He snorts. “Do you really want to know why I’m feeling hopeful?”
Then his thoughts fill my head, one after the other. I cannot stop myself from hearing them. It’s a rush of truth that shakes me to the core of my being.
I’m hopeful because just as you are drawn to me, I am drawn to you.His voice is a deep rumble in my mind.I’m hopeful because I’ve been lonely for too long, but now you are here, keeping me company and making my life more interesting and vibrant. I’m hopeful because whatever is happening between us is unprecedented, and maybe, just maybe, it means the gods are giving me a second chance. Giving us both a second chance. Together.
I’m stunned. Truly stunned.
The Winter King just admitted that he was lonely. And it sounds as though he’s starting to view me as more than a possession. More than his captive. It sounds as though he thinks a romantic relationship of sorts might develop between us.
“What about your mate,” I blurt before I can think better of it. “I-I’ve heard that all fae have mates. Have you not met your mate yet? If not, surely one day you will, and then…” My voice falters, trailing off into silence. I don’t need to finish the thought.Because he knows what I was trying to say. He can hear my thoughts as easily as I can hear his.
He stiffens. His eyes darken, and the warmth I sensed moments ago vanishes. Before his thoughts fully reach me, I feel it, the hollow ache of loss that has shaped his solitude, the grief that has hardened his heart into something jagged, cold, and unforgiving.
And yet… beneath it all, there is change. A softening.
As if the ice has begun, impossibly, to crack.
I met my fated mate, Elssandra, nearly three hundred years ago, he says along the tether.She died less than a year after we mated.
His eyes flash with rage, but I don’t flinch. The fury isn’t meant for me. It is turned inward, backward, anchored to memory. To betrayal.
I know enough of the fae to understand what that means. Mates do not betray one another. It is unthinkable. Fae mating bonds are sacred. To betray a mate is to unravel the very bond that defines them.
She conspired to have me killed so that her cousin could take the Winter Court throne, he continues, his voice cold and razor-sharp.
Images slam into my mind. Blood, snow, and screams swallowed by a raging winter storm.
I killed her entire family, he says.They were all complicit. And then I chased her beyond the Starlit Region, beyond the Northern Isles. I hunted her down and…
The words stop.
He gives me an uncertain look. A wary look. As though he fears that if he utters the truth, it might fracture something irrevocably between us. He doesn’t want to tell me what came next. And yet… I need to know.
Even if he killed her.
Even if he tormented her.
Even if he enjoyed it.
The thought sends frost through my veins. A fae male killing his fated mate feels impossible, and monstrous. I’ve always been told that fae are possessive to the point of madness where their mates are concerned. Protective. Devoted. I never imagined one could destroy the very person the gods created just for them. Even in the face of a terrible betrayal.
Slowly, I reach for him. My fingers brush his hand, tentative at first, then sure. I lean into his palm, holding his gaze, offering silent encouragement.
I shouldn’t do this.
I shouldn’t want to comfort him.
Not after today. Not after Braemar endured the cruelty of Tribute Day.
A shudder runs through me as the memories surface. Sobs, screams, and desperate pleas for mercy echoing through the courtyard and the halls of the castle.
And yet… I don’t want him to suffer like this. Feeling his anguish unsettles me in ways I don’t yet understand. His pain presses against my chest, heavy and raw, and I hate that it affects me so deeply.
“You don’t need to know the rest,” he says aloud.
In an instant, the tether goes quiet. Eerily so. His thoughts vanish from my mind, the connection severed so abruptly that it leaves me reeling.
He’s blocking me.
