Relax,said the cool voice as she crept closer to Hadrian and the others.Your pretty boy is doing a decent job of holding his ground.
But before the stranger inside her head had finished thinking the last word, Hadrian’s one opponent feinted left, and he went for it, only to be grabbed from behind by the other man—twice his size, this one.
Idiot,thought the voice.
Avalon envisioned the sound of her teeth grinding together; it was the most she could do while trapped in her mind, unable to control her limbs or her mouth. As she’d hoped, the stranger controlling her body sensed her discomfort—heard her teeth grinding together, even though Avalon had merely imagined the sound—and chuckled in answer.
Before the king’s men could finish Hadrian off, Avalon—Sable—crept up, silent as a wraith in the night, and slit both of their throats. The bodies hit the slushy snow simultaneously, the wetthudechoing far and wide through the woods.
And then there was only silence. Cold and hollow silence.
The relief that flooded Avalon’s mind and body was so intense that it pushed the other occupant—Sable—to the side, and Avalon regained control of everything.
No longer a marionette yanked about by her puppeteer, Avalon pulled the mask from her face. There was a sucking sensation on her skin, as if the mask was begging to stay attached, and Sable’s panicked voice once again filled her head.
Don’t let me go,she was saying.Please—
The voice was silenced as Avalon did exactly what she was being begged not to do, and only her thoughts remained. There was no other voice telling her what to do, no other girl shoving her aside to pull her strings. She wiggled her toes in her boots, blinked her eyelids.
“Avalon?”Hadrian choked out. His eyes were wide with alarm, his entire body trembling from exertion and the cold wind that tore through his sopping hair and clothes.
“Hadrian,” she choked out.
Horrified by what she’d done, Avalon tossed the mask aside, followed by the blade she held in her now-shaking hand—her bloody, filthy hand. The mucky ground shuddered beneath her, and the world began to tip sideways.
Hadrian caught her, laying her down softly by the riverbank, and held her like he did when they were children as darkness stole her away.
8
A storm was coming.
Nocturne stood outside the gate to the House of Ice. The entire Wolf Pack army was present; avoiding the sharp glares the soldiers were sending her way was a highly challenging task. The last thing she needed right now was confrontation.
They were all to be on their best behavior, the general had told them, because Killian Erwyn Sylvana—better known asthe Dragon—would be here within the hour. Most of these soldiers had seen Killian before, Nocturne herself included, though her few encounters with him had been brief. Judging from the way the soldiers spoke as if afraid to wake the dead, shuffling their boots in the powdery snow, a visit from Killian was an unwelcome event.
“Don’t,” Twyla said, her voice so quiet Nocturne barely heard her, though her friend stood close enough that their breaths mingled.
Nocturne cocked an eyebrow in question, and her friend—with her full pout, large Nymph-eyes, and flaxen hair shaved close to her head—tugged on Nocturne’s crossed arms.
“Don’t show any signs that you’re cold,” Twyla clarified. “He’ll notice.” Killian, the Dragon, would notice.
Nocturne clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering, and reluctantly let her freezing arms hang at her sides. There was no denying that skin-changing magic flowed through her blood; the absurdly sharp hearing and keen sense of smell were indication enough. But because she hadn’t found her secondary skin, she still shivered in the wind, still longed for the warmth of a fire. It would stay this way until she claimed a Skin, but the thought of doing such a thing made the bitter cold worth it. She would gladly shiver every day for the rest of her worthless life if it meant she wouldn’t have to become one ofthem.
“Twyla,” Nocturne whispered. Her friend turned her head a fraction to show that she was listening. “Why do they call himthe Dragon?”
Twyla’s mouth pulled down at one corner. “I’ve heard rumors. Apparently…he can shape-shift. Like us.”
Nocturne whispered, “Shift into what?”
Twyla’s eyes flicked her way for barely a second, and Nocturne felt foolish for asking as she realized… A dragon—of course.
Nocturne frowned, though a chill ran down her spine. “I thought dragons were extinct.” Though Killian was blessed with immortality, he’d been born only twenty-eight years ago, and had stopped aging at eighteen—two years younger than Nocturne’s physical age. If Killian could indeed shift into a dragon, he would’ve had to not only find one of the winged creatures, but one that would bond to him. The odds of such a thing were practically impossible, for no one had seen a dragon in hundreds—perhaps even thousands—of years.
When Twyla spoke, her mouth barely moved. “Stop talking,” she hissed. “The general is watching.”
“He’s always watching,” Nocturne muttered, though she didn’t dare risk a glance in Kit Wilding’s direction, where he stood with Zenaide near the wrought-iron gate. She wouldn’t deign to give him the satisfaction of meeting her gaze.
There was a shout far down the line of soldiers. Nocturne knew she should mind her own business, but she looked anyway, craning her neck to see…
