Page 16 of Bound to the Shadow Queen (Frostbound Court #2)

Draven

Blood dripped steadily from Everly’s limp body, hot against the ice of my arm, every drop another lash against my speed. The ring burned colder and colder, its bite worsening until it felt as if frost were crawling through my veins.

Her small sounds of pain scraped along my bones carving me from the inside out. I spread a thin coat of frost across her skin, soothing the wounds and trying to stop the bleeding.

Then I ran faster, cursing the Shard Mother and every last damned fae that led us to this moment. Light shifted through the trees ahead, a haze of violet shimmering faintly in the distance.

I prodded at the wards with my mana, cursing when there was no give. Ice flared against the wards before evaporating.

I tried again and again until finally I found it. There was a single point of entry, narrowing with each passing second. I slipped through the small opening just before it closed, snapping the wards back into place.

It was nearly impossible to travel through the ice here. Even with the marriage bond pulling me urgently in Everly’s direction from the moment I emerged in the Wilds, I had been forced to trek on foot for hours, jumping in short bursts against the chaotic mana that wanted to lead me astray.

But each jump was a risk to my wife. She should be safer than I would have been, shielded by my body as we traveled, but it would still take its toll. She couldn’t tolerate more than one.

So I closed my eyes and focused on the entrance to the portal, hoping the fact that I had been there before would make the transition cleaner.

Or that the mana here would recognize the presence of one of its own, allowing me to carve an easier path back to the portal.

I landed several hundred feet from where I wanted to, the wild mana pushing back against my own, but at least the portal was in sight.

Everly’s blood flowed faster now, spilling hot between my fingers, just as I had known it would. Traveling through the ice had torn her wounds even wider, dragging the life from her veins like a tide.

Frost-damned hells.

I stepped from the forest into the carnage of the hideout, the sounds of carefully controlled horror already bleeding through the walls.

Noerwyn looked up sharply from where she was straightening a row of tonics and bandages she had pulled from her pack.

“Lay her here,” she gestured to a small, broken sofa along the wall.

The bond rebelled at the loss of contact as I lowered Everly onto the cushions. Fury burned bright in Noerwyn’s pale eyes, but her hands remained steady as she tore into her supplies.

“I hope you made them suffer,” she said, her features pinched and her voice carved from ice.

“Not enough,” I answered, remembering deaths that had come far, far too quickly.

Nevara stood silent at the far end of the room, her slim fists clenched around her staff. Mana flared from the top, pulsing like a furious heartbeat.

Did she smell the blood? Did she See the wounds in whatever vision her precious Shard Mother saw fit to provide her with?

I ground my teeth, forcing myself to look away from her. My gaze landed instead on Everly’s ashen features, her lips trembling with each ragged breath.

A thin, broken scream tore from her throat. I looked sharply at the bottle in Noerwyn’s hands. It should have been soothing the wounds, not making them worse.

“Why is that hurting her?”

Noerwyn shook her head in bafflement, all the while keeping up a steady stream of murmuring.

“I know, Evy. I’m here. I’m here, and you’re going to be all right,” though the words fell flat as she yanked the cork from another bottle.

No. The Unseelie mongrels hadn’t suffered nearly enough. My eyes flicked back toward the portal, and the temptation to go back and finish what I had started clawed along my skin. I should have finished them. Should have buried their bones in frost.

Ice laced the floor, crawling up the walls and ceiling.

Everly choked on another breath, her body seizing, and Noerwyn froze, lips parting.

“Son of a mother-loving whore.” She hurled her bottle against the bloodstained wall, letting out another string of curses before she turned to me.

“You have a Spring healer at the palace, right?” she asked without waiting for an answer. “You need to take her. Now.”

I shook my head once. “Travelling through the ice isn’t safe in her state. It was a risk the first time, but she could bleed out?—”

“She will bleed out if you don’t,” Noerwyn shot back, her composure cracking at last. She peeled back one of the blood-soaked bandages, revealing the blackening edges of the wound.

The sight made my veins turn to ice. The Unseelie and their shards-damned poisons.

“Take her,” Nevara said quietly.

Noerwyn squeezed her eyes shut, her voice trembling when she spoke. “Will the healer be able to save her?”

Nevara pursed her lips. Her gaze was distant and swirling with starlight. “She will die if she stays.”

She might die either way.

The unspoken truth seemed to echo off the frozen walls along with another scream. My ring iced over, the bond tugging so hard it hurt.

I scooped her into my arms once more.

Nevara’s earlier question whispered back, curling like smoke in my mind.

What will you do when you find her?

I still didn’t know. But I sure as hells wasn’t going to let her die before I figured it out.

“You are too stubborn to die like this, Morta Mea.”

Then I lunged through the ice, fury and desperation snapping at my heels, willing her to still be breathing when we landed on the other side.