Wrapped in a towel, I pad down the hall to the bedroom I’ve claimed as my own. I pass through the door into the chilly room and make a beeline for the space heater in the corner, wishing I’d turned it on before I got in the bath. As warm air begins to pour from the grate, I stand before it and close my eyes, wiggling my toes in the plush carpet.
This place is a far cry from my rustic little cabin back home in Montana—although I still like that place more.
I untuck the edge of the towel as I turn toward my clothes on the bed. But before I can drop the fabric, someone appears in the doorway I forgot to close.
Frost.
I jump, startled, and clutch the towel to my body with both hands. “Jesus! Don’t sneak up like that.”
Frost always appears like a shadow. He moves like his body doesn’t even interact with the world around him, as silent as a wraith. He stares at me with those vivid blue eyes that give nothing away.
“Do you have a moment?” he asks in his deep, raspy voice.
Swallowing back my annoyance, I snatch the robe off the bed and turn my back on him to shrug into it. “Yeah. I’ve got a lot of moments. I’m snowed in with you assholes,” I gripe, hiding the flush in my cheeks with my sarcasm.
Frost makes a small sound of agreement. The air seems to move and shift around him as he enters the bedroom, so even though I’m still facing away from him, I can sense him coming closer. I let my towel fall and pull the lapels of my robe taut around my naked body before turning to face him.
He stops in front of me, leaving several inches of space between us, although his proximity and that warm, spicy scent of his body makes me feel claustrophobic.
“I was hoping,” he begins, “that you might allow me to give you another perspective on our situation.”
I roll my eyes. “What perspective? You’re all being fucking obstinate.”
Frost’s gaze doesn’t waver. “You’re not listening to us.”
Sighing, I spread my arms in a wide open gesture. “Fine. I’m listening now.”
“Quinton is right in many ways, as are you,” Frost says simply. “We were created for a single purpose. We are bound to serve our alpha.”
“Nobody’s bound to anything,” I point out. “That’s the awesome part about having free will. You can tell anybody you want to fuck right off.”
He inclines his head. “Perhaps. But beyond our duty to our alpha, we’ve also wanted this our whole lives.”
“You’ve wanted destruction and death for everyone on earth.”
“No. You’re aware of what we want.” His pale gaze sears into mine, speaking volumes without saying a word.
“Yeah,” I relent with an irritable sigh. “Freedom from the pain.”
“How did you feel when you were ill from the shadow’s poison?”
I blink at him, surprised by the question. “Bad. Like if I didn’t get the antidote, I would die—which I guess was pretty accurate. When the pain was at its worst, I almost wanted to die.”
He nods, his gaze haunted. “When I’m close to the shadow realm, the pain eases—as I’ve told you before. The only way to bring an end to that is to bring the shadow realm to earth. If we do not, I’ll always be in pain. Constant and unending pain.”
The despair in his eyes is awful to see, and I soften a little, letting go of some of my irritation. Because at the end of the day, I do care about him, no matter how much I’ve tried to stop it. I care about him being in pain.
He seems so sure, so thoroughly convinced that this is his lot in life. Convinced that the only way to beat the agony is to follow through on his alpha’s orders. How much of that is Quinton, though? How many of his beliefs have been brainwashed into him by the man who essentially created him?
I mean, sure, when I was in the grips of the shadow’s poison, it did suck. I had several horrible episodes where the agony spiked sharply inside me, one of which made me crash my bike and probably would have killed me if I weren’t a shifter.
“Isn’t there something else you could do?” I ask. “Some other way to get rid of the pain?”
Frost hesitates for a moment, which is odd, because he isn’t the type to hesitate. He’s abrupt, intelligent, without filters. So I sit up a little straighter and wait for him to pick his words.
Finally, he says, “There is something else. Something that eases the pain.”
Surprise flashes through me, and I squint up at him curiously. “Really? What is it?”
“You.”
The moment the word leaves his lips, his eyes widen. He looks startled, as if he’s said more than he meant to. His empty, stoic expression so rarely changes that the effect is startling.
My heart clutches in my chest as if it’s being gripped by a tight fist. “I’m… what?”
Frost’s usual blank facade drops back into place and he clams up, stepping back abruptly. “I’ll leave you to dress.”
Before he can shut me out completely, I dart after him, grabbing his arm to tug him around to face me. “Frost. Don’t go.”
He avoids my gaze but makes no further move to leave. “I said what I came to say.”
“And yet here I am with more questions,” I snap, letting go of his arm and planting my hands on my hips. Without a tie for the robe, the lapels fall apart, exposing a line of skin down my middle.
Frost’s icy gaze darts to my bare skin, and heat flares in his eyes.
I take advantage of his distraction and step up to him, drawing so close to his tall frame that I’m surrounded by his spicy scent. “Tell me what you meant.”