“Don’t stop fighting, Oracle.”
Not Thyra.Oracle.
I finally accept that the man who asked me to carry his hope…who told me he needed me to stay alive…who might have loved me…
That man is gone.
Antony is Vampyr now.
He sweeps my hair away from the back of my neck, his fangs raking down my exposed skin, scraping so hard that I sense the warmth of blood trickling down my skin, the coppery scent filling my chest.
“I told you I was a monster.” Antony’s breath is featherlight against my bleeding neck. “I warned you. Over and over. You told me I wasn’t. For a time, I believed you.”
Fighting the threatening dark, I try once again to thrash in his arms, recklessly risking tearing my throat against his teeth.
His arms remain like iron as he asks, “Is this monstrous enough for you?”
Pain pierces me as he drives his fangs deep into my neck.
Chapter Two
Stellen, King of Frost
Ibend low over my wolf’s neck as she speeds across the border into the bloodlands, preparing for battle.
Leaving the Frost Kingdom like this, without any plan or preparation, is the most reckless move I’ve made in years.
But my chance to control the Oracle has arrived, and I won’t let her slip through my fingers. Not again.
Ahead of us, the landscape is pure night, the flat plain we’re racing across extending for at least another mile before it gives way to jagged rows of mountains.
Between the black peaks, valleys writhe with the bodies of the undead. Swarms of vampyrs lift into the air in the distance, their tattered, black robes billowing around them as they levitate upward in twining streams.
Their sheer number makes it impossible to distinguish one from the next, but their fleshy, white faces are like ivory dots, flashing in and out of view.
My wolf and Iwill be easy targets in this darkness.
Her snowy-white fur gleams. My pale skin, pale-gray robe, and long, white hair don’t help.
I won’t stop. No matter the danger.
I could tell myself that I want to break the curse the False Queen cast over the three kingdoms centuries ago. I could convince myself that I want to rescue my people from the endless winter that leaves them in danger of starvation all year round.
But my motivations are far more personal.
Far more selfish.
Three days ago, before I even beheld her, I heard the Oracle’s scream. A cry so powerful, it broke through the ice in my heart.
In that moment, I felt agony. Pain. Love. Hate. Grief. Happiness. Warmth. And every other emotion I chose, long ago, to purge from my soul.
With a single cry, she drove me to my knees.
And then…she wrenched all the feeling away.
Leaving me only with an insatiable need forher.
No matter what it takes, every light and every shadow in her soul will be mine.
