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A sudden howling wind draws my eye to a raging wall of snow. It circles around the courtyard like a bubble, faster and faster and faster until we’re trapped.
“What’s happening?” Mack whispers, resituating her scarlet wool scarf around her neck.
“He wants privacy,” I mutter. “Showoff.”
“Who?” Her crystallized breath plumes across the courtyard.
I’d completely forgotten I haven’t told them who we’re meeting. Before I can answer, the Winter Prince emerges from a doorway on the other side, his owl perched on his shoulder. Asher trails beside him, arms crossed over his massive chest and a miserable look on his face. As a shifter, he might be Unseelie, but I learned in class that dragon shifters are cold-blooded by nature and need warmth.
Basically, the opposite of this place.
The moment Asher locks eyes on Mack, the big guy’s face lights up.
My gaze slides to Mack beside me. A blush stains her tanned cheeks, a timid smile playing across her lips as she returns his stare.
The prince and I, on the other hand, glare at each other like opposing generals before a battle.
“Do you have my book?” I say in lieu of greeting, jutting out my hand palm up. I ignore the tiny jump my heart gave at the sight of him. At his stupid messy blue-black hair and perpetual smirk. The moonlight glimmers inside his irises, making them look more silver than blue.
He reaches inside his sable waistcoat and retrieves the leather-bound tome. “You mean, this old thing?”
My eyes narrow. I sense a trick. “Wait, why aren’t you and Asher, you know . . .”
“Overcome by our primal urges?” He arches an infuriatingly sexy blue eyebrow. “Some of us can control our inner beasts . . . when we want to.”
As if just to toy with me, his irises suddenly pulse azure-blue, making his appearance too inhuman for my comfort. Mack gives a little squeak and jumps back a step.
Asher snorts, casting an amused look at the prince. “It’s midnight when you need to worry, little humans. Even the most controlled Fae won’t be able to harness their urge then.”
That’s when the prince and Rhaegar will fight. A twinge of unease settles between my shoulder blades, and I sweep a heavy gaze over the book, held carefully inside the prince’s long fingers. “Why are you giving the book to me if it might help Rhaegar win?”
An arrogant grin carves into his angular jaw. “Because there’s absolutely nothing in this world that will make that happen.”
“Have you read it?”
“Of course not.”
Arrogant dickwad. I reach for the book but he jerks it just out of my reach.
“First,” he says. “Some questions. What did the orc say to you?”
Shivering, I shove my gloved hands into my coat pockets. “That he wanted to eat me . . . but he couldn’t.”
“Why not?” Asher asks, too quickly.
“He wanted to bring me to his master—no, he called him something in another language. The Dom . . . something.”
“Dominus?” the prince finishes softly.
I nod.
Mack gasps, and the muscles flex in Asher’s jaw as he lobs the prince a worried look. Even Ruby begins to shiver inside my pocket.
“Who is the Dominus?” Part of me doesn’t want to know. For some reason, everyone is looking at the prince.
“Every court has different names for him,” Ruby offers. “My fellow sprites call him Blackheart.”
“Who?” I press.
