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I kick my heels into the ground for a wider sway of the swing seat. “Why don’t you talk to her?”

Samick swerves his daggered stare to me.

My toes curl against the air.

Unmoving, his voice is forming ice, “Why would I speak to her?”

“To get to know her?” My voice hikes with the doubt. I shrug, stiff. “Isn’t that what you want?”

His upper lip twitches, daring to curl over his viciously sharp teeth. His muscles slink beneath his hard skin as he takes a step closer to me, pressing his weight onto that one boot.

I cringe back.

He reaches out his hand and grips the post, his eyes turning to pure frost. “Some fae might speak too much.”

My cheeks heat.

He looks down his fine nose at me. “And yet, learn nothing.”

My words falter as his jaw tightens, a rage brewing in him like I’ve never before felt. It bites and nips at me in the air alone, a blizzard brewing all around.

Still, the words stumble out of me in a whisper, “Is she your evate?”

The regret is instant.

Too late, I bite down on my cheeks as if to trap words I’ve already spoken.

Samick lifts his pale, slender hand. He drags his finger down my cheek. The touch is an instant cold burn.

I hiss and cringe back into the post.

But Samick looms over me, still.

“If it were evate, would she still be alive?” he asks darkly, then shoves away from the post.

No words gather in my throat in answer.

Samick isn’t confessing secrets to me.

Samick is warning me.

He makes no secret of it in the way he considers me, his disdain for my questions, for being trapped in this conversation with me. Maybe he even despises the audacity I have apparently have for striking up a conversation.

He moves for Aleana.

My hand cups my tickling cheek, the frosty nip lingering.

Mute, I watch as he scoops up Aleana.

I doubt Samick came out here to check on her. He doesn’t seem to bother with her much at all. It’s like he goes through life with layers of ice and frost between him and the world. So as he takes her into his arms with little delicacy, I’m certain he only came out to see Kalice.

Samick spares me no final glances as he takes Aleana inside.

I watch him go.

And I think myself awful stupid.

I decide I’ll never know Samick.