The Heartbreak Show (Bound By Ravens #3)

16. CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Cian Merrick

Finn jogged up to where my langered arse was being dragged into the woods for one of Glenna’s ritual sacrifices. Over my shoulder, I drawled, “I can’t resist you either, you sexy tree trunk.”

“Aye, love,” Finn said with a very serious nod of his head. “The only proper reaction to me.”

“Since I saw you naked . . .”

Glenna abruptly halted and dropped my hand to spin toward us, making me stumble a step. The forest’s edge continued to tilt in my blurry vision but I could still make out Finn’s feigned innocence.

“I was quite the vision, wasn’t I?”

“A true vision, lad.”

Glenna’s eyes squinted as her wings faded into visibility. A warning for me to behave while she bargained. Those feathers, especially tipped in soft moonlight, had the opposite effect on me, though. Falling skies, I would do all manner of shady things just to gaze at those wings for an eternity.

Except for when that muffin hag knocked me to the ground.

George patted my leg until our gazes locked.

I sighed.

The wee bastard was right. Even when eating dirt, I would still rob a child for those night-touched feathers.

“Before I bargain for ingredients,” Glenna said to Finn, “swear that you have permission to bargain on behalf of the witch who trains your mate.”

Fair request. Our camp didn’t need to face another curse.

“I swear—”

“I’ll tell you what I use the ingredients for,” Glenna interrupted, “and you’ll name the witch in your oath or no deal.”

Finn straightened and whipped his head toward the woods. A second later, he pressed farther into the trees with a tip of his head to follow. We ambled after him, eventually pausing on a well-worn trail. He lifted a pointed ear to the wind, his pale green eyes sweeping the underbrush—then stilled. Flashing us a lopsided smirk, he stepped over the rambling roots of a large oak and placed his palms on the trunk. Faint light trailed around his hands.

I started to gasp and stopped myself.

He had magic?

Since when?

The wild fae younglings lost their magic in the Caravans.

Finn pressed his forehead to the bark and began whispering words I couldn’t make out. The tree shook its lower branches, as if nodding one’s head. Earth spirits could talk to trees, aye, but this was the first time I had witnessed an actual conversation.

My childhood friend touched an infected area on the trunk. The gnarled, discolored patch of bark glowed beneath Finn’s touch and a tiny limb sprouted where burrowing insects had injured the tree. The oak swayed, its branches creaking and groaning, and in a way that sounded like echoes of the wild fae tongue.

Patting the trunk, like one would a dog or small bairn, Finn stepped away and turned back to us—

My mouth fell open.

Bless me, Finn Brannon was a beautiful male. Always had been—and the elf knew it keenly too. But right now? While soaking up and reflecting back the forest’s magic? He was deadly gorgeous. Or my intoxicated brain was playing tricks on me. I glanced at Glenna and her bewildered, enthralled expression mirrored my own. Not the whiskey, then.

Well, this was weird.

“The Maiden,” Finn said, all nonchalant, as if he hadn’t just made a tree happy dance.

I blinked.

My great aunt was here?

A chill scraped down my spine. I scanned the woods and that was a bad decision. Glenna grabbed my arm to steady me.

“She’s the witch I work for,” Finn continued. “And the one who trains my mate.”

Glenna snapped out of her gaping trance. “What?” she whisper-yelled. “I can’t bargain with”—she dropped her voice even lower—“a Sisters Three.”

Finn lazily pointed my direction. “You bargain with this wee sparkly beam of sunshine, yeah?”

Glenna flashed her canines. “Do not use my mate to trick me into bargains.”

Oh.

Feck.

Me.

Dizziness rushed my head so fast, my breath caught. The ground warbled beneath my feet. I . . . I was actually swooning.

I fell against the tree at my back and closed my eyes for a long, heart fluttering second.

She growled. For me. Like a protective primal male.

Goddess save me, but I would never recover.

Never .

When I opened my eyes, both Finn and Glenna were watching me with matching did-the-drunk-gobshite-just-pass-out expressions. George left his moony-eyed vigil to wrap his paws around my leg and coo. He was apparently swooning too.

No . . . no, the cuddly little shite was relieved I hadn’t sacrificed three days of his fashion services for Glenna to growl over me.

