“Of course you would send her away. You always were dramatic when it came to…love,” I say, unable to keep the anger out of my voice. “You’d rather damn everyone in the Enchanted Vale than break the curse.”
Kel lunges, knocking me to the ground with his massive paws. His snarl reveals teeth long as my hand.
“It’s been a long time since you had me on my back like this, Kel.”
I tug his ear and tilt the wolf’s face closer to me. My thorns push through the frozen ground with great effort, cracking the surrounding ice. They twine around his legs and over his massive paws so he can remember who is in charge and who is the cursed sullen beast wallowing in his sorrow.
“Though,” I continue, “I don’t recall your breath being quite so bad.”
He pulls his head back, growling, and the thorns snap off him with a quick shake of his body.So annoying.
“I’ll rip you to shreds.” His claws curl on my chest, just hard enough to leave a thin red line along the skin.
“Oh, Kel, we both know if you were capable of doing that, you’d have done it when I first betrayed you.”
The wolf jolts, hackles rising. Ice and snow tremble in the air before they shower over me. I blink through the cold to see a man. His white hair falls long and loose, and his muscular chest heaves in breath like a drowning man finally come up for air. Though I cannot say his expression is any less beast-like. Something feral has permanently etched its way in: brows lowered, teeth gnashed. Why, I’m surprised he’s not foaming at the mouth.
His large hand still presses down on my chest. Slowly, he moves, fist tightening in the fabric of my shirt, before moving to clasp my wrist. “Break it,” he practically begs. “Please, Cas—”
I cannot and will not let him speak my name to me, so I cause thorns and shadows to surge through the ice. But not before I raise myself, bringing my lips to his cheek as I whisper a promise for all eternity. “Never.”
My thorns wrap around me and drag me back to the Below, leaving the Winter Prince alone.
I clutch my wrist, fingers stroking the dark ink that binds me to Keldarion. No, our covenant will never break. Because one day, the Prince of Winter will give into Rosalina, and when he does, I can’t wait for the magic of our bargain to drop his mate right at my doorstep.