Dangerousdoesn’t begin to cover what she represents.
But as I settle into bed and close my eyes against the complications gathering like storm clouds, I catch myself wondering what she’s doing in that room, whether she’s finally sleeping after working through the night, whether she’s staring out that barred window and plotting escape attempts I’ll have to thwart, or whether she’s as fascinated by the connection between us as I am, despite every rational instinct screaming otherwise.
And for the first time in centuries, the cold doesn’t feel quite as absolute as it used to.
Chapter Nine
ROXY
Three Weeks Later
It’s been four weeks.
One week in that hell of a prison, three weeks of this gilded cage, and I’m done being polite about it.
The ledgers blur in front of me, numbers swimming across the page until they lose all meaning. I’ve been staring at the same column for the past fifteen minutes, my brain refusing to cooperate, refusing to pretend that organizing shipment manifests for cursed artifacts is normal.
That any of this isremotelyacceptable.
Four weeks since the car crash.
Four weeks since I touched that flame and watched it surge to life like it recognized something in me that I don’t understand.
Three weeks of working their books, eating their food, sleeping in this room with its barred window and locked door while they decide whether I’m useful enough to keep breathing.
At least I can shower and change my clothes now.
But not once, not fucking once, has anyone explained what the hell is actually happening.
My hands curl into fists on the desktop, knuckles whitening as frustration builds behind my ribs like pressure in a sealed container. I’m done waiting, done being patient, done accepting scraps of information delivered through visits from brothers who study me like I’m some fascinating science experiment instead of a person trapped in circumstances beyond her control.
The door handle turns without warning.
I don’t bother looking up, I won’t give whoever’s entering the satisfaction of my immediate attention. Probably Maul with more paperwork or Flux wanting to wade through three different forms while explaining why their money-laundering operation is brilliant. I keep my eyes on the ledger, on numbers that represent millions of dollars moving through businesses that shouldn’t exist, through an empire built on violence, magic, and laws that predate civilization.
“We need to talk.”Hisvoice fills the room before his presence does, cold and commanding in that way that makes the temperature drop without him even trying. The president. The ice man. The Frosted Tyrant who put me in chains and thought darkness would break me.
I still don’t look up. “I’m busy.”
“Look at me!” It’s not a request, but a command delivered with the absolute certainty that it will be obeyed because he’s apparently never met anyone stupid enough to refuse him.
Congratulations.He’s about to meet his first.
“I said,I’m busy!” I flip a page in the ledger with deliberate slowness, making a show of studying numbers I can’t actually see through the red haze building behind my vision. “Your secretary gave me a deadline… Sunday’s church meeting, just like the week before, and the week before that. These books need to be perfect, or apparently, I get fed to Wreck. So, unless you’re here to help reconcile accounts… you can leave.”
Silence stretches between us, thick enough to choke on. I count my heartbeats, one, two, three, before the desk shifts slightly, his hand slamming down on the wood hard enough to make the calculator jump. Frost spreads from the point of impact, crystalline patterns racing across the surface in delicate white veins that creep toward my fingers before stopping just short of touching skin.
“I. Wasn’t. Asking!” His voice drops into that sub-zero register that makes my survival instincts scream at me to run, to apologize, to do literally anything except what I’m about to do. “Look. At. Me!”
I lift my eyes slowly, meeting his glare with one of my own, and the fury I’ve been bottling for four weeks finally finds its voice. “Why should I? You’ve given me zero reasons to respectanythingyou say. You chained me in the dark for a week. Fed me to a monster who ate my fear like it was dessert. Moved me here like upgrading my cell makesany of thisacceptable. And through all of it, not once have you explainedwhat theactual fuckis happening!”
He leans forward, both hands now flat on the desk, ice spreading faster as his control slips. His eyes glow with that pale blue light that has nothing human in them, fire contained behind flesh that barely holds it. Up close, I see details I missed before, the way his pupils are slightly slitted, the faint shimmer of scales just beneath his skin when he’s angry, the raw power coiled in every muscle like a predator deciding whether to strike or retreat.
“You want answers?” The question comes out with frost coating each word. “Fine. You want to know what you stumbled into? Whatyouare tous?”
“Yes!” The word tears out of me louder than intended, but I don’t back down, I don’t pull away, even though every instinct screams that challenging him is suicide. “Yes, Iwantanswers! I want to know what the hell I touched that made your precious flame burn brighter. I want to know why you haven’t killed me when,apparently,that’s what you do to humans who see too much. I want to know what gives you the right to keep me prisoner when I haven’t done anything except survive a car crash and have the terrible judgment to seek help frommonsters!”
His jaw tightens, muscles flexing as he grinds his teeth together. For a long moment, I think he’s going to freeze me solid, end this conversation the way he ended the hunter’s life, brutally, mercilessly, with ice that burns worse than fire.
