Mated To The Ice Werewolf King

Chapter 3

"Fine," he snarls, his mask of civility completely gone now. "If you won't give it willingly, I'll take it anyway. You're mine, Seraphina. You've always been mine."

He lunges for me, his hands grabbing at the neckline of my dress. The sound of tearing fabric fills the air as he rips the brown wool, exposing my chemise underneath. I scream and claw at his face, my fingernails leaving bloody tracks across his cheek, but he's stronger than me and fueled by a rage I never knew existed.

"Kill him!" Luna howls in my mind. "Tear his throat out!"

We struggle across the room, knocking over the washbasin and sending water splashing across the floor. I manage to break free for a moment and run toward the main room, but he catches me by my hair and yanks me back so hard that stars burst behind my eyelids.

"You're going to learn your place," he pants, his fist connecting with my ribs and driving the air from my lungs. "You're going to learn what happens to ungrateful bitches who don't appreciate what they're given."

The violence escalates quickly after that. Every time I fight back, he hits me harder. My lip splits completely, blood running down my chin. My ribs ache where his fists have landed, and my scalp burns where he's grabbed my hair. But I don't stop fighting. I can't stop fighting.

When he throws me onto the bed and starts tearing at what's left of my dress, something primal and desperate takes over. I grab the heavy pewter candlestick from the bedside table and swing it with all my remaining strength. It connects with his temple with a sickening thud, and he collapses beside me, blood seeping from the wound.

For a terrifying moment, I think I've killed him. Then I see his chest rising and falling, and I know I have only minutes before he regains consciousness. Minutes to escape before he wakes up even angrier than before.

I stagger to my feet, my torn dress hanging in tatters around my bruised body. My hands shake as I grab my cloak and wrap it around myself, trying to cover the damage to both my clothing and my dignity. Every movement sends pain shooting through my ribs, and I can feel my left eye beginning to swell shut.

"Run," Luna pants in my mind, her voice weak but urgent. "Run far. Run fast."

I don't bother with the horses—they're in the stable behind the cottage, and I can't risk the noise of preparing them for travel. Instead, I stumble out the front door and into the forest, with no destination in mind except away from the monster wearing Marcus's face.

The darkness of the forest swallows me immediately, and I realize I have no idea which direction leads back to the road, let alone back to civilization. Every tree looks the same in the moonlight, every shadow could hide a wolf or a bear or bandits who would do worse things to me than Marcus attempted.

I stumble through the underbrush, my torn dress catching on thorns and low branches. Blood from my split lip drips onto my chest, and I can feel more cuts opening on my arms and legs where the brambles tear at my exposed skin. My left eye is completely swollen shut now, and my ribs ache with every breath.

"Keep moving," Luna whispers, her strength fading along with mine. "Don't stop. Can't stop."

After what feels like hours of wandering, I collapse against the trunk of a massive oak tree, my strength completely gone. My body shakes with cold and shock, and for the first time since I left the palace, I let myself really think about what I've done.

I fled an arranged marriage to escape a life without love, only to discover that the man I thought loved me saw me as nothing more than an object to possess. I traded the protection of my crown for the vulnerability of exile, and now I'm alone in a forest with no food, no shelter, and no idea how to survive.

Maybe my parents were right. Maybe duty is more important than desire, sacrifice more valuable than choice. At least the Ice King would have married me before taking what he wanted. At least that arrangement would have brought peace to thousands of people instead of pain to just me.

I think of the treaty that will never be signed now, of the war that will continue because of my selfishness. How many people will die because I couldn't accept my fate? How many mothers will lose their sons because I wanted to choose my own husband?

The irony is bitter as poison. I ran away to avoid marrying a monster, only to discover I was already in love with one. And now, sitting bloody and broken in a forest with no way home, I can't help but wonder if the Ice King could possibly be any worse than the man I thought I knew.

The sound of hoofbeats makes me look up, hope and terror warring in my chest. Through my one good eye, I can make out a figure on horseback emerging from the shadows between the trees. The moonlight catches on something metallic—armor, I think, or weapons.

My heart pounds weakly as the rider draws closer. In my delirium, I'm certain I must be hallucinating, because the man who dismounts and approaches me looks like something from the darkest fairy tales. Tall and imposing, with ice-blue eyes that seem to glow in the darkness and silver-streaked black hair that catches the moonlight. His face is all sharp angles and hard lines, beautiful in the way a blade is beautiful—deadly and cold.

The Ice King. It has to be. But that's impossible. He's supposed to be hundreds of miles away in the Northern Kingdom, preparing for a wedding that will never happen because the bride fled into the night.

I try to speak, to ask if he's real or just another nightmare conjured by my battered mind, but only a weak whimper escapes my swollen lips. His ice-blue gaze takes in my torn dress, my bruised face, the blood staining my cloak, and something dangerous flickers behind those cold eyes.

"Well," he says, his voice like winter wind through bare branches—deep, controlled, and absolutely terrifying. "Look what I've found."

The darkness at the edges of my vision is growing stronger, pulling me under despite my desperate attempts to stay conscious. My last coherent thought before everything goes black is the bitter irony that I ran away to avoid marrying a monster, only to end up broken and helpless at his feet anyway.

Fate, it seems, has a cruel sense of humor.