Page 24 of Fated to the Frost King

I went still.

Maybe it was the lull of the past few days, where I hadn't been forced to see him. I had settled into an uneasy quietude. But somehow, in that silence, I had let my guard lower, again.

A mistake.

Because now, I remembered the intensity of his presence. The overwhelming crush of power, like an avalanche demolishing everything in its path. I remembered the way that in spite of myself, my entire being sharpened into awareness when he walked into a room.

I turned to look at the king.

It was impossible to think of him as my husband. The word didn’t belong anywhere near the fae who had turned a mountain pass into a graveyard.

Even now, he was all cold command and predatory grace as he strode into the room, a shadow crowned in ice.

His coat was tailored with ruthless precision, deepest black like whatever was left of his soul, the silver clasps at his throat sharp and jagged, like carnivorous teeth. Every step echoed, measured and merciless, as if the palace itself flinched to move out of his way.

My heartbeat thudded in my chest with an unsteady concoction of anticipation and dread.

He was ethereal and untouchable, and by all accounts, my enemy. It seemed impossible that I knew what it was to have his arrogant mouth pressed against mine, to feel the otherworldly warmth that emanated from a male whose very marrow was forged from unrelenting ice.

His gaze found mine, and I struggled to breathe, trapped in the memory of the ceremony neither of us wanted.

His pupils dilated, swallowing the frosted green of his irises, as if I had pulled him into that memory with me. Something flashed in them, visceral and unrestrained. It vanished the next heartbeat, buried beneath his usual arrogance and disdain.

I sucked in a breath at last, forcing myself to focus on the people he had killed. My aunt’s patient hands and her husband’s easy laugh and their son’s mischievous smirk. One by one, I wentthrough the long list of people I had known who were dead at his hands.

Whatever the shards-damned marriage bond stirred up in either of us, he was still just a monster. Flawless exterior or not.

His jaw flexed. He looked me over once, slowly, his features carved from unrelenting marble. Then he turned without a word, crossing to the door.

I trailed after him with a sigh half-caught in my throat, the chill of his mana still saturating the air in my path. A thought struck me, and I darted a panicked glance around the room.

The tiny skathryn had been resting on the chair, out in the open where he would see her. Would he turn her to ice? Feed her to one of his wolves? I swallowed hard, risking a glance at the chair, but she wasn’t where I had left her. Maybe she had hidden when his mana swept in like a wrecking ball.

When I stepped up behind him, he stilled, his hand on the door but not opening it. His gaze pinned me once more, sharper now, as if I had managed to offend him just by existing.

Like I had killed people he loved instead of the other way around.

“I hope they taught you basic etiquette at your hovel,” he said, voice low and dark.

Icicle-sucking bastard.

I smiled, more a baring of my teeth. “A lofty hope, indeed, considering our king seems to have missed his own lessons on manners.”

Mirelda gave a very quiet cough that was definitely not a laugh. Draven’s eyes narrowed, not surprised, just vaguely annoyed, like I was the inconvenient echo he couldn’t quite get rid of.

I stepped toward the door, adjusting the stole around my shoulders and grabbing the muff from the endtable before turning to face him once more.

And trying not to react to the way my muff felt just a bit heavier than before.

Chapter 10

Everly

The dining hall was carved from midnight ice, lit by enchanted starlight that danced across vaulted ceilings and glimmered along crystalline walls. It was a room built to awe and unsettle, much like the male seated at the head of the table.

The king radiated a silence so cold and heavy it stole all the air in the room. And yet, he seemed perfectly at ease, sipping from his crystal goblet like he wasn’t actively suffocating his people with his presence alone.

Or maybe that was just me, seated in the first chair to his left, closer to him than I wished I was and far too subject to his scrutiny.

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