Chapter 9 #2
I lift my foot, trembling, and tap a single toe on the surface. The ice groans faintly, and I freeze, too afraid to breathe, frightened that even a sigh might splinter everything beneath me.
When nothing happens, I lower my full weight onto the ice.
I take a step. Then another. My eyes flick wildly between my father’s silhouette and the treacherous lake beneath my feet. He keeps walking away, calling my name.
I have to hurry.
I draw in a sharp breath, ready to break into a run, but I never get the chance.
An arm slams around my waist and yanks me backwards, hauling me clean off the ice and onto the snowy bank.
I gasp, then scream, kicking wildly, but Luceran only tightens his hold like iron.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he roars, voice cracking through the night like thunder. “Trying to get yourself killed?”
“Put me down!” I fight, elbowing and twisting against him. “My father is out there!”
“That is not your father,” Luceran snarls into my ear. “Now go back to your room.”
I thrash harder, striking at him blindly. My fingernail catches his cheek and he growls, the sound deep and feral.
“I heard him! He was calling my name!”
His breath ghosts along the shell of my ear as he exhales.
“I am telling you, Neve Devlin,” he murmurs, “whatever is out there… it is not your father and you will have nothing to do with it. Do you hear me?”
I claw at his arm, but it’s hopeless. He’s too strong, too solid, too immovable.
My fight drains away all at once. My shoulders sag, and a small, broken sob slips free.
“Yes,” I whisper. “I hear you. Just… please. Put me down.”
Slowly, so slowly it feels like a test, he lowers me to the snow. My bare feet sink into the cold, and for a breath his hand stays at my waist, fingers brushing my damp nightgown, skimming the curve of my hip before slipping away entirely.
He steps back.
I look over my shoulder, trying to swallow the sob rising in my throat. My eyes burn, my lips tremble blue, and I’m certain I look a sight. Frizzed braid, flushed cheeks, half-frozen and wild-eyed.
But the way Luceran looks at me is… not disgust.
His breath stutters in his chest. He straightens his shoulders as if it might hide it, fists curling at his sides while his gaze drags over me once… twice… before he wrenches them away.
“Inside. Now,” he commands.
I nod, head bowed, and turn toward the castle.
But the moment he turns too… I run.
I bolt across the snow, feet slapping the ice with a sharp skid. I don’t know how I’m upright, how the ice doesn’t crack, but I don’t care. I only see him.
“Father!” I cry. “I’m coming! Wait!”
He stands at the center of the lake now, still and patient, arms held out in welcome.
Neve… come to me, Neve…
Tears sting my eyes. I can almost feel his embrace.
Then something slams into me like a falling boulder.
I’m thrown sideways, sliding across the ice. The air is punched from my lungs as a massive weight bears down on me, pinning me flat.
A groan rattles out of me as I blink up, and at first I don’t believe what I see.
A massive, white wolf straddles me, its front legs caging me in. Its breath pours hot mist over my face, its enormous chest heaving. Silver-edged fur bristles in the wind. Its teeth gleam like blades in the moonlight.
But what makes my blood freeze is not its size, or strength, or impossible beauty.
It’s the eyes.
One blazing blue.One molten gold.
My breath fractures. “Luceran?”
Before the wolf or I can move again, a sound tears across the lake.
A guttural, inhuman snarl.
We both snap our heads toward the figure I thought was my father.
The clouds shift, moonlight slicing across the ice.
And what stands there, what I was running toward, is not my father at all.
At the fractured heart of the lake, a wide, jagged hole yawns open in the ice, and crawling out of it, half-slithered onto the frozen surface, is the thing that called my name.
A creature of shadow and nightmares.
Its body writhes like smoke trapped in a warped humanoid shape, every movement wrong, bending where no limb should. Long, wiry arms drag across the ice, carving deep, splintering grooves. Its torso shifts and distorts, as if its bones melt and reform with each breath.
Where a face should be, there is only smooth darkness.
Then two eyes ignite.
Blinding white. Bright enough to sear the air, to bleach the shadows from its form.
A mouth rips open beneath them, stretching impossibly wide, lined with rows of razor-thin teeth like shattered glass packed into a bleeding wound. Black ichor spills between them, hissing as it strikes the ice.
The creature coils toward me in a slick, fluid motion, and when it speaks, I hear my father’s voice once more.
Neve… come to me…
And in that moment, under the silvered moon, I understand. This thing did not call me by accident. It chose me. It hunted me, and I almost ran straight into its jaws.
Luceran steps off me in one smooth, powerful motion, planting himself between me and the horror at the center of the lake. His massive wolf body bristles, every hair along his spine standing rigid as frost ripples outward from his paws, threading like veins across the ice.
I tremble where I lie, the cold and terror sinking into my bones.
The wolf lifts his head to the winter moon and howls, a sound so deep it vibrates through my ribs, a tear of raw fury that splits the night itself. Frost blooms out in circles from the force of it, the air crackling around him like breaking glass.
The creature’s head snaps toward him.It hisses, an awful, wet, dragging hiss that scrapes across my mind like claws.
Then it retreats, slinking into the ruptured hole, dragging its limbs behind it.
The ice mends. Cracks weave together. Frost gathers thick and fast, and in seconds, the fracture is gone, sealed as if it never existed.
A perfect sheet of moonlit ice.
I lie there, stunned, struggling even to breathe. The cold night, the monstrous voice, the wolf at my side. None of it feels real, as though I’ve fallen into a waking nightmare.
Then Luceran’s wolf form shudders.
He stumbles once, and I freeze as his body begins to change.
It starts along his spine, a rolling ripple beneath his fur, as though something inside him is forcing its way free.
His massive frame bends forward, limbs twisting where they should not before snapping back into place.
Shoulders broaden and reshape. Bones crack, reform, fuse again.
Paws split into long fingers, claws scoring the ice before curling inward.
His muzzle draws back, fur receding, until only his mismatched eyes remain. Gold and blue. Watching me.
When the last threads of magic snap away, he stands naked on the ice, breath heaving, steam rising from his skin. Runes burn down his chest like blue fire.
He doesn’t look at me at first.
He stares at the lake, jaw clenched so tightly the muscle in his cheek twitches. His hair, long, white, untamed, whips behind him in the wind. He looks almost feral. Not the cold, composed lord of Frostwyn, but an ancient predatory creature.
Finally, he turns towards me, those hungry eyes lock onto mine, and for the first time since I arrived in this cursed palace, I see something in them that stops my heart.
Fear.
Not for himself.
For me.
“Neve,” he says, voice hoarse. “Please. Go to your room.”
I try to speak, but no sound comes out. My lips tremble. My whole body trembles. Somehow, I force myself upright, legs unsteady beneath me.
I turn toward the castle and walk. I don’t run. I don’t look back. I don’t dare.
I know he does not follow.
The snow crunches beneath my bare feet when I reach the bank.
My nightgown clings cold and wet to my skin.
The roses scratch my calves as I pass, frozen petals tugging at the fabric like they’re trying to keep me from leaving.
But there is no force in this world that could make me stay.
Not when Luceran looks at me like he might devour me. Not when I might let him.
I slip inside and close the door behind me, the quiet click sounding far too small for what I’ve just witnessed.
And I go straight to my room.