I felt a throbbing soreness radiate from my hip all the way down to the top of my thigh. I gritted my teeth to keep from crying out. My damn leg. It was slowing me down. The prosthetic dug into my skin— probably on account of me being in a hurry as I’d put it on tonight— and the sharp pain slowed me up. With my ill-fitted prosthetic dragging me down, the cultist was getting away.
The cultist glanced back, and his eyes widened. He saw that he’d put quite a distance between us. He had a chance.
The cultist ahead exploded into a griffin. Feathers went everywhere, and his wings spread wide. I gave a cry of frustration, but the griffin had taken off. The shifter batted his wings against the cold and tried to stay upright as he flew over university grounds. The blizzard almost knocked him out of the sky, until he turned and flew with the wind instead of against it. I increased my speed, but my lungs burned, and no man alive could keep up on two legs against a soaring griffin.
I finally came to a stop and watched the griffin become a dot in the sky before he vanished into the storm.
It was hopeless. I didn’t have my wings, and I couldn’t give chase without them, not to mention the blizzard was too thick to follow his trail. Cursing the Seven Gods and all who belonged to them, I turned my back on the cultist and watched him escape.
Damn Lucien. Damn his sense of morality. Now that sick, twisted individual was allowed to run recklessly on Dolinska’s streets. Who knew what he’d do now that he was loose? What was more, he’d tell his friends I was looking for them. All because Lucien didn’t understand.
What was done was done. There was no reversing the situation. Patrolling Dolinska in this storm would be useless, and if I remained outside too much longer, I’d probably freeze... even as a shifter. We had a high tolerance for cold weather, but the temperature was dropping to an insane level. Malovia’s winters were famous for being brutal, but even I had never seen such weather.
The winters in Malovia had been getting worse and worse every year. This was the harshest yet. Such raw temperatures and vicious storms shouldn’t be possible... it was almost as if the land was under some sort of magic.
Or curse.
The cultist had mentioned my mate... but it was a cheap attempt to intimidate me. He was right as far as every shifter had a mate. He assumed the Phantom had to have one, but he didn’t know it was Emma. He couldn’t. He’d have to know I was Prince Ethan, and though we’d declared ourselves to be mates during the King’s Contest last year, I’d never admitted... not even to my love... that we were fated to be together, and that the magical mated bond had tied our souls as one.
Emma was safe, for now. The Black Claw wanted her blood for other reasons, but if I found their hideout first, and destroyed them, I could kill two birds with one stone. The city would be secure from their wrath, and so would Emma.
If only Lucien hadn’t stolen my one good chance away.
Arcanea University remained silent and passionless around me as I fled the sanctity of the school grounds. Dolinska itself didn’t seem welcoming in this biting cold. I was bitter as I hurtled over the walls protecting the royal palace and slunk past the guards watching the great gates.
As I climbed the tower to my room on the topmost floor— something I’d done a hundred times— I considered using my part of the royal treasury to buy my own mansion somewhere else. Somewhere more discreet, so I wouldn’t have to do this anymore. I was getting tired of clinging to the shadows in my own home.
Elijah and Gabby hadn’t yet moved into the palace, thank the gods. They had to pass their proficiency tests to become king and queen first— something that I was planning on stopping at all costs. For now, the castle was still mine.
Wouldn’t be for much longer, though. The thought of my smug cousin kicking me out of my own palace...
I suppressed a growl as I pulled myself through the window. Snow flew past me and landed on the bed. I closed the window and removed the mask. I flung it to the side, and it clattered against a wall. I scowled as I watched it lay there.
Close.So close, again. It was like my life was an endless round of watching the things I desired most be snatched away from me, right when they were about to be in my hands.
“Temper, temper. Didn’t your mother teach you not to throw your things?”
I stiffened. As I turned, a monster of a man came into the moonlight. Stefan smirked— he raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms as his eyes roved up and down the cloak, then over the mask. “You didn’t go to a costume party, I take it.”
I could hardly breathe. Stefan had seen me take off the mask. He knew my secret... was the only person that did. He knew I was the Phantom.
Yet he didn’t seem surprised by it. Only irritated. How much had he guessed?
Stefan cracked a sarcastic noise at my silence. “You know, you can break the act. Broody doesn’t work well on you.”
Anger flickered in my stomach. “What the hell are you doing here?” I snarled under my breath. “These are my chambers. You are not permitted to be here.”
“Don’t pull that royal bullshit on me,” Stefan shot back.
“By law, the prince’s quarters are—”
“Shove it up your ass.” Stefan gave a casual snort before he placed a hand on my shoulder and pushed me back. “What are you gonna do, behead me?”
My eyebrow twitched. “How long have you known?”
“That you have a weird complex that makes you dress up in tights? Ages,” Stefan replied with a snicker.
“That’s not an answer.”
