Chapter Twenty-Three
ROXY
I wake to darkness that isn’t darkness at all.
Above me, the ceiling stretches impossibly high, and I realize it’s not a ceiling but the night sky, captured and crystallized into arching vaults of ice so clear I can see individual stars frozen mid-twinkle in their depths.
The walls pulse with that same impossible starlight, veins of silver and deep indigo threading through translucent frost that shouldn’t exist outside of fever dreams or children’s fairy tales.
Everything gleams with cold luminescence, like someone took the aurora borealis and forged it into architecture, each surface reflecting and refracting light until the entire space seems to breathe with captured constellations.
I push myself upright, and my breath clouds white in air so frigid it burns going down.
The floor beneath me isn’t stone or wood but something smooth and glassy, shot through with threads of frozen starlight that pulse in patterns I can’t quite follow.
When I press my palm against it, the cold sears straight through skin and muscle to bone, leaving behind an ache that radiates up my arm in waves.
It’s not the delicate cold I get when Raze touches me—this shit is arctic.
But this isn’t Earth.
This can’t be Earth.
We went through the portal, reality folded sideways, and now I’m somewhere else, somewhere that operates on rules I don’t understand, in a fortress built from materials that shouldn’t exist.
My mother is a witch. I grew up knowing magic was real, watching her brew potions in our kitchen, seeing her call storms when she was angry.
But I kept my distance from all that, chose photography over spellwork, chose normalcy over the supernatural world she inhabited with such casual ease.
I rejected the legacy she wanted me to embrace, moved away, and built a life that had nothing to do with magic, curses, or creatures that shouldn’t exist. Until she pulled me back in.
And now I’m trapped in a palace made of frozen starlight, held prisoner by something that looks like a man but moves like glaciers shifting, and I can’t even begin to process what that means.
The iron chains around my wrists burn with familiar agony, the same kind of chains Raze used on me when I first stumbled into his world.
These feel heavier, though, older, woven through with enchantments that make my skin crawl and my half-trained magic recoil from even trying to manifest. They’re not just binding my body, they’re dampening something inside me, smothering the wild violet energy I’ve only just started to understand.
I test the chains anyway, pulling against them with every ounce of strength I possess. The iron bites deeper, burning through layers of skin until I smell my own flesh charring. I grit my teeth and pull harder, refusing to give in to the pain, refusing to accept that I’m helpless.
The chains won’t budge.
Footsteps echo across the frozen floor, each step ringing with crystalline precision that makes the walls shimmer and pulse.
I look up, and there he is, the Seelie Prince, moving through his fortress with the kind of confidence that comes from millennia of unchallenged power.
He’s beautiful in that disturbing way that makes my mind scream warnings even as my eyes try to make sense of features too perfect to be natural.
Moonlight hair, eyes like winter ice, armor crafted from what looks like solidified starlight and frosted silver.
Everything about him is calculated to inspire awe.
All I see is the creature who dragged me away from Raze, who tore me out of the clubhouse while my dragon roared my name.
“You’re awake,” he observes, voice carrying musical undertones that make the air vibrate. “Good. We have much to discuss, little witch.”
I don’t respond. I simply stare at him with every ounce of defiance I can summon, channeling every lesson learned from weeks of captivity, from every moment spent refusing to break under pressure from creatures who thought I was too human to matter.
He smiles, and it’s the kind of smile that promises cruelty disguised as kindness. “I have a proposal for you—”
“How about you go fuck yourself?” I snap back, cutting him off.
He grins, tilting his head, his eyelids flickering but not in a normal way, from bottom to top, with black eyelids, and I jerk my head back at the absurdity of it.
“It seems you’re at an impasse, Roxy… there are only two options for you right now.
One is certain death…” I swallow hard, and he smirks again seeing that I am listening a little more intently now, “… or, my proposal. You become my consort, give me access to your bloodline and your knowledge of the club’s operations, and…
” he waves his hand through the air like this is the only option I can take, “… I’ll spare them.
” He gestures, and the air in front of me ripples, reality bending until an image forms in the frozen starlight, showing the clubhouse from an angle I’ve never seen before.
