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

Everly

Blood soaked the stone.

It covered the walls and pooled out from under the doorways.

I tried to breathe, but the air wouldn’t come. My chest was trapped beneath the weight of something heavy, something that clawed at my arms and let out a blood-curdling howl.

Terror flooded my veins as I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out.

I tried again, but a different voice split the air and shattered the Tharnok into a million tiny pieces.

Suddenly, I was in my sister’s room, staring down at the monster as it feasted on her husband.

Crimson flowed from the gaping wound in his chest in slow, lazy ribbons that stretched across the floor and laced around my boots.

The world tilted. It was burning, or I was. There was only screaming, and shaking, and monsters pouring in through the door and from the windows.

They ran toward my sister’s hiding place in the closet, and all I could do was stare.

Too late. I’m too late.

And then he was there. Perfect features carved from marble. Silver-blond locks falling carelessly onto his brow. Aurora gaze assessing me with intent.

Draven.

He surrounded me in a shield of icy mana. Snow flurries whisked away the blood as his forehead pressed against mine.

His voice silenced the screams. I couldn’t make sense of his words, but I knew the sound of him.

His mana surged through the air like a second heartbeat, shattering the bloody walls until we were surrounded by fresh snow. Until everything glistened like starlight and pristine ice.

The chaos fell away, just for a moment. He breathed my name like a vow. Like a plea.

Everly.

Then the vision shattered.

Claws ripped free from my fingernails, sinking into Draven’s chest. His face twisted, his body crumpling to the ground. Blood sprayed across my face, spattering across the glistening snow as the sound of a scream filled my ears once again. Was it mine? Someone else’s?

Draven’s lips parted in disgust, and a single word hissed past his lips.

Traitor.

I jerked upright in bed.

I was slick with sweat, and the thin fabric of my nightgown stuck to me like a second skin.

I took several shaky breaths, trying to reconcile the walls of my childhood bedroom with my nightmare. Not that there was any safety to be found here either, just an empty echo of the childhood that was ripped away from me.

The bed was small to the point of suffocating now, and far too empty. There was no furry white head of the skathryn that had become mine, no warm grasp from the sister who comforted me even in her own grief.

No broad chest or protective arms of the husband I had never wanted.

Traitor.

I flinched at the memory of the word. Two syllables that scraped along my skin with all the gentleness of a rusty blade flaying skin from bone.

I threw off the blankets and rested my feet on the cool wooden slats of the floor. The dreams were getting worse. More vivid.

Traitor.

The word echoed through the room as loudly as if Draven were here saying it himself.

I dragged in a breath of stale air and clenched my fists.

It had been days of this. Dreams that cut like serrated blades. Nightmares that mingled with memories, blurring the line between what was real and what wasn’t.

And always, I woke up here, back in my childhood bed, in a room that smelled like old cedar and ghosts.

I forced myself to stand upright, ignoring the pervasive tugging toward the north that I could only assume was my marriage bond. My limbs were slow to respond, weighed down with sleep and something that felt a lot like terror.

Whenever I was still for too long, I could feel the weight of the Tharnok’s body pressed against me all over again. I could smell its sulfuric breath and feel its claws shredding through my skin.

I was almost grateful when a knock at the door pulled me from my thoughts.

Or, I would have been, if the abrupt sound hadn’t grated against the edges of my sleep-deprived soul. Too early. It was far too early for someone to come looking for me.

My stomach twisted as I darted a glance toward the shuttered windows, taking in the darkness that lay just beyond them. When I squinted, I could make out a smudge of sunrise peeking out just above the eastern forest.

A firmer knock landed against the wooden frame, and a disgruntled voice called out for silence somewhere down the hall.

Far too early… Which didn’t bode well.

Images crashed in all at once. Moments frozen in time from when I was dragged to the mages that first time, to the way my father pounded on the door when the unexpected summons came from the palace…

I held my breath, forcing each image deeper into the back of my mind, burying it along with the others, as I cracked open the door.

It was Alaric, the male I remembered from my childhood. He had been my friend once, until he had returned as my captor.

It was hard to hold that fact against him when he was one of the few here who didn’t look at me like I was the villain from every single one of their childhood nightmares.

Even now, Alaric’s slate-gray eyes surveyed me in concern before he cleared his throat. Or was that pity?

My stomach twisted in the heartbeat before he spoke.

“The Thane demands your presence in the longhouse.” His soft voice carved through the air and straight through my chest.

My uncle… my Thane and complete shadow-throned sadist, who hadn’t spoken more than a handful of words to me since I was dragged here, was demanding my presence before the sun had even finished her yawn.

I couldn’t do anything but nod. As much as I wanted to hide from my uncle, better yet, to run and never look back, I needed to understand why he had brought me here.

And how long he intended to let me live.

With leaden steps, I turned back to my childhood bedroom, a room full of carved and stitched dragons—the ancestors that were supposed to watch over me in my sleep.

They had brought me comfort once, but there was no solace to be found where my uncle was concerned.

I wasn’t foolish enough to keep him waiting, either. So I pulled on my cloak over my nightgown, twisted my thick hair into a braid, and stepped into boots that still felt like someone else’s.

Then I walked away from the room full of memories and ghosts and the kind of hope only a child can afford. But now I knew the truth.

The dragons had abandoned us long ago. Nothing in this room had protected me when it mattered.

And they sure as hells wouldn’t protect me from whatever my uncle had planned.