Lex woke slowly from a dream of her mother, where Lex was happy and unafraid…peering into the eyes of three incredibly tall men looking down at her with worry.
She sat up abruptly and scooted back. “What’s wrong?”
“You aren’t what I believed you to be,” Garrin said.
Lex rubbed her eyes. These guys had a terrifying way of waking a girl. “You’re just now figuring that out?” Good Lord, maybe now they’d return her.
“Lex,” Garrin said, and crouched. “You aren’t Halven, because you are Fae—full Fae. Amund says your energy level has been changing since we entered Tirnan.”
Lex attempted to make sense of his words. There was no way she was like them. First and foremost, she wasn’t strong, and she certainly wasn’t beautiful like these men. Not to mention the absence of anything resembling a magical power.
“Search your memory,” Garrin said. “You must recall something.”
She thought back for a moment, then shook her head. “Everything before my mother’s death is either murky or nonexistent. I figured it was from the trauma.”
Lex remembered Jas vividly, but her mother was only clear in her dreams, or more specifically, her nightmares. This morning’s dream was entirely unusual in that she and her mother were together and happy.
“I remember my mother dying in an avalanche. But Jas says I wasn’t there. I must have made up images of what I think her death was like. I don’t know.”
She covered her face. No matter how hard she’d tried, she couldn’t get the images of her mother buried in snow out of her head.
Gentle hands tugged at Lex’s wrists until she looked up.
“If someone didn’t want you to remember,” Garrin said, “you wouldn’t recall the past. Not clearly.”
“You think someone did this to me?”
Garrin glanced at Amund knowingly. “We believe so.”
Something had brought these men into her life. According to Garrin, they’d been traveling for weeks in this freezing wasteland with little food. Granted, she felt like crap, but shouldn’t she be dead? And then there was Jas. He’d fought them as though he were Fae, and not her young uncle all the college coeds wanted to date.
Frustration simmered beneath her skin. How could Jas have lied to her all these years? Or had he? He never told her he was human. It’s what she’d assumed.
“Maybe I’m not full Fae. Maybe I’m extra Halven.” That sounded entirely dumb even to her ears, but she needed to hold on to something normal, and being half human was better than full Fae.
Garrin stood and paced the large igloo. “If you were noble Fae, that would make you ‘extra Halven,’ as you call it. But it would only explain a Halven with higher energy levels. Not someone presenting as Fae.”
“I don’t feel Fae.”
He raised his brow. “How would you know?”
“Shouldn’t I feel something?”
His shoulders sank noticeably. “You should possess a power. But the magic that hid your energy level when we found you must be suppressing your abilities as well.” He rubbed his beard and looked down as though contemplating.
After a moment, he looked around. “We’ve stayed too long. The sun has risen. We must leave.”
Lex got to her feet. “What sun? Everything is white and gray.”
“Be that as it may,” Garrin said, “it is warmer during the day than at night. We cannot stay inside a snow dome forever. We will run out of food unless we keep moving.”
Food? He called those leaves food? And even if it was warmer during the day, it wasn’t comfortable. She was covered from head to toe in more layers than she’d worn in her life, and the cold ate right through them. “I’ll walk. Maybe the exercise will help me stay warm.”
Lex clapped her hands together and stomped her feet to get feeling back in them. She had a pounding headache and felt like she could sleep for a day or two, but being carried was humiliating.
Garrin and the other men looked at each other.
“This is not a good idea,” Zirel said. “The terrain is steep.”
“What if you panic?” Garrin asked her. “You’ve grown used to the dome. But once we step outside…?”
He had a point. “I might freak out, but I can control it better now.” She hoped.
Garrin looked at her as though he didn’t believe her, and she glared back.
“I’m tired of being knocked out by Zirel,” she said. “I can do this.”
Lex made it about a mile and was darn proud of how well she’d managed to ignore the snow sinking under her feet. She still felt anxious, but she continued her deep-breathing exercises and kept her gaze low and not on the monstrous white mountains.
Until she slid on a narrow section, her feet flying over the edge.
Her arms flailed, hands grasping at nothing but snow that slipped through her gloved fingers. She screamed.
