Page 44

Everly

A storm rolled in. Snow swirled in the dark, lashing like whips against flesh, punishing. Endless.

A guttural scream ripped through the air, raw and primal.

It didn’t belong to a king. It belonged to a male breaking .

Mana surged from his chest in a violent tidal wave of frost and fury that twisted the snow into bladed tendrils.

The sound of it howled like a wounded god, as if the land itself had been cleaved apart.

The entire world was frozen in the time it had taken for the scream to echo off the mountains.

Where there had been a battlefield moments ago, now there were only corpses. Their eyes were wide with fear, limbs twisted in final, desperate movements.

I spiraled through the air, no more than haze and frost, drawing closer to one of the corpses until it morphed into a face I saw every day in the mirror. Pale blue eyes frozen in terror, navy locks forever askew.

Darkness fell, and from it came the monsters.

Tharnoks, Mirrorbanes, and worse, all lumbering through the storm on clawed feet and shrieking in hunger. One by one, they exploded into shards of ice.

But each time a frostbeast fell, two more appeared in their place.

Balance, Nevara’s voice echoed over the shrieks of the dying. Mana demands a balance. But you never considered the cost.

I looked down at my hands—no, his hands. They were trembling.

And they were empty. Always empty. Because no matter how much he gave, no matter how much he destroyed, it would never be enough to undo the one thing he couldn’t take back.

I wrenched myself awake. Before I even opened my eyes, I sensed it. The colossal wave of power that ripped through the palace like a snowstorm.

My husband had returned. And he was trapped in his own sort of hell.

Batty shuffled into me, and Astra let out a low whine.

“He’s fine,” I tried to assure her, even as I tasted the lie on my tongue. “Just…dreaming.”

Outside, the wind howled loud enough to rival one of the wolves, emphasizing my empty words. The temperature dropped in my rooms, a frigid gust of air waging war on the flames in the hearth.

A hollow ache formed just behind my sternum, feeling suspiciously like the first kernels of guilt.

Which made no sense when my husband’s nightmares were of his own making.

Against my will, I felt the ghost of his warmth on my skin, remembered the authority in his voice, pulling me from my own terror. My gaze flicked to the door between our rooms.

No.

It was a terrible idea. He would probably let out a wave of mana intense enough to hurl me through the window. I didn’t owe him anything, not after all that he had done, despite the way the bond told me otherwise.

I ran a hand over my face, my head warring with my gut. Draven—my husband, the Frostgrave King—had slaughtered people I loved.

He murdered and commanded and brooded and… protected…

Once again, I saw the monsters exploding. In my memory, in his nightmare.

All that he had done.

That was more complicated than it used to be.

Whatever other sins were laid at his feet, he was the last bastion of defense between his people and the horrors that crept down from the mountains and out from the Wilds.

Even if that hadn’t been true, was I capable of leaving anyone to suffer at the hands of their demons, let alone when I could feel their torment as clearly as if it were my own?

Another gale swept through the palace, cold enough to set my hair on end.

I let out a curse as I plopped Batty onto the pillow next to mine. Then my feet moved on instinct, carrying me to the door I had sworn never to use.

It was narrower than it had a right to be, pale and unimposing for all that it represented. Steeling myself with an icy inhalation, I tried the knob, half expecting to find it locked.

But Fate would never let me off so easily, so of course, the door opened with a soft snick.

A shiver racked my bones. It was even colder on the other side, and nearly pitch black. There was no fire to see by, only feeble rays of moonlight and reflections from the winter skylights, glinting off the frost that coated every surface.

Including the floor, which I only discovered once I stepped on it with my bare feet.

Shards .

My teeth chattered hard enough to crack my jaw as wind whipped through the space, burning my eyes. All the while Draven’s familiar mana raged across my skin.

I squinted through the veritable storm, barely making out the hazy outline of a bed, lower and wider than the one in my rooms. In the center, a dark form let out a ragged breath, misting into the air in tiny shards of frost.

“Draven.” I said his name quietly, hoping to wake him without startling him.

It didn’t work, of course. He didn’t register my presence at all.

Letting out a slow breath, I crossed the room, ice biting into my feet like jagged razor blades. He was easier to see once I was closer, bare chest gleaming in the moonlight like it was sculpted by the Shard Mother herself.

I climbed onto the bed, placing a single hand on his shoulder. Instead of exuding his usual unrelenting heat, his skin was like ice. Wind swirled through the room, blowing my hair into my face.

