Beauty In Her Madness (Winterland Tale #3) - Stacey Marie Brown Page 0,49
him before he set me back on my feet. I was so happy to see him. “But I need to go home. Can you help me get back home?”
“Of course.” Blaze darted a glower over my shoulder to his brother, then his look came fully back to me, his hand rubbing my arm. “Though I’d love to spend some time with you. Come hang out at the beach with me? We’ll get to know each other again.”
“I really should get home, sorry.” I actually wanted to spend more time with Blaze. My childhood best friend. He was the good one. The one to trust. He always had been. I needed to stay far away from Frost. I could feel him behind me, his presence and scrutiny cracking me open like a chestnut.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Blaze?” Frost’s voice dropped icicles on me.
“Believe me, I don’t want to be here anymore than you do,” Blaze hotly countered, his jaw twitching.
“Doubtful,” Frost muttered, an eyebrow tipping up. “Funny, you haven’t come here in twelve years, but suddenly you show up, brother?”
“I could say the same thing when you came to the beach the other day, brother,” Blaze retorted, their mutual hatred growing like weeds.
Frost shifted on his feet. “Back to why the fuck you are here? Come to save poor helpless Dinah?” Frost sneered at me.
I glared back. “Fuck you. I’m not helpless.”
“Is this your way of asking nicely?”
A grunt burned my throat, my body lurching for the asshole. Blaze grabbed me, drawing me back into his physique.
“Don’t let him get to you. He thrives off it,” Blaze whispered in my ear, his hands wrapping around me. “Don’t give him the satisfaction.” Lips brushed my temple.
A snarl ascended from Frost as his lids narrowed on us, his shoulders rolling back like he wanted to attack.
“How did you get here, Dinah?”
“The-the mirror,” I responded, cringing at the absurd truth.
“Mirror?” Blaze swiveled me around, his eyes wide. “Not one of the doors?”
“No.”
Blaze narrowed his lids at his brother, his lip rising in accusation. “You didn’t get rid of it, did you? You told me you destroyed it.” He huffed at his statement, his head shaking, his hand gripping my waist. “Still holding on no matter what you boast about, brother? It’s sad, because you can’t hold something that was never yours. You need to give up.”
Frost’s eyes dropped to where Blaze’s hand gripped me.
“Where is it?” Blaze let his thumb run along the skin of my hipbone where my thin tank top hitched up. “Don’t test me, Frost.”
“And I wouldn’t test me, brother.” Frost’s rolled his hands into fists.
They stared at each other, a standoff, whispers of secrets and blackmail dragging back and forth between them.
“It’s in the tower. Am I right?” Blaze pulled me into him. “I’m returning Dinah safely home; get her far from you.”
“Maybe it’s you she needs to stay away from.”
“You keep telling yourself that.” Blaze pointed me down the hallway, leaning into my ear, his voice a notch above average. “You sure you don’t want to come to the beach like old times? It’s beautiful today, and Quin is behind the bar. Rub you down with suntan lotion?” Blaze’s hands slipped up my sides.
It was actually really tempting, but every minute I was gone, Scott was probably freaking out, if he hadn’t already called everyone to search for me.
We headed around the corner, my eyes snapping back to where Frost stood.
His eyes were locked on me, his expression stone, but I could feel the rage, the anger that his plan for me was foiled.
As soon as he was out of view, I felt something in my gut tug, but I didn’t know if it was disappointment or relief.
Relief. It had to be relief.
Once I was back home, I was going to smash that mirror and never return. Shut the lid tight and never open it again.
Blaze navigated us upstairs to the tower in just minutes. The walls stayed put as if I hallucinated the whole moving walls thing earlier. Who knew with me? I might have. Reality and my visions were melding into one, both feeling the same.
When we reached the tower, Blaze walked up to the mirror. “I can’t believe he kept it. What a deceitful liar.”
“What do you mean?”
“He told me he destroyed it.” Blaze touched the gold frame. “Except he didn’t. He hid it in his tower…hoping.”
“Hoping?”
Blaze smirked, turning to me. “Everything changed the day you left here.”