Two.
One.
I woke up coughing, thick smoke filling my lungs and stinging my eyes.
And heat. So much damn heat.
“What—”
Suddenly there were hands on me, rough and uncaring, fingers digging into my flesh. The air changed around me, freezing. A vicious wind howled in my face, stealing the air from my lungs.
Pressure built inside my head, a nasty bout of nausea turning the night around me upside down.
I collapsed onto my arse into snow, a terrible pressure crushing my body.
What the fuck? Snow? Why was there snow?
I fell back, the kiss of snow on my head confirming it was the chilly white stuff.
“Welcome to the next test,” Aidan yelled over the wind.
That prick. He’d brought me here—wherever here was.
What about the house? The smoke? The heat? Oh, shit. Was it on fire?
Time to get back there.
I reached out to the flora for some energy, finding nothing.
Great.
My weakening eyesight found swathes of starlight in the clear night sky, the moonlight as bright as the sun, the snow gleaming like marble around me.
With shallow, painful breaths, I sat up. Pain raged harder in my skull, blood leaking from my nose.
A mountain range surrounded me, snowy peaks in all directions, all lower than me. That could mean only one thing.
Oh, man. I was at the summit of Savage Queen, the highest mountain in the world, part of the Regal Peaks mountain range that divided the Werewolf Domain in half.
That explained the reaction in my body.
This altitude wasn’t the place for anyone outside of an experienced climber. And even then, climbing this beast of a mountain came with a shit load of dangers.
Like rolling too far toward that edge over there and bouncing down the rugged slopes like a rag doll.
Aidan, unaffected by the altitude and the cold, paced around me in a circle. He emanated a golden glow, his hands folded behind his back.
“What happened?” I managed to say before collapsing onto my back again.
Staying alive was a massive chore up here.
“The real question is how to play this,” he replied. “Should I let you succumb to altitude sickness, or should I kick you off the edge?”
“How about none of the above?” I retorted, the words burning my throat.
He kicked snow in my face. “I’m not asking for your opinion, elf. I want to break this bond we have. You’re a burden to be squished. Get that into your head, insect.”
Rude fucker.
