Frost Kisses (Bitter Frost #4: Frost Series) Page 3

  “Afraid not, my dearest one,” said Delano. “Your wounds were too deep for that. Rodney tried – he even enlisted the help of his sister Rose, an alchemist. But it was too late. They pronounced you dead – you were dead. They laid your body in wake after the fighting died down, and after the funeral my Pixies – glamoured as some of your loyal attendants – were able to snatch away your body….”

  I felt even sicker than before. First Wort and the potion, now Delano and his glamouring. How dare these Pixies try to take me away, to control me? My feelings for Kian and Logan may have been confused, but they had no right to do this to me, no right to take away my choices! To take away my chance to make peace in the two kingdoms, to explain to Kian truly what had happened! My face burned with anger. “What did you want with my body?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer. After knowing what Delano was capable of, I didn’t think I could stand to hear of any more of his villainies.

  “I thought we might be able to try some… darker methods of resuscitating you.” Delano’s pale, pointed face said it all, and I decided not to ask any more question on that front. “But you see, my dearest Queen Breena, in the end I had no need at all of using any kind of magic. You seem to have managed all on your own.”

  “What are you talking about?” I rounded on him. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, Breena,” said Delano laconically, “that I did not use any magic on you whatsoever. You woke yourself up.”

  And then it hit me. I looked down to see the bloodstains on my hands. Silver blood. The blood of fairies, not of mortals like me. I shivered, and immediately I knew it to be true. Kian’s snowflake of immortality. I had become immortal.

  Chapter 4

  I sat up straight, my heart pounding within my chest. I felt my lungs gasp for oxygen, my whole body reacting, contorting – as if I were a drowning woman, cast adrift in a sea of storms. My throat closed tightly suffocating my tongue, which felt leaden in my mouth. My skin crawled and shuddered, and my muscles tensed up so tightly I felt that stones had been tied to my bones in place of flesh. What was wrong with me? I looked down at the silver blood again and felt sick. My own body had changed – it had become different, not merely taller or thinner or more muscular but something entirely else – a different thing, a thing with silver blood, a thing that did not die as humans did.

  Was I even human anymore?

  The idea made me nauseous. I couldn’t stop myself from shuddering. Only the clear, cold eyes of Delano, staring at me with something between amusement and curiosity, stopped me from descending into full-on madness. Whatever fear I felt, whatever conflicted revulsion divided me from my own body, I wasn’t about to let Delano see it. For despite my disgust with him, he was of aristocratic bearing. I would be strong – brave. I would behave as befitted a Queen of the Summer Court. A court of fairies – but I couldn’t let myself think about that. I couldn’t let myself think that my blood was silver, or that I wasn’t human. I sat up straight, my eyes blazing, and demanded that Delano tell me what was going on.

  “I thought it was bizarre too,” said Delano. “But then I remembered something awfully strange. While you were dead – or seemed to be dead – I saw this glowing…this strange, silver glow coming from that necklace you were wearing.”

  My hands instinctively shot to my throat, but I felt nothing there but smooth skin, raised slightly with goose bumps.

  “Looking for this?” Delano smiled as he dangled the gem before me. I recognized it instantly. It was the snowflake pendant that Kian had given to me when proposing marriage that night at the castle – a proposal that had killed me to turn down. My heart and head were both in such turmoil that night, and yet in the melee that followed Kian’s proposal, I had never gotten a chance to return the pendant. It had remained clasped around my neck, nestled close to my heart, a reminder of my love for him – of a promise I could not make, and yet which my soul seemed to have uttered in spite of itself. How dare Delano touch it! How dare he take it away from me – my only reminder of what was left of Kian!

  I made to snatch it back, but he was too quick for me, dangling the sparkling pendant above my head. “Tut tut,” he said, clucking. “Not so fast. If it’s as special as I think it is, it’s not something I’m in any rush to get rid of, my dear girl.”

  “Give it back!” I couldn’t help shouting more like a teenager than like a noble and august Queen. “It isn’t yours!”

  “Funny,” said Delano. “It seems to be mine now.” He shrugged. “Was it yours, my dear Summer Queen? Awfully wintry for a flowering court like yours. Perhaps the Winter Queen is its true owner – would she like it back, do you think?”

  My heart ached with the memory. I thought of the Winter Queen, proud and regal even in the heart of battle. I thought of the look she gave me… pained, but above all things disappointed… when she thought that I had betrayed her and the rest of the Winter Court, that all my talk of peace had been a lie for my own ends. She had, although she was by law my enemy, always been the model of a Queen for me – she ruled wisely and justly, as best she could. I had hoped that, by my actions, I could win her respect and be regarded one day as an equal. Now I felt sure that that day would never come. I had disappointed them all - let them all down. I’d betrayed Shasta, betrayed the Winter Queen, above all things betrayed Kian, whom I loved but whose heart I knew I had broken beyond repair.

  “It is the property of the Winter Court,” I said, trying to act like Queen. “And I demand that it be returned to them!”

  “And how did you get it, my pretty queen?” Delano sneered. “Steal it, most likely!”

