Page 185 of Primal Bonds

“Look, bitch.” She stepped closer to Blaer, crowding her. “It’s one thing to cage a man who’s turned his back on us. But mess with the brown wolf, and you’ll be sorry. We’ll hunt you down.” She touched her dagger to Blaer’s stomach where the poison from the iron would do the most damage.

“Is that a threat?” the mixed-blood fae hissed back.

“Yeah.” She let the cat blaze into her eyes. “It is.”

“But your clan tried that already, remember? When Sindre hired you to find me. Your brother sent Corban after me, and look how that turned out.” Ignoring the dagger, Blaer leaned closer. “Do. Your. Worst. Fada.”

“Blaer, min,” Sindre interrupted. “You don’t have my permission to bargain with the fada.”

“No?” Blaer slanted him a smile. “I’m only trying to help, my lord. She’s worried about that brown wolf. He’s a friend, maybe more. You could use him as leverage.”

“So I gathered.” He raised a blond brow at Marjani. “So what do you say? Will you trade your freedom for his?”

Her limbs locked.

The king’s mouth curved. He’d won, and he knew it.

She fingered the dagger. Sweet Goddess, she wanted to thrust it into his conniving heart. “I want to see this wolf first.”

“Your highness.” Fane again. “Let her go. This is beneath you.”

Without taking his gaze from her, Sindre flicked his fingers. Magic hummed in the air. She gasped as frost spread up Fane’s legs. He sucked in a breath and locked his knees.

Blaer watched with an avid expression, clearly feeding on his pain.

“Accept the bargain,” the king told Marjani. “Or Fane dies.”

No. Hell, no.

Fane was nothing to her. The man had been lying to her ever since she arrived. Maybe not straight out, but lies of omission were still lies. He’d let her think he was on her side when the whole time he’d been spying on her.

The ice covered Fane’s chest and crept toward his throat. He moved his mouth but the only sound he could make was a croak that raised every hair on her body.

His eyes met hers, desperate and yet stoic.

She swung back to Sindre. “Enough,” she gritted. “I said I’ll bargain with you. But first, I want to see this wolf.”

The king cast a pointed look at her dagger. Without taking her gaze from his, she bent and shoved it into its sheath.

“Happy?” she growled as she straightened back up.

“Very,” was the silky reply.

Chapter 16

It had been a long time since Fane had been subjected to one of Sindre’s punishments. He’d forgotten how much it hurt.

And the king was a master at dragging out the torture.

His feet went cold, and then hot, as if they’d been plunged into an ice bath. Then they went numb. The ice crept up his body as Sindre sucked energy from vital molecules.

It was like being buried alive. His heart and lungs slowed. He couldn’t move or speak.

Panic galloped up his spine, and he couldn’t even beg for mercy because his fucking vocal cords wouldn’t work. He stood there, frozen in place, hoping he wouldn’t lose his balance and topple to the floor.

Just when he thought that this time Sindre meant to kill him, the king waved his hand and the ice melted. Now the real agony began as his frozen limbs came back to life. First, his hands and feet pricked like a thousand needles were being driven into them, then the nerve endings lit up like he’d been set on fire.

He put his hands on his thighs and bent over, sucking in oxygen and shaking so hard his teeth clattered like castanets.

---