Winter

“Keep your filthy trailer park eyes off him,” Inara hisses. “He’s off limits.”

I’m still on my knees as she leans down and takes my chin between her fingers, forcing my focus away from her mate. One of her pack of sociopaths moves in to video the encounter.

I should stand, but I’m afraid if I move, I’ll hurl. The sight of Jane’s head is still too fresh. The horror of her fake death still too raw. My body hasn’t recovered from the influx of grief, fake or not.

“That was just a taste of what I can do.” Cold emanates from Inara’s fingertips. She yanks my head up by the jaw, tweaking my spine and forcing me unsteadily to my feet.

My hand curls as I prepare to deck her, but the homicidal look in her eyes says she’ll snap my neck if I try.

Instead, I grin, fighting back with the only thing I have available: words. “I’m curious. Why did you make my book look like an adorable puppy?”

Confusion flickers across her face. “That’s not what you saw.”

“Yeah. He had the cutest nose—”

“I saw you fling it away.”

I shrug. “It was cuteness overload. I panicked.”

The dark blue vein snaking down her forehead throbs. She can’t puzzle me out. Why I’m not afraid of her. It’s either a really smart—or really stupid—play.

“Whatever,” she says. “Leave, Trailer Park. This school isn't for you.”

That nickname is really getting old. “You’re wrong,” I somehow manage as her fingers dig deeper into my jaw. “I don’t even . . . live in a trailer.”

I swear in my periphery I catch the prince’s lips quirking.

She tilts her head to the side, her eyes narrowed like she’s trying to figure me out. Somehow I manage not to flinch as she leans down and sniffs me—sniffs me, for Fae’s sake.

A cruel smile bares her snow-white teeth, complete with a set of fangs. She must be half-shifting, but I’m too nervous to remember what her animal shifter form is.

“Joke all you want,” she says, “but you can’t hide the stench of your fear.”

“Fuck you.” The words just tumble out. Maybe she is getting to me.

Something dark and dangerous flashes across her face. A shot of cold pierces my chest—

“I’m bored, Inara. Let’s go.” The Winter Prince is standing next to Inara, his hand resting on her shoulder. I recognize the long, delicate fingers from my vision last night, the fingernails kept neat and clean.

Her eyes brighten at the contact, and the icy dagger I felt spearing my flesh disappears as she makes doe eyes at the prince. Gag me.

Someone’s obviously been forgiven.

The hatred pouring from her dissipates, but she’s not totally done with me yet. “Where’s your Summer Court now? What about your friends?” She glances around, pretending to look for them, while panning for the camera. Someone laughs. She slides her dark gaze back to me. “I rule this school, and no one, not even the teachers, can help you. Stay, and I’ll discover your deepest fear and make it happen.”

She releases my jaw, and I rub the tender spot where her fingers gouged. That’ll leave a bruise.

“See you in class, Trailer Park,” she calls. “Unless you know what’s good for you.”

She turns on her heel and struts down the hall with her minions in tow. Reina flashes me a smug look before trailing after them with her two boy toys. The Winter Prince is the last to leave.

“You shouldn’t antagonize her,” he admonishes.

I grit my teeth. “It’s not in my nature to roll over and play dead.”

“I can see that.” His eyes linger on me. There’s a darkness in his look.

I stare back, letting my frustration and anger over Inara’s trick leak out until it fills the air between us. Our seemingly mutual hatred. The air between us crackles with the raw emotion, so real it could drown us.

The memory of being trapped in his head last night surfaces. The intimacy of seeing his most private moments. I feel his confusion, his anger and need. I see the way he looked at my picture and realize it’s the same way he looks at me now.

Only, maybe it’s not hatred in his stare, but something else. Something I don’t quite understand. Something dark and ragged and . . . yearning.

And then it happens again. A burst of icy warmth blooms between us. For a moment, a breath, I feel drawn to him. Tugged along an inescapable chain of familiarity and desire.

Suddenly he shoves off the locker and stalks away, leaving me confused and disoriented.

What the frick was that?

By the time Mack and Evelyn find me, I’ve collected myself enough to pick up the book I tossed. Properties of Elemental Magic.

I’ll never look at it the same.

“Oh, God, Summer,” Mack cries. Her mouth falls open as she takes in the look on my face. “What happened?”

“Inara happened,” I mutter. “She glamoured me and then did some trick and I saw . . .” I choke on the actual description as the image of the severed head pops in my mind. Bile stings my throat, my stomach clenching. “It looked so . . . real.”

