“That’s my chair,” the Winter Queen snarled, and a ferocious wind seized me and jerked me up.
But another wind tore through it and yanked me back onto the throne, making the Winter Queen’s eyes narrow.
Command me. Take me from her. The Winter Court’s frozen magic thudded harder in my chest, overwhelming my heartbeat and slicing deeper into my soul.
“And this is my court.” The Winter Queen raised her hands and an ice storm, spiked with sharp ice shards, roared around the room.
Its ferocious wind buffeted me, stealing the air around me before I could draw a breath. It yanked on my hair and whipped it against my face, neck, and shoulders. Blood welled on my arms from three shallow cuts and was swept away in the storm, the slices happening so fast — and my body so cold — I hadn’t felt them.
Command me.
I clung to the throne’s arms, fighting to stay seated as blood welled in another cut across my shoulder, this one deeper than the first ones. I had to take control. I’d given myself to the Winter Court to save my guys and now it was time to pay my debt.
And if I didn’t win this fight, I’d never see my guys again. Even if the Winter Queen didn’t kill me, she’d still lock me up in the depths of the court and never let me out.
Rin staggered to his feet, leaning into the storm, and turned to face the queen. The wind snapped and jerked on his long black ponytail, sash, and the slitted ends of his calf-length wrap tunic. His fate was tied to mine, more so than any of my guys. If the Winter Queen killed me, he died too.
I couldn’t be responsible for that. I’d promised we’d get the Heart and set him free, and I had every intention of doing that. I was stronger than the Winter Queen. My guys and my determination to get back to them made me stronger. It had to.
No. It did.
I’d been stronger than her before. I’d be stronger now.
Except before when we’d fled the Winter Court’s ballroom, my control had been momentary, and then she’d unleashed a storm that had almost crashed us into the side of a mountain.
If I wanted to keep control of the court, I had to break her connection with it, and let the court fully take me. There wasn’t any other option.
Chapter 2
Hawk
A frozen wind edged with the cold brightness of the Winter Court’s magic yanked Amiah off the bed and into the blinding white blaze of a portal, and my pulse stalled. I scrambled to grab her and pull her free while Bane activated one of the spells tattooed on his body. His magic flashed at the edge of my vision, but I refused to look away from Amiah to see what he was casting. It would take a second of concentration to determine what the spell was and I could lose her in that second.
And God, I couldn’t lose her.
Horror filled her expression and the portal’s brilliant light started to engulf her. Everything inside me screamed. Save her! Now.
She was strong, she could survive the Winter Court alone, but she shouldn’t have to. I didn’t want her to. I wanted to be at her side for everything, good and bad, because I knew in my soul, I belonged with her.
I didn’t care if she’d branded Rin and not me. She didn’t need to bind our souls together to have me. I was hers. Always. If I wasn’t supposed to be hers, the connection we formed when we made love would have weakened as her bond with Rin strengthened. But our connection had been stronger this time than it had ever been, even without being able to make eye contact with her while we made love.
Except as I dove for her, I knew with gut-churning fear that it didn’t matter what I did, I wasn’t going to be fast enough to reach her before the portal pulled her back into Faerie.
And from the terrified look in her bright blue eyes, she knew it too.
Then her gaze leaped past my shoulder. Rin, who I’d known with my ability to sense sexual energy had been outside the door watching us have sex, bolted into the room. His hellfire roared from his eyes, licking across his cheeks in a shocking display of emotions, and he dove for her, too.
They collided as the portal closed and its blinding light — that only I could see with my magic sensitivity — vanished, leaving a large black blob in the middle of my vision.
I flew through the space where the portal had been and slammed head first into the wall. Pain snapped through my skull and neck and my internal magic flared hot, healing my concussion and cracked vertebra before I’d even hit the floor. I scrambled to my feet and lost my balance, falling against the wall and had to use it to keep standing. I was still high on the sexual energy the three of us had generated and the room was ever-so-slightly out of focus.
“Fuck!” Bane screamed, and I heaved around to face him, making the room lurch.
“Open a portal. Get her back,” I begged. Yes, she could handle the Winter Court alone — please be able to handle it — but she wasn’t alone, and while the portal had the icy white light of the Winter Court I had to remember that didn’t mean it had actually taken her to the Winter Court. “We don’t know Rin’s intentions. For all we know he’s been waiting for this moment so he can take her to Deaglan.”
“You know I can’t make a portal,” Bane snapped. He’d made it to the foot of the bed before the portal had swallowed Amiah and stared at the spot where she’d been with a raw, desperate look in his eyes.
Shit. Right. I knew he couldn’t make a portal. Even if he hadn’t been infected with demonic magic, he still wouldn’t have been able to make a portal. I didn’t know why someone who could access and weave the raw magic of Faerie into anything he wanted couldn’t make a portal, but magic was funny like that, filled with surprising — and at times frustrating — inconsistencies.
Except I still had to get to her. Even if Rin wasn’t intent on taking her back to Deaglan, she was still fighting her desire for him, and it would break her if their soul bond overwhelmed her and she had sex with him.
“We have to—” I jerked my gaze around the blurry room. We couldn’t do anything trapped in the human realm. Who did I know who could form a portal?
No one. I didn’t know anyone who could form a portal. I only knew people who could open one of the many natural portals to the various realms scattered throughout the world. I jerked my gaze back to Bane. “Where’s the closest portal to Faerie?”
“For fuck’s sake, bleed off that excess magic,” Bane said. “You can summon a portal.”
My thoughts shuttered.
I could summon a portal. Sort of. Karthick, the strange fae sorcerer who’d helped us return to the mortal realm, had imbued me with a spell that alerted him to our desire to return to Faerie. He’d said when the Winter Court’s call was too much for Amiah, he’d form a portal so we could return.
I bit back a bitter laugh.
She hadn’t even had a chance to fight it. The Winter Court had just yanked her back without warning.
All we’d needed was a minute, long enough to gather the others — to hell with getting dressed — and then a second for me to think about activating the spell that contacted him.
A flicker of the sorcerer’s strange magic teased the back of my mind, and Bane’s eyes flashed wide.
“Don’t. You’re the one with the spell. Karthick won’t be able to find Cassius and Titus if he pulls us back into Faerie without them.” Bane released the magic he’d pushed into his glyph, but his full-body fae glow remained bright, even though the demonic magic still writhed and snapped inside him.