I pushed it back with my free hand while shoving against him with all my strength, though it was like trying to displace a boulder.

“Draven.” I said his name again, but he was lost to his own storm.

“Draven, you have to wake up now. It’s only a nightmare.” My tone was low, urgent. “You’re far too stubborn to let it keep you for this long.”

He sucked in a breath, and the air around us calmed, but he still didn’t open his eyes.

“If you freeze me to death, you’ll never again have the pleasure of being a condescending frost-twat to me, and I know that will make you sad somewhere in your cold, black heart,” I rambled through chattering teeth, searching for anything to say to keep talking, to reach him wherever he had gone.

Whatever dreams we shared seemed to fight harder than ordinary dreams to cage us in their midst. It shouldn’t have made me feel guilty when I had certainly never asked for this bond, but it still settled like a splintered stone in my stomach, knowing his nightmare was worse because of me.

Cursing under my breath, I slid my body next to his, trying to infuse him with whatever warmth I had to offer, the way he had with me. Every inch of him was solid, glacial muscle, impossible to ignore through the thin fabric of my nightgown.

I fought down a shiver, plastering my body against his, my face buried in the crook of his neck. Slowly, the storm around us eased. The wind died down. The temperature rose to something approaching normal.

I worked on making my breathing even, ignoring the charge that raced along my skin and the frost and juniper that invaded every one of my senses. But I was still not prepared for him to stir.

Especially not when his arms wrapped around my back, pulling me against him in a single rough movement.

“This is a different kind of torment, Shard Mother.” His growl was in my ear, his breath caressing my skin and infusing me with all the warmth he had stolen from me.

My heartbeat raced in my chest, thundering through my veins like the storm he had calmed only moments ago. All I could think of was the dream, his deep growl and his hands on my skin and the words Morta Mea lurking behind it all.

It took me entirely too long to find my voice, and when I did, it was breathier than I meant for it to be.

“I am not the Shard Mother, but…far be it from me to judge your bedroom proclivities.”

Well.

That had been one way to break the tension, even if I couldn’t help but consider those proclivities now.

His arms fell away in one fluid movement, and suddenly I was deposited on a blanket softer than sin, several feet from my panting husband.

“Everly?” A fire flared to light in the hearth, lower than mine, but enough to illuminate the sharp lines of his features. And also his chest.

“Does someone else usually come into your bed in the middle of the night?” I said it as a joke, but as soon as the words were out, an unreasonable surge of fury shot through my veins.

One that felt a lot like jealousy.

He ran a hand over his face, before mussing his pale-blond strands of hair.

“No, I can’t say I’ve made a habit of having females crawl into my bed and accuse me of fantasizing about the Shard Mother lately.” His voice was still ragged, his breaths still uneven under his wry remark. “I am rather attached to having all of my fingers.”

So he had known about the rings. Of course he had.

Where it had been freezing mere moments ago, now my entire body was engulfed in flames, burning from the inside out with a mix of humiliation and something far more dangerous.

“Then again, you don’t usually make a habit of it either,” he pointed out.

It was as close as he would come to asking me why I was here. Or mocking me for my mouth, or both.

“Yes, well, I’m attached to my extremities also, and they were in danger of being lost to frostbite.”

It wasn’t true, of course. My room had been chilly, but nothing like the veritable ice storm that was in his. He pursed his lips, staring into the flames.

But he didn’t ask me to leave. And I wasn’t sure I could, not when I could still hear the echo of his guttural scream, Nevara’s warning.

More than that, I could feel the agony when he looked down at his empty hands.

I never thought I would want to hear the story of that day—never thought I would care to hear his version or be able to stomach it if I did. But his nightmares were so at odds with everything I had been taught.

Nightmares weren’t always memories, though. It could have just been a delayed onset of remorse, conveniently only after the bodies were cold.

I didn’t quite believe that, though.

Shards knew he didn’t look the part of a monster, lying in his bed like a fallen deity, with a silver-blond lock of hair falling onto his brow and his hands clenched from the nightmare that refused to let him go.

Whatever pieces of me that were tethered to him burned with the need to know.

“What happened that day?” My voice pierced into the silence like a serrated blade tearing into flesh. “On the battlefield.”

Draven glanced at me sharply, eyes glowing frosted green in the shadows, full lips parting before they closed again. It was the closest to uncertain I had ever seen him look.

Then his expression shuttered, and the telltale muscle clenched in his jaw.

“I won the war,” he said darkly. “And it only cost me my kingdom.”