  “I did not!” I shot back. “It was…given to me.” I could not help my voice faltering. “By the Winter Prince. As a proposal of marriage.” I hoped my cheeks hadn’t risen into a blush.

  Delano gave me a smug look. “From the events that transpired afterwards,” Delano said, his mouth contorting into a grin, “it would appear that you refused him.”

  “I didn’t!” I shot back, trying to make sense of it. “I just needed more time, that’s all…” My cheeks turned bright pink! How dare this Delano try to manipulate me into talking about my feelings! “I was too…”

  “Confused?” Delano gave me an expression of mock sympathy. “Is that it? Overwhelmed by your feelings? Besotted, perhaps, by your love for another? Say…the Wolf, Logan? Oh, we’ve heard all about those rumors of your behavior with the Wolf…quite the passionate queen, aren’t you?”

  I wanted to rise to my feet, to defend myself, to defend my actions – it was a spell, only a spell, that had made me feel what I felt for Logan! I remembered once more the hurt on Kian’s face, and I pursed my lips together tightly in anger. “Why is it any of your business?” My eyes blazed with rage. “You have nothing to do with this!”

  “That’s what makes me so useful to you, my Queen,” said Delano brightly. “You see, I don’t care which of those two jejune young men you choose in the end. Kian or Wolf Prince – it doesn’t matter to me. I can give you some straight advice. And I think I have a rather clear idea of whom you should choose.” He leaned in, baring his sharp teeth at me. “And it isn’t either of those two boys…”

  “Ew!” I couldn’t help it – my first reaction was disgust – girlish, shocked, disgust! Hadn’t we already established that I had no intention of playing mother to any of Delano’s hypothetical hybrid children? “Believe me, Delano – not if you were the last creature on earth!”

  Delano almost looked hurt. “You find me that revolting, do you?” His yellowish-green eyes twinkled. “Even when I’m offering you something far more than being my concubine – even when I’m offering you… affection?” I found it hard to believe that Delano could offer anybody affection. I was already well aware of all the atrocities that he had committed during his life. Still, there was genuine hurt in his voice, and although I found him morally repugnant, he was not by any means unattractive. Certainly, by pixie standards, he was less horrendous than Wort
, who had resembled a toad afflicted with a skin disease, but Delano was like fey and elegant with sharp cheekbones and a, graceful nose that pointed just slightly from his smooth pale face. He was tall and almost regal, not as old as I thought he was at first… resembling someone in his early to mid-20s, if he was human. If I had met Delano in other circumstances, had not known anything about him, he would be quite attractive… sexy even.

  “Not revolting,” I conceded. “Not physically, at any rate.” I grimaced. He was still a villain. “But I still don’t want to marry you! And I don’t think it would do you much good to marry me, either. You wanted half-human babies, right?”

  “And you’re not human anymore…”

  He knew! My mouth shot open in surprise.

  “I can see the silver blood, Breena! There’s just a dab on your forehead, see – here…” Before I could stop him, he reached out and touched the wound, giving my mouth a caress and wiping off the blood with his finger. He put the tip of his finger in his mouth.

  “You do taste like a fairy!”

  “That’s disgusting!” I wanted to vomit. I had almost forgotten that Pixies sometimes drink blood, including fairy blood.

  “Don’t knock it, my Queen. I’m doing this for you!” Before I could pull away he reapplied his finger to my cut. I could feel my skin seal together: he had healed me instantly. “That’s better, my Queen,” said Delano. “No more bleeding for you right now. We’ve got a lot of business to attend to.”

  “You…healed me.” I was dumb with surprise. I thought magical creatures could only heal their own kind.

  “See, you fairies. So arrogant. Convinced that you have all the magic, all the power. But it’s a falsehood, Breena. You fairies can only heal your own court – Summer to Summer, Winter to Winter. But we Pixies can heal anyone we choose. We have existed long before fairies ever came into being. We have the magic. We have the legitimacy. Feyland is our birthright.”

  As he spoke, I saw in him a passion I had never seen before. Delano may have been reprehensible, but he cared about his people and his country – in his mind, however sick and clouded and twisted, he was doing this for them. “But like fairies,” he said, his mouth twisting with hatred at that word… “we have something else that fairies don’t. The ability to feel passion. The ability to feel love. Desire… that we can control. That will not turn us mad the way fairies have been turned bad. I know what happened to the Ice Prince, Kian. I know you melted his heart, and put him into a rage so terrible he was willing to kill you! But he could not stand the force of love. I, however, can!”

  While he was speaking, Delano had moved closer and closer to me, but it was only when he kissed me that I realized his intentions. I tried to jerk away, but it was too late: his lips and tongue found mine – his heat so unfamiliar after Kian’s cool kisses.

  And then I felt the pixie magic sear through me – a magic so strong that it overpowered my desire to resist, my desire to escape. I felt my magic connecting with his – not the primal, earth-shattering icy desire that had overwhelmed me with Kian, but something different. The emerald earth called to me through his kiss; I felt connected with the pixie realm – rock and stone, metal and the magic of cliffs and crags and mountaintops. I could taste mint upon my tongue.

