Chapter 23
ISABEL
I can scarcely believe I’ve been reunited with Helena.
So much has happened since I last saw her at the bakery on the morning she set out on her usual mail route.
To think she was captured by Prince Alaric on the streets and then tossed before the Winter King as a gift is truly shocking.
But the rest of the story she told me is even more shocking.
“I still can’t believe you are a reincarnated soul, and a fae soul at that. And technically, you are also part-fae, since in this lifetime, your father was part-fae. The father you never knew,” I say. “Oh, Helena, you are quite possibly the most interesting person I have ever met.”
She laughs. “Enough about me.” She blows on her tea. “I want to hear about you. Please. Tell me more about you and Commander Ashvale.”
My face heats. “I already told you that he tracked me down and we recently mated. What more is there to tell?”
“Everything!” She gives me an incredulous look. “How does he treat you? Is he terribly coldhearted sometimes like many Winter fae are? Or is he often kind to you? How old is he?”
I draw in a deep breath, preparing to answer, when I glimpse a shadow dart by the window from my peripheral vision.
I startle and look outside. The snow is still drifting down from the sky, and it’s nearly dusk, but it’s still light enough that I ought to be able to see the soldiers who are supposed to be standing around the cabin.
All fifty of them. But they are suddenly nowhere to be seen.
“What’s wrong?” Helena whispers.
“I thought I saw something move by the window just now, but when I looked, it was gone, and now… do you see that? The soldiers that were standing among the trees are no longer there. Look.” My gut twists with worry. I suddenly have a very bad feeling.
I search the bond, but Gideon is so far away, I can’t hear his thoughts.
I feel his presence and I know he’s alive, but I can’t speak with him from this distance.
He’s probably hiding in the trees outside Hollins with King Theron and the entire Winter Court army, ready to attack the soldiers and drag the mayor from his bed.
“You’re right,” Helena whispers. “Something is wrong. I-I feel it too.” She pales and her eyes go wide.
“Other than being able to pass through wards,” I say, “what fae powers do you possess?” My gaze darts to my rucksack. The knives I swiped from the cave a week ago are still inside. Maybe we should arm ourselves.
Helena sighs, sets her mug of tea down, and presses a finger to the table.
A small line of frost spreads across the surface of the table.
“That’s it,” she says. “I can only create frost, the most basic Winter fae power of all, one that I’m afraid isn’t really helpful.
I’m sorry.” She glances over her shoulder and peers out the windows near the front door.
“Well, the cabin is warded,” I say, striving for a confident tone. “Maybe the soldiers just moved elsewhere, and everything is fine. I’m probably just being paranoid.”
“You’re not being paranoid,” Helena whispers. “The back of my neck is prickling, and I swear someone is watching us.”
Slowly, I rise from the table. I approach my rucksack and kneel to retrieve the knives.
When I rise to my feet, Helena is beside me.
She accepts the weapon I pass her. I grip the cold base of my own knife, acutely aware of how strange it feels in my hand.
I have never wielded a knife or a weapon of any kind before.
“I wish the curtains were closed,” I whisper. “I also wish there was a backdoor we could sneak out of.”
Helena approaches one of the windows and briefly peeks out at the dark forest. The sun has finally disappeared over the distant mountain.
I suppose at this very moment, Gideon and the other Winter fae soldiers are killing those responsible for the attack on the Frostfall faefolk.
They are miles away, so far that I can’t summon him with my thoughts.
A scream pierces the night, followed by a pained groan. My stomach plunges to the floor and my hand trembles so hard that I almost drop the knife.
As quietly as possible, Helena helps me push the table and stools against the front door.
It seems silly to block the door with furniture when the entire cabin is surrounded by Gideon’s powerful wards, but we do it anyway.
It doesn’t make me feel better though, and my pulse thunders in my ears as I wait… for something to happen.
A thought strikes me. The soldiers from Hollins. Maybe some of them escaped the town and came this way. But how could they take out not just one fae soldier, but fifty of them?
My unease spreads, and I feel positively sick.
Gideon, I attempt to send down the bond. Gideon, we need help.
But I don’t sense his thoughts. I’m aware of his beating heart, for now that we are mated, it’s a part of me. He’s out there somewhere, alive. But unfortunately, he’s still too far away to hear my pleas for help.
The front porch creaks, and Helena and I exchange a worried look.
