But there is loathing.
Rage.
Like currents moving beneath his hard flesh, the rush of waters pushing against a marble cave. He is tensed against it, this rage pulsing in him, his hands clenching into fists at his sides.
A crack in his marble mask—his upper lip curls, just a bit, fleeting, and he growls his command, “Stand.”
That growl in his voice, that undercurrent of rage, it’s unusual, not like a beast’s snarl, but distant somehow. Cold. The faraway whistling of a sharp wind through mountains.
It tingles down my bones, all the way to my curling toes.
I drop my gaze to his boots, then slide it across to the inhaler that lies just a touch away from him, motionless on the black ice.
I don’t even think before I reach out for it, I just do. But before the gloved barrier of my fingertips can touch it, the winter fae has moved, faster than any of the fae I have ever seen.
This one moves in a way that shudders ice through the air, a mist, a freezing breeze that wisps around me.
And in that moment, less than a heartbeat, a fraction of a second, his boot is pressing down on my hand.
A hollow cry ripples out from me.
I freeze, eyes wide and latched onto his foot flattened on my splayed hand.
“I said,” he snarls the words, slick with frost, “stand.”
The pathetic squeak of my whimper is cut off.
He snatches me, a hand grabbing me by the scruff of the neck.
I’m hoisted off the road.
The bite of the air lashes at my wet cheeks as I’m hauled some stumbling steps—until the black ice goes still beneath the toes of my boots, and I blink on the wash of light in front of me.
I stare at the streams of blood falling down from the net.
Tension bolts me in place, a rigidness like nothing I’ve ever felt, and all I can do is watch the rainfall of crimson blood.
The warrior slides his cold hand from the scruff of my jacket to my nape—then, fingers digging into the underside of my jaw, he forces my face upwards…
Until I’m staring at Emily.
Her body.
Her corpse.
His work.
He makes me look at the shredded flesh, the torn face, the mangled scream frozen in winter.
It isn’t lost on me.
This is a warning.
A threat.
He doesn’t have to say it.
He doesn’t have to spell it out.
