Narrowing my eyes at her blood rolling down her neck and collecting on my icy blue hand, I snarled and pushed from the wall. I stormed for the table, shaking remnants of Diedre’s blood from my fingers—icy patches formed in the floor, latching onto my feet and momentarily freezing me in place.
Snapping Diedre a glare over my shoulder, her hand poised with tendrils of white and black magic, I yanked my feet free with ease. “You really want to play this game, witch? You know my power transcends yours.” I ignored her, turning my attention back to the mysterious globe, and my heart froze over again when I caught that hint of blue wing.
“Oh, really? Who cursedwhohere?” A black vine snapped around my waist, pulling taut and yanking me several meters backward.
Diedre had been gifted with winter magic, the same as the rest of us who were chosen, but the dark magic seduced her, forever condemning her to black ice. I still often wondered if the extra perks to her magic were worth it to Diedre in the end.
“Besides—” Diedre continued, wrapping her pale hand around the vine and reeling me in like a seal. “—all I need to do isdistractyou long enough.”
The daunting realization had my monster plunging through my skin, my height now challenging the ceiling, the icy spikes on my shoulders, arms, hips, and head the most pronouncedthey’ve been since waging war. I sliced through the vine like a piece of thread and slammed a fist into the floor. My magic surged an icy trail, heading for Diedre until it wrapped up to her neck and held her there.
Turning my back on the snowy witch, it took only three long strides in this form to reach the table. A moderately-sized snow globe rested atop a wooden pedestal. As I crouched to peer inside, there was a snow-covered cottage, a snowman, and a miniature Sylvie flapping her wings erratically and screaming, though I couldn’t hear her.
Anger, frustration, fear—it all suffocated me and made my blood sizzle. “You trapped her in a fuckingsnow globe?” I roared, lunging back to Diedre, who’d managed to set her arms free from my wintry trap.
“I personally thought it was quite creative, darling,” Diedre mused, clacking her onyx nails together. With her hands released, she fluttered her fingers, melting the ice from her legs in wisps of charcoal and icy dust.
“Get her out of it,” I commanded, pointing an icy claw at the orb.
Diedre folded her arms and arched a thin white brow. “No.”
Growling, positively fuming, I swept my arms skyward, raising spikes of ice at her sides, spiraling far above her and curling toward her face. “Do it now, witch.”
Diedre appeared unfazed as she eyed my wintry handiwork, flicking her nail against one spike. “You’ve grown quite the temper as of late. Is this what it’s like to be mated? All raging hormones without an ounce of sensibility left?”
Through the sight of my creature form, the world took on a glacial blue prism and pristine clarity. The sand in the hourglass left little more than an hour, and soon we’d run out of time without any means to undo it. I reached for the globe.
“If you intend to smash it, I wouldn’t advise that, Jakzair,” Deidre said, her voice as coy and confident as ever.
Pausing with my hand poised over the orb, Sylvie still yelling at me at the top of her lungs behind the glass, I peered at Diedre. “Why?”
“It may look like your typical setting with the quaint cottage and snowy companion.” Diedre sauntered toward me, her hands slashing left to right with icy black blades that I effortlessly countered. “But it’s actually a trapped crumb from Antarctica. If you smash it, the crumb goes back to where it belongs, and Sylvie goes with it. What was it about that winter king clause again?” She pretended as if she didn’t know, tapping her lips.
I had no intention of playing along and stayed silent.
“That’s right.” Diedre snapped her fingers. “Unless you’re mated, you’re at the portal’s mercy on where it takes you. How long do you think it’d take for you to see Sylvie again when the portal could take you anywhere in the known universe, hm?”
Diedre looked entirely too fucking satisfied with herself. This couldn’t have been fate’s plan. Therehadto be a loophole to this spell. Keeping my attention on Diedre, I pressed my claws to the globe, coating it with magic and frosting the glass. Sylvie stirred inside, turning circles and raising her hands, already attempting spurts of her own power. It was up to my mate now. Neither of us could get out of this alone, but with our magic combined, we might stand a chance.
Glancing at the dwindling sand in the hourglass, I stifled a sigh, my creature settling until only the spikes at my shoulders, part of my head, and down my forearms remained. “Your ignorance toward mates and foul words against the concept is the precise reason you won’t win this, Diedre.”
Diedre cackled, bending backward to let her head fall back. After flashing me a steely, crimson glare, she taunted, “Prove it.”
Jack had kept lookingat the hourglass resting on the table across from mine, but from this angle, I couldn’t see how much was left—how muchtimewe had left. Jack fought with Diedre, hurling magic and foul words. All I could do was scream, yell, and fly around until he somehow noticed me. If it weren’t for Jack smashing those vases and making Diedre nervous, I wasn’t sure how long it would’ve taken him.
Diedre’s declaration on the spell cast within the globe confused me. Why would she have stopped Jack from smashing the globe if it would have sent me somewhere Jack couldn’t reach me? She’d have won. Plain and simple. Or why hadn’t she sent me there in the first place? It was all a game to get into Jack’s head because of his devotion to me, his desire to be mine, and to have an eternal soulmate. Diedre failed in her plans because, from this vantage point, I witnessed precisely why I, in turn, wanted to be hisqueen.
Jack’s magic frosting the glass made it easier to do something, anything, with my dormant powers. I’d caused an avalanche, surely I could manage breaking the glass of a godsdamned snow globe. Poising my fingers, I recalled the sensations I’d experienced when the icy spires shot through the trees because Iwilledthem there. A chilly sort of electric current had started at the base of my spine and surged its way into my skull that day. I’d been elated that I’d found someone like me—another blessed by winter magic. Our touch brought us bothcomfort.
“It should’ve been mine,” Diedre shrieked, launching those same black vines as before, only now they were sharp on the ends like spears.
Jack, in half creature form, deflected them with his shoulder and forearm barbs. With every attack, more of the monster took over, making him taller, wider, and almost entirely composed of ice.
“You let the darkness consume you,” Jack roared back. “Did you not think there’d be consequences for youractions?”
Concentrating on the way my heart warmed whenever Jack was near me, the blissful chill he brought to my skin and bones, I willed my magic to my fingertips. My wings flapped emphatically as if aiding my power.
The blackness leaking from Diedre’s eyes grew more intense, traveling down her neck. She threw spiny vine after vine at Jack over and over, only ever managing to nick some ice chips from his shoulders, which quickly hardened up. “Winter itself bore you because it found me unworthy. If it weren’t foryou, I would be queen of itall.”
