Page 27 of Frozen Star (Star Touched: Fae Bound #7)

“Ruin?” Aerix’s wings flare, the air around him going still. “Is that what this feels like to you? Finding out about me means your carefully built world is ruined?”

“In a situation where I’m forced to either kill my own blood or let my enemy go free?” I shake my head and chuckle, realizing how blinded by reality this newfound brother of mine must be. “Yes, I’d call that a fairly catastrophic blow to the life I thought I knew.”

Aerix’s wings retract sharply, as if I’ve struck him physically.

“You want the rest of the truth? Fine,” he snarls, his voice dangerously soft, each word carefully measured. “After my mother’s death, I served in the Winter Court’s militia. Kept my head down. Tried to prove myself as something more than the forgotten bastard prince nobody knew existed.”

I watch him closely, my chest panging at the way he says it. Because I understand more than anyone what it’s like to try proving your worth and existence to someone who doesn’t care.

I also hate myself for doing something as stupid as empathizing with him.

“Even in the militia, I was invisible—until I met a noblewoman who shattered my world.” A bitter smile twists his lips, and he shakes his head, like he’s disgusted by the memory. “She was everything I wanted, and everything I could never have.”

“I’m guessing that didn’t stop you,” I say, my tone less sharp now, despite myself.

Because that desire, that impossible longing—I know it too well.

I felt it every time Sapphire looked at me with hatred after being struck by Eros’s lead arrow.

I know how consuming it can become, how it can rip away your control and sanity until you barely recognize who you are anymore.

“It didn’t.” He looks directly into my eyes, challenging and unflinching.

“I was young. Foolish. Desperate enough to believe that love could erase the lines drawn by our births. But she was terrified of losing her status. She wanted me, yes, but she valued her reputation more. So, I asked around for potions that might help her... open her mind.”

“A love potion?” I balk at the thought of this dark, dangerous Night Prince wanting to create something as pathetic as a love potion.

Yet even as I speak, a chilling realization coils in my chest. Because after Sapphire was struck by Eros’s arrow, how many boundaries would I have crossed—how many parts of my soul would I have sacrificed—to bring back her love?

All of them, I realize. I would have given everything to her… and I did give everything to her. All of my blood—all of me. It all belongs to her now.

Aerix holds my gaze, and something dark and desperate passes between us—a shared obsession that burns like fire in our icy hearts.

“It was foolish,” he says quietly, as if confessing his deepest shame.

“But my closest friend claimed she could help. She offered to take me into the Wandering Wilds to find the ingredients.”

Ice crawls up my spine at the direction this story is taking, spreading through my veins like poison, freezing my heart in my chest.

“I trusted her completely,” he continues, frost patterns that remind me eerily of my own racing across the floor from where he stands.

“But she led me straight into a group of night fae. She wanted to join them, and they promised her she could if she brought someone with her. Specifically, someone from the Winter Court’s militia.

Someone strong who wouldn’t be missed. Someone like me. ”

Shock and a sickening sense of understanding twist inside me. Because this betrayal—this deep, gut-wrenching abandonment—I’ve felt it, too.

“You never saw it coming,” I say, trying to steady myself even though the world feels like it’s spinning around me.

Because I didn’t see it coming, either. Not when my father turned his back on me after my mother’s death.

Not when I found myself alone and invisible, clawing for scraps of approval that never came.

That feeling of safety being ripped away, leaving you spiraling, vulnerable, and desperate… it changes you on a level so deep that you forget who you were before it happened. It leaves scars nothing can heal, driving you toward self-destruction until you no longer care about your own survival.

“You trusted her.” I steady my voice, even though I’m shaking. “And she used you.”

“Trust was always a mistake with her.” Aerix’s wings flex, tension rippling through him.

“The night fae turned me immediately and brought me here. The moment the Night Queen saw me, she decided I reminded her of her son—who died in one of the many battles the Winter Court fought centuries ago—and named me a prince of the Night Court.”

My chest constricts, my sword feeling heavier by the second.

Because we’re mirrors, he and I—each reflecting the same story in a different light.

Both turned into weapons, both betrayed, abandoned, and stripped of choice.

