by A. K. Koonce
The only beautiful thing is Rime’s eyes.
A sinking feeling drops through my stomach, but I refuse to glance over at him.
My fingers brush his cold knuckles for a single second, and I pull my hands inside, wrapping myself up in the safety of the warm material. The shifter strides behind his queen with just a white shirt and jeans on, his boots leaving deep holes in the crisp snow, but he doesn’t seem to care or notice the harsh weather.
We stop in the middle of the whiteness. A valley dips low at the front of the castle. The land looks endless, and I can’t stop staring at it all.
There isn’t a tree or a marking of any kind, but the queen kneels in the snow, her pale hands digging into the coldness until a nice hole is formed. And then she takes out a small glass jar. It’s tinted red with a gold lid sealing it shut.
Inside is a single slip of paper.
The metal lid clatters when she twists it open, and she extends the little jar to me like an offering. I lift my fingers, bite back my hesitancy, and pull out the folded square. Writing etches along the creases in slashing red letters. Over and over again on every crease is the same blood-red word.
Barron.
“I originally planted a different kind of magic into this land, but it started to affect the wildlife. Some creatures lost their fur, others changed dramatically in bright colors, but when some of the beasts started to die off entirely, I had to change to a less harmful form of power.” She shrugs indifferently. “I have a few of these planted in different places around my kingdom. Different names, different things in each jar. Some have broken glass and sharp metal, some have frozen water, some simply have my deepest aspirations.”
The way my stomach twists up around itself is painful.
I ask the one thing that feels important.
“Is my name in any of your jars, my queen?”
The smile that angles across her lips is an eerie sight.
“Yes.”
I swallow hard at that but keep my features expressionless.
“Not everything I do is cruel, Arlow. I wanted good things for you. I am a woman with good intentions.”
That’s a wildly over exaggerated statement.
“Of course.”
A quietness slips by before she takes the folded paper back and tosses it back into her jar. Screws the lid shut, drops it carelessly back into its hole, and kicks the snow over it.
“I’d like to protect you from Barron and my son.”
My lips part, my brows lifting, but I smooth my surprise.
“Actually, Linden and I have always been more than kind to one another. He always cared about me. Always took care of me. I was a mage and I know he sensed that about me. I—” Just. Say. It. Arlow. “I loved Linden.” I look down with that lie, and the moment I say it, a low growl of pent-up aggression shakes out of Rime.
I side-eye him and arch a brow at the shifter. Excuse me? Don’t be so shocked that you’re being replaced when the only interest in me you’ve had is to contemplate my murder.
Asshole.
“Linden loved you?” Deep-green eyes get the most lost look, and I swear she might actually have been a good person once. “He’s kind. It doesn’t surprise me that he loved you.”
At the start, I think Linden was enchanted by me. Maybe I was alluring in a magical, familiar way that he could sense but didn’t understand. He did love me. Rime and Linden both loved me once.
My gaze becomes a deadened appearance for a single split second before I mask the hurt that’s blooming through my chest with a smile. “I don’t want to manipulate or change anything about Linden’s feelings for me.”
“No, no, I agree. Having my son’s affection can only help us.”
I knew that’s what she’d say. She’ll use him. Her own son. Just like she’s using Rime. Just like she’s using me.
“Tell me about the other men in your life. What can they do?”
Ah yes, how can you use them.
Or defeat them.
“Chaos is…” Just. Say. It. “Docile. Easily won over.”
Strong, fearless. He’d eat your bony ass for breakfast and complain of the lack of real meat on your bones.
“Good.” She nods, and thick flakes of snow cling to her lashes the longer we stand out here in the void of this kingdom.
The blondeness of her hair, the fair color of her skin, the white fur wrapped around her, every single thing about her is an image of coldness. Including her intentions.
I know that now.
“Kain sees the world in black and white. It is what it is in his eyes. You’ll not be able to control him as easily,” I add as an afterthought. That’s the flat truth, and I’m counting on her underestimating him.
Kain.
I repeat his name once more and wait for a reply. For several seconds, I stand like that, just staring off into the empty sky. Something tugs at my heart, but the bond I share with him feels far away. Distant and untouchable.
My other two mates really can’t reach me here.
I close my eyes for a moment with the frost of the weather resting on every one of my dark lashes.
“And Sinister.” How can I best put this to set her up for complete failure? “He’s nothing like Kreedence. He’s kind and gentle. And he’s a shifter. A hellhound.”
A shifter. He is but he isn’t. When he arrives—and he will arrive— she’ll see that for herself, I suppose.
“Really. That’s fascinating.” Her big eyes dart back and forth, and I can tell she’s already plotting but I’ve out-plotted her plots.
“Well, for now, Linden. Linden and Barron will arrive tomorrow morning—if the old man doesn’t tragically die of a stroke before reaching my humble little abode.”
The warm smile on her lips makes it hard for me to keep my fake enthusiasm in place, but I force it.
And I’ll keep forcing it until I’ve won.
That night I did not win, though.
“It’s just protocol. You understand.” Ellise clicked the lock in place on my cell in the darkness of the dungeon.
