Except even if he could fight the ice guards and the servants, the Winter Queen and Padraigin were coming. We’d just end up in the same situation we’d run from in the throne room.
“Just run. The Winter Queen and Padraigin will be here soon.”
A spark of hellfire snapped from his eye and he tightened his grip on me. “All the other exits will be guarded like this one. If we wait, she’ll add more men.”
“If we don’t, the Winter Queen might not care if Padraigin drowns us.”
Rin twisted, dodging another spear thrust, but the second guard also jabbed, forcing Rin to heave out of the way and step into the hands of the servants.
One grabbed my arm, digging her sharp fingertips into my flesh and the other seized Rin’s tunic. They yanked him off balance and wrenched me out of his arms.
He scrambled to grab me, but a guard seized his ankle and slammed him into the hall wall.
He hit with a heavy thud, fell to the floor, stunned, and the guard stabbed at him.
My pulse skipped and the Winter Court’s pulse took its place with a crushing beat in my chest. Its wind rippled around me, its cold freezing into every cell in my body and yet still not completely in my control.
Because I couldn’t let it in.
There was only room for Rin. My brand made sure of that and it howled at me to save him.
Save him. Save him. Now now now.
My desperation clenched at the Winter Court’s magic and a burst of air hit the spear. The sharp tip dug into the floor, narrowly missing Rin’s chest. He scrambled toward me, but the ice maid who wasn’t holding me lunged at him.
Without losing his stride, he hit the maid in the center of her chest with a powerful open-hand strike, shoving her into the wall and shattering her body then snapped a hard, fast kick to the other maid’s head. Her skull broke in half with a sickening crack, the pieces tumbling to the floor, and her body collapsed on top of me.
I rolled her off me and Rin yanked me back into his arms. But two of the ice guards swung at him and even with his faster-than-human speed, he wasn’t going to be able to dodge both strikes and secure his grip on me.
My heart skipped another beat and the Winter Court’s pulse took its place again, this time with a frozen surge of power that blasted wind at all four guards, slamming them against the large doors. One guard’s arm cracked and fell off and another lost a chunk out of his side.
A flicker of hope cut through my fear. I just needed another blast like that and we could escape.
I mentally seized the Winter Court’s magic, willing everything I had into it to control it just one more time. But that other force snapped through my control again, and just like the last time, the Winter Queen took her power back, and a massive wall of ice shot up from the floor, blocking off the door.
I strained to wrenched the court’s power back, but the Winter Queen held on tight, even as the Winter Court’s heart pounded inside me, slicing into my soul, desperate to join with me.
You’re mine. I command you. I heaved at the cold, but the queen’s grip tightened and her life force drew closer. I tried to seize her life force again but couldn’t reach her. She was too far away for my magic to do anything more than sense her, and it was a terrible idea to risk capture to wait for her to get closer.
“I’m not going to break the wall in time. We have to run,” I gasped through chattering teeth. “We can figure out how to escape once we’re out of immediate danger.”
The hellfire in Rin’s eyes flickered to miniature flames then snapped back to smoldering red pinpricks and he ran to the closest hall — which happened to be between us and the guards.
All of the guards lunged at us, and Rin twisted, dodging a spear thrust then jerked to the side to avoid another. His shoulder hit the wall and so did the back of my head, making the world lurch and darken, but he didn’t hesitate… or ask me if I was okay, since a concussion was nothing compared to being captured or killed. He just kept running down hall after hall.
The Winter Queen and Padraigin’s life forces grew farther away, but for every hall that didn’t have one of the queen’s constructs, two more did, and while Rin chose running over fighting when possible and didn’t look like he was getting tired, eventually it wouldn’t matter how little he fought. Neither demons nor vampires had unlimited strength. He’d get tired and we wouldn’t be able to make a stand.
We had to get out of the Winter Court.
Except Rin was right. All the exits would be guarded… if the Winter Queen didn’t just block them all off, trapping everyone inside until she captured us.
Unless, of course, there was a way out that she didn’t know I knew about.
“Do you know how to get to the ballroom?”
Please, God, let him know where we are and how to get there.
“Yes.” He jerked around and ran back to the last hall we’d passed.
Thank, God.
“There’s a hall that leads to the Winter Forest. There’s a door just before the barrier. It’s for the catacombs and a way out of court.”
Going through the catacombs had been our original escape plan the last time we’d been trapped in the Winter Court. Only a select few could cross the barrier into the Winter Forest, so the hall to the catacombs — and what Sebastian had said was a forgotten way out of court — was never guarded.
And I could only hope nothing had changed since we’d been there last.
Chapter 5
Amiah
We reached the ballroom’s main floor without running into many more servants, and Rin paused at the entranceway in the dimly lit hall, made darker by the shadow of the wide balcony that ringed the large dark room.
Unlike the last time I was there, there weren’t any glowing orbs lighting the space, and the buffet tables piled with food that had sat against the walls under the balcony were also gone. So, too was the massive bed with red silk sheets that had dominated the center of the room where Sebastian and I had been forced to consummate our fake marriage.
I shuddered at the memory of him yanking my hair, hurting me, kissing me like he was angry, and pushing into me before I was ready, all to put on a big enough show so his mother wouldn’t demand we have sex with her entire court watching ever again.
A spark of hellfire popped from Rin’s eye, the only indication he had any kind of emotion.
He’d bitten me that night at Deaglan’s command, had sent his seductive vampiric magic sliding through my veins, and then had watched me and Sebastian.
Another shudder swept through me.
Did he think that’s how I liked to have sex?
God, I hoped not. If we didn’t get the Heart soon and break our soul bond, I was going to have to have sex with him or go crazy, and I was nervous enough about having normal sex with him.
And with my body starting to ache for him again despite the Winter Court freezing my very essence, I didn’t know how much longer I could resist my unwanted desires.
“Which hall?” he asked, his soft voice twisting my desire tighter.
Come on. Think of something else. Anything other than sex with Rin.
But that made me think of sex with my guys, of their kisses and caresses, how they made me feel incredible. The memory of both Sebastian and Hawk moving inside me flooded me and my aching desire swelled. I wanted more of that, more of the connection we formed that kept getting stronger, more of the amazing sensations, and more of the certainty that I could let go with them, that I didn’t have to be in control, that I was safe.