Garrin caught her hand before she rolled off the mountain.
A loud roaring filled her ears, and she gasped for breath.
Knees trenched in the snow and still holding her, Garrin hauled her up until she lay half on top of him.
His chest rose and fell beneath her cheek. “Are you okay?”
She couldn’t answer. In the span of a heartbeat, she’d nearly plummeted to her death.
“Say something, Lex.”
Black fog filled the corners of her vision.
Garrin sat up, bringing her with him. He gripped her shoulders. “Lexandra, listen to me. I told you, I will not allow harm to come to you.”
No matter how powerful Garrin was, he couldn’t save her from herself. What if he missed her next time? And once they figured out she was of no use to them, what then?
She shook off Garrin’s hands and bent over until her vision cleared. Then she stood slowly and trudged forward, stumbling, and catching herself.
She’d die in this place. They thought her Fae and powerful, and she was only a scared nobody.
Perhaps this was her destiny. To perish the way her mother had.
Tears pricked her eyes.
Hours later, when her legs would go no farther, she collapsed to her knees.
Without missing a beat, Garrin swept her up and into his arms.
Lex was too tired to protest. She tucked her head into Garrin’s warm chest, covering what was exposed of her face from the cold. Being in his arms felt incredibly good, and it had nothing to do with the warmth of his body.
The heavy weight of sleep pulled her under.
When Lex woke, she was lying inside another damn igloo. She’d only managed to walk one day—and not even a full day—before nearly getting herself killed. It had been so exhausting that she didn’t remember Garrin setting her down.
She turned her head and studied the man beside her.
Garrin lay on his side with his eyes closed. His arms were crossed, hands tucked inside his armpits as though to protect from the cold, but he didn’t perpetually shiver the way she did. His breathing was even and slow. And he was so close that she felt the warmth from his breath on her face.
He smelled of pine needles, and she smiled. The sweet, earthy scent of his breath was probably due to all those leaves they’d been eating.
Her gaze traveled down his facial features. His forehead was broad and smooth, the lines of his nose straight. All three Fae had serious facial hair after this many weeks traveling, but up close, Garrin’s wide mouth and rose-hued lips looked soft and pillowy next to his beard.
Do Fae kiss?
She squeezed her eyes closed. What was wrong with her?
Garrin was warm, and she had the urge to scoot closer and curl within the shelter of his body—the man who’d kidnapped her. The cold had either frozen her brain cells or she had Stockholm syndrome. Either way, she wasn’t herself.
He was super arrogant, and somehow that was both infuriating and humorous at the same time. When she didn’t give in to his demands, he smiled. What sort of masochist smiled when someone wouldn’t do what they wanted?
Apparently, women in his land didn’t talk back to him. No wonder he was so spoiled.
She ignored her better judgment, scooted closer to Garrin, and breathed in his scent, because she’d become that person. The kind of woman who was so desperate she smelled guys while they slept. She’d lost her mind. Or maybe, whether she wanted to or not, she was growing attached to the arrogant, masochistic prince.
He smelled good. Really good. Whatever happened to body odor, and why was she the only one with it after all these weeks?
Lex rolled her eyes in frustration and looked across the igloo. Zirel and Amund’s shadowed figures sprawled near the opening, one of them snoring lightly. The only other sounds were the wind whistling outside and the snow crunching beneath her when she moved.
These Fae were growing on her, but this place she could do without.
She let out a deep breath and blinked back tears. She didn’t know how much longer she could do this. Her arms and legs were constantly weighted down by exhaustion and cold, and she needed to travel again tomorrow? And the next day? How many more days? According to Garrin, they weren’t even halfway.
She turned to cuddle back into his body. And his cool eyes were leveled on her.
“Get some sleep,” he said, his gaze warm and slightly hooded.
She swallowed and kept a straight face. “You’re very controlling, you know that?”
His mouth twitched. He reached over, tucked her against him, and closed his eyes.
It should feel awkward to be in his arms, but Garrin wasn’t a stranger anymore, and the only awkward thing was the feelings she was beginning to have for him.
The heat from his body broke the chill, and the comfort she experienced instantly lulled her.
She was dozing before she knew it.
