A COLD SNOWFLAKE
NUSS
Icouldn't believe I'd fucking let this happen. I'd failed the princess and the entire Winter Realm by letting Konig steal her away from us when we were only one crown away from becoming the strongest bonded court in the history of our world.
I'd failed so utterly that if I wasn't so damn angry, I'd be ready to give up. The fire burning through my veins where my cool ice of a Snowflake Prince should be had me ready to tear the fucking chains out of this stone wall and strangle him where he slept beside my beautiful princess. Except I couldn't. This damned broken arm had me literally handicapped.
I slammed my good fist against the stone, and it hardly even made a sound. Never had I been in any place as desolate and bare as the ruins of the former Steel Tree Castle. Of course, I knew the land was demolished in the Mouse Queen's final attack, but this was so far beyond what I thought it would be like.
It hurt to even imagine how many lives and how much magic was lost here.
I couldn't allow Clara to stay here any longer than we already were. The sorrow seeping out of the land would eventually affect her and it could taint her magic. We needed her to be pure of magic and spirit just as she was now. Or how she was an hour ago before Konig had gotten his claws into her.
She was already drained. I saw the internal hurt in her spirit when she couldn't help me. Fuck. She shouldn't ever have to help me. It was my job to protect her. I was the captain of the Nutcracker Guard for Christmas' sake. I was doing a shitty ass job of giving her what she wanted and needed so far.
I couldn't even help give her the pleasure that would unlock her magic. She was never going to fall in love with me.
All the fantasies I'd had of the two of us searching out and finding the snowflake crown together and then consummating our bond in the most perfect of ways were gone. I was going to die here in the hell of the seven realms, never having experienced the pleasures of the flesh.
And what for?
Because the Church of the Christmas Star thought I was some kind of messiah? Because the king and queen of the Land of Snowflakes believed them and hadn't treated me like a son my entire life.
Fuck them.
If I had to do this whole thing over again, I'd have been right there in bed with Clara and the others that very first night.
Clara groaned in her sleep, and I strained against the chains keeping me from her. Konig was consummating his bond with her. No, that was a lie to myself. He was fucking her, enjoying her body, and showing her the pleasure I had not. Jealousy, guilt, and self-recriminations stoked the fire burning in my blood.
He had every damned right to bond with her and savor the flavor of her cunt or sink his cock into her tight heat if she so chose him — he too was born under the Christmas Star.
"Shh. Settle the fuck down. She's just having a dream, asshole." Konig sat up from their little love nest and glared at me. "If you wake her, I'll kill you where you stand. She needs rest."
He crawled out of the blankets, stoked the fire keeping this hellhole warm, and sauntered over to me. "You thought I was fucking her, didn't you?"
I turned my face away. He would still know. He always had seen and understood me better than anyone else. Back in the days when we were all on the same side, he'd been my friend and confidant. His betrayal was the hot coals churning the fire in my blood.
Konig circled around, stalking me like the predator he was. He swiped his thumb across his mouth and then sucked the end of it as if it was covered in the most delicious nectar. "She is delicious and it's your own damn fault you haven't tasted her yet."
"You haven't either." He couldn't have. I would know. Whether she and I had bonded and consummated or not, we were connected. But here in the destruction of the Land of Spirit and Magic maybe everything was different. Clara was already broken. "I can feel her magic when she is aroused."
"Haven't I?" He smiled so smugly that I wanted to punch his teeth out. "Why do you think she sleeps so soundly now? I gave her the comfort and escape she needed."
"She doesn't need shit from you." I had so much more to say, but it wouldn't do me any good to argue with him. He had all the power, and I had none. How the tables had turned.
"Perhaps I can decide what I need and from whom." Clara approached us, her hair wild, her cheeks flushed from sleep, and only a blanket wrapped around her plump body.
Shit. "My lady, my apolo—"
"Not now, and not here." Konig grabbed Clara and held her, so she faced me, his arms wrapped around her waist and her throat. "Until you're ready to go up against the Mouse Queen and take her throne, you're going to do who and what I say."
Clara's magic surged up at Konig's commands. She leaned into him as if she liked the way he was being rough with her. Had he worked some dark spell on her?
"Princess, you don't have to do anything he says. You've already got the power of three lands, you can resist him if you want." I yanked on the chains holding me from her even though lightning shot through my broken arm. My pain didn't matter, only hers.
"She'll do what I tell her to, because we both like it when she does." He slid his hand up her throat until the very same thumb he'd sucked on early pressed against her bottom lip. "If I want her to drop to her knees and suck my cock, or yours for that matter, she would. Isn't that right, my queen?"
That telltale flush from her arousal spiked up her throat and cheeks and she nodded, opened her mouth, and licked the tip of his thumb. "I've wanted you both since the first moment I saw you in our great room. I thought it was all a dream then."
