The bird squawks louder than before, soaring and dipping just ahead. I break through the trees, and that’s when I see her, being carried in between Vinderland, tied up.Frozen.
Anger and fear like I’ve never known before shakes the very island. The world trembles.
My fire unleashes. Starling energy explodes out of me. Blood spatters everywhere. One by one, the men are torn to pieces, mangled beyond recognition. I don’t stop. I don’t give mercy, when one begs on his knees for it. I see red.
My power rages.
My fury engulfs me.They hurt her. They planned to kill her.
I kill every last one of them, and then, she’s back in my arms.
And I’m taking us home.
I survived centuries of curses. I survived war.
Yet, somehow, I’m not sure how I survived weeks away from her.
I missed her.
She’sfreezing. I want to warm her from the inside out, I want to be the flame that burns in her heart, I want her to burn for me as much as I do for her.
Tentatively, I use my power to thaw her, slowly. Slowly.
Until she moves. My relief nearly blinds me.She’s okay. She’s going to be okay.
“Just a little longer,” I say, almost to myself.
At the sound of my voice, she goes still. Then, somehow, I know exactly what she’s about to do next.
I don’t even move out of the way as she kicks, barely missing me.
Her eyes are frozen shut. It hurt her aim. Despite myself, I put my hand over her eyes to thaw them.
The moment she opens them, I can see her fury like a tidal wave, green eyes filled with it.
“You,” she growls.
She’s angry. Of course she is. I can almost see the thoughts swirling in her mind, as she bares her teeth at me, as she opens her mouth—
“Before you do whatever horrific thing I am sure you are imagining. Let me speak.” If she wasn’t still partially frozen, I have no doubt her blade would already be at my throat. “I did not betray you, Wildling. Though you believing it helped tremendously ...”
“Helped what?” she demands.
I tell her. I tell her why I needed Cleo. It’s true. Every word.
Her anger barely dims. She looks around, as if wanting to look at anything but me, and I see the exact moment the realization hits her.
She sees she’s in my room.
In my bed.
I didn’t know where else to take her. I take a step back. “I brought you here after I found you. I figured you wouldn’t want others to know what had happened.”
I don’t tell her I just needed to get her warm, that I wanted to bring her somewhere safe. That I’m getting a shameful amount of satisfaction seeing her on my sheets—
I shake those thoughts away, turning back to the heart. I tell her it wasn’t in the maze on Moon Isle. “Now we have just two places left to search.”
My words don’t soothe her the way I thought they might. She shakes her head, and she does something that extinguishes any ember of fire within me—
