Page 44 of Court of Winter
My breath stuttered. “What are you doing?” I gasped.
I tried to see over his shoulder. I had to know what became of that dying male, but the prince flew too quickly, and the sight was gone before I could blink.
I beat on the prince’s shoulder. “Why did we leave?”
I had to...
The prince’s hold tightened, his breaths coming rapidly.
“Why!” I yelled again.
But the prince ignored me as he descended over the castle’s inner buildings. Steam rose from boilers. Smoke curled from chimneys. Fae dressed in working gear scurried about. Dozens of servants tended to who knew what within the kingdom’s court as that guard was possibly dying.
My breaths came faster and faster and faster. Too fast.
“Will he live?” I finally asked, my chest heaving.
“Most likely. Murl got there in time.”
My heart beat erratically as that strange throbbing sensation in my gut dimmed. I brought a hand to my belly, wondering if something at breakfast hadn’t agreed with me, but then we were spiraling downward, and any thoughts over food sickness fled.
The prince landed in a small open courtyard, shifting me in his arms as his booted feet touched the ground. I still thought of the dying fairy. Still wanted to know what had become of him.
“Can we go back?”
“No,” the prince bit out.
Snow covered the courtyard and kicked up when Prince Norivun placed me on my feet. My toes touched the powder, then met cobblestones slick with ice beneath it.
Shouts and yells carried to us from a distance, probably commotion around the healer and injured male. But it was muffled, like background noise. I would have barely noticed it if not for my heightened state.
I stepped away from the prince. He still held onto me, his large hand anchored to the small of my back. And his expression... He was looking at me so intently...almostpossessively.
“Are you okay?” I asked uneasily.
His head snapped back, and his expression wiped clean.
Once accustomed to the slippery surface, I put more distance between us, needing to get away from the barely leashed energy surrounding the prince.
I wrapped my arms around my middle. “Who was that other male? Lord Crimsonale?”
The prince looked away. “An archon. Nobody you need to worry about.”
I lowered the hood on my cape and forced my breathing to slow. That strange throbbing that had started in my gut finally vanished completely.
For a moment, the prince and I stared at one another. Two yards of distance now separated us, yet it didn’t feel like enough. An intensity I’d never seen before carved his features into something that made me want to run. He looked so fierce yet also as if he were in shock. It was a conundrum I couldn’t comprehend.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked again because he looked anything but.
He shook himself, and another moment passed, then he tore a hand through his hair and waved dismissively at the courtyard we stood in. “I’m fine, and welcome to the Court of Winter. Although that wasn’t the introduction I’d hoped for.”
Frowning, I studied him. Something still feltoffabout the prince, but for the life of me, I couldn’t place it. “Why did we leave that guard so abruptly?”
The prince took his gloves off, first the left, then the right. He did it slowly. And with each pull of his glove, he took slow deep breaths. The aura around him still felt so high it was suffocating.
I didn’t flinch, not even when his attention focused completely on me again, but that wild look I’d seen previously was now behind a carefully blank expression.
“Answer me, my prince. Please. Why did you make us leave like that?”