Page 95 of The Ice Prince's Fated Mate
I was an idiot. A naïve idiot. How dare I think I could turn things around to become someone else, someone worthy and deserving. Fate had to be laughing at me for this cruel prank.
How could another suffer such pain and horror because someone else opted for leniency? It wasn’t right.
But it will be. I’ll make it right.
Mercy had been given once, but that gift had been rubbed in dirt stained with Ella’s blood.
Ahead of me a rocky hill rose at the edges of Kylma. A building had been constructed into its side, and a stone wall ran around the entire thing, keeping out unwanted visitors.
But it wouldn’t stop me.
I landed lightly just inside the gate, touching down without fanfare or effort into a crouch that I held. I stirred the dirt at my feet with a single finger, the projection of apparent total calm. Inside, I was anything but.
There were two guards. They both hopped down from the towers that flanked the entry gate and started toward me. Hunters, both of them.
“If you value your lives,” I growled from my crouch. “Step aside.”
They kept coming.
“Fine.”
Rising from my crouch, I let go of the tight reins I held on my power. For the first time in a long time, alpha power rivaled only by that of the Ice Tyrant himself rushed out from me.
The guards were flattened to the ground, struck completely unaware by the rush of my birthright.
I headed for the sole building and the familiar set of double-doors that I knew led deep into the hill beyond.
The Hunter Hall beckoned me, and I walked toward it, ignoring those behind me, and anyone else as power continued to flow outward with me at its center.
Flinging open the doors, I picked up the first prone dragon shifter I could find, pinning him to the nearest wall hard enough that the writing engraved into it would leave marks on his back. The young male’s eyes rolled back into his head as he was pummeled by the waves of alpha power ordering him to submit and obey.
“Where is Jiricek Three-Eyes?”I demanded, giving him a shake.
Drool started falling from his mouth, so I cast him aside in disgust. Too weak to even speak.
Sound from behind me caught my attention. Someone had come in from a side passage. They were hunched over, face wrought in focus, but they moved nonetheless.
“Kneel,” I commanded.
“What do you want?” he hissed, his face twitching, but he didn’t break.
Impressive. The Hunter had to be near Elite-level to manage that much resistance.
“I want to know where Jiricek Three-Eyes is,” I growled. “He and I have much to talk about.”
“Screw you. The Hunter Hall isn’t for you. You don’t belong here.”
I tilted my head back and laughed, the sound hollow and mocking. “You have no idea who I am. Do you?”
“Some Elite from the citadel, come down here thinking they can boss us around.” The shifter spat and pointed to the wall of writing. “Those are the ones who can come here unannounced and give us orders. The Honored Hunters.”
I walked across the room, batted aside his feeble defenses—too much energy was being used fighting my power—snatched him up, and slammed him against the wall, pressing his skull into the names etched there until his eyes began to bleed.
Using my other hand, I drove a conjured spike of ice through his skull and into the wall, pinning him there. “Read it more carefully next time,” I hissed, and headed deeper into the complex to where I knew the older Hunters congregated.
Eventually, after violent persuasion, I got what I wanted. A room.
The door shattered under my kick, and I burst inside.
