Page 3 of Dare

They looked so much like …

A place I’d never been. A place I longed to find someday. A place out there, waiting for me.

An icy breeze cut short my joy. I lowered my hand and rubbed my arms while contemplating the journey ahead. My moth-eaten shirt and grain-sack hose cut off at the thighs did little to combat the chill. Hellfire, I should have stolen a cloak and looted the cobbler’s shop on my way from town.

Strange fragrances wafted from the soil. The earthen aromas smelled nothing like Summer, where one could taste salt in the air.

Foreign sounds pushed through the foliage. Hoots. Snorts. My gaze leaped around, unable to soak up a single noise for too long. I twisted toward every crunch of dry leaves and each fauna call, whirling this way and that while grasping Poet’s dagger. Half-fearful, half-enchanted, I consumed this world with famished eyes.

Briar had said to go northwest. Gauging this without a compass might be rough for some fugitives, but once upon a time, I’d led a seafaring life. At least, until the monarchy had chained me.

Pretending to stand on the deck of a boat, I contemplated the stars’ locations, then forged ahead. Seconds passed. Countless minutes passed. I alternated between jogging and picking around uneven terrain, my unshod toes freezing. At last, a babble of water flowed through my ears. I hastened toward the sound, clouds of air steaming from my lips.

The creek Briar had mentioned snaked through the undergrowth, flowing between toadstools and hedges. My steps slowed. As trenches of glistening water split into four directions, I understood what she meant. This intersection must lead to each Season, which explained why one of the rivulets trickled back the way I’d come. As for the other three …

Spring. Summer. Winter.

I grimaced. Anything was better than Winter. Imprisoned or not, everyone knew the gruesome things scientists did to born souls there.

The gruesome things he did to them.

Leaves the color of brass gleamed. Some rained from the branches and bobbed on the creek’s surface like a fleet of ships. My gaze landed in one direction, the flux pouring toward freedom. With hope fluttering its wings inside me, I moved toward my path.

Then I stalled. The nape of my neck heated like a bad omen. And then came the telltale prickle across my scalp.

I knew one other thing about the darkness. I knew when someone else occupied it. And now I understood why I hadn’t seen him among the other Royals.

He’d already been searching for me.

My lashes lowered. I skated my gaze across the undergrowth, where a spider wove its net through a bramble. Feigning preoccupation with the creature, I strolled forward—then whirled with my dagger braced.

On a growl, I twisted his way. At the same time, his hand snatched my hip like an iron band and hauled me forward. My breasts slammed into a male torso hewn from stone, my blade’s tip thrust in his direction, and his own knife sliced forward, our weapons stabbing the air between us. Like that, we froze.

And then my eyes collided with a pair of icy irises.

2

Flare

Cold. So cold.

The mercenary chill stung my veins as I peered into those vicious eyes. Streaks of blue lined his lower lashes like frost, territorial hatred sharpening his orbs. That, and repugnance.

His mythical height and muscled body dwarfed my own. Velvet pants encased his towering limbs, and an ebony coat accentuated his frame, the garment trimmed in fur.

Like the first time I beheld him, I didn’t need an introduction. This man wore his Season as clearly as his title.

Prince of Winter.

My enemy. The monster who’d stalked into the dungeon a week ago and haunted my every waking hour since.

His skin was a deadpan pale, contrasted by a set of raven black brows and slate blue hair tied at the nape of his neck. And that brutal face. Hellfire, the severe angles could hone granite. The temperature of his gaze reached bone deep, draining the breath from my lungs.

“What have we here?” he murmured in a penetrating baritone. “A little beast set loose from its cage?”

The frigidness I felt seconds ago thawed. In its place, anger blazed across my skin.

I was no beast.

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