Frost Kisses (Bitter Frost #4: Frost Series) (2 page)

So dark was this time in Feyland that the descendants of Fey had tried to forget this period, bury it into the deep crevices of time. Records were lost, burned of those years where no civility and no honor reigned. No fairy, no Pixies, no kelpies, nor wolves dared to invoke the powers of the Dark Hordes. No desire was strong enough to warrant the wrath and destruction that would come of it.

Until the day the Summer Queen was lost, forever taken from her love. Until the day passion once again made its way into Feyland, bringing with it the strongest power: Love.

*******************

In the horizon of the Valley that surrounded the Great Gorge, was the territory known in Feyland as the Feyland Forests where woodland creatures of the fey resided. The Wolf Fey was one of them, and the leader of the Wolf Fey, the Wolf King sat with his son surveying the land and valley.

“Logan,” the Wolf King said, “I must leave to cross the Land Beyond the Crystal River to speak to your mother. I’m afraid it may be the last chance I have before all hell breaks loose.”

Logan, a tall and muscular young man of seventeen with sandy hair and hazel eyes turned his face toward his father’s, and nodded. “I understand. I feel it too. There’s something brewing in the horizon, and I can’t get my finger on it, but I feel it like a heavy weight on my chest.”

The Wolf King patted Logan on his shoulder. “Take it easy, son. I know you’ve been through so much already, especially with what happened to Breena.” At the name, Breena, Logan winced, and his eyes mist over. “I’m sorry again, Logan. I feel bad about leaving the Clan right now, but your mother is sick, and I haven’t seen her in months. She’s human, not like us wolf fairies, she is vulnerable. I’ll try to get back as soon as I can, but your mother needs me right now.”

“She can always cross the River and live in Feyland, in the Feyland Forest with us,” Logan said. “Humans can adjust…like Breena…did.” At this, Logan got up and paced around, his hands at his waist, trying to catch his breath. He couldn’t even say her name without feeling the pain it brought. The pain was too fresh…only days, but each day had felt like eternity. He couldn’t even think of her without wanting to howl in anguish…the feeling of anger, remorse, and loss was so strong, it was enough to transform him immediately into a large grey wolf. He tried to control it for his father’s sake… taking in large gulps of air and letting it out slowly, like a runner trying to slow down his heart rate.

He couldn’t think of Breena now. He couldn’t think of his love, who had always been his friend since they were five or six in Oregon. He couldn’t think of how warm and happy she made him feel, her lavender eyes twinkling brightly when she smiled, her long honey brown hair with copper highlights swinging in the wind, smelling like honeysuckle, oranges, and jasmine. He thought she was human, but she turned out to be a fairy princess, and he was a wolf, an enchanted werewolf from Feyland, who happened to be the Prince of the Wolf Fey, wolf shifters, who were originally all fairies.

In Feyland, they had gotten engaged, and she had made him her Wolf Prince and her adviser in the Summer Court where she became Queen. He gave her a ring made of tiny diamonds in a crescent moon pattern, the symbol of the Wolf Fey, and she was to become his fairy princess…the Wolf Princess.

So many hopes, so many dreams…he had shared them with her when they spent their nights together at the Summer Palace, hopelessly in love, wrapped together in each other’s arms. He couldn’t believe that Breena had said “yes” to him, that after all the years he had been in love with her, she was finally his.

But then all that fell apart at the Peace Treaty between the warring Winter and Summer fairies, and she was taken from him, taken from her own court. He should have been faster. He should have stopped
him
from hurting her, but by the time he got to her…

“Logan?” his father said. “You alright?”

Logan shook his head. “Yeah, I was just lost in my thoughts. Sorry, I drifted.”

“It’s alright,” his father said. “Now you sure you’re going to be fine? I have a lot of faith and confidence in you to take charge of the Clan, but I know you’re going through a tough time.”

Logan took in a deep breath and said, “I’ll be fine. Having the Clan to look after while you’re back in Gregory will take my mind off of her, you know. It’s what I need. That or I’ll go crazy. Right now all I want to do is find that Winter Prince and drive a sword through him, you know.”

“I do,” the Wolf King said. “And normally I would agree with you there, but for some reason, from everything you’ve told me about him and what he’s done for Breena and for you, it seems something didn’t make sense.”

“Love can do that to a fairy, right?” Logan said, not expecting a real answer from his father.

“Love is dangerous to fairies, but not to us wolves who are more human than fey after all the generations of marrying humans. But the Winter Prince… I thought he’d be more in control than that.”

“If his sister Shasta is any indication of how he would handle love, then I would expect him to go mad,” Logan said.

The Wolf King raised his eyebrows. “What happened?”

“She nearly killed her love, the Summer Knight Rodney,” Logan said. “It was intense, and the way those two were so in love, you wouldn’t think anything could get between them.”

“There is a fine line between love and hate,” the Wolf King said. “The same passion that spurs love - the kind where you would go to the ends of Feyland for -  is the same passion that fuels hate.”

Logan nodded. His father saw it all the time in the human world where he was a lawyer. Crime by passion. Spurned lovers becoming destructive and even murderous to their object of desire. Logan knew how much it hurt to be in the shoes of a spurned lover…before Breena had accepted his proposal… “Guess fairies aren’t too different than humans when it comes to love then,” Logan said.

“Guess so,” his father agreed. “That’s probably why it’s possible for fairies and humans, werewolves to fall in love with human women. We are so much alike in many ways.”