Protocol. An evil queen has protocols.
Sure. I understand.
“I don’t see how this is helping us trust one another.”
I tilt my chin up, and she holds my gaze with a look of pure kindness.
“Trust will come. Give it time, Arlow.”
She doesn’t give me time to say another word as her long dress wafts over the icy brick floor and she starts up the stairs. Rime lingers there on the other side of the bars, studying me for a moment. It makes that stupid hope inside me rise.
Just for him to trample it right back down when he turns and follows behind her.
Ah, the queen is taking her most loyal pupper on a walkie.
I’m so bitter it’s pathetic.
A door from upstairs closes with a heavy thump, and dim lighting flickers around the room. The sigh that parts my lips doesn’t ease the tension in my chest or my shoulders.
I pace the little cell for about an hour before finally letting my back meet the wall and sliding down until my ass hits the cold floor. The magic that streams through me isn’t violent. The queen has taken care to make sure no ill-will magic can be used within these cells. The magic I use now is to protect myself, not from her, but from the freezing temperatures of this land. Tingles spread through my body as heat flares to life within my bones until I no longer feel the frost seeping into my thin dress.
It’s still bloody. It’s still covered in Sinister’s blood, and it only reminds me of the small moment of love I’d felt when he’d kissed me and sliced his hand.
Just to summon a queen I should have forgotten about. If I’d listened to Rime for once, none of this would have happened.
Goddess, I can’t ever say that out loud because his inflated beast ego can’t handle another boost of confidence right now.
“She’ll break you,” a crawling voice says from the shadows.
My spine straightens as the feeli
ng of a spider walks down it.
I don’t answer the voice. It’s probably best not to engage when you hear creepy crawly voices in a dungeon.
“I said”—the scratching voice grows louder—“she’ll break you.”
“I heard you,” I growl back at the stranger.
“Well, speak up. That’s what’s wrong with your generation: never had to speak for yourselves. Always leaving it to someone else to clean up your messes. The mage economy is crashing, speak up, for crying out loud.”
Oh my goddess, I can’t handle this right now. It’s like she’s a less smutty version of Agatha.
Wait. She’s a mage.
“I was told there’s three elder mages in Attika. Are you one of them?”
“I am.” Her simple words carry for a moment in the large room. Her tone is quiet, and a bit of sadness stings her voice. “The other two mages are quieter. You lose your hope and you’ll lose everything here,” she tells me with that same shaking sound. “The former king in the cell at the very end, he has a bit of hope left. Not much, but a little.”
I part my lips but I’m not sure what to say to all of that information. The former King of Attika was Ellise’s brother. She imprisoned her own brother?
She didn’t kill him, so I guess that’s a good sign.
Kind of.
“How long have you been here?” I ask the darkness.
And it answers. “The three of us have been under care of the Attikan kingdom for decades. King Chalem was ordered by the Treaty of the Two Kingdoms to execute any mages in his land. He couldn’t do it, though. His mother was a mage, his grandmother was a mage. It’s a long history of magic in his family, and he apparently didn’t have it in him to murder us as The Minden King ordered. But he never treated us the way Ellise does now. We were never prisoners until recently.”
“Have you tried to escape or rise up?” My question is a hiss, a hushed and urgent sound.
It’s never answered, though.
A heavy door bangs shut, and silence falls across the dark. Steps echo firmly on the big bricks of the floor, and my heartbeat shudders.
Did she hear us?
Are we being watched?
White light shines over the damp walls, and then I see him.
Rime walks down the last two steps, and his gaze is held intently on me, coming closer and closer but never taking his eyes off of me.
It’s a dangerous look. A look that suits him, making him seem deadly and sexy all at the same time.
“Oh, the pet is off his leash? Better hope your queen doesn’t find you prowling around on your own or she’ll kennel you.” My taunting words don’t seem to register with him at all.
I never realized how much I loved our back and forth banter until he became a shell of the man I loved.
His jaw remains locked hard in place. But he lowers himself until his knees meet the damp floor and he’s eye level with me.
His hand extends to me, his long fingers reaching between the bars, and all I can think about is if he’ll find a way to hurt me through the prison cell if I put my hand in his.
I do it, though. It’s a stupid thing to do, but I can’t help but slide my fingers against his, and I absolutely love the calmness his body brings to mine. It’s a dangerous trust that I’m giving him. It’s one I’ll never be able to get rid of.
This shifter will always have my trust, and I hate that I can’t take it back.
His quiet gaze trails from my eyes to my lips slowly before warm water trickles over my skin. A towel meets my knuckles, and my attention drops to find him washing my hand between the bars. Back and forth he brushes the wet cloth over my fingers until the dried flakes of blood fall away. His steady hand works up my wrist and arm, taking care to clean every part of me.
The way he does it feels real. The silence that he clings to is just like the silence he always held before. All of this feels the same.
But different.
“Did she ask you to take care of me? To make me feel like you love me?” My chest hurts to push out those questions, but my glaring eyes burn into him as I wait for his answer.
