He was a beast of a man in every sense. Practically a giant, he had to duck from beneath the branches in order to give the grand rack of antlers sprouting from his head room to move. He had the ears of a stag and the inhumanly handsome face of a Fae, his hair and beard shining waves of chestnut.
Blue tattoos covered him from one wrist to the other, human from the waist up. From the waist down, the forest god had the body of a goat. Thick black fur covered powerful thighs, and the cloven hooves he walked on were painted gold.
A wide leather belt with a gold disk etched with magical symbols sat on his hips and held a swath of leather over his groin. Something Uriah was glad for, as he wasn't keen on getting to know that aspect of his mate's father.
Uriah saw none of Ivy in the creature's face, and having used his hands and mouth on every inch of her, Uriah could confirm Ivy had nothing in common with her sire. Ivy's eyes were green as emeralds; the forest god's were as gold as the paint on his hooves.
“Stop this now!” the forest god roared, fury plain in every word, expecting to be obeyed even as he hurried across the field with the twelve points of his horns tilted their way.
None of the women seemed particularly worried or threatened, confidence pouring from them even though he knew it was a shock for Ivy to see the being who fathered her for the first time. Her chin was up, the wind whipped through her long blonde hair, a look of boredom and disdain on her face.
Fierce. Proud. Beautiful.
His bear gave a deeply satisfied grumble. That's mine.
“We'll be with you in a moment, Dad. Please finish, Callie,” Ivy instructed coolly, shaking her wrist to jangle the bracelets.
Clearly unused to being dismissed by anyone, the forest god stomped himself right up to the edge of the barrier of iron filings, snarling when he realized he could come no closer than two hundred feet.
“You will not bind your magic. I forbid it!” shouted dear ole' dad. His voice was thick and lyrical, his accent not quite Scottish, not quite Irish, but something in between.
Ivy flat out laughed, nodding to Callie when her sister witch set the metal clasp of the last bracelet. “It's already done, and before you open your mouth to threaten my coven with murder to unbind it, I should tell you that I've bound my magic to myself. You'll have to kill me to release it, which I rather think defeats the purpose of this visit.”
During her sassy little speech—which frankly made Uriah harder than a rock—Ivy's gaze seemed to be all over the place. Looking everywhere but at her father.
“Is my brother hiding back there because you told him not to wreck your entrance, or because he's afraid to come out and be seen?”
Her father didn't seem to quite know what to do with Ivy, but he raised his hand and gave a wave of his fingers. Moments later, a tall male with wide shoulders, a narrow waist, and the grace of a dancer came striding out across the meadow.
His steps were so light, he might as well have been walking on air. The grass didn't even bend beneath his feet, and Uriah wondered if all Fae were capable of taking such careful steps. It would explain why there hadn't been a single footprint to follow in the woods.
It was obvious Ivy struggled to keep her composure when her brother pushed back his hood and faced her with a regal nod. The man's face was blank of emotion, though his eyes were a turbulent sea of green. Uriah could definitely see the resemblance between the siblings, especially in the face.
“Greetings, sister,” Ilex said with a formal half-bow.
Ivy smiled at him, her lips giving the tiniest of wobbles. “Hello.”
Clearly not one to waste time on niceties, their father cut in harshly, “Why have you once again bound your magic?”
Ivy lifted her shoulder in a careless shrug. “I made the first move.” Was it Uriah's imagination, or was that a smirk on Ilex's face? Ivy sighed like this whole thing was boring, turning once again to Rowena. “It looks like you were correct about the spies in our house.”
“Seems so,” Rowena answered easily, turning to nod at the rest of the silently waiting coven to disband.
Kerrigan gave a twirl of her wrist, and a white parasol appeared in her hand. Callie and Astrid also conjured parasols, but Juliet seemed content to sit and soak up the sunshine.
One by one, the four witches sat down to have a little tea party inside their casting circle, making it plain by their actions they were completely unconcerned with the current situation.
A lion came to each of the four and lay down beside her, even Juliet, who didn't pull away or give any indication that it bothered her.
“I suppose I'll have to replace the Brownies,” Rowena drawled in irritation. “If I'd known your dad would suddenly give a damn about your life after having abandoned you at birth, I would have gone with a Tontu or two instead. Fairy spies. How plebeian. I don't think any of us have ties to Nordic deities.”
“Might be best,” Ivy agreed, leaving the circle to come to Uriah, looping her arm through his with a smile. “You don't have any Viking blood in you, do you?”
Uriah chuckled at the obvious attempt of the girls to exclude her father from their discussion. Uriah bent and touched a kiss to the tip of Ivy's up-tilted nose. “Not a drop. My people originated on this continent way before the Viking's discovered it.”
Ivy gave him a slow, sunny smile and winked at him. “Good. Tontu's it is. Tea, gentlemen?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Seated across from both her father and her brother, Ivy managed to keep her hands folded and steady on the table, but her insides wouldn't stop quivering. Uriah had his ankle hooked around hers, his hand on her thigh, quietly sitting beside her, calm and collected, as though he sat across from forest gods to shoot the shit every day of the week.
On her other side, Rowena lounged in the chair of moss-covered vines, Abel on her far side, still furry. His golden eyes barely cleared the tabletop. On any other day, it would have struck Ivy as strange to see her coven leader petting the six-hundred-pound lion like a house cat.
The two looked quite comfortable, which was good, considering the stakes had never been higher. Ivy did struggle to keep from staring at her brother. She could see their mother clearly in his features now that they were only a few feet apart.
Ivy had purposefully not set up seats on their side of the table, but with a wave of his hand, Ilex produced two more. A simple chair for himself, and a regal throne for their father with elaborate knots of thick tree roots. Flowers blossomed across the top, giving the illusion that the forest god was crowned in the delicate blooms in addition to the impressive rack of antlers.
Magic oozed off her father, a sensual spell, no doubt intended to make whoever he faced more susceptible to his will.
Unfortunately for him, not only had the entire Little Coven taken an extremely large dose of iron supplements, they each had cold iron disks in their bras to keep them sane in the face of any seductive fairy magic.
Abel argued it was probably overkill, the circle of iron filings, the barrier spell, their near overdose on vitamins, and the twisted iron collars Callie fashioned for all the lions. But Ivy wasn't taking any chances. Uriah even had an iron armband wrapped around his bicep, hidden beneath the sleeve of his shirt.
Donnatar had a cruelty about him that was palpable. He tried to hide it by amplifying his natural sexual allure, but it was there in his gaze—the complete absence of empathy staring back at her. Ivy had never looked into such cold eyes before.