Page 33 of Bound to the Shadow Queen
And if he was there, who in the frost-bitten hells had hit me?
Several dark laughs responded in answer to the question I hadn’t realized I’d voiced. But I couldn’t turn to face them. I couldn’t move, or breathe, or do anything but try to hold on to consciousness.
“I think you’ll find that I have many friends who despise you just as much as I do,” he said, and the cruel smirk carved into his face was the last thing my blurring eyes could hold on to.
“Seelie whore.”
I awoketo a splitting ache in my skull, each pulse pounding like a drumbeat behind my eyes. Cold, damp stone pressed against my back, seeping through my cloak. For a moment, I thought I was still dreaming, lost in the haze of some nightmare, but the ache in my head was too sharp, and far too real.
Blinking against the dark, I tried to steady my breath, but my lungs burned and I coughed instead. When I shifted, fire lanced across my wrists. And my wrists were too heavy. That’s when I registered the bite of iron shackles locking me in place.
Panic clawed up my chest as I tried to break free. My chains rattled with the movement, the sound echoing off the cavern walls.
The sound of dark laughter froze me in place, and I blinked until my vision cleared.
Kyros sat on a jagged boulder directly across from me, spinning a dagger lazily in his hand. A thin smile stretched across his face. Several more figures loomed just beyond him. More Stormbreak warriors, ones who had sneered at me back at the village. But among them was a face that didn’t belong.
My gaze snagged on Tavrik by the cave mouth, his eyes flicking toward me before sliding away.
Frost-loving ass-face.
“Twice now, Tavrik?” I choked out. “Perhaps the Stormbreak clan shouldn’t be taking their social cues from you if luring females into traps is the best you can manage.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. For a heartbeat, something that looked like shame, if he were capable of feeling such a thing, was written plain across his face.
Kyros let out a dark laugh. His grin widened, then vanished entirely as his hand snapped out. The back of it cracked across my cheek hard enough to rattle my teeth. Stars burst behind my eyes, iron biting deeper into my wrists as I reeled.
“You said you only wanted to talk to her,” Tavrik said, taking a step closer.
Kyros tilted his head, his smile sliding back into place. “And I will. But if you interrupt me again, Tavrik, I’ll let her watch while I carve the cowardice out of you first.”
Tavrik stiffened, his fists clenching and expression shuttering before he stepped back into silence.
Coward.
Kyros turned his attention back to me. “Do you know what I hate most about you, Frostling?”
He lingered on the nickname, twisting it into something venomous.
Frostling. From Kaelen, it had sounded like banter. From Kyros, it was an insult.
“You walk around like you really are the Chosen One,” he said, crouching in front of me, his voice edged with mockery. “Like you’re special. And all of them—” he gestured vaguely toward the world outside, toward Kaelen, toward my uncle, my mother— “they believe it, don’t they? Parading you around likeyour blood means something. Like those pretty wings buy you a place among the clans.”
His hand darted out, fingers trailing the edge of my shoulder, like he was trying to coax the wings in question out of my skin. Bile clawed its way up my throat, my chains clinking as I jerked away from his touch.
“You want to know the truth?” His expression turned serious. “I wasn’t invited to those meetings. The ones where the Seer whispered about you to my brother. But I know what she promised him. That you’d save us.” He let out a dark laugh before continuing. “But all I see is the Hollow Seelie whore who will be the end of our people.”
Save them?That was what the Seer had told Kaelen? Was that why he was so sure an alliance between us could work?
My heart tripped hard against my ribs, confusion and panic threading together in equal measure.Why me?What could she have possibly seen?
I shoved the questions down to dissect later. If there even was a later….
“If I’m such a ruin waiting to happen, Kyros, maybe the real question is why you’re so obsessed. Or is it just easier to hate me than to wonder why your own Seer didn’t name you?”
My comment struck a chord, if his expression was anything to go by.
His pupils widened, his golden eyes darkening to a gleaming shade of onyx as his blade gently kissed my cheek.
