The connection wasn’t the same as the connection I made with my guys or even Rin, but it was a connection and there wasn’t a barrier in my way like the last time I’d tried to seize Padraigin’s life force. This time, I could grab onto her soul and yank. I could kill her and the Winter Queen in an instant.
But then I’d really be the monster Padraigin accused me of being… again.
My throat tightened at the memory of taking the life forces of Deaglan’s assassins in my desperate attempt to save Cassius.
I wasn’t just the embodiment of life any more.
I was now also death.
Something I swore I’d never be, something I thought I couldn’t be with my compulsive need to heal.
And if I killed Padraigin and the Winter Queen, more Winter Court high fae would die because the court would tear through them, taking their magic — and as a result their lives — until it found someone strong enough to control it.
Except I swore I’d never be someone’s prisoner again, and I would die first before I let Padraigin, let alone the Winter Queen or Deaglan, get their hands on Titus or any of my guys.
I seized Padraigin’s life force and yanked. I didn’t want to kill her, I just wanted to break her concentration, but her life force flooded into me, burning through my veins, and with a scream, she dropped to her knees and clutched her chest, her eyes wide with fear.
The water around my head splattered to the floor, pooling at my hands and knees, and I gasped in a desperate breath and shoved her life back into her, drawing another howl of pain.
“Enough,” the Winter Queen yelled and a blast of wind slammed me face-first to the floor.
Sparks exploded in my vision and the world whirled around me. Before I realized what I was doing, my power seized the Winter Queen’s life force and yanked, drawing a scream of agony from her.
Her life flooded into me, rushing through my veins, and started to heal my court-induced hypothermia.
Yes, the Winter Court hissed, its joy at her death and its freedom flooding me, weaving around my new ability to take life and seizing control of it. Finally. Now let me in.
I can’t. Even if I wanted to. And as much as the Winter Queen was a monster, I couldn’t kill her.
I heaved at the Winter Court’s hold on my magic. I should have been able to take control. The Winter Court didn’t completely possess me. But its hold on me was strong and it was desperate. It needed to be free. I understood that need. I also understood that the deaths wouldn’t stop with the Winter Queen, and I couldn’t be responsible for all those other lives.
But the Winter Court didn’t care. It was going to kill the Winter Queen and I was going to be its weapon.
Chapter 4
Amiah
With a scream, I wrenched my power out of the Winter Court’s control and shoved the Winter Queen’s life back inside her.
The Winter Court howled, its frozen magic slicing inside me, the hypothermia I’d started to heal returning.
Why? I could have been free.
But I can’t control you. You would have killed the high fae in your court until someone else took control of you.
But I have to be free from her, it cried. Please.
Rin’s life force snapped against my senses, and he picked me up and bolted out the small door at the back of the throne room.
Please, the Winter Court begged. I can’t be trapped with her. I won’t let you leave me like Seireadan and Padraigin did.
Which didn’t make sense. Yes, Sebastian had abandoned Faerie when his best friend and his fiancé had tried to murder him, but Padraigin was still there. Padraigin didn’t leave you.
She did. Her husband died, Seireadan left, and she faded out of reach.
Faded? If you could connect with Padraigin, would you accept her? I didn’t like that she was trying to kill me, but she’d been told a lie and I understood her pain. The question was, had she been behind Noaldar trying to stab me with a poisoned knife and almost killing Hawk? Did I really want someone in control of the court who’d used a poison so deadly not even an incubus’s rapid healing would have been able to save him?
If she hadn’t been involved, she would certainly be a better option for the Winter Court than its current queen.
I can’t reach her.
If you could?
I can’t and I won’t let you go.
I can’t let you in. I had to find a way for it to connect with Padraigin. Except if it couldn’t, I’d have to find someone else, and I wasn’t going to force the court on Sebastian. He’d made it clear he didn’t want to be king.
I’ll find someone. I promise, I thought at it, my body shivering uncontrollably, icy water dripping from my hair and sliding over my bare skin. I had no idea how I’d free it, but I knew what it was like to be trapped with no hope of escape, and no one, not even a magical court, should have to suffer like that.
Rin raced down the narrow white hall, the walls, even in what had to be a servants’ hall, carved with intricate swirling patterns. I clung to him, desperate for even the little bit of heat in his undead body. He wasn’t even as warm as Sebastian’s cooler-than-normal body temperature, but he was a lot warmer than the Winter Court’s frozen power.
He reached a T-intersection, ran right, then took the first left. I prayed he knew where he was going, since I had no clue how to get anywhere in the court.
Up ahead, three female ice servants, all petite women who looked identical in every way — face, hair, build, and clothing — dropped their baskets and serving trays and leaped at us.
Rin jerked out of the way, but icy fingers clawed at my arm, digging deep painful rents in my flesh.
Another woman grabbed my ankle, but Rin twisted and kicked her into the third woman, slamming them into the wall. The impact shattered the torso of the one Rin had kicked and she broke apart without uttering a sound.
The third servant didn’t give the broken one a second look and lunged at us, but Rin bolted away before she reached us, racing down the hall to another T-intersection.
He turned right into a much wider hall, and stopped. Four large ice guards stood at the far end, guarding a set of large, intricately carved ice doors.
“Can you control them, your highness?” he asked in his soft, barely-there voice.
One of the guards barreled down the hall toward us, and I wrenched at the Winter Court’s magic inside me.
A gust of wind stuttered around us, freezing the water on my skin and in my hair, then vanished.
The guard swept his spear at us and Rin twisted to the side just enough so the spear tip plunged past us.
I strained to summon more wind as the guard jerked his weapon to the side and Rin twisted out of the way again.
Another stuttering gust of wind that quickly sputtered out.
Please. I promise I’ll free you, I told the Winter Court.
Her hold is too tight. She won’t let me help you.
“I can’t control them,” I gasped, as a second guard hurried to join the first, and the first thrust his spear at us again.
Rin jerked back and the two ice servants who we’d just run from hurried into the hall behind us while the icy bright life forces of the Winter Queen and Padraigin drew closer.
“Can you stand?” His gaze swept around the hall as if he were searching for an out-of-the-way place to put me so he could fight.