“Not a trick, love.” Finn pulled his gaze from George to focus on Glenna once more. “I guarantee no mischief or harm will come to you or yours. Aye, I have permission to bargain under certain stipulations and this counts. I swear all of this to you, Glenna Lonan. And,” he continued, a corner of his mouth kicking up, “the oak is sheltering us from listening ears and won’t whisper a word to the wind. I bargained for our protection.”

Glenna relaxed and lifted her chin. “I create a potion of happiness for my confections.”

Finn’s brows shot up. “You’re a witch?”

“Not truly. I only know how to make the one potion I was entrusted with.”

“What rare ingredients do you need?”

Glenna stepped closer and lowered her voice despite the oak’s protection. “The nectar of a ruby merry vine. And it must be the ruby variety.” Finn nodded. “Alpine sweet balm oil, powdered doe-ears”—Finn’s eyes rounded slightly—“the plant, not the animal, eejit. Only grows in the eastern bogs. I need the beans of black cat toes, too. Also a plant.”

“How much of each?”

“With two drops per cake, one per batch of cookies . . .” Glenna peered up at the night sky in thought. “Tell your mate I need a double moon crock’s nest supply. She’ll know what that means.”

Finn dipped his head. “And your bargain?”

“Two Raven Folk feathers.”

“No deal,” he said before she even finished.

My gut sickened. “You’d pluck your own feath—”

Glenna placed a finger to my lips. “One feather and one tear.”

I grabbed her wrist and clenched my teeth, but she ignored me.

Unmolted Raven Folk feathers held old magic and were highly prized. But childhood friend or not, I would murder Finn if he agreed to her bargain. What in the hell was she thinking?

“Your tear?” Finn asked.

“Aye, my tear.”

A muscle along Finn’s jaw ticked. “Still no deal.”

“Why?” she fluttered an indignant hand in the air. “It’s more than fair.”

“I refuse to take your pain and body as payment, lass.”

Thank the wishless falling stars. The relief I felt was immediate. I released Glenna’s wrist and shot Finn a tight but grateful smile, one he returned.

“The feathers aren’t mine,” Glenna confessed.

“Whose feathers, then?” he asked.

She shifted on her feet. “Plucked from corpses and saved for bargains.”

Finn nodded again, nonplussed by this confession.

My face, however, wanted to twist into equal parts disgust and horror.

The fae scavenged body parts for spellcrafting all the time, I knew this. Carrion bird shifters didn’t hold death rites either. Defeathering their own dead wasn’t dishonoring—it happened often. Still, my mortal sensibilities clutched her pearls.

Glenna’s fathomless eyes darted my way before adding, “All confectioners initiated into food magic are given a personal stash. I never returned mine to West Tribe.”

“Then I agree to your bargain of two Raven Folk feathers.”

Finn repeated Glenna’s order to prove no tricks were involved. Satisfied, she shook his hand.

“Glenna,” I gritted out, “if you ever bargain a piece of yourself—”

“Bargain away my beauty?” She laughed with a scoffing flutter of her wings. “Someone has to upstage you.”

I cracked a wry smile. “The spotlight loves me, darlin’. I am a very beautiful woman.”

She stepped closer and hummed her agreement. “Mmm, that you are,” she practically purred, leaning in closer. “But,” she whispered, nipping at my bottom lip, “not as beautiful as me, darlin’ .”

“True,” Finn agreed and I slid him a glare. “But beautiful enough to pass as a woman on Seren.”

George released my leg with a happy squeak, startling me, then scampered into a nearby log.

“That was adorable.” Glenna pressed two fingers to her lips, holding back her own squeal.

“ That was the feral sound of unhinged mischief, Glennie Lo. A war cry.” I paused for a dramatic beat. “We should all be afraid.”

A slender black brow arched. “Are you calling my adopted son unhinged ?”

“How did he get the cock boots off the dandy, hmm?”

“He saved that man from a fashion crime, he did,” she tossed back. “George is a hero.”

Speaking of the hero, George scampered back with a . . . long, blonde-haired wig on a stick? Perhaps it was a wig. Or the—

My eyes bulged.

“George, no!” I croaked.

My gods, he had a woman’s head on a spike?!

I couldn’t breathe. My throat was closing up.

“Feck!” Finn jumped back when the head fell off the spike and rolled over his foot. “Is that . . .” He couldn’t finish, gagging when George lifted the head.

George smiled.

He actually smiled.

Glenna rolled her eyes at us both. “What do you have there, wee fella?”

