Page 23 of Dare

I let my thoughts burn across my face. Your move, Highness.

The villain prince thought he knew me, knew people like me, but it was all surface. Those crystalline eyes had been forged from a layer of ice, glacial and shallow. That’s how he saw this world, whereas flames reached deeper.

Ice might reflect fire. But fire melted it.

9

Flare

My victory didn’t last. Contempt welded his features back into place. For a moment, he seemed tempted to push back, to flip the knife handle-side-up, then to angle it higher and deeper, if only to see which of us won this tug-of-war. He might do it to scare me, or to learn my breaking point, the same way I sought to provoke him.

But worse than a temper, this ruler mastered the art of restraint. I felt his grip reinforce itself. Slowly, he withdrew the knife. Without breaking my gaze, he reached up to seize the chain, his fingers straying near mine.

He shook the irons like a bell pull. At once, footsteps approached. The gate squealed open, and the same female warrior from earlier stepped over the threshold, followed by a group of other soldiers.

The prince’s hiss matched his severe features. “Gag her until we get to Winter.”

Then he prowled past me and vanished from the quad. The instant he disappeared, oxygen poured into my lungs, and my body cooled. Under the bonds, the hidden whelk dug into my hands. Thankfully, it stayed put.

The troop made good on their ruler’s command, one of them stuffing a ball of cloth into my mouth. I growled around the bundle, then whimpered as they unlatched the manacle. My weight crumpled, and I stumbled in place, wobbling like jelly.

Snaring my arms, the unit marched me from the quad, down another flight of steps, and into an open terrace. Darkness and thickets of clouds engulfed the sky. The tower connected to a walkway leading into the castle, with its bridges, parapets, and colonnades stretching across the endless vista.

Then I heard it—the nearby snarl of a rolling sea. On a gasp, I sprang onto the nearest ledge and clutched a pillar. My neck craned, and my eyes scanned the panorama for a glimpse of the coastline below.

The white-haired knight snatched me by the hips, but my foot sole planted against her face, smothering the wench. With a grunt, she hauled me off the rim, slinging me forward each time I spun the other way.

Instead of crossing into the castle, we hunkered down another flight of cliff steps, then piled into a courtyard lush with ferns and orange lilies. A company of Winter knights hemmed in other prisoners, some born souls heckling the squad and others being harassed.

For sickening reasons having to do with the prince, Pyre was absent. Instead, one of his lackeys took up the slack, waggling his fingers in my direction and returning to the tower with a skip in his step, thrilled to be rid of me. I made it ten paces, eager to tackle that blowfish.

Tragically, a sentinel caught one of my restraints and gave a vicious yank as though the rope was a leash. “Dirty fool bitch,” he spewed, boxing my ears until they rang like cymbals.

As if coming to my defense, a seaside gale lashed through the area, giving the guards and soldiers a misty smack. Despite the gag, my lips twitched in pleasure.

Over the next hours, we idled while more captives were corralled, inspected, and appraised. The second a tall shadow bled into view, I curled my knuckles into fists. The Prince of Winter appeared from an arched door abutting the courtyard. As if rehearsed, the company formed two neat rows, creating a lane for him.

My throat smarted. I still felt his fingers squeezing me there, in addition to other intimate places where his weapon had touched my flesh.

As Winter marched through the ranks, guards clamped onto the prisoners’ shoulders and shoved us all to our knees. Seasons, how many times would I have to kneel for this prick?

Men and women swaddled in silver robes trailed the prince, their ruler stalking forward with purpose, unfazed by the attention, the angles of his profile so stark that my skin pebbled.

“Heads bowed!” someone barked at us. “Keep them down!”

I kept my head up, peeking through my hair. The prince stared ahead, his stride dominant. Even while aloof, there was something haughty about him, from the arrogant chin to the set of his jaw.

A few strands of his mane escaped from where he’d tied it back, the errant wisps defiantly sweeping his forehead and shoulders. He breezed past me, his fur coat swishing around his legs, which he must have retrieved after leaving the quad. Truly, how did he stand it in this heat?

Roaming peacocks flounced out of the prince’s path. Alone, he mounted the stairs to a colonnade jutting from the Fools Tower, where he propped his shoulder against a column and crossed his arms. At his brisk nod, the troops got to it. They offered us dribbles of water and fish broth—meager helpings but food all the same—which I guzzled without tasting after they temporarily removed the gag.

The prince tracked every movement in the vicinity before slicing his eyes toward me. The impact sheared through my chemise, the same way his knife had glazed my flesh earlier, sharp and perilous. I weathered that enigmatic stare and blasted him with one of my own, hurling thunderbolts in his direction.

A rumbling echo stole my concentration. I twisted toward the ocean. The waves sounded restless, a great big anticipation … of what?

While I mused over that, a chill snuck through my clothes from behind. I shuddered, imagining irises like rings of frost still fixed on me.

More time passed. At one point, the prince vanished.

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