Frost Fae (Dark Fae Kings #2) - Meg Xuemei X Page 0,42

King had brought me to this godforsaken realm to trap me, but I wouldn’t be his victim. I wouldn’t let my enemies win. In a sick sense, I was fortunate that the bastard and the Dawn Queen were so smitten with each other that they hadn’t paid me much mind. The two psychos were probably fucking each other’s brains out right now.

Tears stung my eyes, flowing down my numb face. I steeled my resolve to expel the pain howling inside me. I wasn’t out of the woods yet.

Swatting away the streaks of ice on my face that instantly formed from my tears, I headed in the opposite direction of the castle. I now had one foot in the high-heeled dress shoe, the other wrapped in vines and leaves that I roughly made. It was better than nothing.

I limped forward. My thin gown did nothing to shield me from the frigid wind. I hugged my middle to keep myself warm, but my arms felt like frozen twigs that could fall off at any time.

I lost track of how long I stumbled forward. Time seemed to stop in this damned world. My mind registered nothing but unforgiving cold, and I doubted I’d ever feel warm again.

While hunger surfaced, gnawing my stomach like insects, worry and fear for my family choked my burning throat.

I had to make it out of here alive. I wouldn’t abandon my siblings. We might have already lost my parents. No, I hadn’t lost them. I couldn’t lose Mom and Dad. I pushed back the bleak thoughts as my body grew colder and weaker.

The wind howled again, and beasts yowled in response. How long had it been since they enjoyed a hot meal? Apprehension and adrenaline pounded in me as an urgent sense of danger spiked in my bloodstream. I was being hunted, not by the Winter King and his bitch at the moment, but by untamed beasts.

A second flitted by. Silent paws barely touched down on the snow and ice and thick leaves. They were faster than a blink and they were coming for me, full of hunger and the thrill of the hunt.

White shadows whooshed around me, lethal fangs and claws flashing in a blur. Fae were a monstrous race. Even their beasts were more terrifying than their counterparts in the human world.

As the beasts bellowed and poured out of the silver trees, I roared in rage.

Roots exploded from the ground, shoots of black vines surrounding me, ready for battle and eager to destroy. We wanted to see blood spilling on the white snow, too.

My magic hadn’t answered my plea in the Winter castle, and my vines hadn’t obeyed my wish for them to appear and yank out Rowan’s blackened heart as they’d once done to the demons in front of the Veil.

I was still angry at my recalcitrant magic, yet I also understood. In Rowan’s domain, my magic couldn’t overpower him. I was a novice when it came to magic and all things supernatural. I’d only become acquainted with my long-caged power a few weeks ago.

And if the Dawn Queen had detected my magic, she’d have done everything in her power to murder me, and before she snuffed me out, she’d have tortured and broken me.

The wind screamed, and the beasts launched for me. The thorny tendrils of my vines lashed out at the Winter King’s minions, tearing into their hides. I’d kill each and every one of them and let their corpses pile high on his frozen land as a souvenir.

A mighty roar shook the forest. More thick snow and chunks of ice tumbled down from the branches of the ancient trees. A massive golden lion tore into the beasts’ rank. His enormous black and golden claws slashed into everything in his path and his fangs pierced a creature’s throat before moving toward another one for the kill.

He was an unstoppable force and a sight to see.

My heart beat erratically. I knew that magnificent lion—the Summer King’s other form. He’d once yanked out the throbbing heart of an assassin who came after me, but I’d never seen him so ferocious and enraged.

Yet, he was but one lion amid an armada of bloodthirsty beasts that were just as big as him. A giant boar sank his fangs into the lion’s rear flank, and Baron bellowed in rage. Black shoots of my vines dashed toward the boar at lightning speed, dragging it off Baron and flinging it toward the sky. It came down, hitting the ice ground