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Good Lord, who let me make that terrible fashion choice?
One of the sleeves is cut off, revealing my bandaged shoulder. A spot of blood seeps through the white gauze.
People come and go. Mack. The headmistress with her mesmerizing wings that curl as if alive. I even think I see Zinnia at some point standing over my bed, crying, but whoever’s eyes I’m looking through never leaves.
Valerian. I can tell by the emotions raging through him.
Rage. Helplessness. Agony.
A wrenching, searing agony that splits me in two.
At some point, Hellebore shows up. Visceral fury explodes inside Valerian as he slams the Spring Court heir into the hospital wall, hard enough to crack drywall and leave a gaping hole.
Eclipsa comes running from somewhere. After that, a brief period of nothingness follows.
The next thing I know, Valerian is posted at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the second floor of his on campus cottage.
Inara paces in front of him, her claws fully extended and face half-shifted with fury. “She’s up there, isn’t she?”
“You need to leave, Inara, before I make you.” I recognize the steel edge of Valerian’s tone. She can’t intimidate him and she knows it.
Tears flash in her crystalline eyes, her lower lip shaking. She tries to touch Valerian. Over and over.
Every time, he gently but firmly holds her back using magic.
That only infuriates her.
“You spineless bastard,” she hisses. “I won’t let you humiliate me like this. You took that mortal slut from the infirmary and are keeping her in your house. Your house! That’s not a fling with your shadow. You’re infatuated with her and everyone knows. Everyone!”
She tries to slap him, but he catches her wrist. Her other arm rears back but he catches that one too. Even though I can’t say a word, I cheer him on.
Take that, Spawn of Satan!
“I hate you,” she seethes, fighting his grip—but only enough to be dramatic. “Without my father’s support, your claim to the throne is weak. You won’t last a month before the other courts pick you apart. Why are you doing this to me? To us? To your future?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
The callousness in his voice causes her face to crumple before twisting into a simmering mask of vile hatred. “This is the final warning I’ll give you. Screw her. Play house with her. Pretend you actually care about her. Whatever will get her and this mortal fetish out of your system. But by the time this school year is over, if you’re not publicly done with her, I will make it my mission to tear your life apart piece by piece.”
Then . . . nothing.
30
When I wake up, I’m in bed. Although I can’t be sure whose bed until . . . Sweet Jesus, the silkiest, most luxurious infinity thread count Egyptian cotton sheets wrap around my legs.
Wait. I know this place.
One groggy look at the ice-blue curtains swaying in the honeysuckle breeze from the nearby window, the ivory rug, and my suspicions are confirmed.
Yep. In my old bed again—in the Winter Prince’s cottage. My thoughts are slightly derailed as I stretch, the sheets gliding along my skin. Oh, outrageously expensive sheets, how I’ve missed you.
“You’re awake!” Mack screeches from the corner where she sits, holding her phone and a book.
Squeaking in surprise, I barely have time to sit up before she’s strangling me in a death-hug.
“You scared me,” she accuses. “Never, ever do that to me again.”
“I’m sorry . . . what am I apologizing for?” I ask through a yawn, my brain scrambling to figure out why I’m waking up in Valerian’s on campus house and not my own dorm. Holy Fae hells, I think something died in my mouth. “I have the breath of a troll—how long was I asleep?”