  At last I was able to break the spell’s hold over me and pull away. “Don’t you dare ever do that again,” I said, my voice shaking. I felt shame alongside my anger. How had my body, my magic, reacted like that? And how dare Delano try to manipulate me once more?

  “You taste like a fairy,” Delano licked his lips. “But I can taste the human in you. The passion is there. You still have that human capacity – fear not!”

  “Oh, I’m not worried,” I snarled back. But deep down, I knew I was. My body was reacting in strange and unexpected ways – my response to Delano, for example. First my infatuation with Logan, and now this! I was no longer in control – what had happened to me?

  “You’re turning into a full-blood fairy,” said Delano. “And I imagine your power will increase accordingly. But what, I wonder, will come of your ability to love?”

  I thought back to the feeling of being crowned Summer Queen – the warmth and sunshine that had flooded through my being. What I felt when Delano had kissed me was different: it was cool, shocking, like ice and yet not painful.

  “The Winter Prince has given you his snowflake,” said Delano. “So perhaps Winter is overtaking you after all.”

  Chapter 5

  I could feel my heart pounding, and in my blood I knew that what Delano had said was true. Whatever was in me, changing me, it had come from Kian; his Winter blood had entered my body, my soul, and transformed my magic, making it meld and shape into his. The magic I had felt within myself when Delano kissed me – the same magic that had made me immortal – was different from anything I had known before. This was not the warm magic of Summer, with its scent of orange blossoms and the gold liquid feeling inside me. This was icy cold and strong, primal – this was the very essence of Kian’s being inside of me. This was how much he had loved me – loved me enough to give this part of himself to me, to make me immortal through the gift of the Winter snowflake pendant. I could have been his! My heart cried out through the pain and confusion. If I had only said yes, I could have been his Queen – the Winter Queen. The magic couldn’t lie. I belonged to Kian, as utterly and totally as he belonged to me – his magic giving me new life, new strength. I knew now that whatever had happened at the melee at the Summer Court, Kian could not have truly betrayed me. He still loved me. I felt it in the effect of his magic. I felt it in the pounding of my heart. He loved me.

  “Kian!” I heard myself whisper, and my love for him was born anew. We would have much to work through – the cloud of my love spell that had overtaken my heart and my brain, and thrust everything into confusion – but we could do it. We had to do it. We would be able to do it, together. We could restore peace once more, hope once again, make everything as it once was: Winter and Summer, together. My body shook with the surety of this vision.

  Before Delano could stop me I leaped to my feet and began rushing across the room, thrusting his arm off me as he attempted to bar my path.

  “My Queen!” he shouted. “You will remain!” He stepped over to the door. “Or risk facing an army of Pixies alone… Summer Queen.”

  I gritted my teeth. I wasn’t interested in fighting pixie hordes, and as long as I could get out eventually, it was probably a better bet to keep calm and carry on. “Fine,” I said.

  Delano led me into another room. Delano’s bedchambers. This was far less sparse and cold than the room in which I had been laid out. Here was an opulent space, a bedroom made warm by the blazing fire roaring at the heart, a warmth that comforted my aching joints. I could smell the sizzling food and just-baked bread that stood tantalizingly on the table.

  “In the wardrobe,” said Delano, opening it wide, “you see a vast selection of pixie-made fashions.” And so there were – glittering gowns, gold, silver and green, in all manners of silks and satins and lace. I could not deny their beauty, but I refused to be tempted. I looked down.

  “Since you left,” Delano whispered close to my ear. “I have thought of nothing but you. I have attempted to make our pixie ways more to your liking. We are a cold people, who like the bare stone and the flaming roast, the snow and empty, barren mountain ranges. But I know you like the warmth and beauty of summer, and this I have supplied to you.”

  “How sweet.” I made it clear I wasn’t having any of it. “Do you think I like being taken prisoner?”

  “Not a prisoner, but as my betrothed, as you have bargained for, my dear,” Delano winked.

  “My heart belongs to another, Delano.”

  “For now,” he shrugged.

  “For always!” I raised my voice.

  “And what about your engagement to the Wolf?” Delano said with a smile. “What was that, eh? Always-love – just a bit confused, a bit muddled up?”
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br />   I remembered my queenly manners just in time to avoid slapping him. “There was a spell…” I muttered through clenched teeth.

  “Of course there was!” Delano laughed. “There’s always a spell. When you’re looking for a convenient excuse to give in to desire…”

  That was enough! I raised my hand to slap Delano clear across the face, but he grabbed hold of my wrists, forcing me down onto the bed. Panic spiked through me. What was Delano about to try? I gathered up all my fairy magic, closing my eyes, concentrating, ready to fight, adrenaline leaving me breathless as I prepared for a final battle for my honor.

  But nothing happened. I opened my eyes tentatively to find that Delano had left the room. I didn’t know what he was up to, but I didn’t like it. I had to get out of there – quickly – before Delano tried whatever pixie lust spell he’d used on me again. I made a mental note to teach myself how to protect my heart against love spells. In a kingdom where love was outlawed, such techniques could be very dangerous indeed. I concentrated all my energy on establishing a telepathic connection with someone, anyone – Kian, Logan! But it was Kian who called to me, Kian for whom my love was strong enough, had to be strong enough…