I pulled on it sharply, grinning when I felt Caldris stumble forward, but it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t pull his magic toward me while he was using it, the single pathway of our bond blocked by his command over it.
I glanced at the icy teardrops hanging off the tree branches, feeling Caldris’s snowballs thump against the other side of the tree trunk. They grew in cadence, their pressure increasing as I peeked around the corner. His ice balls grew in size, his eyes gleaming as he raised the stakes.
He was done with waiting for me to channel what should have been mine to command.
I touched a bare finger to one of the icy drops, letting the cold sink into my skin. A golden halo of frayed threads appeared around it, weaker than what I sensed from the bond, as if it was faded and the image of it only came from Caldris.
But he’d never spoken of being able to see those threads.
I stroked them, twisting them around my finger hastily and letting the cold sink farther into me. Ice flooded my veins as the threads grew, wrapping around my hand and forearm, clinging to me as I fed them with the limited power that came from Caldris’s bond.
I felt his smirk as he realized what I was doing, as he could feel me channeling in a bigger way than I’d been capable before.
“Are you planning to come out and play with me, Little One?” he asked, his footfalls crunching quietly as the snow padded his steps. He stepped closer, coming around the other side of the tree as I made myself small and slunk away.
“That depends on what your definition of play is right now,” I said, sneaking up behind him. I moved quietly, setting my feet into the snow lightly with the ease that came from being smaller.
Wrapping those golden tendrils around my arm tighter, I focused my attention on the patch of snow just beneath his next step. Lowering my hand to the ground beside my feet, I touched my palm to the snow and willed the cold into it, channeling those golden threads of ice from the tree and sent them spreading across the ground.
My fingers froze, the black tips tinting with frost as it flowed over my skin, but I didn’t feel the sting of cold that should have accompanied it. When the snow beneath his feet turned to ice, Caldris spun to look at me, his feet slipping in his haste. I reached out my other hand, hooking it toward me as a chill winter wind spread through the clearing. It caught him around the backs of his knees, and I yanked it toward myself. His legs came out from under him and he fell, thudding against the ice and making it vibrate against the hand that I removed to stand to full height.
“Was that what you had in mind?” I asked, glaring down at him as he grinned back at me. I darted behind the tree as he vaulted to his feet, slipping on the ice briefly before he caught his balance.
He chased after me as I curled around the tree trunk, sliding over the ice that I’d created and using it to gain speed. I looked over my shoulder, twining my hand to create a snowball that I threw at his face as he ran.
It crashed into his nose, his eyes widening comically disbelief as he laughed and wiped it away to flick back at me. “You’re in so much trouble, my star.”
I glanced at him as I paused, turning to face him fully. “You’ll have to catch me first,” I murmured.
He flung four snowballs at me quickly, the formation happening far faster than I could manage. I squeaked, pressing the palms of my hands together in front of me and stretching them out as I winced back with a grimace and waited for the burst of cold against my skin.
It never came.
I held a sheet of ice in my hands, spread between my palms with the splatter of his snowballs against the other side. “Looks like I found the cold,” I said, shrugging my shoulders as I flung the ice to the side.
Caldris chuckled, taking a few careful steps toward me. They were slow, his gait controlled as he navigated the frozen terrain. When he reached me, he wrapped a palm around my cheek and leaned down to kiss me.
“Looks like you did,” he agreed, dropping his mouth to mine. I didn’t tell him about the golden threads, feeling in my soul that they weren’t what he’d had in mind when he’d asked me to draw from him. There was something different about those tendrils that wrapped around me and gave me access to the winter.
I kissed him back, allowing him to distract me from that all-too-familiar warning that rang in my head. The voice that told me I wasn’t normal, even for a Fae Marked mate. That something else existed within me, allowing me to reach out and touch the magic around me.
Maybe it was just my mind’s way of visualizing it; maybe it was more in my head than real.
His head jerked back suddenly, his gaze darkening as he looked through the clearing. “Get back to camp,” he ordered, pushing me away from him gently and sending me a few steps toward where we’d left the others. He grasped the hood of my cloak, pulling it up over my head, and started frantically tearing my hair from the braids Fallon had done. “Leave your hair down and keep your mark covered.”
“What’s going on?”
“Get to fucking camp. I’ll be alright, but you need to go now. Tell Holt that Octavian is here,” he answered, pushing me forward. I moved, that compulsion striking me in the chest. Whereas before I hadn’t recognized it, I felt it pulsing along the bond, knowing that I could stop it and suffocate it if I chose to grasp that thread and send it spiraling back toward him.
I did just that, taking the golden thread into my hands and wrapping fingers around it tightly. The compulsion stopped, severing from me as I slid my hand along it firmly. It collided with Caldris as his eyes narrowed, his gaze turning pleading for just a moment before I turned my back on him and made my way to camp.
I would go back because he asked me to, because I could see the seriousness of it in his face. I would not do it because he’d compelled me to obey.
I was not his pet, and I would not behave like one.
I finished pulling my braids free as I walked, returning to camp. The Wild Hunt lingered around the space, Holt leaning against a tree trunk they’d placed beside the fire. His head rested on it, his eyes barely cracking open when I stopped in front of him.
Imelda and Fallon looked at me, their gazes confused as they took me in. “Where’s Caldris?” Imelda asked, raising her nose as if she could scent the air.
“He said to tell you Octavian is here,” I said, nudging Holt with my boot. His eyes flung open and he hurried to his feet, looking out toward the woods.
He turned to Imelda, her panicked stare meeting his for a moment. Whatever they felt for one another or didn’t feel was irrelevant in this moment. “Take her to your tent and stay there,” he instructed her, grasping me gently around the forearm. He pushed me toward her, leaving me to stumble forward into her. She pulled my hood tighter around my head. “Cover those marks, witch.”
Fenrir rose from his place by the fire, a growl rumbling in his chest. He moved to follow as Imelda guided me toward the tent she shared with Fallon, but Imelda’s words stopped him short. “The best protection you can give for now is to stay away,” she said, standing straight as the wolf bared his teeth.
Imelda swallowed, nodding as she guided me toward the tent she shared with Fallon. Fenrir sat back on his haunches, obeying the order Imelda had given him and remaining beside the fire. He didn’t often demand my attention aside from a few pats by the fire at night, but he was always close by. Without him, I suddenly felt stripped naked for all to see.