Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 140780 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 469(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140780 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 469(@300wpm)
“I can’t just command a feeling—”
“Yes, you can.”
“No, I can’t!”
“Yes. You can.” He bent over me, his eyes narrowing. “You’ve been doing it your entire life. Why else do you think that damn necklace kept knocking you out? You kept reaching a level where you were about to touch the power inside you and it couldn’t let you do that. Just like the vitalsync core prevented me from touching mine.”
“You don’t know that.”
“It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. We’ve been locked by a damn pendant and a pacemaker our entire lives, Rook, and the second your necklace was lost, you were free.”
“Even if you’re right...” A ringing began in my ears. “I can’t just use anger to conjure a snowstorm.”
“Use panic then.” He shrugged annoyingly. “You’re doing a pretty good job at that.”
“I really don’t like you right now.”
“Fine. Use hate. I’m not picky.”
My pulse fractured.
The world tilted.
A blast of icy coldness erupted from the centre of my chest, almost as if it agreed with him. Hate would do. Stress would work just fine.
I staggered backward, clutching my heart, feeling as if I was breaking apart.
“I don’t...” I wasn’t ready. I would never be ready. I still didn’t believe in any of this. “Lucien...help.”
“I’m right here.” He reached for me and—
Snow surged like a tidal wave.
Panic mutated into raw terror as my vision flickered white. Something wild and archaic stole all my control and—
Snowflake Corp filled my mind.
How the air temperature had always dropped when I cried.
How my windows iced from the inside, even on summer days.
How the drinking fountain at school exploded—the pipes bursting as the water froze while I took a drink.
How I was homeschooled from then on...
How my mother sat me down and told me I was too smart for school, too bright for my age, and the only way I could continue with my studies was there in the lab, with her...at all times.
I sucked in a breath so sharp, my ribs threatened to snap.
I tried to hold it in.
I tried to push away the betrayal, the loss, but...I wasn’t strong enough. Every emotion I’d ever felt or forbidden myself to feel, erupted.
A blizzard shrieked out of my heart.
The air imploded with a thunderous crack, cold cancelling out all the heat in the world. Flames didn’t just die—they vanished with a flash of frost—ice devouring them whole.
The entire valley flooded in a shroud of white so absolute, it erased colour and night—turning the ground as bright as the sun.
And it didn’t stop.
Winter consumed everything.
Snow flurried over the valley.
The river flash-froze.
The ground beneath my feet split with a violent fissure as ice ploughed through soil and stone, entombing everything in flawless merciless white.
I couldn’t stop it.
I tried to stop it.
My bones throbbed. My heart ached.
Ice continued channelling all my feelings, painting them in the sky with glacial lightning.
My legs buckled and I knelt on the arctic tundra I’d caused.
But the storm kept building, building.
Snow continued to fall, sticking to blackened branches until they sagged from the weight.
I kept spiralling.
Panicking.
Unable to stop.
Lucien.
Me.
Snowflake Corp.
Fire and frost and everything.
Everything.
EVERYTHING.
I clutched my head as another storm howled free.
“Make it stop,” I gasped, folding forward and pressing my forehead to the thick snowdrift that’d replaced Lucien’s charcoal. “I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know how to—”
I never got to finish.
Lucien lunged through the blizzard, his bare feet melting everything.
The howling snow couldn’t touch him—kept at bay thanks to his inhuman heat.
Snatching me into his arms, he carried me straight toward the frozen river.
The icy surface shattered as he stepped onto it, allowing him to sink into the water. Hitching me higher into his arms, he waded toward a small divot where the current had made a natural pool—ice instantly melting until steam curled from the surface.
I gasped as he shoved me against a massive boulder blocking the swimming hole from the main current.
And then he braced one arm above me, grabbed my jaw with his smouldering hand, and kissed me.
Chapter Forty-Six
I HAD NO IDEA WHAT I WAS doing but I couldn’t let her break.
I’d almost done that back in the cave.
I’d almost died as the power overwhelmed me.
I would’ve died if she hadn’t tried to die first, using the bond to rip me free.
And now...I repaid the favour.
Smashing my lips over hers, I kissed her. Hard.
Frost continued erupting from her, sending the valley into an unplanned ice-age. She continued rewriting the seasons, heralding winter like it was a weapon, not responding to my kiss whatsoever.
I’d hoped touching her would interrupt her spiral, but the air temperature plummeted so cold it gnawed at my skin.
The river continued freezing, thicker and thicker, entombing the fish beneath.
The small pool I’d dragged her into was icy and I made a conscious effort—the first real instruction—for the flames in my blood to obey and do something about it.