Page 84 of Possess Me at Midnight

And I can guess what happened next.

I turn to Ice. “He refused you.”

“Naturally.”

“You felt betrayed?”

He grits his teeth, then nods, his jaw so taut I wonder if it will shatter. “Can you blame me?”

For the assumption, yes. For not understanding the inner workings of the Council? No.

“After I refused to use my influence for his personal advantage, he turned bitter.” Bram sends Ice a damning glare. “He lashed out. He said he hoped that someday he could show me the wretched feeling of losing a sister.”

Those words hit me like a body blow. Shock seizes the air from my lungs until I can’t breathe.

Bram is convinced that Ice Called to me to separate me from my brother?

My stomach curdles. My knees threaten to buckle. I ease onto the edge of the bed as my mind turns over and over.

I pivot toward Ice, my expression pleading with him to refute my brother’s claim. “Is it true?”

My voice shakes. I’m fighting tears.

“Yes.”

My stomach plummets. For a moment, I can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t think past the roaring in my ears. With that one word, Ice admits his vendetta—without hesitation, without even blinking.

It’s destroying me. Inside, my heart crumbles. “How could you?”

“That was two hundred years ago, princess. This is now, and I love you.”

So he claims. But does he…truly? How can I trust my own judgment when my heart is so thoroughly compromised? What if everything between us—every tender moment, every passionate touch—was carefully orchestrated revenge?

“I can’t hear this bloody tripe,” Bram moans. “My sister is too shrewd to fall for this shit you’re spewing. Do you actually expect her to believe you? When you’ve admitted how much you hate me and why?”

Everything inside me still aches to believe Ice. His stare locks on mine—steady, devoted, almost pleading. I bite my lip, turn my back on them both.

I need to think.

“Don’t give this bastard another moment of your time,” Bram insists. “His pretty words hardly make up for his ugly deeds.”

That’s true…yet I find myself hoping, grasping at straws. My heart is determined to find a scenario in which Ice is every bit the man and wizard I came to know these past few days.

“He saved me from a horde of Anarki,” I blurt. “The morning after we found MacKinnett’s body, the Anarki attacked us. He hid me—you, too—while he alone faced down an army at his own peril. He marched to almost certain death after refusing my help. Had he merely wanted you to lose a sister, he could have turned me over to Mathias’s minions.”

“Indeed?” Bram hardly sounds impressed. “Then what happened?”

“He killed most of the Anarki. I left my hiding place to help, but I distracted Ice instead. He was captured. He nearly died protecting me.”

My brother shoots Ice a contemptuous stare. “A pity he didn’t.”

“Bram!” I shriek, appalled. Whether he’s been altered by Mathias’s spell or possessed, I don’t care. I’ve never seen my brother so cruel.

Suddenly, the blinders are off, and… He’s like a stranger.

“Don’t applaud him for giving himself to the Anarki. Did you think he did it simply to save you?” Bram raises a brow.

“He did save me,” I argue.