Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 186911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
“Take heart, my queen, for your plan worked.”
“My plan?”
“To break the treaty and therefore remove all barriers and excuses... for me to kill him.”
My eyes narrowed. “That’s not going to work. Although I will say, your seduction techniques are quite unique and advanced. Pretending that you care so much for my honor, you’d kill the man who hurt me, is a nice sentiment, but it doesn’t erase the fact that if you truly wanted my happiness and freedom from a man who’d rule and control me... you’d turn this carriage around right now and take me home.”
“No.”
Anger welled in my throat. It was everything in me not to leap across the divide and claw the boredom off his face. “Why?” I cried. “Why do you want me? I know of you. I know kings, queens, and emissaries from the four kingdoms have offered you money, land, brides, and grooms all in hopes of you lifting the beast curse off the land.
“You turned them all down by way of severed heads and mangled limbs sent back to where they came from. Why now? Why say yes to this marriage? Why force me to go back with you when you want this marriage even less than I do?”
“I have answered this question, but if you wish to hear it again, I will oblige,” he replied. “I have mastered the magical arts, created a superior race, conquered my kingdom, and amassed wealth that rivals the coffers of this and the human lands. But...
“It’s not enough.” He snapped his fingers and the torn curtains vanished from my grip and reappeared whole and intact over the window. “There was one more horizon to conquer. One that’s always been out of my reach... until a little bird plunged a sword through my chest.”
He smiled, and for the first time, I felt I’d done something very wrong.
“There is something we must do, and at first, I did not believe you were the one to stand at my side. But I see now I was wrong. When you’re in my presence, there’s no fear in your eyes, tremble in your chin, or deference in your speech. You do not fear me, though you do revile me, and yet, arousal wafts thick and heavy from your lethal pussy—telling of your desire for me.”
My face heated. “That is not—!”
“That wasn’t a question,” he growled, slicing in. “Merely a fact that ever more intrigues me. I demanded the All Mother aid me, and she gifted me you.” His voice was barely more than a whisper, lulling my lids heavy once more. “A beautiful little enigma wrapped in venom and violence.”
He laughed—full and free. “Of course I’m not going to give you back, little bird. I’m going to trap you within my cage and watch you squirm. Listen to you scream. Delight as you buck and fight and defy until I have conquered the most interesting challenge yet—claim of your life, your soul, and your heart.”
I wanted to rage. To give him exactly what he asked for—screaming, fighting, and bucking—but I could do no such thing. Darkness claimed me again, dragging me under to where I would not wake.
THE CARRIAGE BUCKED, jolting me out of sleep and off my seat. I fell flat across a hard, sweet-smelling body and was immediately captured in his arms.
“Good evening, my bride.” Fearsome claws trailed a shiver-inducing path up my spine. “I trust you slept well.”
I shoved off his lap, escaping those tickling claws. He took no notice as he leaned over, sweeping back the curtain.
“Welcome home.”
My lips parted, but nothing came out. I’d seen many maps of the faelands, and all of them had a huge, looming shadow where the kingdom of Wind and Wild should be. There was nothing else there could be for every cartologists who crossed the border never made it back alive. I understood why in that moment.
“It’s dead,” I breathed. “Everything... dead.”
There were a million words to describe the frozen wasteland surrounding me—smothering me. But none would capture the sight so completely as dead.
Snow blanketed the hills and mountains, wiping away any trace of greens, browns, reds, oranges, or any sign life once existed beneath the ice. Twisted, snarled, bare stumps reached for the skies, their skinny frozen branches beseeching the sun for warmth.
That was it. The world had washed away. Summer, light, laughter, and warmth disappeared, and all that was left were dead trees, mountains, and ice.
“Is this the curse?” I pressed my fingertips to the glass. The cold seeped into my bones, chilling me to the core. “This is what it does? It sucks the life out of... everything.”
Alisdair didn’t answer. I couldn’t be certain he heard me. That was fine. He didn’t need to explain himself. My supposed new home said all that needed to be said.
This is what we’ve fought a thousand years to prevent. This land of winter and death, where we’d roam forever as mindless beasts. And somewhere, buried under the unmarked ice, was Shadowsoul’s wretched, still-beating heart.