Page 60 of The Frost Witch (The Covenants of Velora #1)

A few minutes after we finished eating, a barmaid wandered by to collect our platters and ply us with drinks.

Her gaze lingered on Garrick. Her hand lingered longer.

When Isanara snapped her jaws, slicing the woman’s apron away from her skirt, I almost leaned over and kissed her shimmering lavender scales.

But I was not the only one with eyes on my familiar.

The longer we sat in the tavern, the bolder the other patrons became. A pair of unkempt men nursing ales took up at the empty table beside us.

Nash held his seat in the far corner, but I could feel his oily gaze on me.

I refused to look his way, keeping him in my periphery but not rewarding him with any more than the bare minimum of my attention.

He was the sort of man who got enjoyment out of inciting fear in women.

I would not indulge his malignant fantasies.

Nor was he my only concern. As the sky darkened beyond the small windows, so did the tenor of the attention we drew.

“We should go back upstairs,” I said, swirling the purple wine I’d been nursing for the last hour.

Garrick sipped the dark brown spirit he’d chosen. “You cannot show them your fear.”

“I am not afraid.” I drained the rest of my wine to prove it. “Not for myself,” I amended.

Isanara projected a sound of absolute disgust into my mind.

I ignored her, casting my gaze over the crowd.

Almost everyone had a drink in hand, though they weren’t flowing freely and hardly anyone was intoxicated.

My guess was that most of the common room’s occupants could only afford a drink or two and hoped that would be enough for the barkeep to let them pass the night in blessed warmth.

Without more liquor to soften their minds, they turned their bitterness outward. A strapping bounty hunter and a buxom, well-fed witch with a dragon were easy targets for their angry desperation. My power crystallized in my veins, ready to break free.

But Garrick’s words anchored me. Use your power , he’d urged me, not just on its own, but in tandem with my other skills.

He’d meant my active power, but it wasn’t the only one at my disposal. By whatever trick of fate or intervening gods, my power had not faded yet. I would use it.

“I can handle this,” I said quietly. “ From deep the well of liquid flame, grant these drinks a potent claim .”

Garrick paused with his drink halfway to his mouth. “You think intoxicating them further is the answer to the problem?”

“I think distracting them is the best of a lot of shitty options,” I said, propping my elbow up on the tabletop and nearly upending my glass of wine. Except it was empty now, thankfully. “Now go put down a ridiculous wager on that game of thrall and distract them.”

He stared at me across the table for several beats, his eyes reflecting the shimmering light of Isanara’s scales. Then he downed the rest of his drink and went to do as I’d asked.

I leaned back in my chair, pressing into the wall behind me.

I anchored myself with every point of contact, noticing my body like Tomin had taught me.

The wood dug into my shoulder blades. My hair pulled slightly where it was pinned between my body and the stone slab wall.

Instead of letting the sensations overwhelm me, I catalogued them one by one, and in doing so, gained a measure of control over them.

It was not perfect, but the frost in my veins did not solidify and fracture into uncontrollable ice.

I reached out for Isanara, skating my fingertips over her scales.

Avoiding the spikes along her spine had become second nature, just like walking with her constantly twining around my legs.

The power of the bond between witch and familiar had our bodies speaking to one another on a level beyond conscious recognition.

The raucous crowd around the thrall game grew. I watched as several onlookers swayed on their feet, the effects of my spell already taking hold. My mind swam with satisfaction, warming my cheeks and chest where I’d left the top of my shift unlaced.

A few minutes more and the tavern’s occupants would be drunk enough they would not notice us slipping up to our rooms. I would not even complain about Garrick’s insistence that we share the bed.

It was practical, for our protection. And if we shed a few layers to sleep in relative comfort, that only made sense.

The bed was not nearly large enough for Garrick’s long body and my round one.

We would inevitably have to touch and if that led to?—

“What a lovely companion.”

My fantasies ground to a halt, the wine I’d downed turning to acid in my stomach.

Nash slid into Garrick’s empty seat. He filled it well, but his shoulders were no match for Garrick’s.

But the cruelty in his eyes as he openly appraised Isanara…

despite the morbid tales that followed Garrick the Red and the crime laid at his feet at the Justice Gate, I’d never seen cruelty in Garrick’s eyes.

“Kill him.”