Horror washes through me when the door handle not only moves, but it glows blue.
I know for a fact that Gideon erected the ward around the perimeter of the cabin.
I saw the raised line of frost, barely visible as it spread across the snow, but I stood inside the cabin and watched as he created the protective barrier.
The point being, no one should be able to walk right up to the door.
Helena grasps my arm and pulls me to the back of the cabin. She makes a desperate waving motion, trying to usher me under the bed.
But before I can decide if I truly want to hide there, a blast shakes the entire cabin. Glass shatters, the wooden beams splinter, and everything goes flying.
I go flying too.
When I land, all the air is knocked from my lungs, and my head strikes the floor so hard that my vision blurs. Nausea creeps up my throat. I blink fast and try to focus on my surroundings, but everything is blurry.
“Helena,” I say, though I’m not sure I really say her name aloud.
Please let her be okay. Oh, gods, please.
As my vision continues to blur, I gasp for breath. I turn on my side and keep trying to find my friend, but everything is dark blue and fuzzy. A frigid wind sweeps down and snow pelts my face. Is the cabin missing a wall? Or is the snow coming in through the blasted-out windows?
Confusion dulls my senses, and when I try to speak again, my words are slurred and garbled. I feel on the verge of throwing up or passing out.
Then a large figure appears above me.
A dark-haired highborn fae male with massive, black wings.
My vision is still so blurry that I can’t quite discern his facial features, but it looks like my mate. I think…
“Gideon,” I whisper, trying to reach for the man.
But horror quickly surges through me. If the male standing above me were my mate, wouldn’t I sense his thoughts and emotions? Wouldn’t I feel the bond? And wouldn’t he be kneeling at my side to help me?
Instead, the fae male looms over me.
Somehow, despite the blast and the cold wind sweeping down from the sky, the fire in the hearth is still burning, and orange light keeps flickering over the blurry form that looks so much like my mate.
At last, my vision starts to clear, and my nausea begins to subside.
When the highborn fae male’s face finally becomes clear to me, I gasp and stare up at him as my confusion spreads.
It’s not Gideon, yet the male looks so much like him. They have the same nose, the same high cheekbones, and the same square jaw. The same dark, curving horns too, and the exact same dark shade of hair.
Oh, dear gods.
The male staring down at me with a look of utter contempt is Gideon’s brother.
Lachlan.
I open my mouth, preparing to ask what he’s doing, but he suddenly kicks me in the stomach. Hard. So hard that all the air leaves my lungs again. I gasp on the floor and curl into a ball, trying to protect myself from further violence. Tears burn in my eyes.
Vaguely, I think about the knife I was holding when the blast happened. But it’s no longer in my hand.
Lachlan bends down, reaching for me, and I try to cringe away. He grasps my hair and pulls me upward. My scalp screams with pain.
“Whore,” he says, his voice seething with rage.
“Please,” I whisper. “Please.”
“While my mate was dying on the forest floor,” he says slowly, his lips curling with disgust, “my fool of a brother was fucking you. A godsdamn human.”
“Please,” I whisper again. “I am Gideon’s mate.”
He scoffs. “Yes, yes. You think I don’t know that?
He told me about you in a letter. A fucking messenger bird brought a letter to tell me that Maelissa was dead.
And in the same letter, Gideon told me about you.
” He tightens his hold on my hair. “He said he was coming home to Frostfall soon with the bodies of thirty-eight Winter faefolk, Maelissa among them. Then he wrote that he had some other news to share with me… and he told me about you. His human whore. The fucking human King Theron ordered him to track down. Gods. Fuck!”
He releases my hair, and I fall to the floor again. Then he kicks me before I’m able to curl into myself, and my ribs throb under the impact of his boot.
Gideon, Gideon, Gideon.
I keep trying to reach him through the bond.
But he’s not close enough.
Gods, please, let him come close enough to hear my thoughts. Please, gods, please. And please let Helena be okay.
I try to find her among the mess of the destroyed cabin, but I don’t see her anywhere. I fear she is buried under the debris. I pray she hasn’t been crushed.
Lachlan grabs me by the hair again and starts dragging me into the dark forest. The cold wind continues to swirl snow all around us, and the fae soldiers are still nowhere to be seen.
“Say some prayers for your soul, whore,” he says, growling. “I am going to kill you. But first, I will make you suffer. I will make you wish you had never been born.”