprisingly, the ungrateful little snot smacked away the offered hand and lurched to his feet, caught halfway between bursting into tears and snarling in her face. Wiping his eyes, he staggered off around the corner of the school building and vanished from sight.

Puck ruffled his feathers. He wasn’t worried that the brat would run off to tell a teacher; the kid would forget everything that had happened to him before he reached any grown-ups. Even if a teacher asked him about the scratches on his arms and the bruises on his forehead, he wouldn’t remember anything. That was the nature of dealing with the fey.

But the girl might remember.

Alone, Oberon’s half-human daughter pulled herself upright, then picked up the book that she’d dropped in the dirt. She sniffed, pushing a strand of hair behind one ear, then gazed in the direction Puck had flown. For just a moment, she stared at him with curious blue eyes, as if wondering whether she should call out to the bird in the branches. But then she turned, brushed the dirt off her knees, and headed around the building after the boy.

Watching her, Puck felt a strange glow of curiosity, disbelief, and...something else. Something that he wouldn’t be able to put his finger on for many years. Maybe admiration, maybe the start of something even greater. But from that moment on, he knew, somehow, that his life would never be the same.

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