His eyes opened, flaring. “Is that so? Well then, come.”
He strode forward, his hand circled my wrist, and he pulled me to the throne. As he pressed my hand against the ice, dark power surged into my fingers and up my arm, making my body hum with cold delight.
“You belong to the throne,” he said, sliding an arm around my back and holding me close, “and it belongs to me. That makes you mine, Ruby.”
He took my chin in his hand and turned my face to his. Overpowered by sensation, every sinew alive with the feel of the throne under my hand, I could only shake my head.
His lips found the pulse that beat in my temple, sending liquid sparks into my veins. “Take it into your heart,” he whispered, the words piercing my skin.
“Let Marella go,” I managed to say. “You have no quarrel with her.”
His narrowed gaze moved to Marella where she was trying to free herself. Icicles had formed in her hair.
“She didn’t tell you?” he asked. “Lady Marella conspired against me with my own captain. In exchange for a pile of coin to pay off his gambling debts, he took you to Blackcreek Prison instead of bringing you here. She hid you from me.”
My shocked gaze locked with his. “That’s why you gave him to me in the arena. Because he betrayed you.”
“I don’t regret his death.”
“Have you ever regretted anyone’s?”
A pale brow rose and his lip twitched.
“She betrayed me. Spies in my inner circle.” He ran a finger along my chin. As a bit of my heat returned, I realized that when he touched me and the throne at the same time, it returned my gift to me, at least a part of it. “They’ll have to be purged. I’ll let you kill her when I finish questioning her. It will increase your power.”
The shadows in the throne thickened. I was able to summon enough of my gift to send warm air at Marella’s hands. She pulled free of the ice and darted back into the tunnel, the slap of her shoes echoing into silence.
Rasmus took my shoulders and shook me. “Your mercy is wasted.”
His lips covered mine. The pressure sent a surge through my body, glorious delight that obliterated all worry and fear, all concern for what I should and must do. There was only bliss and darkness. A shadow rose and towered over us.
“Do you want me?” asked Rasmus against my lips, his hand sliding to my lower back, his hips pressing against mine.
As I was lost in ecstasy, part of me wanted to say yes. I wanted the darkness. I wanted the power. I wanted the bliss. You give me all these things, and therefore I want you.
But something flickered at the corner of my mind, memories of warmth. Most of the people I loved were gone, but there was someone who needed me, someone I cared about more than darkness and power. I saw eyes a dozen shades of blue that went from cold to hot in a heartbeat. I had told myself to forget him, but he had come back and he depended on me. I couldn’t turn away from Arcus now.
As Rasmus’s lips moved over mine, connecting me to his darkness and the darkness of the throne, heat came rushing back into my chest. I sent it into the hand that rested on the throne, fire flowing from my heart through my arms and into the jagged ice. The surface began to melt, a hand-shaped indentation forming in the ice. Drops of water hit my feet. Rasmus sucked in a breath and shoved me away, something stark and vulnerable flashing through his eyes before his expression hardened.
“Why did you really come here?”
He swept his hand around the room, sealing the door with a sparkling layer of frost before offering that same hand to me. Instinctively, I moved backward, toward the door.
“Have you ever loved anyone, Ruby?”
The question took me aback, but I needed to keep him talking, stalling while I tried to think of a way out. “I loved my mother. M-my grandmother.”
“How about now? Whom do you love now?”
I hesitated. “I love… my people.”
“You don’t even know your people. Why would you want to?”
“A million reasons you’d never understand.”
“So you can feel like you belong?” he suggested. “Well, I was raised with my people and I never belonged. My frost was weak compared with my brother’s, and my father hated me for it. He used to fill me with bits of ice, enough to cause excruciating pain but not enough to kill. He hoped to make me more powerful, to strengthen my gift.”
I swallowed hard. “That’s terrible.”
“It cut me off from everyone, never understood, never accepted. When I took the throne, the advisors thought they could make sport of me, stealing from the royal coffers, belittling me just out of hearing, making a farce of my reign. But the throne understood my fears and helped me kill one of them in front of the rest. Suddenly, they respected my power, and the darkness brought me joy and took my pain, much as it takes your heat. It feeds off things that are hot: passion, hatred, violence.”