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Too restless to fall back asleep, I pull out the photo of my parents from where I stashed it under my mattress. The light is too dim to see much, so I pad to the window until moonlight washes over the picture.
Fingerprints streak the glossy surface. I stare down at the people I’m supposed to remember, a ragged sigh escaping my lips. It took five years after my parents were murdered to finally look at their faces without reliving the night they died.
And that’s only because I ran away from the farm and found someone in Fort Worth, a woman who specialized in forbidden Everwilde artifacts. I had nothing to pay her, but she took pity on me and gave me the necklace around my neck to draw the tragic memory of my parents’ death away.
Only, the ruby stripped all my memories of them, right down to what they looked like, what their voices sounded like, how they smiled. I realized my mistake immediately, but when I returned to look for the woman, she was gone.
The owner of the diner next door told me she was a dirty-blood, a half-Fae half-human, and that a crowd had gathered around her apartment above her shop while she slept and scared her away.
Then he spit at her blue door and said, “Good riddance.”
Dirty-bloods don’t last long in the Tainted Zone. By law they’re not supposed to live in human lands, and the Fae pay handsomely in magical artifacts for information that leads to the capture and deportation of one back to Everwilde.
Meanwhile, full-blooded Fae with visas live in the Untouched Zone where they’re treated like celebrities.
“Gosh, I’m glad you guys aren’t alive to see how far we’ve fallen,” I say to the picture, waving it back and forth as I try to conjure a memory—any memory—of them.
But just like every other time, nothing surfaces. I touch my necklace, cool and hard between my breasts. I’ve pushed aside what happened in the lake because the memory is too painful, but now, I can’t help but wonder if there’s something to my pendant beyond the stored memory.
Setting the photo on the windowsill, I press my hands over the glass, the pane startlingly cold. Outside, snow drizzles the air, but there’s something almost peaceful about it. In the distance, the half-moon glints off the frozen surface of the lake.
I can’t see the main campus building from here, but it’s out there. And in a few short hours, I’ll be inside the academy’s walls.
The familiar nervous pang begins in my gut as I start mulling over what my first day will be like. All the usual worries flash through my mind.
Will I know anyone in my classes? What if I’m still too far behind to understand what they teach? How will I find my way around?
Then my thoughts take a dark turn. What if I see the Winter Prince? We’ve been holed up inside our dorm for two days, long enough to nearly forget the possessive way he claimed me.
But now . . . well now the thought of being near him fills me with anxiety. The scrape of his sword from its scabbard when he nearly executed me echoes inside my skull. The way he looked at me earlier, the way he pervades my mind . . .
All at once, a dizziness washes over me. My thoughts go blank. My vision dark. I blink and suddenly I’m in someone else’s room. A huge, opulent chamber ten times the size of my dorm room.
I’m not actually there, I realize. I’m in someone else’s mind. A male someone. Seeing what they’re seeing. Feeling what they’re feeling.
Speaking of feeling . . . oh my God . . . he, whoever he is, is sitting in bed without a shred of clothes.
He looks to his right, and I recognize the royal blue hair spilled over the pillow. The blue lips, smeared slightly and swollen, like they’ve been kissed hard.
Inara.
She looks up at him, her big dewy white eyes full of adoration. But all he feels is disgust. I can sense the dark emotion swirling around him. Whoever this is, he’s awash in darkness. Beyond that, there’s a cold indifference inside him.
Layers and layers of it, like a shield.
He slips from bed, still fully naked, and saunters over to the fireplace. I can feel the warmth of the flames kissing his bare skin. Can feel the cold lurking beneath his flesh.
“I don’t know why you insist on that stupid fire,” Inara says. “Doesn’t the heat bother you?”
“I like looking at it,” he answers in a distorted voice. Being inside his head, his words sound like they come from underwater.
“You like looking at it?” The derision in her tone annoys him, but she sounds oblivious. “You’re so weird sometimes.”
“Get out.”
“Excuse me?”
“Leave.”
