Jeez. And right now to be safe, I shouldn’t think about sex at all.
“Your highness,” Rin murmured and I bit back a moan.
Jeez. You’re freezing. How can you possibly be turned on? You’re running for your life for goodness sake!
I heaved my attention to the hall on the other side of the ballroom and pointed with a trembling hand. “That one.”
He hurried across the room, passing through the wide patch of moonlight pouring through the large skylight in the center of the room where the bed had been.
I forced my gaze up, my heart yearning to be outside and free, not trapped in the Winter Court’s mountain, and took one last look at the sky. We were heading deeper into the court, farther away from the sky, and I had no idea when I’d see it again.
The thought squeezed in my chest. Not knowing when I’d see the sky again was just something else I needed to ignore. I couldn’t let my fears or my desires control me. I had to focus, keep an eye on Rin for any indication that he was going to betray me, and get back to my guys. It didn’t matter that everything within me said I could trust him. That was just the brand influencing me, not the truth.
We reached the narrow hall. Strangely these walls weren’t carved with the swirling design that covered every other wall in the Winter Court. They were smooth and solemn, fully opaque and there wasn’t a door in sight.
A frozen breeze swept over us, drawing my gaze through the gloomy darkness to the rectangle of moonlight at the far end and the vast swath of glimmering snow between the end of the hall and the edge of the Winter Forest.
Rin strode down the hall and the breeze grew stronger. My shivering increased, my breath misting, not because the air around me was cold, but because the air inside me was.
God, I hadn’t even been this cold when the keys to unlock the Heart had become empowered.
My thoughts stalled, and between one blink and the next, we were a lot closer to the end of the hall and the square of moonlight than we’d been before. Which meant my hypothermia was getting worse — and I didn’t even need my magic to tell me that.
I was already heavy and numb, and despite my shivering, my pulse was starting to slow. I wasn’t going to last much longer, not without expending my healing magic, which was the last thing I wanted to do. It took a lot more magic to heal myself than to heal others and I wanted to hold on to what I had for when my guys came for me. Because they would come for me.
Please. You need to let me go, I mentally gasped at the Winter Court.
No. Not until you find me a new monarch.
I can’t do that if I die from hypothermia.
If I release you, you’ll betray me. The Winter Court’s icy power surged and the hall vanished. Frozen darkness surrounded me, squeezing me so tight I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.
I blinked and lost more time. Now we were almost at the end of the hall and it was getting harder and harder to focus. It was as if I was thinking in slow motion. My thoughts stalled, lurched then stalled again, and all I really wanted was to go to sleep.
I wasn’t going to be able to take much more. I won’t betray you.
The Winter Court heaved and snapped inside me, and snowflakes twirled out of my mouth with my next breath.
I fought to keep my eyes open and reached for my healing power, but my thoughts were too sluggish, and it kept slipping out of my mental grasp. I’d waited too long and was no longer able to concentrate enough to push my magic inward and heal myself.
Please.
Fine.
I released another breath filled with more flakes. They sparkled in the moonlight, the unnatural fae glow radiating from my body, and with the fae magic I wasn’t supposed to be able to see as a being from the Realm of Celestial Light.
More flakes flew out of my mouth, and a whisper of heat unfurled around my heart.
Some of the cold that had been inside me was leaving. But not all.
I could still feel the ice in my veins, knew if the Winter Court wanted to it could flood me with its power again and kill me.
Find me a monarch, it hissed, its threat clear. If I didn’t find it a monarch, it would take me whether I could fully command it or not.
Rin reached the end of the hall and there, barely visible even while standing directly in front of it, was a plain, narrow door. It opened into a plain passage, and Rin hurried into the narrow space before I could get a good look at what was inside and closed the door behind us.
There wasn’t any light, but my fae glow, still radiating light from my orgasm, offered more than enough illumination to tell we were at the top of a narrow staircase.
“Put me down,” I said. I couldn’t sense the Winter Queen and Padraigin’s life forces and didn’t want Rin carrying me all the way out of the Winter Court. Of course, even though I wasn’t shivering nearly as much as before, I still had no idea if I could walk, but since I wasn’t about to pass out from the cold, I wanted to at least try to stand on my own.
“Yes, your highness.” He set me on my feet, close to the door so I could lean against it to keep my balance and turned his back on me.
“Rin, you don’t have to call me your highness. I’m not a princess.”
He untied his sash and my pulse picked up.
“I ah… I’d rather you call me Amiah,” I said, my voice breathy as my unwanted desire surged.
Oh, God. I knew our bond made him desire me as well, but was he struggling as much as I was? It was so hard to tell with his emotionless demeanor.
“We should probably think about this.” And pull ourselves together.
He shrugged out of his wrap tunic and held it and the sash out to me, still keeping his back turned.
I stared at his naked torso, my thoughts stalled on his body. I’d seen him without his tunic before. He, like my guys, had been forced to only wear pants to the Winter Queen’s party, and I knew what his beautifully sculpted chest, abs, and arms looked like.
Then my thoughts tripped. He was holding out his tunic.
I didn’t have to be naked.
“Thank you.” I took the tunic, my hands still trembling with the cold, and pulled it on. It wrapped across my chest and almost all the way around my back and hung to my ankles. It was also still crusted with blood from when Rin had ripped out the throat of Deaglan’s nightmare, but at least it covered my body… more or less. Less, because if I moved the wrong way the slits would flash everything to anyone looking, but it wasn’t any more revealing than the dress the queen had made me wear at my marriage consummation party… and once again, I didn’t have shoes.
“We should put more distance between us and them. Can you walk, your highness?”
“I said call me Amiah.” I reached for the sash and my fingers brushed his, sending a shock of need sweeping through me and making me gasp.
His gaze jerked to mine, and once again I was drowning in his hellfire, the warmth of my desire bleeding through the Winter Court’s frozen magic. Everything within me cried to draw closer, tease my fingers across his back, kiss him again. All I’d need was a single step and I could press my body against his.
“Please,” I gasped, forcing myself to stay where I was. “I’ve already told you, Sebastian and I aren’t married.”
He didn’t move, didn’t breathe, didn’t even blink. Not that he needed to breathe or blink — he was undead — but most vampires never lost those living reflexes.