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Oh, God. That’s how they’ll control Valerian and the others. Threatening to withhold the antidote if they don’t do as told.
A sick feeling crashes over me. I fight through it, struggling not to drown beneath the unrelenting waves of revulsion and horror. Struggling to be strong for my mate, my friends.
To find a way to save them.
Hellebore waits until the enormity of his meaning flashes over my face before adding the final nail in my coffin. “Only I possess the true cure. Which they will all receive after you formally become my loving, dutiful wife, and all your powers with you.”
I suck in a breath as the walls seem to close in around us. I can’t breathe. The feeling of being trapped descends, and with it comes a wild sense of desperation. “I’ll pay off our marriage arrangement, buy it out somehow.”
Hellebore laughs. “Orc’s breath, you’re adorable. Our future together is going to be so very entertaining. Especially considering that, as my fiancé, I no longer need your permission for anything, including touching you.”
Hot nausea simmers below my breastbone. “I’ll kill you before I let you touch any part of me.”
Hellebore’s chuckle echoes over the marble walls, and I want to carve his eyes out. “Behold, king, a rabbit who believes itself a wolf.”
I bare my teeth, near-rabid with a seething fury. This rabbit is going to rip out your throat someday, Prince.
The Winter King lacks Hellebore’s mirth as he regards me. I hate the disinterest in his hard gaze. As if I’m nothing, unworthy of more than a passing glance.
He shifts his attention to Hellebore. “Do what you will with her. My son possesses a misplaced sense of loyalty to his companions. He might gamble with his own life to retrieve his mate, but he won’t risk the lives of his trusted friends for her. As long as the poison runs through their veins, he will behave.”
In this moment, my hatred for Valerian’s father rivals my loathing for Hellebore. The Winter King has to know that, after what happened with Valerian’s mother, this final treachery will crush whatever’s left of Valerian’s wounded heart.
Both Fae males whip their heads to stare behind me—
The mahogany doors explode in a burst of fire, wood splinters slamming into the nearest wall. My mother strides in ready for battle, flames flaring from either side of her open hands.
Her fiery gaze flicks to my friends above, darts to the Winter King, and then settles on Hellebore.
To her credit, her shock barely registers before she composes her face into a fearsome mask. “I will buy off my daughter’s marriage contract. What’s your price? Land? Jewels?”
Hellebore’s lips twitch. “There is no price on love, isn’t that what mortals say?”
“The betrothal was never made permanent with magic before she died.” My mother stalks toward us until she’s close enough that I can smell her exotic perfume. “By Faerie law, we can still buy out the offer.”
“Fine, present me with my parents, alive and unharmed, and you may have your daughter back.”
My mother blinks, just barely masking her shock. I get the feeling very few Fae ever surprise her. “That was your aunt’s doing, not ours.”
“No. My aunt was simply being true to our nature as Evermore. She sensed weakness and acted upon it. I don’t blame her, but I do blame the Winter Prince for trying to take what was promised to me.”
His eyes gleam as he turns my way. “Our future marriage, secret as it was, formed powerful ties between our courts, and when the Summer King was forced to kill you to keep you out of the Winter Prince’s hands, my parents lost that alliance. They died all because one petulant, greedy Winter Prince had never been taught not to take what wasn’t his.”
That’s why he hates Valerian. He blames him for his parents’ death. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I will see the Ice Prince destroyed one way or another. Either by taking what he covets most or watching him die.”
A sinking feeling weighs down my middle. “The antidote.”
“If you refuse to make our betrothal permanent . . .” His gaze drags over my friends, one by one. “Then your co-conspirators won’t get the weekly antidote to slow the Bloodstar poison. They’ll become lifeless statues, empty husks. Dead, their bodies preserved for eternity, souls imprisoned in the Seven Fae Hells. You will never see them again in your mortal life.”
The panic searing my veins begins to ebb as I slowly look over my friends. Taking them in. Remembering how alive they’d been just a few hours ago.
I can picture with perfect, painstaking clarity Valerian’s face last night outside my door, the vulnerability and hope that had transformed him. I can see Asher as he waited by that tree for Mack, adoration in his eyes. I recall Eclipsa as she admitted to being my friend, to caring for me.
If saving them means shackling myself to a monster for eternity, so be it.
Jaw set, I nod. “Give them the antidote. Once I see that they’re alive, I’ll do what you want.”
