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I almost swallowed my tongue. “Cousin?”

“Distant,” Niall said, and now unmistakable mirth gleamed in his eyes as he looked at me. “I suppose you and I are related now. Does that make you feel better or worse?”

“I think I’d feel better if you hadn’t recently killed one of your relatives,” I said bluntly.

A mysterious little smile played around Niall’s mouth. “Then you’ll be relieved to know Mullo’s death came at the hands of Chloe Drexel, mate to Lachlan MacKay and Alec Murray. She’s human, but she’s also a donum. Mullo never saw her coming. She slipped under his defensive spells and turned all his elements against him.”

I knew my shock showed on my face. Donums were exceedingly rare. Throughout history, they’d been highly prized. They could siphon power from any magical creature. For short periods, they could wield the powers they drained. Human donums were almost unheard of.

Niall walked to the door. Hand on the knob, he looked over his shoulder. “My grandfather was taken down by the unlikeliest opponent. Sometimes, the things we overlook are the most powerful. And the most dangerous. Don’t forget that as you travel North.”

“I won’t,” I said.

He nodded. “Do you have a gift to offer Graeme?”

“Yes.” Tradition dictated that anyone approaching the Oracle brought a gift for the ice dragon. Apparently, the Brotherhood didn’t take vows of poverty when they froze their hearts. My father’s dagger rested at the bottom of my backpack. The blade was spelled to cut through any object without breaking or growing dull, which made it useful for torture. As gross as that was, the spell was lost to history, making the dagger the only one of its kind in the world. I had to hope it was valuable enough to satisfy Graeme Abernathy.

A smile touched Niall’s lips. “Well, then,” he said softly, “good luck to you, Georgina Blackwood.”

He left, and for a moment, Callum and I stared at the door. At last, I turned to him.

“You really won’t stay behind?”

He met my gaze, determination in his green eyes. “Not a chance.”

Arguing with him was a losing battle. I was certain of it. “Fine, but I’m in charge.”

A slow, lazy smile spread across his face. “Och, lassie, that’s one of my kinks.”

Chapter Five

CALLUM

The only thing better than seeing Georgie Blackwood from the frontside was seeing her from the backside.

Because, damn, what a backside. Sunlight sparkled over the snow that dusted her sweet curves, making it look like her lower half was sprinkled with diamonds.

I thrust my hiking poles into the snow and pushed forward, my gaze on my witch’s plump ass and long, toned legs. Thank fuck for lycra. Or whatever that tight, black material was. Assuming we made it out of the Arctic alive, I was going to write a sonnet about it.

“I think I can get us closer.”

Maybe an entire saga. It wasn’t like I was hurting for inspiration.

“Callum!”

I brought my head up just as Georgie stopped and glared at me over her shoulder.

“Did you hear what I said?” she demanded. Her cheeks were flushed the same deep pink as her pouty mouth. She’d plaited her hair in two fat, black braids that streamed over her shoulders. Snow dotted the thick, glossy strands. More snow clung to her spiky eyelashes. Her knit cap made it hard to tell if she was frowning, but judging from the way her purple eyes narrowed further, she probably was.

As it turned out, my witchling was a no-nonsense sort of leader. She’d pushed us hard since we started across the snow. My quads were screaming, but I didn’t dare complain. The quest was obviously important to her. I wouldn’t do anything to slow her down.

I leaned on my pole and offered her my most charming smile. “I heard you, love. You think you can get us closer to the White Gate. I assume you mean pulling us through the currents like you did before.” Which had been a distinctly unpleasant experience. I took shadow form on the regular, so whipping through air shouldn’t have bothered me. But my shift was effortless, my movements controlled.

Georgie’s method of travel was nothing of the sort. One minute, we’d stood in the courtyard of Castle Beithir. The next, we were in the center of an honest-to-goodness hurricane. “Hang onto me!” Georgie had yelled, her hair whipping about us. Then she’d yanked me into the chaos. We’d staggered through the wind and into the center of Manhattan. Two more of those trips had landed us somewhere south of the North Pole. A final hair-raising hop had spit us into Gelhella, the magical plane that hid the Oracle from human eyes. All in all, the journey from Scotland to the Arctic had taken twenty minutes.

I wasn’t keen to repeat the exercise.

“Yeah,” Georgie said now, looking around at the mountains of snow and ice. “I just worry about getting stuck.”