Frost (Frost and Nectar #1)(9)

Orla got up from my bed and began to walk slowly to the door. She’d been in my room a thousand times before and knew every inch of the stone floor, but still it made me nervous, watching her move about on her own. I rose, catching her by the elbow.

“Torin, you know I can walk without your help.”

“Humor me,” I said, giving her arm a gentle squeeze as I led her the rest of the way to the door.

My footman was waiting for her in the marble hallway. “Aeron,” I said, “take the princess back to her room. It’s quite late.”

I shut the door behind her, then turned around to lean against it, breathing in the vernal air. My hands clenched. I hated to admit it, but Orla was right.

I was cursed, and I had been my whole life. If I ever fell in love with my bride, she would die.

And it would be my own touch that would kill her—freezing her to the marrow like the bleak landscape around us.

This was my curse.

Cold webs of grief spread through my chest like a winter frost. I’d been in love before, once. By the old temple to Ostara, I’d held Milisandia’s frozen body in my arms as my soul split in two.

My fault.

And every time I began to weaken in my resolve, I’d return to that same temple and remember exactly how Milisandia had looked as her body had turned white and blue...

My fingers tightened into fists.

As part of my curse, I could never speak about it to anyone. I hadn’t been able to warn her, to tell her to keep away. The words would die on my tongue. Cursed by the same demons, Orla could never speak of it, either. Only the two of us knew one another’s secrets, and that knowledge would die with us.

My love—my touch—is death.

I poured myself a glass of scotch and took a long sip. I’d tried to break it off with her, but she’d followed me to the old temple that night. And I could not resist her…

I would never love again. I could never love again. I had only one purpose now—one way to redeem myself for the blood on my hands—and that was to save my people.

And not only would it ruin me completely, but it could mean the end of my kingdom.

Princesses might die in the tournaments, yes. This was always a risk. But a dead princess at my hands? Slaughtered by the king himself?

The six clans of the Seelie could turn against a murderous king, as they’d done a thousand years ago when King Caerleon lost his head during a time known in Faerie as the Anarchy. Already, enough rumors had spread through the kingdom of the things I’d done to the women I loved.

Rumors not entirely untrue...

If the clans turned against us, it would be the end of a united Faerie. The first king in thousands of years to let it fall apart.

Unless…I chose someone I could never fall in love with.

I closed my eyes. What I needed was a woman willing to make an arrangement and think of it as nothing more. Someone with repellant manners and no sophistication. Someone who loathed me as much as I did her. Someone lowborn with no sense of morality, who could simply be bought…

My eyes snapped open as the most glorious idea came to me.





5





A VA


F or me, the worst thing about getting drunk isn’t the hangover. It’s that I always end up waking at the crack of dawn. Someone once told me it’s because when your body metabolizes the alcohol, it resets your sleep cycles. All I know is that it feels like shit.

This morning was no different. I lay on Shalini’s couch, staring at the blinking LED clock on her cable box. It read 4:58 a.m. Far too early to be awake.

I closed my eyes, willing myself to go back to sleep. When I opened them again, one minute had passed.

I groaned. What did I do last night?

Oh, right. I’d decided that if I got really wasted, I’d forget about Ashley and Andrew. As much as that had seemed like a good idea at the time, I wanted to go back and punch my earlier self in the face.

I pulled out my phone, and my stomach sank as I saw a text from my boss, Bobby: AVA I’M SORRY YOUR OFF THE SCHEDULE. WE HAVE BEEN GANG THREADS FROM FANS OF THE

FAKING.

I stared at the text for a minute, trying to figure out what he was trying to say. But Bobby’s texts were always like this because he used dictation and never bothered to correct anything. After a few minutes, I understood. They’d been getting threats from fans of the fae king, and I was fired.

I dropped my head into my hands.

No texts from Andrew. No apology or desperate plea for me to return.

I cringed a bit as I flicked to Andrew’s Instagram profile. To my horror, he’d already deleted all the artfully framed photographs of me, along with the wistful poetic captions. Instead, he’d posted a new photo of Ashley standing in a field of wildflowers in the golden light of the setting sun. Beneath it, he’d written, When someone is so beautiful you forget to breathe…

During the horror of it all yesterday, I hadn’t quite realized how gorgeous she was. Fuck.

My hands shook as I stared at it. When had he even taken this photo? We’d only broken up last night.

I rolled over, hoping to get to sleep by hiding my face in the couch cushions. I knew this sofa pulled out into a bed since I’d stayed here before, but I’d failed to manage it last night. I had pulled a blanket on myself, though.

It worked for a few minutes until my stomach twisted and hit me with a nasty wave of nausea. I wasn’t sure if that was the alcohol or my life falling apart. Likely both.