Page 27 of Bound to the Shadow Queen (Frostbound Court #2)

Everly

Already, his mana was a beacon, pulling my feet toward our shared door. It was tense with an emotion I couldn’t quite read, but not remotely subdued. My husband was awake.

My ring pulsed with each step, with each lie I told myself as I pulled closer to his imposing presence, led by an invisible tether that only felt half like a marriage vow.

I tiptoed past my already-snoring sister, pushing open the door without knocking. Was he as agonizingly aware of my presence as I was his? Could he feel me moving closer even before he heard the click of the latch?

He must have been able to because he was already standing when I walked inside, his mana potent but contained. His chest was bare once more, the angry crimson scar on his shoulder standing out in contrast against the unblemished perfection of his moonlit skin.

I shut the door behind me, realizing all at once that I hadn’t been at all prepared for this. I had steeled myself against his rage, not the stillness of his proximity or the way it finally steadied the thundering of my heart.

His eyes glinted deeper green in the glowing light of the auroras that shone through his windows, dancing across the angular lines of his cheek, his jaw, his shoulder. The other half of him was lost to the darkness, concealed by the shadows that seemed nearly as alive as the night sky.

He swept his gaze over me, the movement slower than it should have been, like he was assessing me for injuries instead of his usual glance of disdain.

“What is it?”

Why had I come here? To avoid my nightmares? To get answers?

Those reasons felt flimsy under the weight of his expectant stare, but I stood as straight as I could manage.

“I need to know if you killed him.”

Draven’s features hardened, his shoulders pulling taut. “I have already told you that I did. His life was forfeit the moment he entered my kingdom and kidnapped my wife.”

I blinked, making sense of his words too late. Alaric. He was talking about Alaric.

“No.” The word escaped me in a single breath. “Not him. Kyros.”

Draven’s brow furrowed, and I swallowed, forcing myself to ask what I needed to know.

“Did you kill the male who hurt me?”

Ice spread across the floor, a slow siphoning of the mana that had just swelled with the intensity of my husband’s fury. Because I asked? Because I mentioned one of the many things we refused to address?

“Not slowly enough, but yes. He is very much dead.”

A breath escaped me, unvarnished relief that made me question every virtue I had ever pretended to cling to.

Kyros was dead. He would never come for me again.

Draven tilted his head, stepping closer to me. He shifted just enough that his entire body was visible in the lights of the winter sky, preternaturally beautiful and no less dangerous for it.

He lifted his hand to my chin, tilting it up until I was forced to meet his eyes. The metal of his frostcarved ring was a cool contrast to the skin that blazed against mine.

The relief that had coursed through me mere seconds ago felt flimsy and diaphanous in the tidal wave of emotion that flooded over me when his skin finally made contact with mine.

“Does that make you happy, Morta Mea?” His breath ghosted along my lips. “Or is it just another sin for you to hurl at my feet so I can be the monster you need me to be?”

The air crackled between us.

“Both,” I whispered.

I hated it, the way every part of me craved the protection he offered.

“Did you get what you needed then?” he growled.

“Yes.”

The ring against my chin vibrated with the lie. Maybe Draven was right. Maybe lying was all I knew how to do.

Hadn’t Wynnie told me the same thing? I lied to him and I lied to myself, hiding behind the bond like something in me hadn’t shattered at the idea of his life ending, even if it would have freed me from the bond.

He raised a single eyebrow, clenching his free fist until it was coated in ice. The moment stretched between us, piercing through the space that was heavy with all the secrets and half truths between us.

I lifted my hand to his shoulder, to the scar that had come so close to severing this bond.

His lips parted, and I squeezed my eyes shut against the onslaught of need that overcame me.

To touch him. To consume and be consumed by him, feel his breath against my skin and his pulse against my fingertips and know that he was still alive after the days I had spent terrified that he wouldn’t be.

The Unseelie are not capable of love.

Your kind.

Kill on sight.

I shouldn’t want him, or this. Even if there was nothing close to disgust in the way he dragged his thumb along the bottom curve of my lip.

“I’m so tired of being weak.” I realized too late I had spoken the words aloud.

But it was true. I was tired of being taken and tortured and used and hated, tired of the nightmares that tormented me as surely as my captors had, and sick to death of trying not to want someone who tortured and threatened at will, someone who despised everything I was.

I opened my eyes on his exhale of surprise.

“Weak?” His tone was low, sharp, slicing through to my marrow. “You are many things, Morta Mea.”

He tightened his grip on my chin, stepping close enough that I could feel the heat of his bare skin through the thin fabric of my nightgown. “A liar and a traitor, among them.”

The words were a caress against my skin, falling with a gentleness that belied the insults beneath.

“But you have never come close to being weak.”

He was so close that I could taste the veracity of his claim, could feel his conviction against my waiting lips. I knew it was a mistake, could practically feel the regret dancing along my spine even before I moved.

But I didn’t try nearly hard enough to stop myself from leaning the rest of the way into his touch and finally, finally pressing my lips against his.