And it never comes.
He doesn’t even look up at me. It’s as if I never said a word.
The towel pulls away. He lifts my fingers to his lips and inhales deeply, his heavy breath fanning over my cool skin in a tingle of sensations.
He’s removed the demon blood that his dragon seemed to hate so much.
He motions for my other hand. A sigh slips from my lungs, and I extend my palm. In pressing quiet, we sit together, just as we have a hundred times before.
“I’m your mate,” I all but coo at the man. “Can you sense that? That I’m yours?”
I pause, and he keeps cleaning. Wow. Really charismatic, this one.
“Out of a world of beautiful women, you picked me. And you forgot me in a single day. Men.” I rest my chin on the heel of my free hand and just rant to him like he’s an innocent bystander in my screwed-up relationship. “I put up with his brooding silence. He kisses two thirds of my other mates. Sinister is one blow job away from leaving me for him, and the asshole forgets me. He just forgets me.”
Rime pauses and looks up at me then, and I stop my rambling. Did he understand that?
“Was it blow job? Did you understand blow job? Because I relate. Smutty words are probably what would trigger me out of a magic-infused coma, too.”
He lowers his head like I’m just distracting him from an important task.
Dammit.
I close my eyes. I breathe out the frustrations of the day. Rime’s here. He isn’t talking or even glancing at me, but he’s here, and that’s enough. He’s taking care of me like he loves me.
I’ll pretend like it’s real love as long as it takes to keep me going through all of this.
Three
Distorted Love
I slowly crack my eyes open to the dark room. For a few seconds, I don’t know where I am.
And then my head spins with the memory of the past few days, and I almost wish I could go back to sleep to find some escape for just a few more hours.
I flex my fingers, and my wrist hits chilled metal. I glance down at my palm that’s between two of the cell bars to find his big hand holding mine, fingers threaded sweetly between mine.
Rime’s bright eyes watch me quietly like he hasn’t taken his attention off of me the entire night.
Maybe it’s just a pattern for him. A memory of us that shadows his mind that he’s not even aware of. Or maybe—just maybe—Rime’s still in there. Honestly, the barbaric man before me isn’t that terribly different from the barbaric man I first met.
The sweet glint in his eyes captures my attention. I lean closer, needing to feel his body against mine as much as the cell will allow. He follows my every move like I’m the sole reason for his existence. His gaze dips to my lips. My heartbeat flutters as the space between us dissolves.
And then he jars my arm so hard my head rattles into the steely metal bar. I wince in pain but I’m forced up against the cell. Slow breaths fan along my cheek. His nose skims down my jaw, along my neck. Ever so slowly, his tongue slips between his lips and laps a long, gentle stroke from my jaw to my collarbone.
He tastes me in the most basic, animalistic way possible.
Okay…he might be just slightly more barbaric than I remember.
The harsh hold he has on my wrist loosens, and I pull back from him to see him lick his lips, his gaze now drifting even lower on my body, his Adam’s apple bobbing as if he’s remembering the way my orgasm felt against his lips.
“I. Need. Space.” I shift back from him, scooting awkwardly over the cold floor until the span of the cell is between us.
His pale brows lower over his beautiful eyes.
“It’s just, I love you, Rime. And I want you. I’ll always want you. And that puts me in a weird, slightly uncomfortable situation when you’re a man-dragon who doesn’t have a human thought in his head, and I’m a s
uper-vulnerable, dare I say innocent woman, who can’t say no to you. I…I’m not okay with fucking a dragon. That’s where the line is drawn. Those are my super-high moral standards in life. It’s not negotiable, sorry.” Being a shifter’s mate is hard sometimes, I swear.
I fold my arms across my chest and cling to the appearance of unwavering confidence. He lowers his head in confusion with the sweetest look of hurt.
“Are you done discussing your bizarre sexual standards or do you and my son need a few more minutes?” Ellise lounges against the dark wall. In the dim lighting, she’s the image of an angel of death looming in the shadows.
The half-smile tipping her lips never falters when she glides toward me, eyes locked on her favorite little prisoner, it seems. Metal scrapes metal, and the door swings open after a twist of a key. She slides that key into an unseen pocket in her dress.
Dress pockets. Color me jealous.
With as much dignity as I can find on the wet floor, I stand. When I pass her, her hand runs through my dark hair, catching on a knot at the ends.
“I have clean clothes and a bath waiting for you upstairs.”
She looks at me so strangely. The way she studies me makes my skin crawl.
I’m a pawn to her, just like everyone else in her life. And I know she’s preparing to use me today.
Warm water slides across my skin, and my attention keeps flicking toward the shifter leaning casually against the door. With one ankle crossed over the other, his arms folded, emphasizing his chest and arms, he’s completely sexy.
Or he would be if he were my Rime.
I keep myself hidden beneath the frothy white bubbles and I still haven’t decided how I’m going to sneak out of this bath in the least provocative way possible. I’m modest. For the very first time in my life possibly.
I glance from the bath to the soft white towel that’s perched on the table near the door. Right next to him. Perfect.
