“A FEMALE CHILD OF DARK FAE BLOOD WILL SAVE THE LAND FROZEN IN WINTER—OR LEAVE THEM IN A RUIN OF THEIR OWN MAKING.” ~ UNKNOWN ELDER, DARK KINGDOM
Lex shoved her sociology notebook into her backpack and glanced at her brooding uncle sitting on the bed. “What’s wrong with you today?”
Jasper blinked and looked away. “Nothing. I just don’t understand why I can’t go with you.”
“I told you, you’re not signed up for the class.” She grabbed her wallet and dropped it into her backpack. Jasper—or Jas, as she called him—was only a few years older than Lex, but after the accident that had taken her mother’s life when she was thirteen, Jasper became her guardian. And he took his guardianship literally, believing himself her bodyguard too. “My professor noticed you last time, and he’s not going to let you get away with it.”
Lex had social anxieties, and she often depended on Jas to help her navigate society. But sometimes, his overprotectiveness was a pain in the ass.
Jas’s frown deepened. “It’s not too late for me to register for your courses. It would be like last year.”
The corner of her mouth pulled back. “I’ve got issues, but even I knew that was overkill. Not to mention, you hated the classes and bitched the entire time.”
She could tell by the look on his face that she was right. Even so, he shook his head stubbornly. “I have a bad feeling about today.”
She sighed and looked around one last time for anything she’d missed. “I’ll only be gone a couple of hours, and I haven’t had a panic attack in six months. Everything will be fine.”
His lips flattened into a tense, straight line. “Come immediately home afterward.” The look in his eye said he was a hairsbreadth from following her.
Jas was totally obsessing.
“Why don’t you go upstairs?” she suggested. “Maybe Alice is around?”
His pale green eyes flashed. He had the biggest crush on Lex’s dorm neighbor, though he would never admit it.
“Perhaps I shall.” He hoisted his long limbs off her bed—the only place to sit in her dorm room—and stretched his arms above his head.
Lex let out a sigh of relief.
Jas didn’t grow up in any one place, and his accent sounded like a combination of British and German. Add the hot accent to a handsome façade, and her uncle was catnip to college coeds. But for some reason, he refused to date. That didn’t mean he was immune. Shy Alice with the soft brown eyes was one of Jas’s weaknesses. And Lex’s best bet at distracting him.
Lex had never met Jas’s family, but she’d heard tales of their competitive nature and cold winters. Lots about the cold winters. One of these days she’d visit her extended family. Just as soon as she got her anxiety under control.
“I’ll catch you back here in a couple of hours.” She leaned up—way up—and pecked him on the cheek. Lex was tall for a woman, but she felt short compared to Jasper.
He moved toward the door, then froze, his hand on the knob. “It is cold, Lex,” he said softly, but with an intensity that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. He looked over his shoulder. “Do you not feel the chill?”
What in the what? “Um…sure. I’ve got on my sweatshirt.” It wasn’t that cold in Northern California, where she attended Dawson University—not like Germany or the myriad other locations he’d lived—but she’d agree to anything to get her uncle moving on, and a conversation about the weather wasn’t going to speed things up.
He squeezed the back of his neck. “Call me as soon as you return. Are you certain I can’t wait outside your classroom?”
For the love of God, what was wrong with him? “Please don’t. You’ll only make me look like an even bigger social pariah than I already am.”
“They don’t know you.” His expression softened. “You must not let their ignorance upset you.”
Her uncle was kind, but with her six-foot-two height, no men found Lex attractive, and the women on her campus stared at her as though she were a freak.
“It doesn’t bother me,” she said, silently adding mostly to that statement.
He hesitated, then gave her a nod and opened the door. Lex pulled her backpack around to make sure it was zipped, but she sensed Jas’s attention on her. She held her breath. After a moment, he stepped out and closed the door behind him.
This was insane. Jas couldn’t follow her anymore. At her age, it was getting weird.
Lex wanted to be stronger. Strong enough to live without the constant emotional support of her uncle. But thoughts of that would have to wait. Because her darn sociology paper was due, and nothing would stop her from turning it in on time after she’d stayed up half the night to complete it.
She hurried for the door.
Seconds later, she was speed-walking down the industrial carpeted hallway of the off-campus housing where she lived, her hoodie over her head and her eyes downcast. Her anxiety lessened when she didn’t make eye contact. Most people stepped aside or walked around her.
But not today.
