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He felt the push of power against his neck, the biting cold, like ice pressed against his bare flesh. It seeped into him, seemingly snaking through his veins and around his bones. His muscles locked up, and his breathing slowed, the pain excruciating. He could do nothing to fight against it. Could do nothing as that power filled him up, freezing him slowly from the inside out.
“Why?” Hunter managed, the word barely audible past his frozen lips. But he wanted to know what he was dying for because he wasn’t so sure anymore. He’d thought he’d understood, but this brief conversation with Isa had left him questioning everything, and he hated that.
Was it too much to ask that he at least be told the reason?
“If you’d done what you were supposed to and come out of the woods that day, you would have saved yourself this painful death. I’d given my men orders to kill you quickly. At the time, I’d actually felt mercy toward you. After all,” he leaned in, “your only mistake was falling for someone who didn’t belong to you.”
Odin.
This was about Odin.
Everything clicked into place.
Hunter hadn’t been the only one watching Snow from the shadows, appreciating him from afar. Over the years, he’d somehow managed to bury those memories, but now they flashed through his mind.
All the times he’d caught Isa staring just a little too long at his step-brother.
The times he’d leaned in just a little too close and stayed that way.
The longing glances when they’d thought no one was looking…
It wasn’t exactly the best-kept secret that something was going on between the two, but they’d never publicly come out and said it, and did their best to keep up appearances when out in public. Hunter had assumed that was a mutual decision, but now he wondered, because clearly it hadn’t just been fun and games back then.
Isa Frost had ordered Hunter to murder the man he loved.
What a fucking freak.
He wanted to say the words out loud, wanted to at least get in a final insult, but his throat chose that moment to close up, the burn of ice filling his esophagus, causing him to gasp for air he could no longer get.
He was seriously about to die.
Maybe Isa was right. Maybe he should have let those guys shoot him all those years ago. It certainly wouldn’t have been anywhere as bad as this.
A tear slipped past his defenses, and he felt it freeze on its way down his cheek.
His vision grew cloudy, winking in and out, and just as he’d resigned himself to the end, Isa was suddenly torn away from him.
Hunter watched as the Frost Dominus was tossed across the room right into the piano.
His body slammed into it, sending a loud crashing of keys and discordant music that was grating to hear. Isa righted himself quickly, growling low at his attacker, but he’d lost control of the cold, and a heat wave was quickly engulfing any lingering power he’d kept in the air.
Odin Snow.
He must have come in through the same entrance as Isa, neither noticed because they’d been too distracted with each other. How they’d managed that was beyond Hunter now because Odin was burning so hot he may as well be a supernova locked up in the confines of this tiny room.
Heat waves twisted off of him, dancing in the air, wafting over Hunter enough to chase a bit of the ice away. He managed to peel himself off of the door, though his joints protested the movement, still too frozen for much more than that.
“That was loud,” Isa broke the silence first, motioning to the broken piano, “my men would have heard.”
“That’s the only reason I haven’t lit you on fire,” Odin growled, and his tone was so deep and threatening, even Hunter recoiled and it hadn’t been aimed at him.
Isa, for what it was worth, merely stiffened. “You’re no match for me, little brother.”
“Want to test that theory and find out for sure?” Odin took a deliberate step toward him. “It’s certainly something I’ve wanted to know for a long time. Out of the two of us, who would win in a fight?”
Isa shook his head. “I don’t want to fight you.”
“No, you’re just in here turning my boyfriend into a popsicle out of the goodness of your heart.”
