Chapter 41 #4
Gods. I’d failed her. All my strength, my magic… and I hadn’t been able to protect her.
But beneath the pain, beneath the ringing in my skull, I felt something different, something reaching for me.
The ground trembled faintly, like some monstrous heartbeat hidden deep below. Darkness stirred in the earth, coiling toward me. A whisper crawled into my head, frigid and venomous, curling around my thoughts like smoke.
“Reach for me, Son of Ice. Reach, and I will answer.”
I gritted my teeth as another boot slammed into my side, cracking ribs, my breath forced from my lungs as someone punched me in the gut.
The whispers only grew more intense, filling my mind with insidious promises.
“Make them fall to their knees at your feet… Make them pay…”
Something black and fathomless clawed its way up my spine.
I wobbled to my knees, but another blow to my temple knocked me back down into the snow, my vision blurred through swollen eyes.
“We’ve wasted enough time,” Fenrik said. “Make sure you warn the warden not to remove those shackles.”
“How do you know that weasel won’t betray us?”
“I’m handing him the Frost Prince on a silver platter. If he betrays us, he’ll be signing his own death sentence. Now go. The last ship sails at dusk.”
Someone grabbed me by the ankles, dragging me away through the dirt and bloodied snow. Fenrik hurried to the forest’s edge, taking Sylvi’s limp form into his arms before disappearing through the trees.
Our tether wrenched in my chest, and pain like I’d never known tore through me. “Sss…yl…” I tried to call for her, but my jaw was a ruin of broken bones.
“Accept your fate, Son of Ice. It’s time…”
I tried to mentally block the voices, but they only hissed louder, that ancient evil dormant in the frozen rock beneath these cursed lands reaching from its tomb with cold, hungry fingers. Deep down I knew what it would require of me, the price I would have to pay to claim that power…
But what did I care now about the consequences when these people had taken her? Taken the other half of my soul, the only reason my heart even bothered to beat.
The images of her unconscious body kept replaying in my mind, cruel and maddening.
My entire being shuddered.
The shifters laughed as they hauled my broken body onto a wooden cart, every shove shooting mind-blinding pain through bone and muscle.
“He should’ve killed him,” one of the shifters said. “He’s too powerful. Too much of a liability to keep alive. If he…”
“Don’t. Question. It. Fenrik knows what he’s doing. Where that royal fae filth is going, he’s going to wish he were dead.”
“You put too much faith in him.”
“Fenrik promised us the Skadgardian female was the wolf blessed by Selvarg. That she is the one. You saw what she did to those mercenaries.”
“That’s hardly proof. She hasn’t even completed her transformation. And we don’t know if the Vargeldr will accept her or burn her to ash.”
I strained against my shackles, my gut twisting at those words, anger erupting into red flames behind my eyes.
“If Fenrik says she’s the úlfhrein, then she is.”
“Even if you’re right, who’s to say she will even fight on our side? She’s sworn to the Frostbound Court. She’s his fucking captain of the guard. His mate, if that stench on her skin is any indication that they’ve actually completed the mating bond.”
“She’s promised to Fenrik,” his packmate snapped. “A union already ordained by Selvarg. The prophecy is clear. Once she sees that she is one of us, any bond she has with the Frost Prince will be shattered when she accepts Fenrik as her alpha.”
“That’s not how the bonds work, and you know that.”
“Fuck the bonds. Selvarg promised her to us. She belongs to our people, to Fenrik. End of story.”
A growl rumbled in my chest, heart pounding like it would burst through my ribs. If that wolf prince laid a single finger on her…
The blood in my veins flared, but it wasn’t frostfire. My ice magic had been snuffed by the shackles around my wrists.
But that inky monster slithering inside me… It stirred, eyes slowly blinking awake.
Fenrik had made a deadly mistake coming into my world and taking what was mine.
Asshole should have killed me.
Sinking deep into myself, I reached for the last vestiges of my strength, reached for my broken spirit, and wrapped my fingers around the glowing tether anchoring me to her.
I tugged until I felt it…the slightest tug back. A tear rolled down my cheek, warmth swelling in my chest.
Forgive me, elskan. I whispered across our bond, hoping she’d feel my regret. Hoping one day she’d understand.
Closing my eyes, I unclasped the chains caging the monster coiled at my core. The deathly, cold grip of damnation wrapped around my heart like a vise, my veins swimming with acrid shadows, those sinister whispers chanting triumphantly in my ears.
Absolute. Unyielding. Unforgiving.
By Skadi’s blood, I would find Sylvi and bring her back home. Back to me. Even if it meant plunging the seven kingdoms into a bloody, gruesome war.
Even if it meant surrendering my splintered soul to the darkness clawing its way back into our world.