It’d failed us once, and it’d failed us again.
My arm tightened around Rook’s waist as we staggered through a blossom courtyard, and over an ornate teak bridge. Flashes of orange and white carp glinted in the pond.
The longer we travelled, the more I could feel Rook’s pain. I wished I could take away her discomfort. To tend to her and bandage her. To keep her safe—
A black haze dripped over my vision.
Rook tripped, almost falling to her knees before I snapped my arm tight and supported her weight. “You okay?”
She nodded with a heavy sigh. “Please tell me you have a plan. Tell me this place has some sort of secret bunker or security system. Tell me we’re not really going to walk out those gates and let them take us.” Her eyes held mine with blazing hope, her skin ashy and grey.
What would I give to say yes?
To be better, smarter, stronger.
To have a way to kill these bastards and protect all those I cared about.
Instead, I was pathetically useless and couldn’t think of a single fucking way to save her...apart from sucking her dry and using her very lifeforce to hurt them.
Are you sure you can’t access the frost inside you?I held her eyes, deliberately pushing the words into her mind rather than speaking them.
Shaking her head, her face fell with sadness.Thereisno frost inside me.
We had another three long corridors to go before we spilled out into the central courtyard. After that...it would be too late.
Can you try?I groaned as a shockwave of pain radiated from her hip, sharing her misery. My arm locked tighter around her waist.Fuck, I’m so sorry you’re hurt. That I wasn’t able to stop him.
I’m okay. She went quiet as she closed her eyes, trusting me to lead her.And I’ll try to see if the ice will come this time.Just guide me while I focus.
I slowed our steps, buying us a little more time as the bond gave me insight into how desperately she tried to summon the cold.
I held my breath, hoping against hope.
If she could tap into the ice that fed my fire...perhaps the flames would return.
It would only take a thought to slaughter the men who’d invaded my home.
We would be free.
But the longer she tried, the harder her heart pounded. That delicate, fluttering lifeforce brushed against the darkest part of me—the part that was starving to feed.
Fuck, I wanted her.
One taste of her energy had ruined me—flooding my veins like liquid lightning. I’d felt limitless. Unstoppable. Until it faded as quickly as it’d begun.
Whatever that side of my power was, it’d grown stronger since the mountain.
And it wanted her again. It wanted to drink. Deeply. Greedily. Drink until I was drunk, so I could reap chaos.
But what exactly was I drinking? Her energy? Her power?
What about her blood—?
I froze.
Her blood had always healed me in the past. Her very presence soothed my pain back in Cinderkeep. If I took her blood right now...could I become strong and save her?
No way.