Both seeking something genuine, only to be rejected no matter how hard we tried.

“Did you ever try to go back?” I ask, not wanting to provoke him, but also needing to know. Because if the situation had been reversed, I’d have clawed my way back to Sapphire. To the only thing that matters—the only thing that will ever matter.

“Go back?” he snarls. “To what, exactly? A life where I was invisible, unwanted, and unworthy? A court that would have slaughtered me for what I’d become?

Or perhaps to Kallista, the woman who valued her reputation more than she valued me?

” He pauses, his expression flickering with unmasked bitterness.

“No. You can’t understand it, Brother. Because despite everything you claim to have suffered, you had family, no matter how much you thought our father hated you.

You had everything I deserved but never got the chance to have. ”

Our father.

The way he says it makes my pulse race, my heartbeat erratic and deafening, like thunder rattling inside my skull. Ice erupts from the floor, jagged spikes shooting upward as my magic reacts to emotions I can barely contain.

Then I hear Sapphire’s voice. But despite my love for her, I can’t focus on her. All I hear is him, and all I feel is the storm inside me trying to push past my skin as he rips wounds into my heart that will never be healed.

Yet, I’ve always craved destruction. Felt I deserved it, even. Which is probably why I won’t be able to rest until I have answers, even if I have to kill him after getting them.

“You admitted that you knew who I was at the waterfall.” The words are bitter on my tongue, the floor nearly covered in frost. “But how did you know where I’d be?”

“Recently kidnapped winter fae talk.” He shrugs, casual and mocking. “They shared whispers about the Winter Prince who slaughtered his knights and abandoned his court to chase a summer fae into the Wandering Wilds. A summer fae we later learned killed one of our scouts who was out on assignment.”

“Assignment?” I raise an eyebrow and laugh. “Is that what we’re calling kidnapping missions nowadays?”

“My brother catches on quickly.” Aerix smiles, as if proud of me.

“After learning that you’d crossed out of Winter Court territory, I accompanied a group of scouts to track you down.

” He steps closer, his silver-specked eyes locked on mine, satisfaction rolling off him in waves.

“They had explicit orders to stay hidden. To watch, but never harm.”

“And how long did you watch?” I ask as I piece the timeline together.

Zoey was taken two days after Sapphire killed the night fae at the ravine. How many of those hours did Aerix spend watching us?

His smile sharpens cruelly. “Long enough to see the way you looked at your summer fae lover.”

Heat floods through me, the edges of my vision turning red. “Sapphire isn’t my lover,” I growl. “She’s my wife. My soulmate. She’s the blood in my veins, and the only reason I breathe.”

My heart pounds violently, my pulse roaring louder. Ice explodes outward, chaotic fragments slicing the air like shards of my shattering sanity.

Sapphire calls my name, but I barely register it. All I can think about is how if Aerix wasn’t of my own blood, he’d already be dead, and how satisfying it would have been to kill the man who stole Zoey from Sapphire.

Now, that dark, sweet release is twisted and unreachable, taunting me as I listen to Aerix’s damn villain monologue, torn between vengeance and family loyalty. The same loyalty I felt when I held those blades to my father’s throat in the Frost Arena and begged him to yield.

Aerix tilts his head thoughtfully, his wings stretching outward, the temperature dropping around us.

“I saw something else, too,” he continues.

“I saw how your summer fae—your soulmate —looked at Zoey. Like the sister she never had. She was willing to die for her. To sacrifice everything for her. And that’s when I realized the perfect symmetry of it all. ”

“What do you mean by that?” I say, even though the answer is already crystallizing in my mind, sharp and terrible.

“You got your summer fae.” He watches me carefully, as if he’s presenting a logical argument. “It seemed only fair that I should have something, too. Something that mattered to her. Something that, by extension, would matter to you.”

My throat tightens, realization clawing its way up like poison.

“You took Zoey because of me,” I say, horror and fury making the storm inside me rage stronger than before, until I’m aware of every ounce of blood rushing through my veins, demanding release.

“The gods gave you someone who looked at you like you hung the stars.” Aerix’s tone is dangerously quiet, almost reverent. “And they did the same exact thing for me, with Zoey.”