The King's Leash (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 7) Read Free Page B

planchette across the Ouija board and moved it down to the row of symbols across the bottom of the board. The man flinched and shivered as I rolled it across the symbol for a woman, and then started rocking back and forth as I put it over the crown.
    “A woman's crown?”
    “The base of a hill,” he managed to say as his legs kicked him backward and he hit the ground. His head thumped hard against the concrete and his eyes shut.
    Lila rushed to him, blue magic gathering in her arms. She righted the chair, with the man in it. He stayed unconscious.
    I sighed. “Don’t wake him. Leave him tied up,” I ordered. I went to the back of the store and grabbed a bundle of dried heather and a couple of dusty marbles. I put a marble in each of the man’s hands and crumpled heather through his hair. “ Gwella. Amddiffyn,” I said. My spells sparked to life, and would act as protection and healing. “That should keep him safe but not conscious for a day or two,” I told Lila. It was a mercy that would help him through his withdrawals.
    “You know I could have done that for you,” Lila said. “I mean the sleep and feel better spells. Easy.” She poked the man’s chest and then tried to pry open one of his eyes.
    “Stop that. And just because you could have done it, does not mean I’m incapable.”
    “I know, it’s just that you had to make the spells you used. They took hours to make. And I, I can just do whatever.”
    “I know,” I muttered.
    Lila pushed the man’s head from side to side. “Remind me never to get addicted to anything,” she said. “Not that I probably could. I mean one, I just wouldn’t. Dumb. And oh, I mean… I mean, I take it back,” she said, casting me a look and purpling with a blush. “I know it can happen to anyone.”
    “My addiction was dumb,” I told her. “Now, this woman’s crown, a queen perhaps?” I said. “Any thoughts on what it might mean?”
    “Hello, hello,” someone called out as the door jangled open.
    Luckily, it was not some Wiccan tourist coming in to see me sitting beside a trussed and unconscious man, but Merlin.
    I drank in the sight of him in his slim black jeans and a t-shirt that was close to ratty. He’d just had his unruly hair cut shorter, and it made him look younger. He carried his black satchel at his side, and surveyed the room with his bright eyes.
    He raised an eyebrow at the unconscious man. “Gods, woman, it is scarcely ten a.m.” He yawned and then strode across the room toward me. My wizard wrapped his arms around me and gave me a long and warm kiss. I closed my eyes and fell into him, I let the moment eclipse everything else and no one smelled like him and no one felt like him, and….
    “Ahem, excuse me, etcetera,” Lila said.
    I pulled away from Merlin and saw Lila smirking at us.
    “Apologies, dear girl,” Merlin said. “This witch seems to have laid a spell upon me.”
    “You wish,” I said and ran a finger across his stubbled jaw.
    He grabbed my hand and held it. I shivered with the memory of his touch, of his spells, and of him keeping me up most of last night.
    “Aren’t you going to ask about our faerie minion?” Lila asked.
    “A faerie minion in Seattle? Is there some infestation of fae I am unaware of?” Merlin went to the card table and sat down beside the man, studying his slack face.
    Lila and I sat down at the other two spots of the small square table. We filled him in on the details.
    “A crown and a woman and the base of a hill. And a rotting trouble, you say?” Merlin asked.
    “Yes, it isn’t much to go on. Perhaps we could use the ambient faerie dust on the man’s clothes to create a finding.”
    “Perhaps,” he agreed.
    “Or….” Lila sat forward and grinned. “Or you could ask your super-smart Marid girl to think about it and use her genius brain to figure it out, easy!”
    We both looked to her.
    Her grin widened, but she said nothing.
    “Lila,” I said.
    “Excuse me for savoring this moment