Her words are cut off with a grunt.
My dazed gaze drags to her through the shadowy light, just as the scarred fae yanks Bee into his chest.
No…
He’s taking her away…
My finger lifts from the cold metal of the car. I mean to reach out for her—but instead, warm tears stream down my cheekbones to tickle my hairline, and my hand falls flat.
ThatDare, that fucking beast, is pulling her away from me—leaving me.
“A bargain! There’s a bargain!”
My lashes flutter, slick with tears.
I part my lips but all that comes out is a wispy sound.
Dare loops his arm firmly around her middle, then hoists her back—edging too close to the all-consuming darkness, where the torchlight doesn’t reach.
Bee’s wild look is aimed right at me.
My tears spill for us both.
Her fate at the hands of this polished beast, a male she tried so hard to evade; and my advancing end at the hands of ice himself.
I should do something.
Anything.
But whatever flare of fight I had for that brief moment is gone. A flame snuffed by ice.
So all I do is watch.
It’s all Icando.
My body has nothing. My bones are brittle, muscles ruined, lungs seared.
I ache to reach out for her, to roll off the car and run to her—but the fight withers before it can shift from my mind to my body.
Through the tears warping my sight, Bee’s mossy stone eyes are glaring at me. A look that communicates, that speaks to me.
She thrashes in the fae’s hold, a worm too slippery to grip. His face is twisted with bitterness as he shoves something against her mouth… a cloth of some kind. Still, he’s dragging her away, slowed down by her struggle, but not stopped.
Don’t leave me.
Don’t leave me here.
An ice-cold flurry lifts in my chest—enough that my hands slap on the rusted metal of the car, and I writhe, slow, aimless, until I’m sliding off the hood.
I thud to the hard ice.
The clatter of my inhaler hits the road in front of me.
I turn my cheek to it, lashes too low over my eyes, distorting the sight of Bee being dragged into the edge of the light.
That male, that scarred fae, he’s got her firm in his hold—and forcing a cloth against her face to muzzle her.
A wispy whimper escapes me, a sound that resembles the weakest ‘no’ ever heard.
