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“Because he wants you as his mate.”

My eyes close. “Don’t ever say that again. He doesn’t own me.”

“No one could ever own you.”

“I think he’s going to look for me when he’s done back there.”

“And you don’t want him to?” Kearan asks carefully.

My head whips in his direction. “Of course not!”

“Sounds to me like immortality and power are being offered to you.”

I step up to him and jab a finger into his chest. “Let’s get something straight. I don’twantto live forever. I have a family waiting for me in the stars. I intend to reunite with them someday. Not be trapped on this miserable world forever. And when has power ever made anyone happy?”

Kearan doesn’t flinch from my proximity. He shrugs. “Alosa seems pretty happy as a queen.”

“Alosa was happy before she was a queen. It isn’t the power that makes her happy.”

“Okay.”

I step back from him and drop my hand. “Don’t you ever suggest I’m some greedy—”

“I wasn’t.”

“Yes, you—”

“I just wanted to know where you stood with this King of the Undersea.”

“Stop interrupting me!”

“Yes, Captain.” He slams his lips closed.

“No man determines my fate. Threydan may come looking for me, but he can’t have me.”

And then Kearan’s face changes, as though he’d been forcing it to be calm. Now it morphs into a snarl. “He can look all he damn well likes; he’s not taking you. I—we—the crew won’t let it happen.”

A moment of silence passes, where we just stare at each other. I notice his breath fogging in the air before him, while mine does no such thing.

I hold one of my bare hands out in front of me. It looks normal, a deep umber against the white backdrop of this frozen tundra. I blow a breath of air against my skin. While I feel the gust of air, I don’t register any temperature with it at all. Not the cold of my surroundings or the heat that should be on my breath.

Kearan asks, “What’s wrong?”

I hold my hand up to him. He pauses before reaching out with his own ungloved hand to take it.

“Can you feel that?” I ask him. “Am I tangible at all?”

“I can feel you,” he says reassuringly. “You’re real.”

“I can feel the contact. I know you’re touching me, but I can’t feel warmth or cold. I just feel wrong. Does my skin even give off heat?”

He hesitates before saying, “Yes.”

“Are you lying to me?”

“I would never lie to you.”

“Then why did you pause?”