“And you don’t?” he snapped.
“I do, but not in the way you need me to. I know I can’t give you my whole heart.”
Letting go of me, he stepped back and ran his hands angrily through his hair. “Are you choosing someone else?”
“No,” I replied quickly.
I couldn’t choose Kai even though my traitorous heart wanted to. In one quick move, Iston closed the distance, his hands clutching my face.
“Then I don’t accept, Ella. I refuse to listen to this. You’re mine and you have been for the past two years. I know I’ll be a good king for my people and yours.”
His words ripped through my heart, but then terror filled me. Kai’s power burst right through, almost knocking me off my feet. The cold never bothered me, but the icy chill that blasted into me froze me to the core.
“No, no, no, no, no!” I roared, trying to pull out of Iston’s grasp.
He had no clue what was going on, but I did. Kai was here . . . and he was pissed.
Iston held on tighter and closed his lips over mine. “I’m not letting you go.”
Everything after that happened in a blur. One minute, Iston was in front of me, and the next, I felt the frigidness of the wind as Kai tackled him to the ground. Kai punched Iston so hard his head snapped to the side, but Iston countered and punched back, knocking Kai away. They both got to their feet quickly, snarling at each other as they faced off.
Blood dripped from Iston’s lip, and the same went for Kai. If it was just a physical fight without magic, both men were strong enough and so evenly matched that I didn’t know who would win. Butwithmagic Kai was the strongest. If anything happened to Iston, the elves would go to war against the Shadow fae. There was no way Kai could survive with my people and the elves wanting his head.
“Stop!” I shouted, rushing to stand between them.
Iston’s eyes blazed as he glared at Kai, but then he panicked and grabbed my arm, hauling me away.
“Ella, stand back. He’s a fucking Shadow fae.”
Kai’s anger blasted around me, sending ice-cold chills down my spine. His eyes blazed like a wild animal’s, dangerous and dark.
“Get your hands off her now!”
Iston’s eyes widened as he shot them back and forth from Kai to me. Finally, realization dawned on his face, and my stomach dropped.
“This can’t be,” he said, his grip tightening around my arm. “You wanthim, don’t you?”
Footsteps sounded behind us, and I looked over my shoulder to see Marin and Owen. Owen unsheathed his sword, his lethal glare on Kai.
“Ella?” Marin called.
I didn’t know what to say, especially when my mother came out behind them. There was no escaping my treachery anymore. They were all going to see the truth before the night’s end.
My mother stared at Kai, and he did the same with her. She’d killed his father and he was supposed to seek revenge.
Would seeing her trigger his need to kill?
I had only one choice.
To save everyone, I did the only thing I could think of. Pulling out of Iston’s hold, I backed up toward Kai. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, but it was inevitable. Clutching my chest, I looked at them all, especially Iston and my mother.
“I’m sorry,” I said directly to Iston. Then, I looked my mother directly in her eyes, hoping she would understand. “I really am.”
Turning quickly, I summoned my magic and grabbed Kai’s arm, pulling him with me through the portal. I heard my mother scream my name, and it killed me to leave her as I did. I couldn’t go back and explain, not yet.
Things were going to be tense in the Land of the Fae, and it was all because of me.
Once through the portal, I dropped to my knees in the snow. We were in Wyoming, right in the middle of the Grand Teton Nation Park where no one ever ventured, especially in the winter. The snow-covered mountains surrounded me, and up ahead was a lake where the water was as clear as glass, only now it was a sheet of ice. If I were to push the snow away, I’d be able to see right through to the rocky bottom. There’d been plenty of times I’d come here to think, away from people and surrounded by nature’s beauty. It was different from the Winter Court but also similar. There was a semblance of peace I could get here that I couldn’t get from home.