Page 81 of A Requiem of Fire and Ice

“Prince Reen,” Alad hisses.

I ignore him and step closer to the edge. “Pull the trigger, Pandora.”

Her top lip curls, and her wide eyes narrow. The finger resting on the gun slips against the trigger. Alad comes up behind me, telling me we should do as she says or else Astin dies, but I ignore him and wait for Pandora’s decision. We’re sizing each other up while we wait for someone to make a move.

Pandora’s hands tremble on the gun before she eases the pressure against his head, removes the clip from the gun, tosses it aside, and discards the bullets. My tight muscles relax, and Alad breathes easier now that there’s no life-threatening danger to Astin.

“Let’s play a game,” I say, because I want to reward her for not killing one of my men, even knowing he is an oblivious idiot.

Her sharp intake of breath stirs against my dead heart when she says, “I’m listening.”

“If you get to the postal locker before I catch you, you can have whatever is inside, and I will leave you alone for a day. But if I catch you, you’re mine to do with as I please.”

“You aren’t going to fuck me, are you?”

I chuckle. “Pandora, I don’t fuck what I deem prey. I kill it.”

“As long as you make it fast, I don’t care.”

I tilt my head to the side and tweak my eye. She doesn’t care to die. Why?

“You have a deal,” Pandora says.

When I look through the binoculars again, she’s legged it.

A sadistic and cruel smile stretches across my face. Tossing the phone to Alad, I step off the ledge to hunt my prey.

I enter through the building's entrance and stare at the ceiling. Frantic footsteps thump from a few floors up, giving me a general direction for where to locate the little mouse in my house.

The building is old, creaking as I move up the stairs. An outdated apartment with peeling paint, thin walls, and too much movement from hollow doors. There is no insulation, so when I reach the fifth floor out of seven, my prey lands with a resounding thump down the stairs and eyes me from across the hallway. A wave of dark hair falls in front of her, an unnerving, unwavering, settled look. Without missing a beat, she legs it down the stairs, her frantic steps skipping stairs at a time.

My focus lowers to the floor. Heat and fire flush my surroundings, and the flooring crumbles. Chipped plaster, dust, and mice squirm as I land on the fourth floor. As I rise with flames coiling around my shoulders, Pandora is ten feet away from me. Her gaze settles on me before she shoves her shoulder into an already cheap door and runs inside. The sound of glass shattering churns my stomach at the lengths she will go to win the games I enjoy playing.

I enter the room and eye the broken window. Then my focus lowers to the room underneath this when a shadow emerges from my side. My arms raise defensively, and I push her arm away as she bounds toward me with a dagger gripped firmly in her hand, knowing how to wield it. In one swift motion, I twist her body around, shove her away from me, and she stumbles out of the room.

She goes to run again when my eyes narrow. Plaster crumbles away from underneath her, and Pandora trips, landing on her knees. Through her obscene amount of swear words, I grab her leg and drag her toward me. She twists in my grasp, and my eyes widen as she slams her boot between my legs. It catches me off guard enough to slacken my hold on her as I grip my cock.

“That’s what you get for having an arrogantly big dick!”

I laugh because, fuck me, she makes it hard not to get excited about how willing she is to fight for her life, even after her resolve against death. Confusing, but also…enlightening at the prospect that she thinks like me in a way.

She moves toward the stairs when flames lick up the staircase. She stumbles back until she hits my chest. Whirling around, she drives the dagger toward me, but I am faster. I grab her wrist, tightening it until there’s a strain. Then I kick her legs out from underneath her, and she lands with a thump on her back. I sit over the top of her, move her legs on either side of me so that she can’t kick me again and go to grab her by the neck to snap it when panic settles in her eyes.

I’m near the tenderness of the kill when an ear-splitting scream tears through her lungs. A pink hue shivers across her body as a defence mechanism, shimmering with a sense of beauty and danger. Her dark hair burns white. The walls and floors tremble, and as my focus rolls in that direction, glaciers of ice slice outward and narrowly miss my head.

“Fuck.”

I press my hands on either side of her, heating the floor, and as it collapses, ice and spears of crystals slam into either side of where I once knelt. As we fall, my hands snake around her waist and head, and I twist my body until my back slams onto the floor below.

Air leaves my lungs, and I cough up dust, ash, and flames. Breathing is a struggle, but I push through the ache, prop myself up on my elbows, and look down at the creature passed out on my chest. Her dark roots burn until her white hair is no longer visible.

My fingers touch her cheek, and I tilt her head to the side to look at my prey. Pink, plump lips part, and slips of deep breaths inhale and exhale. Her neck exposes itself to me, but the itch I felt a moment ago depletes, and I don’t know what the fuck to do, but I know what I can’t do. I can’t leave her here after what I witnessed from the floor above. Everyone would use her as a weapon of mass destruction if anyone other than the Knights of Eraminia could control those powers. It wasn’t only ice but pink crystals that broke through the walls.

Footsteps come up from behind me. “Now, do you understand why I do not want her dead?”

I grimace.

Standing, I grab Pandora’s arm and throw her over my shoulder. She grumbles, but there are no other signs of her waking.