“You and mother, The Summer King and Breena’s mother…”

“You for Breena,” his father said. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed. You have always loved that girl. No amount of persuading can change that.”

“I know,” Logan said.

“But,” his father put his hands on both of Logan’s broad shoulders. “Sometimes you’ll have to let go. You’ll have to carry on, move on. You can love someone forever, but when it’s time to go, the greatest love that you can give someone is to move on, to live on. Breena would’ve wanted you to live on. To be free.” He laughed drily. “Of course you know that already.”

“I know that’s what Mom does for us,” Logan said. “It must be difficult for her with us here in Feyland all the time while she’s alone in Gregory.”

“But you know how your mother feels…” the Wolf King said. “Her life is in Gregory, Oregon. I love her enough to marry a human, but she is not fey, and she would be swallowed up in Feyland because of it.”

It was time for Logan to take charge. His mother needed his father back in the human world, and Logan was needed to lead the Wolf Fey. He looked at his father. “Go. Mom needs you right now. Whatever happens here, I’ll take care of it.”

His father nodded, looking deep into his eyes with confidence. “You’re in charge of the Wolf Fey now, son. Lead with your heart and what you think best.” Then he looked out onto the horizon where the sky met the sharp cliffs of the Great Gorge. “Logan, I know you prefer being human than wolf, but as the leader of the Wolf Fey, to survive in Feyland, we must tap into our wolf heritage.” He pointed to Logan’s tattoo, a Celtic design of a wolf head on a cross, stretched across Logan’s right shoulder, like his. The wolf head was of The Red Wolf, the first of the Wolf Fey, a shifter fairy who became a wolf. “Remember the Red Wolf,” the Wolf King said. “When our fey blood is restored, all wolves in Feyland would be as strong and powerful as the legendary Red Wolf.”

“Who was the Red Wolf?” Logan asked.

“The Wolf who drove the Dark Hordes into the Great Gorge, along with the Pixies, Winter Fey and Summer Fey…back in the Dark Ages of Feyland. He was all fairy blood thus holding the same magic and power as the Winter and Summer fairies…thus having the power of immortality. But he was lost in the last battle of the Gorge, buried along with the creatures of the Dark Hordes in the Great Gorge.”

“Dad, I know there’s a reason why you’re telling me this story…Feyland history, right?” Logan said. “But you’d better get going before the sun goes down and it gets late. Crossing the River is no easy task.”

“I trust the Wolf Fey would be in good hands,” his father said. With that, his father transformed into a large black and grey wolf that would make its way through the forests, through the mountains, and across the river into Gregory.

Logan watched his father run, powerful and strong as far as wolves go. Then he closed his eyes. He was strong for his father at the moment. He was strong for the Wolf Fey, but deep down inside, he was crying, his heart torn out, his body shook with exhaustion and worry. For days he had been trying to find tracks, traces of his love, but to no avail.

He let out a wail into the wilderness that shook the trees, causing Feyland birds to fly out in all directions.

“Breena, where are you?”

Chapter 2

I
opened my eyes. I couldn’t make out shapes, nor were colors clear to me. There was only the hazy patterning of light and dark, soft and sloping across my eyelids. For a moment things became clearer… as they had done before… shimmering into my consciousness… but then I felt my eyes close again, and suddenly it was gone. What was it? Was there a face… did I see a pair of eyes, glowing at me… or were there only two yellow circles, beaming like the two suns of Feyland? It was too late. The exhaustion had hit me again, the slow and soft intoxication that kept my brain quiet, muffled its screams. I felt calm, extraordinarily calm, and yet within me I felt a yelp of terror. Wherever I was, this wasn’t right. This wasn’t where I was supposed to be. This place, this room… it wasn’t my home. And where was my home?

Images flickered across my brain. I remembered a Midwestern detached house with two bedrooms and a slab of marble across the kitchen, but it seemed hazy to me, as if it was but a dream from long ago. I remembered woods… their pine-sharp smell, the crunch of leaves beneath my feet… and then the woods became magical and I remembered whispering trees and leaves that changed color before my eyes. I remembered oranges, ripe and red and smelling like the richest perfumes. I remembered the sound of a fairy dance. I remembered a Prince…

My eyes flew open again, and again I saw the shapes. There were no golden eyes, now, but I could make out crystals – tall, slanted boulders with enough sides to make me dizzy. I couldn’t move. I could only wait, wait for the world to make sense to me. And then I saw what it was. It wasn’t a crystal at all. It had the same sharp sheen, the same beauty, but it was colder than a crystal, darker. It was pure ice.

But I wasn’t cold. That was the strangest thing, the thing that first hit me when at last I was able to sit up, to look around. I was lying in a cavern made of ice, upon a slab of ice, and yet I felt no cold. My gown was flimsy – it was silk, beaded with fairy beads of gold and silver, intricate, more beautiful than any gown I had ever seen and yet unfamiliar – it could not have protected me. And yet the cold meant nothing to me. I couldn’t feel anything. Not the cold, not the softness of the silk, nor the slippery hardness of the ice.

And this cavern was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Delicate etches of Feyland meadows, mountains, and skies covered the crystal ice walls. As my eyes adjusted, I saw familiar things. Golden silken curtains, intricately carved tables and wardrobes and shimmering fairy paintings. I recognized the style immediately. This was Summer work. The carved fruits and flowers, the golden hue, the life and vibrancy of Summer that glowed from every piece of art: this was the work of the Summer Court.