“Refuse, and I’ll destroy everything you’ve come to care about. ”
My heart slams against my ribs hard enough to bruise.
I can see them in the magical projection—Scar moving through shadows at vampire speed, Wreck feeding on fear as fae warriors scatter before him, Coil’s serpentine form coiling around enemies with lethal precision.
Raze, my dragon, is fighting with fire and ice spiraling together in patterns that make the air scream.
The prince watches my reaction with clinical interest. “Your dragon is impressive, I’ll grant you that.
But he cannot stand against the full might of the Seelie Court.
” He moves closer, close enough that the frost forming on his armor with each breath is almost beautiful if it weren’t so fucking scary.
“You care for them. I can see it in your eyes, taste it in the air around you. That weakness will be their downfall, unless… you agree to my terms.”
I gather every ounce of moisture in my mouth and spit directly in his face.
The saliva freezes mid-flight, crystallizing into tiny ice shards that tinkle against his perfect features like falling stars.
For one heartbeat, the fortress goes absolutely silent, the pulsing starlight stilling as if the entire structure is holding its breath.
Then the prince smiles wider, and it’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen, before the shards of saliva fall to the ground at my feet, clinking against the ground, making beautiful, harmonious sounds that shouldn’t be so glorious for a gesture out of spite.
“I belong to Raze,” I manage through teeth that want to chatter from cold and fear in equal measure. “And he is coming for me.” The words hang in the frozen air between us, defiant and absolute.
The prince’s laughter echoes through the vaulted ceiling until it surrounds me from all directions. “Oh, little witch. That’s exactly what I am counting on.” He waves one hand, and the magical projection shifts, zooming in on different sections of the battle raging through the clubhouse.
“Watch,” he commands, his voice carrying compulsion that makes my eyes lock onto the images even as I try to look away. “Watch them bleeeeeed for you.”
The vision focuses on Calder first, the young kitsune fighting with fox-fire blazing from his hands in brilliant orange-gold flames. He’s holding his own against two fae warriors, his youth and speed keeping him ahead of their blades, his fire burning bright enough to drive them back step by step.
Then a third fae appears behind him, moving with supernatural silence, and drives an iron blade straight through his back.
Calder’s fox-fire extinguishes like someone flipped a switch, the brilliant flames dying to nothing as he drops to his knees.
Blood spreads across the clubhouse floor in an expanding pool that reflects the overhead lights in crimson patterns.
His face goes pale, eyes wide with shock and pain, and I watch him fall forward onto the stone that shouldn’t be slick with his blood.
“No,” I whisper, the word torn from somewhere deep in my chest.
The vision shifts before I can see if he’s still breathing, focusing instead on Rhett and Bennett fighting back-to-back near the main entrance. The hellhound and the angel, constantly bickering and sniping at each other, now move in perfect synchronization as they face down a wave of fae warriors.
Rhett’s shadows coil around enemy legs, dragging them down into darkness that swallows screams, while Bennett’s divine light burns through fae flesh with precision that speaks to centuries of holy war.
They’re magnificent together, covering each other’s blind spots, compensating for weaknesses, fighting with the kind of unity that only comes from trust forged in blood.
But there are too many.
For every fae they drop, three more push through the shattered doors. I watch a lunar blade slice across Rhett’s shoulder, opening a wound that spills darkness instead of blood, and watch Bennett’s wing get pierced by an enchanted arrow that makes him stumble mid-flight.
They’re bloodied.
Exhausted.
Still fighting.
Still refusing to break.
“They’re quite resilient,” the prince observes, tone carrying academic interest like he’s watching a particularly engaging experiment. “I’ve sent three dozen of my finest warriors. Impressive, for such a small force.”
The vision shifts again, and this time I’m looking at Thorn.
The nightbark stands at the center of chaos, branches and thorns erupting from his body in violent growth, creating barriers and weapons from his own flesh.
Trees outside the clubhouse bend to his will, roots smashing through windows to drag fae warriors into crushing embraces.
He’s bleeding sap from dozens of wounds, dark, viscous fluid that stains the floor beneath him, but he doesn’t stop fighting.