ZOEY
Aerix’swords should terrify me—and they do.
But as he speaks, the air in the room shifts, becoming heavier, pressing down on me like an invisible weight. It’s harder to draw a full breath, and I realize with a jolt that it’s his magic. He’s doing this on purpose—turning the air around me into a weapon, a reminder of just how powerless I am here.
“You don’t own me,” I say, my voice trembling despite my best efforts to sound strong.
He brushes a stray strand of hair from my face, and a chill radiates from his fingertips, like frost creeping across glass.
Ice magic.
“Don’t I?” he murmurs, and the weight of his gaze is unbearable, heavy with truths I don’t want to face. Because in the Night Court, Aerix sort of does own me. And we both know it.
He tilts his head, a slow, predatory motion that makes my heart race. “That’s what I thought,” he says, and the frost retreats, like it was never there at all. “You may not like it, but this is the reality you’re in now. You’re mine to protect. Mine to control. Mine to keep.”
My heart stops, his words cutting deeper than I want to admit. “So, you think you’re protecting me by treating me like a possession?” I finally say. “By making decisions I never agreed to? By keeping all those secrets?”
He stiffens, his gaze sharpening. “What secrets?”
“Kallista,” I say, the name slicing through the air between us. “When we first met—before I fell asleep in the bunker—you said I should be grateful that I remind you of her. I’m going to take a wild guess that you were talking about Kallista. So, who is she? And why does Cierra think I’m her replacement?”
“That’s none of your concern.” Aerix’s expression hardens, his jaw tightening, and the temperature in the room drops by a few degrees.
“It is my concern,” I insist, staying completely still, unwilling to let him off that easily. “You treat me differently than the others because I remind you of her.”
A rush of air swirls around us, tugging at my hair and clothes, as if warning me to stop.
“And the Blood Coven?” I press on, my voice rising. “The Revenants? What does all thatmean?”
“Enough.” His voice snaps like a whip, and the rush of air stills, the silence more suffocating than the pressure had been. “You’re treading on thin ice, Zoey. Do you really think you can demand answers from me? After everything I’ve done to keep you alive?”
“Why are you acting like Jake was going to kill me?” I answer his question with one of my own.
“Why do you care so much?” he asks in return.
“Because I’m not amonster,”I practically hiss.
The room goes deathly silent, and Aerix steps back, his expression so calm that it makes every hair on my body stand on edge. Behind him, frost creeps up the walls, delicate and deadly, the jagged patterns climbing like veins toward the ceiling.
“Maybe you should think about what survival really costs before you throw words like ‘monster’ around,” he finally says.
I open my mouth to fire back—to deny the cold, brutal logic in his tone. But the image of Jake’s lifeless body flashes through my mind. The blood in the fountain. The note. The warning. All of it.
Something inside me snaps.
“You didn’t even drink his blood,” I say. “You just wasted it and left it there. Like he didn’t matter.”
“He didn’t matter.” Aerix straightens, and the frost on the walls thickens. “You’re the one who matters to me here. And I don’t let anyone touch what’s mine.”
From the way he’s staring at me, I’m not sure if he’s going to lash out or close the space between us.
“Get out,” he says instead, his voice low and sharp. “And send for Victoria. I’ll be having breakfast with her today.”
I blink, caught off guard. “What?”
“You heard me.” His lips curl into something that’s not quite a smile. “We’re done here.”
The tension between us is a suffocating, electrified silence. But I take a deep breath, forcing my anger down. Because as much as I want to keep fighting him—to make him see how wrong he is about this—it won’t get me anywhere.