As much as I agreed with her, my limbs had taken on a strange heaviness. Maybe my power was fading, after all.

“Haven’t you learned your lesson by now?” I croaked, spreading my palms flat on the table between us. I thought about reaching for one of the knives tucked into my belt, but I didn’t trust my wobbly hand to wield it.

Nash leaned back, hooking an ankle across his knee. “And what lesson is that?”

“Stay away from me and I won’t have to kill you.”

He smiled. “Your warden has wandered off. Though your companion… she looks like she could draw some blood with those fangs.”

I hated that he knew Isanara was female. I did not want him to know a single detail about her. If I’d had my coven with me, I’d have used our collective power to cast a spell to scrub her from his memory.

“I will draw his blood.”

“Do you see that blade at his side? It’s a greatsword, and he knows how to use it.” I had no doubt Isanara could do damage. But at what cost? She and Nash were roughly matched for size, and though she was an immortal beast of legend, he was a ruthless killer.

Maybe she was, too. But I only had evidence of that for one of them.

“She doesn’t like you.”

“Excellent retort,” Isanara said with such ferocity I could practically taste the sarcasm.

But my mind was as unreliable as my limbs. My power surged to life, responding to the threat across the table.

A full, twisted smile spread across Nash’s face. “Once the gates kill you, I’ll see that she reaches her full potential.”

“Rip out his heart. I can hear its unnatural beat. It’s a sickly, twisted thing ? —”

“Quiet!” I screamed in my mind. I imagined a wall of ice solidifying in the liminal space between us where our minds overlapped. It felt like severing a limb, but I had to keep her out. I could not think, not with her voice and Nash’s fighting for supremacy.

Nash laughed, the sound intruding on my senses, overwhelming my already fragile hold on my power.

Frost spread across the table. I surged to my feet but the movement was too fast. My body betrayed me.

I swerved sideways. Isanara rose on her hind legs as I collided with her.

She should have gone toppling over, but her body felt like stone.

The impact rattled my bones, but I did not hit the floor.

Nash’s laughter ricocheted through my consciousness, the barrier I’d erected between myself and Isanara crumbling.

She waited on the other side, seething mad. “Do not ever do that again ? —”

The laughter stopped. Everything stopped. No more movement, no more sound. The entire tavern froze, fixating on the two men on the other side of the table.

Garrick did not hold a knife to Nash’s throat this time. He had his greatsword in his hand, and it was pressed directly against the part of himself that Nash valued most—his cock.

Nash’s eyes shone with wrath and cruelty. But Garrick’s… the rage in those turquoise depths was the kind to shatter worlds. What little steadiness I’d found holding on to Isanara quickly fled.

“You’re in my seat,” Garrick said.

A manic laugh bubbled out of my chest.

Garrick did not look at me. “Move,” he ordered.

Nash’s face flushed. He could not follow that order without risking Garrick’s blade severing his manhood from his body. But to refuse it meant he’d be castrated sooner rather than later.

I sank my teeth into my lower lip to keep in the hysteria rising in my chest.

Slowly, Nash unfolded his legs and slid to his feet. Garrick’s sword moved with expert, unwavering precision. Every eye in the tavern watched and marked it.

Once Nash was on his feet, Garrick leaned in. He kept his voice low, but I heard every word. “You live because she decrees it. Touch her again and I will make you beg until she grants you the sweet release of death.”

The male occupants of the tavern sighed in audible relief when Garrick lowered his sword. But I saw Nash’s face as he walked away. This encounter had been settled, but none of us would forget it. If the gates did not kill Nash, I would have to.

“Or I will,” Isanara promised. Warmth surged in my chest—not at the viciousness of that promise, but at the or , because it meant she thought I could be the one to kill him, just as likely as her.

“If you keep smiling like that, I will put my sword through his crotch here and now.”

My breath stuttered in my chest. “That might be the most erotic offer I have ever received.”

The greatsword was still in his hand. His long, thick fingers curved around the blade with an easy competence that turned my insides instantly liquid.

Which should have been impossible, because my power was still crackling in my veins.

I looked down at my hands, finding them covered with swirling ribbons of frost. Instead of panicking, I was confused.

Garrick sheathed his weapon, then stepped forward and took my hands between his own. It was not until the frost began to recede that I realized he was trying to help me regain control.