Page 5 of Dare

For my uprising, I had become his target. On that score, he must have caught sight of me after the riot ended. While everyone united to douse the flames and clean up the town, the prince must have seen me run.

“You have a debt to pay, Little Beast,” he seethed, his lips in danger of scraping across mine.

My mouth sizzled. I owed nothing to this villain. If he thought I was some inanimate possession like that necklace, then fuck him to hell and back. It didn’t matter that Queen Avalea had traded me in a bargain with Winter. She’d done it to save her poisoned daughter, because the prince was the only man who could heal Briar. But while I would have gladly offered myself, if it meant curing the princess, I belonged to no one. And I would never belong to him.

The prince halted, his voice narrowing, burrowing in. “Still no peep from you?” But when I refused to answer, he shook me by the jaw. “Speak.”

Rage detonated inside me. I waited, my gaze incinerating him.

Realization struck, his eyebrows crimping. Because this man was renowned for being observant, something about my glower made it clear. I saw the moment when he grasped the truth about my voice.

That’s when I moved. Although I grew up in a kingdom born of fire, I also knew a thing or two about water. Lastly, he’d forgotten about the vine clutched in my hand.

Coiling my leg around his, I jerked his massive frame off kilter and slipped from his arms. While I kept my balance, the prince didn’t, his frame careening backward and crashing like a monolith into the creek. Moving swiftly, I snared the vine around his wrists and fastened him to a neighboring cluster of brambles.

While the prince growled and struggled with the bonds, I scrambled to Poet’s dagger. Retrieving the weapon, I returned to the thrashing monster and swung one leg over his chest. Straddling the flat expanse of muscles, I watched hatred crease his features.

Even if I couldn’t utter words, I still had a voice. This brutal prince had expected me to curl up like a seashell—silent and small and breakable. Except he’d forgotten that a seashell held the roar of an ocean inside it.

Temptation scorched my fingers. I tasted the glorious flavor of his blood on my tongue, from where I’d bitten him. I should kill this Royal, make him pay for what he’d done to everyone like me. I would but for one problem—the pounding of hooves from one of the main thoroughfares.

Stag hooves? Hadn’t the prison guards said something about Winter traveling with such fauna?

Troops might be looking for him, or the interruption might be an ugly twist of fate. Either way, the prince and I traded one more violent gaze. A barely perceptible smirk tipped his lips sideways, and a promising gleam lit those irises. Whether I’d impressed or disgusted him, I couldn’t say.

Yet why was he doing this? Why me?

The legion galloped nearer. I vaulted to my feet and skipped backward, struggling to pull my attention from the prince.

We glared and glared and glared. At last, I ripped myself from those probing eyes.

Sheathing the dagger, I raced from the scene, tearing through foliage and cursing myself for not stealing his coat and knife, if only to get warm, get better armed, and get the satisfaction of pissing him off further. Consequences be damned, a morbid part of me had liked riling that monster, seeing how far I could push him.

But no more. Trepidation licked a path up my skin, his spiteful gaze having assured me of one thing. I had sealed my fate. For whatever reason, the Prince of Winter wanted me. And he wouldn’t stop looking.

Much later, I would double back and take the direction I’d chosen. Once he’d been fished from the water, cut from the bonds, and returned to Autumn’s castle, I would venture back here and follow the creek. Then I would vanish, melting into a world he didn’t know, could never know as well as I did.

No matter how long or far he searched, the villain prince wouldn’t drag me anywhere with him. To prevent it, I would die fighting.

Even so, he’d have to catch me first.

3

Jeryn

I would catch her first. So help me.

Before she had the chance to savor her freedom, I would find her.

Stalking into Autumn’s castle, I cut a furious path down the wainscoted halls. Noble figures bowed and curtsied in my wake, a chorus of “Your Highness” and “Sire” swarming me from all directions. Ignoring them, I sliced my way through the masses.

I considered myself to be a patient fucking prince. Patient in the way of scientists and the slow drip of ice. The patience to test and the patience to unnerve.

But never before had my tolerance been pushed to the brink.

Fucking. Little. Beast.

The fur coat slapped my calves as I prowled toward Autumn’s outmoded infirmary. Work. I needed to work. Best be quick about it before I did something rash like strangle a bystander. And I never did anything rash.

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