The Frost Queen's Blade (The Iceblood Duet, #1)

by Meg Smitherman

What most historians routinely fail to understand or, for that matter, convey, is that Queen Elma I of Rothen was neither hero, nor traitor, nor figure of legend. She was simply a woman.

“I want you inside me when you do it. I’ve always wondered what it would feel like, to die at the height of pleasure.”

“Look at you,” he breathed. “It’s like you’re carved from ice, frigid and perfect. There are so many things I’d rather do to that body than carve it up, but… you being who you are…” a predatory gleam lit his eyes.

He had sharpened in her vision as if everything around her was only a dream, and he was the only thing that mattered. As if he were a sun and she were a pale flower in early spring. As if she were a snowfall and he, the mountaintop she yearned to fall on.

“Sweet, depraved creature. I’ve never met anyone with such bloodlust.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Say anything about what? How good you taste? The sound you make when you come? How much I want to kill whoever’s outside your door and lay you out on the bed just so I can hear that sound again?” He smiled serenely. “I won’t say a word.”

“You could be loved, Elma Volta. You could grow a garden.”

“If that’s what my bloodthirsty queen so desires.” She glanced at Rune sidelong. “I am anything but yours.” He grinned, but something tugged on the corners of it, weighing it down. “If it makes you feel any better, Majesty, I am nothing if not yours.”

You could puncture me full of holes, Your Majesty, and I’d only beg for more.”