“That’s one of her powers,” Mack reminds me. “She can make you see your worst fears. It’s a hundred times stronger than glamouring. But whatever you experienced, she couldn’t see it.”

She doesn’t know about Jane. I release a frayed breath, my need to barf decreasing to a tolerable level. I assumed . . . but knowing for sure gives me strength.

Mack toys with the belt buckle at her waist. “You can miss class, if you need to? I’m sure Rhaegar will understand.”

“Hell, no. Then she wins. And that will never, ever happen.”

Using Jane to intimidate me into leaving did the opposite; it pissed me off, and in doing so, gave me a reason to fight. A reason to stay.

I’ll never let a bully like Inara Winterspell win.

20

Never in a million years did I imagine I would be in a class full of beautiful immortal beings, staring at pictures of the Mall of America. An escalator pops onto the screen and Professor Lochlan turns to the class, her dark hooves clopping against the wood floor.

“Who can tell me what this is?” she asks. She’s a centaur, her sleek gray body dappled with white spots to match the lustrous white hair she wears in a french-braid. I haven’t stopped staring since I arrived thirty minutes ago . . . late, of course.

I shift on my feet next to Rhaegar’s desk. As his shadow, I have to be ready for emergencies. Things like retrieving his charger if his laptop has a low battery, or refilling his gold hydro-flask if he’s parched.

Important life and death stuff.

Just my luck, Inara and her sociopathic friends are in this class too. But with Rhaegar here, they mostly ignore me. The class is a mix of Seelie and Unseelie, and they’re just as divided on technology. The Unseelie use real books and notepads to write on; the Seelie have laptops and iPads to follow from and take notes.

I recall Mack saying the Seelie have adapted to our technology a lot faster than the Unseelie. Although the Unseelie crowd was more than happy to break out their cell phones earlier to record my humiliation.

The class is stumped. Rhaegar cuts a quick glance at me, and I mouth, escalator. So far, that’s been my most important job of all in this class: giving him answers.

I’m an expert in this course. The class, Understanding the Modern Mortal World, teaches the Evermore students all about our culture. That way, if and when they decide to travel to the Untouched Zone, they’ll be ready to blend in.

The thought makes me sick. Apparently it annoys Inara too, because she raises her hand and then speaks without waiting for the professor to call on her. “Why do we need to know what that contraption is called, exactly?”

Professor Lochlan regards her with a mixture of contempt and fear. “Do you not plan to visit the mortal world, Miss Winterspell?”

“Oh, I do,” she answers. “I just don’t plan on visiting the Mall of America.”

The room erupts in laughter. The only Fae not laughing, it seems, is the Winter Prince. I have my head tilted so I can make out his face in my periphery. So far, all he’s done is stare straight ahead. Ignoring everyone, including me.

Inara made sure to sit next to him. With last night’s memory still floating around my head, it was almost painful to watch her eyes light up as she glanced his way. Then watch that spark extinguish as he regarded her with apathy.

Doubling down, she’d offered her shadow, Reina, to take notes for him. When that didn’t work, she placed a hand on his thigh and started moving it up. Because, when all else fails, a mid-class hand-job might do the trick.

Gross.

For a moment, he seems caught in some internal struggle. Jaw clenched, eyes narrowed, muscles in his neck tight. Then our eyes lock—much to my absolute embarrassment—and he breaks free from whatever invisible force he fought against.

He guides her hand back down his thigh, his face donning that icy mask. After a second of awkwardness, she retrieves her hand, crestfallen.

If she wasn’t the devil incarnate, I might actually feel sorry for her.

After the Mall of America, the professor visits other interesting “human” traditions like football, ping-pong, and rollerblading.

I almost choke on my suppressed laughter as Professor Lochlan explains football. “In this bizarre and violent sport, the ball represents a human baby,” she says, cradling a Nike football in between her large, furry hands. “The males on the field must prove they can protect this baby to entice women to be their mates.”

Well, then. Who knew? All of the shadows in the class are smart enough not to laugh at Lochlan as she continues her humorous interpretation of our world.

The rest of the lesson is on the differences between human and Fae virtues. As Lochlan explains, humans don’t outwardly appreciate cunning and cruelty in the same ways the Fae do. “Don’t get me wrong,” Professor Lochlan adds, her tail twitching. “In my experience, mortals have the same capacity for cruelty, they simply hide it better.”