Page 6 of Frozen Star (Star Touched: Fae Bound #7)

Twenty-four hours alone in this tower have taught me exactly what Aerix meant by “trial.”

The hunger is a living thing inside me, clawing through my veins, scraping at my bones, and turning my insides into a furnace of need. I’ve paced the tower room a thousand times, the pendant clutched in my hand like a lifeline, but nothing helps.

When I try to drink water, my body rejects it. When I try to sleep, visions of blood haunt my dreams until I wake up gasping. And as my emotions spike, the wind listens. Small gusts at first, then stronger currents that knock over a vase of flowers, sending petals spiraling through the air.

This new power should fascinate me. But I’m too consumed by hunger to care.

Now, as midnight approaches, I’m curled in the corner of the room, as far from the door as possible. My body trembles with need, my throat so parched it feels like it’s splitting open from the inside.

What if I’m not strong enough to pass the trial? What if I die here? I knew it was a possibility when I let Aerix turn me, but until these past few hours, it felt like something that could happen to someone else—not to me.

Now, I’m not so sure.

When the lock finally turns, my head snaps up, every sense hyper-focused on the opening door.

Aerix enters first, his midnight eyes finding mine across the room.

“Zoey,” he says, the single word filled with pride and caution. “I’ve brought?—”

I don’t hear the rest of his sentence. Because she steps into the room behind him. Laura—the human I chose at the barns. Her blonde hair gleams in the candlelight, and while something in my mind registers her resemblance to Sapphire, it’s a distant, unimportant observation.

All that matters is the sound of her heartbeat thundering in my ears and the scent of her blood rushing beneath her skin, calling to me like a siren song.

One moment I’m huddled in the corner of the tower, the next I’m flying across the room, a feral growl tearing from my throat. As I leap, wind blasts through the room like a shockwave, rattling the furniture, lifting the tapestries, and extinguishing half the candles.

Laura screams, but the sound is cut short as I collide with her, driving her back against the wall. My hands grip her shoulders, pinning her in place as my fangs extend, aching for release.

“Not the neck.” Aerix’s voice comes from behind me, his hands on my waist, pulling me back. “The wrist, Zoey. The chance of losing control is less if you drink from her wrist.”

Some small part of me hears and understands him, but the hunger is too strong. The thick vein in her neck sings to me, calls to me. Every part of my body wants to drink from that spot, where the blood will spill out the fastest.

“Zoey,” Aerix growls, and then he’s holding Laura’s wrist in front of my face, her blood rushing through the thin skin there. His chest presses into my back, his lips brushing my ear, a seductive challenge in his tone. “Prove to me that you’re stronger than this.”

I grab her wrist from him, wrenching it upward, and sink in my fangs.

The first taste of blood is a revelation. It’s hot, sweet, and alive. It floods my mouth, coats my throat, and spreads through my body like liquid fire.

A moan slips from my throat as I drink deeper, pulling her tighter against me, needing more.

“Slower,” Aerix murmurs, his body pressed flush against my back, his arms tight around me. “Feel her pulse and match your rhythm to hers. Show the hunger that you control it, and not the other way around.”

His words are distant thunder compared to the roaring in my ears.

I drink deeper, greedier, feeling Laura’s pulse weakening beneath my grip. Her fearful whimpers eventually fade into soft, hitching breaths.

“Zoey.” Aerix’s voice is sharper now, more urgent. “That’s enough.”

But it’s not enough. It will never be enough. I need more, all of it, every last drop?—

“Zoey, stop!” His command cuts through the haze of bloodlust, but I can’t obey. My body refuses to release its prey, driven by instinct older than reason. I need the heat, the power, and the decadent rush that pulses through my veins as I drink.

Laura’s heartbeat falters, and then Aerix is tearing me away from her, his arms locking around my waist as he lifts me off the ground. I scream, thrashing against him as we tumble backward, crashing to the floor in a tangle of limbs and wings. Wind swirls around us, but Aerix keeps his grip.

“She’s dying,” he growls, pinning me beneath him as I continue to struggle. “Is that what you want? To fail on your first night? To be executed tomorrow?”

I writhe beneath him, vampire strength surging through my limbs as I buck against his hold.

“Get. Off. Me.” Each word comes out as a snarl. “I’m not done.”

“You are,” Aerix snaps, his grip tightening as I almost manage to twist free. “Control yourself. Now.”

But control is the furthest thing from my mind.

All I can think about is the blood—the sweet, life-giving liquid pulsing through Laura’s veins, wasted with every passing second.

The wind around us intensifies, swirling into a miniature cyclone that sends books flying off shelves and rattles the window frames.

I don’t know if the wind is his or mine. Either way, he’s too strong for me to fight.