“Don’t touch—”

She took the head from George and a thousand screams lodged in my churning gut. I didn’t care if my mate was a Raven. Watching Glenna so casually approach a dismembered head clutched in the hands of a fluffy but diabolical ancient raccoon would haunt me long after I was dead.

“This is all your fault,” I loudly whispered to Finn.

“Me?” he loudly whispered back. “All I suggested was you’d pass—”

“—Shhh,” I hissed. “You’ll trigger him—”

“. . . as a Lady of Lugh.”

George spun toward Finn and squealed again, then dashed back into the log.

The blood drained from Finn’s already sickly pale face. “I’ll never sleep again if he drags out another body part.”

Glenna burst into laughter and then ripped the hair off the head.

AND THREW IT AT ME.

“Shite!” I tried to dodge the wad of long, blonde waves but I lost my balance and fell into a pile of leaves at Finn’s feet. The hair landed on my face. A violent shiver wracked my body. Swearing every curse word ever invented, I began wildly clawing at the strands while my mate laughed .

She fecking laughed.

A wings-spread-wide crowing over me cackling laugh.

I shoved up to sitting, the hair gripped in my fingers. Glenna held out the head and my muscles locked up.

“That’s not natural.” Finn full body shuddered.

Despite the fresh wave of terror seizing me, my eyes narrowed onto the woman’s coy smile. Who lost their head while flirting with . . . with . . . the blade? Her executioner? Death? Gods . . .

But something wasn’t right besides the obvious.

I dared to lean in a fraction closer. The details of her features were hazy in the dusking light but I couldn’t find a single smear of blood, fresh or dried. No stench of decay. Nor did she look real either.

“What the feck is that?” I blurted.

“A wig stand,” she chirped in delight. “The eastern city ladies have them fashioned to look like them.”

My face grimaced in disgust. “I take back every horrible thing I ever said about the cock boots. That ”—I pointed at the wig stand—“is an act against the living and the dead.”

Glenna grinned. “I’m keeping it!”

“Oh feck no.” I violently shook my head. The world around me tipped but whatever blurred that abomination from my sight was welcome. “That fake woman’s face of horrors will not watch me while I sleep.”

“Not fake, eejit. Modeled after a real person.”

“That is significantly not less disturbing, Glenna Jane Josephine Fecking No Lonan.”

Finn barked a loud laugh.

The pecker.

“I think she’s pretty.”

Her eyes sparkled and I knew that look.

“Glennie,” I growled in warning. If she started collecting those decapitated porcelain mainlanders . . .

Finn laughed louder and wiped away tears.

“Bloody Ravens,” I groaned and pushed to my feet just as George scampered back to our circle with a dusty pink dress in his paws.

A silk dress.

My jaw dropped. “How long have you had this gown, darlin’?”

George’s brown eyes locked with mine and I gasped.

“A month?!”

“Is there . . . a wardrobe in that log?” Finn asked.

“Obviously.”

What else would be in a faerie-touched raccoon’s lair?

George raised his paws then scampered into the log once again. Shite . He often confused my snarky inner-thoughts as actual conversation. The wig stand’s porcelain face smiled at me from Glenna’s feet and I shuddered. I didn’t want to know what other non-clothing pilfered horrors he kept as treasured pets.

I examined the blonde waves spilling through my fingers.

A thrill swooped across my clenching gut.

Glenna plucked the locks from my hand and fit the wig on my head. Her brows slightly puckered while fidgeting with the piece, the corners of her mouth too. But her dark eyes softened.

The weighted feel of soft, thick strands falling to my elbows was strange.

Did I look like a woman? Like Mam?

“Grabbing Kalen, mate,” Finn squeezed my upper arm and winked at Glenna, a devilish smile pulling on his mouth. “The lad deserves his revenge against the Ladies of Lugh, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I quietly replied.

Glenna and I watched Finn disappear into the trees.

And the ensuing silence began strangling me.

I didn’t know what to say or do or be.

Wearing a wig was like slipping into one of Mam’s old dresses for the first time all over again and . . . feeling whole. The rightness was indescribable. But a rightness that historically ended in pain.

And my swooping gut began twisting with dread.

“Cian,” Glenna whispered.

I furiously blinked back the burning emotion and focused, instead, on the dusty rose silk in my fingers. My mind knew I was loved. That, at camp, I was safe. My bruised heart, though? He still felt every hit. She still heard every word of hate.

“I was wrong.”

My eyes snapped to Glenna’s and stilled.

“Pink is perfect for your complexion.”