Frost (Frost and Nectar, #1)

by C.N. Crawford

Today, I’d personally invited one hundred fae women to compete for my hand in marriage. One princess from each noble clan and an additional ninety-four common fae. No commoner had ever actually won the tournament, but inviting them to participate made them feel included and kept their families from rebelling.

I was cursed, and I had been my whole life. If I ever fell in love with my bride, she would die. And it would be my own touch that would kill her—freezing her to the marrow like the bleak landscape around us.

Someone lowborn with no sense of morality, who could simply be bought… My eyes snapped open as the most glorious idea came to me.

Omg you idiot.

“No. My mother was amazing. But the kids at school thought I was a freak with weird ears and ridiculous blue hair, and they weren’t kind. They tied me to a fence post once, like a dog leashed outside a café. I just wanted to see other people like me.”

I couldn’t explain why, but as soon as my eyes landed on them, a sense of dread slid over me. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I knew the castle didn’t want me here.

Faerie is enduring a famine, and for the past twenty-three years, we have been forced to buy food from humans. But I can’t keep taxing my people to death to pay for it all. The network is paying me one hundred fifty million dollars an episode to make this show, and I will be able to settle my debts with the humans.”

Wow

“Aren’t we all lucky to be here?” she said to her neighbors. “One of us will find true love. We might bear the king’s children.”

Gag

“I asked you what you did for fun, and your answer is human sacrifice? How do they die?” “We burn them.”

“A stag can move back and forth between the realms of the living and the dead, the human and the fae.

“No, Ava. We fuck each other hard up against the oak trees, rending the forest air with the sounds of our ecstasy. We fuck around bonfires, bathed in their flames.”

“When was the last time you lost yourself in a pleasure so intense, you forgot your name? That you forgot your own mortality? Because that is what it means to be fae. I could make you ache with pleasure until you forget the name of every human who made you think there was something wrong with you.”

“And if you think I can’t see how much that excites you, if you think I couldn’t hear your heart racing, Ava, you are mistaken. Because if it were you and me, in the oak grove on Beltane, I would have you screaming my name. Calling me your king. I would have your body responding to my every command, shuddering with pleasure underneath me, until you forgot the human world existed at all.”

“If I could,” he purred. “I would teach you what you really are, and I would make sure you never forgot it.”

“Of course, Your Majesty,” she said at last. “That one belongs here in the wild.” King Torin inclined his head respectfully. “Thank you, mistress.” He led me deeper into the icy wood, and the fog enveloped us. The creepy woman was right. I did feel like I belonged here.

Yasss

“Does this hurt? You didn’t let me finish healing you for reasons I’d frankly love to examine.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I just don’t need someone fussing over me.” It was my prim and proper voice again, one that I’d never before used in my life. I was now a deeply repressed Victorian governess.

We are creatures of the Wild Hunt, and we could never be anything else. If you feel we go too far, it’s only because you are living a lie about your true nature.” The corner of his mouth curled. “Because underneath it all, you are as vicious as the rest of us.”

Despite my ears and genetic makeup, I was a human through and through—Chloe’s daughter.

Aww

“Good. If they come for you again, go for the jugular. Because it’s you or them, and I really prefer you.”

Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

“Don’t apologize.” He grunted. “Best of seven.” “Three for Ava, zero for Torin,” Shalini called out in a tone that could only be described as gloating.

I leveled my blade at Torin’s throat. “Sorry, darling. No rules. You yield.”

Yasss queen

The corner of his lip curled. “It seems I have you exactly where I want you, my favorite changeling.”

I arched an eyebrow. “Are we about to fist fight?” “Why not? There are no rules here.” “So, in Faerie, it’s okay to punch a king?” “No, that’s a death penalty offense. But I won’t tell if you won’t.

“I thought you were a mess when I first met you. Obviously. But it wasn’t fair to judge you when you lived in a world where you never belonged.”