Caught up in thoughts of Jas and her paper, Lex didn’t notice the tall man wearing all black and standing in the center of the hallway, until he was a few feet in front of her.
Lex stopped abruptly before she ran into him, thankfully.
But the moment she looked up, her breath caught and an ice-cold shiver ran down her spine.
Garrin Branimir, Prince of Dark Kingdom, strode down the dingy hallway where the Fae kept their half-human, half-Fae Halven, and paused near a dark-haired female on his right. The woman grinned as she passed.
She was attractive. For a human. Or Halven, given the building.
Hundreds of years ago, Fae from other kingdoms in the Faery realm of Tirnan built Dawson University to monitor their half-blood offspring, known as Halven. Particularly those Halven who developed magical powers. As far as anyone knew, no Halven born of Dark Fae blood existed due to the Land of Ice that blocked Dark Kingdom from any other living being, including in the Earth realm. But Garrin suspected the one he searched for could be hidden here.
The prophecy stated a female with Dark blood would save his people. Garrin had run out of options in Dark Kingdom. No one possessed the power needed to create safe passage to other lands. The Earth realm was his last hope for finding the one.
He fanned his hand in front of the female’s face before she passed. He’d been testing all females in the building for weeks. So far, none had deflected his magic.
The brunette blinked, then stumbled. Then her lips turned blue, and she began to choke, her dark eyes watering as ice formed across her face. Sounds of suffocation came from her throat.
She was indeed Halven. He wasn’t as good at sensing magic levels as those with the ability, but he could tell she was more than human now that he was close. Only she wasn’t the one for whom he searched. She was simply a half-blood, like all the rest.
Garrin sighed and waved forward the two soldiers behind him. “Heal her and blur her memory.”
This girl might not be the one, but Garrin would search for the female who was until his dying breath, which should give him a millennium, give or take.
“Your Highness,” Amund said, a portal creator and one such Fae with the ability to sense energy levels. “The earthbound Fae soldiers have discovered our presence.”
Garrin let out a long-suffering sigh. He’d spent the last hundred years attempting to cross the barrier separating his kingdom from the others of Tirnan. It had been nigh impossible to make it across the Land of Ice weakened, only to be attacked by deadly Fae soldiers from other lands. Until an uprising left said lands vulnerable. He’d finally breached the borders of the other kingdoms and made it to the Earth realm, and he wasn’t about to turn back now. “The Fae living on Earth are a nuisance. How am I to find the girl with them nipping at my heels?”
Amund stared off in the distance. “We have two minutes before they discover us.”
His men had returned the brunette to the dwelling from whence she came, and Garrin looked down the hallway one last time. “Very well. We will return another—”
Someone exited a door halfway down. A female. Tall.
Garrin didn’t get a good look at her face because she’d pulled a hood over her head that dipped below her eyes, but he held up his hand in a staying motion. There was something about this one… He was drawn to her.
“I sense no power,” Amund said.
Fae were taller than humans, and many Halven took on the trait. “I will test her anyway.” The closer she got, his urge to be near her grew.
“Your Highness, please hurry.” Amund glanced back. “We have a minute at most.”
The female kept her head down as she moved closer. She didn’t appear to see Garrin standing there.
Odd, that. At over seven feet, Garrin wasn’t easily missed in the Earth realm. The girl was so preoccupied, in fact, that she nearly ran into him.
She stopped abruptly a couple of feet away, and her chin tilted up. Her face flushed, and she averted her gaze. But not before Garrin caught sight of her beautiful golden eyes, the mysterious energy behind them hitting him like a bolt of lightning.
There was no time. Garrin needed to test her quickly and be gone. He pursed his lips and exhaled, giving her more of his powers than he’d given other females they’d encountered.
She blinked, and ice crystallized around her nose and lips…and melted as quickly as it had formed.
Her gaze collided with his, her expression one of surprise.
Garrin’s entire body lit up with desire so powerful it took his breath away.
He stepped back, astonished at his reaction to the woman, and at what he’d discovered. For so long he’d fought death and starvation and battled enemies to reach the one. No Dark Fae were thought to live in the Earth realm, but Garrin suspected she was hiding here, and now he’d found her in the form of a Halven.
Elation coursed through him. After all this time, he’d succeeded where no other Fae had for hundreds of years.
He would save his people from isolation. He would make his father proud…and he would have the female.
A smile slowly pulled at the corners of his mouth. “Take her.”
