Page 111 of My Monster’s Keeper

“What is it?” Stix murmurs.

“I don’t know. It’s not for me. It’s for Frost.”

The Unseelie Prince steps towards her, hand extended, and takes the package. He’s careful and meticulous about opening the package, but when he finally reveals the innards of the box, I snort in disbelief. A pair of clear glass orbs sit in his hands.

“What are they?” Puppy asks.

Frost is pale. His jaw tenses and relaxes before tensing again. “Nothing. They’re nothing,” he says and shoves them back in the box.

“Frost-”

“They’re nothing. I’ll get rid of them!” Frost shouts.

Our gazes clash, and I can see the panic. Someone knows he’s here, someone we don’t want here. It’s a taunt to shake Frost’s confidence.

“Give them to me,” I say calmly. “Let me take care of this for you.”

Frost hesitates but finally hands them over to me. I take the box and shift into my other form, the hidden one that only she has seen.

“You have wings?” Stix asks loudly. He turns to Frost in outrage. “Can you fly, too?”

Frost glowers, turns, and storms out of the room.

“He can’t fly,” I say sadly.

“Why?” Becky asks.

“Did they eat his wings?” Puppy growls at the same time.

The strangeness of this conversation hits me, and I have to bite my tongue not to laugh. “No, he just isn’t created to fly. He is a being of elements. Fire and Ice. Frost will freeze you until you burn and burn you until you freeze. He’s impossible, and he scares the shitout of his court. It’s why he was sent into the wilds of the Unseelie Lands. He got too strong and too angry. They couldn’t control him, so they stole the illusion of control.”

My omega lifts her chin, staring me down. “What are those orbs?”

“They are a reminder and a taunt. We can still reach you anywhere.”

She exhales roughly, and I sense the danger in the kitchen turning deadly.

Becky looks at me and turns to study the hallway Frost disappeared down. “How do you know this?”

“Because I was there. When they sentenced him, I saw what they did to him. When they ordered his brother to murder him. He was only a young Fae,” I say with deep regret. “I was visiting. Fulfilling our king’s command. He was so small.”

Becky breathes deeply. “Was there anything you could have done?”

I shake my head. “Not even to defend myself.”

She must hear something in my tone. “Do you care to explain that?”

“Not right now.”

Her eyes are shrewd. “They hurt you there, and your king’s word bound you.”

I close my eyes. She moves closer, and my shame permeates the room. “You don’t need to say anything, my love. I hear your truth.”

“They couldn’t control me after that. It broke me into freedom.”

“I will never bind your will, nor ask you to be any less than who you are. Any of you.”

I can feel the weight of Stix and Puppy’s gazes. Before the Shadow King steps between us, curling his long fingers around her waist and pulling her with him down the hall.