She disappears back into the cabin, and I shift position on the branch, ice crystals raining down from where my grip has frozen the bark solid. For days I’ve been watching her like this, days since our encounter in the glade, and the need for her grows stronger with each passing hour. It’s becoming dangerous—not just for her, but for everyone in my territory who might cross my path when the beast finally breaks free of its chains.
Yesterday, I nearly tore out the throat of one of my own guards for the crime of asking about border patrols. The day before, I’d reduced a council chamber to rubble because Theron had the audacity to suggest I find a suitable fae mate to calm the unrest.
As if any fae woman could satisfy what burns in my blood now.
As if anyone but her could ease this ache.
The sound of hoofbeats on the frozen ground announces the approach of my summons before I see them. Two of my scouts emerge from the deeper woods, their expressions grim beneath their winter cloaks. I drop from the tree in a controlled fall, landing soundlessly in the snow.
“Report,” I command, though part of me dreads what they’ll say.
“The council requests your immediate presence, my lord,” the elder scout says, his breath misting in the cold air. “They say it’s…urgent.”
Of course, it is. They’ve felt the disturbance in the magical currents, sensed the way the very fabric of our realm trembles with each pulse of the awakening bond. There’s no hiding what’s happening to me, no pretending that three centuries of careful control haven’t crumbled in the space of a few days.
“Very well.” I cast one last look toward the cabin, where warm light spills from the windows, before following my men deeper into the winter forest.
The journey back to the heart of my territory passes in tense silence. The ancient trees seem to lean in as we pass, their branches heavy with ice and secrets. Deep in the Northwood, magic runs thick as blood through the very air, and every step we take rings with power that predates human civilization by millennia.
The council chamber sits carved into the living heart of the World Tree, its crystalline walls pulsing with veins of silver light. As I enter, twelve pairs of eyes turn toward me—my advisors, the keepers of old knowledge, the guardians of traditions that stretch back to the first winter.
At their head sits Morel, ancient beyond measure, her silver hair braided with mistletoe and frost. When she speaks, her voice carries the weight of centuries.
“You reek of her,” she says without preamble. “The human female. The bond stirs, doesn’t it?”
There’s no point in denying the truth. They can see it in the ice that follows in my wake, feel it in the way the chamber’s temperature drops several degrees just from my presence.
“It stirs,” I admit, each word torn from my throat like a confession. “But it will not rule me.”
Morel’s laugh is sharp as breaking glass. “Ruled you? Child, you are already lost. The Yulebond has chosen, and you think your pride can stand against the will of winter itself?”
“I am king,” I snarl, letting my power unfurl around me until frost spreads across the chamber floor in jagged patterns. “I do not bow to ancient curses.”
“You are king because of ancient curses,” Theron interjects from his place at the council table. “The Yulebond gives our bloodline its power, which connects us to the deepest magics of the season. Fight it all you like—it will only make the eventual surrender more complete.”
The truth of his words hits me like a physical blow. I’ve studied the histories, know what becomes of Northwood kings who try to resist their destined mates. Madness. Exile. Death. The bond will not be denied, and the longer I fight it, the more violent its eventual triumph will be.
“How long?” I ask, though I’m not sure I want to know the answer.
“Until the Solstice,” Morel says, her ancient eyes glittering with something that might be sympathy. “Twenty-one days. If you have not claimed her by then, the bond will burn itself out—and you with it.”
Twenty-one days. Three weeks to either surrender everything I’ve spent centuries building, or die as the last failed king of the Northwood. The chamber falls silent except for the soft whisper of ice forming on every surface, a reflection of the winter storm raging in my chest.
“There is another way,” Theron says carefully. “If the human proves unsuitable—if she cannot survive the claiming?—”
“No.” The word comes out with such force that several council members flinch. “She will not be harmed.”
“Then you accept the bond?” Morel asks. “You will claim her?”
I close my eyes, feeling the weight of my crown like ice around my temples. “I will do what duty demands.”
It’s not an answer, and we all know it. But it’s all I can give them right now, with the memory of storm-gray eyes still burned into my retinas and the scent of pine and snow and impossibly warm skin filling my lungs with every breath.
The council disperses with obvious reluctance, leaving me alone in the crystalline chamber with only my thoughts for company. But solitude offers no peace—not when every shadow reminds me of her silhouette, not when the very air seems to pulse with the rhythm of her heartbeat.
I cannot stay away. Whatever noble intentions I might harbor about protecting her from the monster I’m becoming, they crumble like snow in a flame when faced with the reality of her absence. The bond has its hooks in me too deep now, and resistance only makes the hunger grow stronger.
Before I’m fully conscious of the decision, I’m shifting again, letting the transformation ripple through me until I stand four-legged in the chamber’s heart. My antlers scrape the ceiling as I bound toward the entrance, desperate to close the distance between us.
