Of Frost and Feather (Flame Cursed Fae, #2)

by Eliza Raine

Emotion is roiling in my chest, but there's no room for it—I am well beyond the fragile semblance of control I normally maintain over the chaos within my head.

My val-tivar is an animal of strength. She is the power behind a berserker—the most fearsome warriors in all of Yggdrasil. Wasn't strength exactly what I've lacked my whole life? Exactly what I have strived for since coming to Featherblade?

"Expecting" to die is not the same as "ready" to die, though. I've never been ready to die.

I decided long ago I would not live in fear. I would not wait to die.

I'm beginning to believe that it's very possible to find beauty in monsters.

So, I'm dealing with an insanely arousing, unhinged, and detrimentally honest villain?

"Oh, princess, you keep standing there, wide-eyed and excited, sighing in pleasure like that, and I'll turn that 'fuck you' into a 'fuck me' the whole of Featherblade can hear."

"You know, curiosity is a dangerous thing. And I'm fairly sure, foolish princess, that it will be your downfall."

Maybe, all these years, the problem wasn't the magic but the fact that I couldn't use a staff to access it?

It would be nice, for once, to be normal." His hard, beautiful face contorts. "Normal is shit." I blink at his words. "The whole concept of normal is horseshit. There's no such thing. It's a word for routine.

"They are not powerful. They are wealthy. There's a difference."

"Then fuck your family. If they didn't want you to make it, then who cares what they think?"

"I don't know if you'll fail, but I do know that if you do, it will be more spectacular than we've seen before."

My past is becoming unimportant. Where I'm from and what I've been led to believe is no longer who I am. But I can affect who I'm going to be.

There's a distinct air of childishness about her. A monstrous, killing machine child.

I just met my val-tivar. Her name is Thyrvi, and so far, she is just as disappointed in me as everyone else.

Well, if emptying my mind is the only way I'm going to get control of anything, then I'm fucked.

"And what's she like?" I look at him. "A bloodthirsty toddler."

Nothing is helpful because nothing applies to the way my brain works,

"She… likes you." "Then she is the first in two hundred years." "It's because you want to kill people." He looks between my face and the bear. "Then I like her too."

She's a fighter. I watch her because she's fucking beautiful. I follow her because if anyone harms her I will burn them alive, for as long as I can. I need her… period.

She whimpers. She actually fucking whimpers. Fates, I'm screwed.

I want him to be honest. He's the only one who has been. I can't take him betraying me.

I know how untrustworthy my instincts are around him. He makes me stupid.

"I think some are High Fae. The Vanir. The first race the gods ever created, and still the most powerful. They were given animal familiars to channel their magic and fight alongside them."