Queen of Myth and Monsters (Adrian X Isolde, #2)(20)

We moved in tandem, our wet bodies slamming together, our breaths ragged. I could not help the keening cries that escaped my mouth or the string of words I repeated, a desperate chant, a bewitching spell, holding on to this rhythm until I came with a guttural cry.

Adrian’s final thrust had him pulsing inside me, and as he groaned, I bent to kiss his warm mouth.

“It’s hot,” I said, breathing hard, my heart racing.

“You have a fever,” he said, his hands splayed across my waist.

“A fever,” I repeated.

My head was on fire, burning from the inside out.

I stood, leaving Adrian on the bed.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“It’s hot,” I said again and turned. I crossed the room to where the metal bath sat before the fireplace—empty. “I want to swim,” I said.

“Isolde,” Adrian said, rising from the bed. “It’s freezing outside. You cannot swim.”

I ignored him and headed for the door.

Adrian’s arm hooked around me, driving my back to his chest.

“I will order you a bath,” he said near my ear.

“I don’t want a bath,” I said.

“Isolde—”

“I need to go outside, Adrian.”

Something in my voice must have convinced him to let me go, and as soon as his arm fell from me, I bolted from his room. I raced down the stairs, only slightly aware that people were around and watching. None of them tried to stop me. Instead, they pressed themselves into the walls. I assumed that had to do with Adrian, who I could feel at my back, stalking like a shadow.

I ran into the cold night, my bare feet sinking into the snow—and I was still so hot.

My body was changing. I could feel it in my bones, which ached in a way that caused my insides to throb.

“Isolde.”

I turned my head and looked at Adrian. He stood naked on the stairs of his palace.

“Tell me what is wrong.”

“I don’t know,” I said, frowning. Then I turned and looked toward the garden, bolting again. As my feet carried me at what felt like an abnormally fast pace, my bones broke.

It was the only way I could describe it.

The pain sent me to the ground, and I screamed. Tears welled in my eyes and spilled down my cheeks, and as strange as it was, the only thing I could think about was water.

Water is rebirth.

You will survive in the water.

And it was near. I could smell it.

I reached out with my hand to crawl when a set of claws burst from my fingertips. Blood dripped onto the snow and while I screamed, I dug into the earth, using my claws to pull myself forward, propelled by my one and only goal—water.

Even as I crawled, my bones moved, fusing into something that made me feel completely other. The knowledge that I was no longer human passed through my mind before I rose to my feet with what energy remained in my body and staggered into the grotto.

My vision was blurry, but I knew where I was because of the lingering scent of jasmine in the air. I came to the edge of the pool and broke the ice layer on top as I waded into the depths. The water cradled my body in a cold embrace, and the burning in my blood and the ache in my bones ceased.

“Isolde.”

Adrian stood on the bank, and even in the dark, his eyes glittered.

“Stay,” I said. “I will be back.”

Then I submerged myself beneath the water, and there was no pain as I felt my body transform and become a foreign thing—an animal, covered in thick black fur.

Reemerging, I crept to the shore on all fours, holding Adrian’s gaze as I sat, allowing a long, black tail to curl around my feet.

The corner of my husband’s lips lifted.

“Aren’t you a beautiful beast?” he said.

I narrowed my eyes at him, allowing a growl to escape my mouth. I did not appreciate his humor so shortly after becoming the very same creature that had killed so many of my people.

I had become an aufhocker.

I was an omen of death.





Six





Isolde

When I woke, it was cold.

I sat up, holding my blankets to my chest, noticing the shutters were open. Snow had gathered on the ledge while flurries fell, languid and delicate, to the floor.

I rose, naked, and crossed to the window.

Adrian’s room overlooked part of the palace gardens. Yesterday, everything had glittered with a dusting of icy crystals. Today, nothing was visible above heavy drifts of red-stained snow.

Gavriel had been right. Winter did come fast.

I should close the shutters, but I couldn’t look away from the garden below as I remembered toiling through the snow to reach water, and when I had emerged, I had been something monstrous.

A darkness gathered in my chest, as I recalled that I had become an aufhocker.

The very thing that had killed my people in Cel Ceredi.

And while I was somehow once again in my human form, I felt different, altered. I looked at my arm, where the aufhocker had bit me, where Adrian had bit me—it was fully healed. I looked at my hands, spreading my fingers wide—fingers that had sprouted claws last night. Something gathered in my throat, a hysteria I wasn’t certain I could quell.

I did not want to be this—whatever this was. A shifter. A creature that craved extinguishing life.