Page 40 of Bound to the Shadow Queen
I was back in the Winter Palace, in a room I had only seen once before.
Draven’s room.
Batty’s trill rang out again, closer to furious than I had ever heard her. I shot out of bed, ignoring the fatigue that still tugged at my limbs. There was a narrow door between the queen’s suites and these. Had Batty stayed in my rooms all this time?
I tried the handle, but it was frozen shut. I moved to the main door, but that handle wouldn’t budge either.
My heartbeat stuttered. If the rooms were similar to mine, the only other exit had at least one guard posted at it, and I had no hope that Draven hadn’t sealed it shut as well.
I was here, and alive, but I was trapped. Again.
Batty squeaked once more, and I finally saw the movement from the corner of my eye, where her tiny form flapped just outside the center window. I unlatched it, shoving against the frame.
It didn’t budge.
With a curse, I looked up to see that it, too, was completely iced over. I shoved harder, trying to quell down the panic rising in my chest.
My breaths came too fast, too short, and I clenched my hands into fists. My nails shifted into talons, biting into my skin while I forced another inhale.
Safe. You’re safe.
But was I? Alive and safe were not the same, and I had no idea what Draven wanted with me now.
My back rippled, and I shook my head frantically. I didn’t want to let my wings out, not when I was already trapped.
Just as I started to sink to my knees, a powerful wave of mana pulsated through the room. The door opened with a crash, shocking me upright. Thenhestrode into the room.
My husband.
My enemy.
The king who had slaughtered my people and saved my sister’s life. Who had rescued me from torture mere hours after inflicting that same unspeakable horror on someone I considered a friend.
He looked just as he had the last time I had seen him. His short silver-blond locks were faintly snowswept, falling carelessly across his brow. His aurora eyes burned the greenerside of teal from a face that could have been carved out of marble by the Shard Mother herself.
The rings in his ears caught the midday sun, though his midnight outfit seemed to absorb the rest of the light in the room.
He was utterly composed, outwardly flawless, but his fury washed over me in a tidal wave intense enough to bring me to my knees.
I had forgotten, in the short time since I saw him last, just how potent his mana was, the menace that seeped from his very being. I had forgotten how it felt to be on the other side of his rage.
The door slammed shut behind him, frost coating the walls and sealing us both inside the frigid space. He looked between me and the unlatched window.
“So anxious to plunge toward your death, Morta Mea?” His voice was lower than I remembered it, and infinitely more dangerous.
I swallowed, straightening with all the dignity I could muster in my rumpled nightgown.
“No,” I opened my mouth to explain about Batty, but he cut me off.
“Of course not. I had almost forgotten thatyour kinddon’t have to worry about that.” His lips twisted in disgust. “At least I wasn’t foolish enough to trust you this time, even with your own life.”
His hatred shouldn’t have been surprising. It sure as hell shouldn’t have hurt, but I sucked in a breath all the same.
“Yes, quick thinking on your part.” My voice was weaker than I meant it to be. “Do you keep many Skaldwing captives in your rooms, or do you usually just content yourself with torturing them?”
Draven’s eyes glowed. “Perhaps your memory fails you, but it was your own precious kind who kept you chained to stone. I never tortured you.”
I blinked and saw kind, determined features twisting in agony as the fragile membranes of his wings were ripped apart.