Which means I need to take a different angle.

“Just a little more.” My hips arch against his, my voice turning soft and seductive as I gaze up at him through lowered lashes. “Please, Aerix. I’m so hungry.”

His eyes search mine, and I can see the war playing out behind them—his desire to give me everything I want versus his need to keep me alive.

“I can’t let you kill her.” His thumb brushes against my wrist in a calming, intimate gesture. “That would mean your death, and I will never allow that.”

I take his moment of vulnerability to my advantage and strain against his grip, somehow managing to push him back an inch.

He growls in frustration, and the temperature in the room plummets in less than a second. Frost crystallizes along his skin, spreading outward from where he touches me, and I gasp as ice crawls up my arms, across my chest, and down my legs.

“What are you?—”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” He leans in so close that his breath ghosts my lips, his voice edged with both tenderness and authority. “But I won’t let you destroy yourself.”

The ice continues its relentless spread, creeping along my skin like living chains. Within seconds, I’m partially encased, able to breathe and speak, but powerless to move.

My chest heaves against the ice, panic mixing with the hunger burning inside me. “Aerix?—”

“Shhh,” he soothes, his expression softening as the fight drains out of me.

His hand, now free from restraining me, comes up to cup my face, his thumb tracing my lower lip in a way that calms and enrages me all at once.

“You’re still in there, Zoey. Find yourself.

Find the control. Focus on me. On the way I sound, and the way I feel. ”

My eyes lock onto his midnight depths as I latch onto the steady rhythm of his breathing and the firmness of his touch, trying desperately to ground myself in the reality of him rather than the chaos roaring in my veins.

Eventually, my pulse slows, syncing with his calmer heartbeat. But just as I’m regaining control, another wave of hunger crashes through me, hot and sharp, my body shaking as it threatens to drag me back under.

“You’re stronger than this, Zoey.” Aerix presses his forehead against mine, his lips so close I can feel the barest brush of them as he speaks. “Feel my heartbeat. Follow its rhythm. Remember who you are—who we are.”

I cling to the sensation of Aerix’s hand against my cheek, his thumb tracing circles against my skin. Slowly, the storm inside me quiets, the bloodlust receding enough for reason to resurface. And when I swallow again, my throat no longer burns with that clawing need for more.

Now, a different sort of panic squeezes my chest.

My gaze drifts to Laura, who’s lying motionless on the floor. “Is she…”

“She’s alive,” he says quietly. “You didn’t fail. You didn’t kill her.”

Tears spring to my eyes, leaving hot trails down my cheeks as I realize how close I was to destroying everything. Along with them, there’s shame. A deep-rooted shame that floods me to my bones.

“I wanted to,” I admit. “I still want to.”

He shudders with barely contained desire.

“I know. It’s natural. It’s what I made you, and your hunger—your ferocity— makes you more beautiful than ever.

” His thumb brushes across my frozen cheek, wiping away the tears, regret splashed across his perfect features.

“I didn’t want to hurt you. I never want to hurt you.

But I had to use my magic to bring you back.

You were losing yourself, and I couldn’t let that happen.

You understand, don’t you, Zoey? Tell me you understand. ”

His eyes search mine, pleading for forgiveness for nearly turning me into an ice sculpture to stop me from murdering the first human I could get my fangs on, his fingers trembling against my skin.

“I understand.” The moment the words escape my lips, the tension in his body dissolves, the panic in his eyes replaced with overwhelming relief.

And as his ice melts, my bloodlust fades.

It’s still there—an ache at the edges of my awareness—but it’s no longer the all-consuming fire it was moments ago.

“Aerix,” I say softly, needing to ask, even though I already know the answer. “Were you supposed to help me like that?”

He hesitates, the brief tightening around his eyes giving him away.

“You were supposed to either sink or swim on your own,” he admits, the intensity in his gaze tugging at the knot of emotions in my chest. “But your soul and mine are one now. And I swear to you, Zoey, that I will never let you drown.”

I barely have time to process his words before his lips are on mine, and I’m kissing him back like I need him more than I need blood. It’s a wild, desperate kiss, fierce and possessive, as though he’s trying to imprint himself onto every part of me.

When he pulls away and shifts his attention to Laura, who’s unconscious and crumpled against the wall, I whimper at the loss.

Without a word, he rises and moves toward her. Picking her up effortlessly, he strides to the door, opening it enough to reveal a guard waiting on the other side.

“Take her,” he commands, cold and indifferent.

And as I look at Laura, I feel cold and indifferent, too. I picked her because she looks like Sapphire… but now, my human life feels like it existed so long ago that whatever I used to feel for my best friend is nothing more than a distant memory.