Page 88 of Prince of Never

Suddenly, the pressure on my jaw loosened, freeing my tongue, my voice.‘Why are you doing this?’The words were fractured, broken, soaked in too much heartache for a demand.‘We could have been happy together.’

‘Tarian doesn’t need to be happy, he needs to be strong,’ she snapped.

‘Why would he need to be anything when you’re never going to hand the throne to him anyway?’I glared up at her, hating the way she quirked that eyebrow as if I was a dog who’d done a surprising trick.‘The only way anyone will get that crown is if they pry it from your cold, dead hands.’He’d given me up for something he would never have.I supposed there was karma in that, though it didn’t make it hurt any less.

The queen crouched down before me and clasped my chin tightly, her pointed nails digging into my skin.‘I asked you to speak, but that doesn’t mean I care for your opinions.You’re nothing but a Seelie whore.’

The door burst open behind me with a deafening bang, but the queen’s eyes didn’t leave my face.

‘Get away from her.’

Tarian.

The sound of his voice triggered an upswell of relief mingled with disappointment and anger.He was the reason I was kneeling before this bitch, knees throbbing from the drop to the ground as she forced me to obey her, the pain of his betrayal stinging anew.How could he give my name to her?I’d trusted him.I loved him.Tears pricked at my eyes but I bit my cheek to fight them back.

‘Ah, there you are, darling,’ the queen said with a brilliant smile.She released her hold on me and stood, brushing her hands over her dress.‘Your timing is impeccable.My conversation with your mate was just coming to a close.’She paused to brush a lock of hair off my forehead, and I hated that I couldn’t flinch away from her, couldn’t seem to move without her permission.‘I think I’ve made my point.’

Tarian made a sound that could only have been called a snarl, and I felt him drawing closer, his footsteps behind me.God, I hated that I was kneeling.I hated being caught between them and feeling so powerless, feeling so at their mercy.

‘I suspect you two have much to discuss,’ the queen said coldly, eyeing him as she withdrew her hand and walked around me, the clicking of her heels echoing in the silence as she left us to sit in the mess she had created.The messTarianhad created.

That silence continued for a long moment after she left.The strange feeling under my skin vanished with her, but I remained where I was, my hands balled into fists, a new sound filling my ears; the sound of my own blood rushing through my veins, pumping around my body harder and faster with each passing second as my anger grew unbearably within me, blinding me to everything.I wanted to scream, to cry, to hit something until my knuckles cracked and split, until blood coated my skin.I wanted to laugh at my own stupidity.How could I have trusted him so completely?How could I have let him hurt me like that?

And howdarehe hurt me like that.How dare he betray that trust, that bond, that love between us.How dare he turn it against me like that.I didn’t know if I was more disgusted with him or with myself.

‘Imogen...’

The sound in my ears stopped instantly, as if it had been cut.I rose to my feet steadily and turned to face Tarian, my lover, my betrayer.Something cold bristled in me, stirring to life beneath my skin like a predator waking from a long sleep, slowly creeping through me, out of me, as my gaze bored into him.

He stilled with his hand half-outstretched to me, his eyes flickering around the room.‘Imogen, I know you must be angry, but you need to calm down,’ he said slowly.

‘Calm down?’I snarled, and the words burst before me in puffs of mist.That cold feeling grew stronger, prickling across my skin like ice.And maybe it really was ice, because beneath my feet that chill was manifesting, blossoming, unfurling spindly vines of shining frost across the floor, creeping up the walls, stretching towards Tarian.That cold, that magic, it was coming fromme.I feltpowerful.I gave into it, I let it wrap its arms around me, let it comfort me as it consumed me.‘You used me.’

‘No, Imogen—’

‘Stop!’I almost shrieked, and all that cold power pulsed from me in a blast that felt like an explosion.It struck Tarian, flinging him backwards until he hit the wall, his skin glittering with ice.The frost thickened as it held him there, climbing over his arms, up his shoulders.That dark hair I’d run my fingers through stiffened as it froze.

‘Breathe,’ he said softly, lifting his chin as though straining away from the tendrils of ice snaking up his neck.‘Slowly.You have to control it or it will control you.’The ice slithered over his jaw, and whatever he’d been about to say next, whatever excuse he’d been about to feed me, whatever lie he’d been about to spin, froze in his mouth.

A tear ran down my cheek, freezing before it could fall.How could I have been so stupid as to ever trust him?He’d wanted me dead from the beginning.How had I lost sight of that?

‘I won’t let you talk your way out of this with pretty words and omissions.You gave the queen my true name.You made me believe I could trust you.Now she has the power to control me and your damned prophecy is no longer a threat.’I laughed then, the sound coming out unhinged.‘God, what a fool.It must have been so easy for you, poor simple Imogen.I played right into your hands.Pathetic, desperate girl who just needed to be loved.’The laughter came harder and I swiped at a second tear before it could freeze.‘Do you want to know the worst part?I fell for you.I bet you’ll get a real kick out of that when you’re reminiscing about this moment later.’

Tarian was struggling against the magic and ice I’d bound him in.I could feel his magic the way I never could as a human, slowly unpicking at my own, trying to undo what I’d done.A fresh wave of anger washed through me, the ice growing thicker still, fighting to keep its place against the force of his destruction.

‘You know, Tarian, they say that a man often meets his destiny on the road to avoid it.Do you think that’s true?’

The blood was rushing in my ears again and my pain, my rage, felt like it was pressing against my skin, trying to burst out, wanting to erase the humiliation, erasehim,erase the way he’d touched me and I’d come apart for him, erase the way I’d exposed my vulnerabilities so willingly, erase the way I’d given up my entire world because he’d told me we belonged to each other.How naïve.Howstupid.Fury surged from me like a shock wave, spraying everything around me in jagged ribbons of ice.

With a smash, the window behind me shattered and wind whirled into the room.My sense of Tarian’s magic went quiet as he slumped against the wall.

A hit of nausea kicked me in the stomach.I doubled over, dry-retching, dropping to my knees as my legs gave out, floored by a sudden, shocking sense ofwrong.I’dhurthim.It didn’t matter that I wanted to hurt him, that he hurt me, it wasnot right.Everything in me rebelled against it, twisting and curling in revolt, as some instinct I didn’t know I had ensnared me and snuffed out that raging, unbridled power of moments before, filling me with a snarling urge to go to him, to comfort him, filling me with the unwavering certainty that he wasmine.It hurt so much I wished I could tear my heart from my chest and have done with it.

Slowly, I climbed back to my feet, my muscles wobbly and my head swimming, and cast my gaze around the room, a little bewildered.The ceiling dripped with icicles, and everything from those cushions the queen had sat on moments ago, to the fae prince slumped on the ground was frozen.Oh, god.Had I done this?Heaving a shaky breath, I crept over to Tarian, my heart in my throat.He was alive.I could see his breath misting the frozen air.Tears pricked at my eyes as I stumbled away from him.

In the end, he really had managed to thwart his destiny.He’d used me, betrayed me, all for his own selfish gain, and I couldn’t hurt him, couldn’t make him feel this pain he’d inflicted on me.I couldn’t hold him indefinitely and I couldn’t stay after what he’d done.

I had to go back.

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