Page 60 of Faerie Fate
Poppy gestured him sharply forward. “Well, then. Come on. Let’s talk.”
She ignored the rest of us until Kit cleared the threshold of her room. The door slammed shut again and from the depths came muffled shouting. A lot of it.
Bronwen cleared her throat and spooned her breakfast gumbo into three separate bowls. “It’s none of our business,” she said. “Whatever they’re doing, it’s none of our business. Let them duke it out.”
I was too nervous to eat. Whatever hunger I’d awakened with quickly fled and I stirred the chunks of scrambled egg and sausage around in listless circles.
The muffled shouting increased in volume but the words weren’t intelligible. Only the twining of their two voices and then the crash and shatter of something against the wall.
I flinched at the sound. Whatever they discussed, and I used the term loosely, it wasn’t good. Which one of them had thrown the glass?
Bronwen scooped a bite of sausage into her mouth and glanced longingly toward the living room. Distinctly uncomfortable.
We should leave. If we didn’t need Poppy's assistance so badly, we’d already be out the door.
After what felt like an eternity but in reality was only about five minutes, Kit stormed out of the spell room. He spared none of us a sideways look before he stomped out the front door and left the cabin. The door slammed behind him and the protective wards shuddered like they’d snap.
Chapter Seventeen
My heart lurched, my skin prickling with discomfort.
I stared after Kit and waited for the wards to snap and fry us but nothing happened. One second passed, then two, but the magic held.
Abandoning breakfast, I went into the room to check on Poppy. She hunched over the cauldron, staring at the murky depths as some purple liquid curdled at the bottom.
She didn’t look up at my approach.
“To take a page out of your rhetoric, I’m fine,” she began at once. “Did Kit threaten you?”
“He had a few choice and colorful things to say, sure.”
She worked her lower jaw back and forth before sniffing. “I work for him as a bounty hunter. Not because I want to, but because he owns me.” Poppy straightened but her fingers remained curled on the lip of the cauldron. “He enslaved me many years ago through magic. I have to do whatever he says, whenever he says it.”
Poppy stilled and stopped talking. She rolled her neck while I waited, my gaze on her pale skin and the dark circles above her cheekbones.
“He’s a sick and twisted man. He likes causing pain and enjoys the feeling of having someone with more power than him beholden to his whims.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
She continued like I hadn’t interrupted. “I’ve never been able to break the bond. As powerful as I am, it remains. Permanently.”
With a grimace, Poppy drew back the long sleeves of her tunic, and across her skin, thin delicate silver chains stretched, encircling both wrists.
They reeked of magic and the first electric energy spike before a lightning strike. Did Poppy have some kind of counterspell on her clothing to keep from smelling it? The silver bands wrapped over her skin like barbed wire and kept her lashed to that absolute asshole.
Poppy breathed in deeply, holding the air in her lungs as she waited for me to finish my surprised perusal.
“Nothing will cut them or remove them. I’m chained to him forever,” she finished. “So how do you think I’ll be able to helpyou?”
The hairs on my neck and my forearms prickled. “We’re not going to let that happen.”
I hadn’t seen much of Kit but I knew he was a bad person. Whatever happened in Poppy’s life to bind the two of them together, it ended. Now.
Poppy let out another one of those laughs I’d gotten so used to hearing from Barbara. “It’s sweet you think you can do something about it, Tavi, but I’m serious. There is no breaking this spell. I’m magically castrated in some areas. My power belongs to someone else.”
She stared at me like she was humoring me by even having this conversation. And she was right.
“Help me unlock my witch powers, and I’ll help you break this bond,” I replied. “If my mom is correct, then I’m going to have the strength of fae magic, witch magic,andshifter magic. I’ll be strong enough to help you.”
