Page 25 of A Kiss of Embers
Another snarl, this sounding closer to her ear than before. “I get it. She’s your kin. But you are acting like she’s yourbaby.”
Seraphina clenched her jaw when he hit the nail on the head. Rather than entertaining him with the truth of the situation, she remained silent. Which seemed to confirm his words in his mind because he inhaled sharply.
“Sheisyour baby! No wonder. It all makes sense.”
“Shut it!” she cried but winced when her voice betrayed her location to the frost continuing to climb the trees. The blizzard started up again, fiercer than before, as it battered against her relentlessly and threatened to tip her over beneath the fae man’s weight.
“Oh, now you’ve done it.” Bastien tsked. “We’re both gonna die, and you’re too stubborn to give a man his legs back!”
Wind howled in her ears, nearly drowning his words, though she wished it would have. The blizzard thickened around her and distorted the path ahead. Her steps faltered when she couldn’t tell if she stood upright or started tipping to one side.
Outrunning the creature would be impossible. She had to face it or die trying.
The snow thickened further until it brushed against her calves. She didn’t dare set Bastien down lest she lose him entirely in the powdery chaos.
Slowly, she turned in a circle in an attempt to locate the wraith, but no matter how hard she squinted through the haze, the shimmer of its energy evaded her.
A sudden screech rushed past her, and she barely managed to side-step to avoid getting hit. She gritted her teeth, breathing heavily as her gaze jumped about. She reached for her magic but quickly realized that in order to use it, she needed both of her hands free. Either that or try to breathe flames from her mouth. She’d never attempted such a feat, but now she wished she had.
“In case we die,” Bastien said, his own voice quavering, “I just wanted you to know that it was an honor to hate your guts.”
“The feeling is mutual,” she grunted. “I only wish I could have ended your life rather than for a wraith to finish the job for me.”
“Such a charmer.” A wry chuckle shook against her back. “I think I’m swooning.”
“Swoon later.” Another grunt as she stumbled beneath his weight but barely managed to find her footing. “We have a wraith to vanquish.”
The wraith screeched behind her, and she barely caught a glimpse of its translucent hood as it rushed past, leaving a trail of frost in its wake. The frost caught onto her elbow and climbed her arm. Her magic melted it within a few moments until it dripped off her as droplets of water, turning into ice pellets before hitting the ground.
This time, as the wraith flipped through the air, it gave her no warning as it rushed toward her. She was unable to dodge in time as it crashed into them, Bastien taking the brunt of the attack and throwing them both into the snow.
Frigid cold rushed over her as the snowy powder engulfed her entirely. She gasped and spluttered as she broke the surface, but then her heart fell to her toes to find that Bastien had disappeared beneath the white plume.
“No, no, no!” she gasped.
But the wraith didn’t allow her to sift the contents of the snow in search of him because it rushed toward her once more with a death-defying screech. Its icy fingers raked the air just over her arm and barely missed scratching her.
Her jaw set as she leaped backward and unlocked the floodgates of her magic. Fire shot up her arms, causing the wraith to pause as if contemplating whether to fight or flee.
Seraphina didn’t give it a chance to decide as she shot a ball of fire from her left hand and then her right. The first attack shot over the creature’s head. The second smashed into its translucent shoulder, and the wraith jerked backward as if the fire had hit a solid being rather than one made of icy wisps.
“Die!” she shrieked. “You are greatly inconveniencing me, and I want you gone!”
She shot a few more balls of fire, and with each attack, the wraith dodged, moving closer and closer until it floated only a few paces away. The creature tried to grab her with long, sharp fingers at the same moment she unsheathed a dagger from her thigh strap and stabbed at its face.
The wraith screeched just as its hand grazed her arm, burning her with its frigid touch.
She dropped to the ground as otherworldly pain shot through her arm. She focused on breathing. In and out. In and out. All while her fire magic combated the chill from spreading through her body.
Although the wraith disappeared, and she didn’t know if she’d hit it directly in the eye, the blizzard continued to whirl quickly until she could barely see her hand directly in front of her.
Another wave of panic washed over her.Bastien!If she didn’t find him, he might only have minutes to live.
“Bastien!” she gasped, frantically digging through the knee-deep snow to search the spot she thought she’d last seen him. “Bastien!”
When she couldn’t find him with her hands, she resorted to using her entire arm as she swam through the bitter-cold substance. She desperately scanned the surrounding area in search of a single glimpse of him. But she only found white snow and brown tree bark.
“Blast your hair! Why couldn’t you have red hair? Or black? Or evenblond! White is the worst color in this scenario.”
