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

by Eliza Raine

Do what you can. Ignore what you can’t.

The bear acted independently of me. She didn't possess my body and make me strong enough to slam back a twenty-five-foot Giant myself. She did it on her own.

My skin flashes cold suddenly, and I gasp as a brand-new feeling floods my system. My mind fills with an image of the colossal white bear, and somehow she's smashing her way through the desolation as fiercely as she crashed into the Frost Giant. Strength. Strength is pouring through me, resolve and courage forcing out doubt and sadness. 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?

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

"Stop pretending that you're not as obsessed with me as I am with you." The world slows. Did he just say he's obsessed with me? I wrote my feelings off as fascination, but obsession…?

"This is me. The princess kept a secret from the fae courts and hidden in a tower because she was an embarrassment to her family. My tenacity? That comes from years of expecting to die every day." My voice is getting stronger. Louder. I fist my hands and draw them back to my body, glaring. "Just because I'm not like the others here does not mean I'm fucking acting."

"It's not just the others here you're different to. You're nothing like anyone I've ever known." "Because I'm soft and slow?" I hiss.

"Because you are untested. You don't know what you are capable of, where your limits are." Flames roar across his irises, and he moves quickly. His mouth is barely inches from mine and his breath whispers over my lips as he speaks soft...

"I'll be watching, princess. You saved my life. You've shown your hand. We are bound, somehow, and you will get me into that vault."

"Your sister was never supposed to be here. You were. I have only studied a little bit about Featherblade and val-tivars, and inherent magic, but you are defying every single rule. There is nothing about you that is standard or normal. You were meant to be where all of these powers could evolve and thrive."

"Fuck me?" He takes a step toward me, eyes flaring. "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."

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.