Chapter Five: Fire and Ice

MARLIENE

The shattered fragments of ice on the floor looked like fallen stars, sharp and gleaming in the moonlight. I couldn't breathe. My chest heaved, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. I looked down at my palms. They were trembling, a faint, wispy vapor still rising from my skin, dissolving into the warm air of the room.

I did that.

Rune stood entirely frozen, his towering frame silhouetted against the dark velvet curtains. The lethal orange fire that had been rushing toward my face a second ago was completely gone, snuffed out by a power I didn’t even know I possessed.

"Marliene," his voice dropped, heavy and dangerously low, vibrating through the small space between us. He took a slow, deliberate step forward. The air around him crackled with a suffocating heat, smelling of ozone and smoke. "What are you?"

"I... I don't know," I stammered, taking a panicked step backward. My heel clicked against a shard of ice, snapping it in two. "I don't know what that was."

"Don't lie to me," he snarled, his striking blue eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that felt like a physical weight pressing against my chest. He closed the distance between us in a fraction of a second, his massive hand clamping around my wrist.

The moment his skin touched mine, an electric jolt shot up my arm. It wasn't just a spark, it was an absolute wildfire, a primal, roaring current that made my knees turn to water. My wolf-less soul squealed at the contact, a strange pull tugging at the very center of my being.

Rune flinched, his eyes widening into huge pools of sapphire. His grip tightened out of pure shock. His chest rose and fell in jagged breaths.

"Your skin," he whispered, almost to himself, his voice raspy. "You're freezing. But your pulse... it's racing."

"Let go of me," I gasped, wincing as the heat of his palm clashed violently with the sudden, unnatural chill running through my veins. "Please, Rune. Let go."

"You deflected my fire," he muttered, completely ignoring my plea, his gaze dropping to the floor where the ice was slowly melting into puddles. "Nobody survives that. Nobody blocks it. It is meant to incinerate. And you... you turned it to glass."

"I told you, I don't know how!" I whispered quietly, my voice cracking with a mixture of terror and frustration. I yanked my arm back with everything I had. To my surprise, he let me go, though his gaze remained pinned to me, tracking every micro-movement. "I came here to talk to you. To help you. Not to be burned alive."

"Help me?" A dark, cynical chuckle escaped his throat, though the tension in his shoulders didn't ease for a second. "The betrothed of my pathetic brother sneaks into my quarters in the dead of night, wields a strange, ancient magic, and claims she is here to help me? Do you think I am a fool, Marliene?"

"If you don't listen to me, you're a dead man," I snapped, my fear briefly giving way to the dry wit that had kept me alive through years of the Ashthorns' abuse. I crossed my arms, trying to hide the fact that my fingers were still numb. "And frankly, dead allies aren't very useful to me."

Rune tilted his head, a dangerous, mocking smirk playing on his lips, though his eyes remained utterly serious. "An ally? You think highly of yourself, little servant."

I scoffed. "Little servant? I am the future Luna of this pack, I'm neither little nor a servant. I only came to warn you because I know what I heard," I said, leaning in slightly, lowering my voice to a sharp whisper. "Look, Lex and his mother are pretending to welcome you. They never missed you and they most definitely don't want you around."

"And who says I want them around?" He sounded very arrogant while he spoke and I facepalmed myself mentally. How and why did I think that he could be a better ally than Lex?

Still, I sighed quietly, composing myself and trying to convince him yet again. "Listen, they feel that you're here for the throne. They aren't planning a welcoming party for you, they're planning a funeral."

He didn't even blink, he just stared at me, his expression perfectly unreadable, still a wall of pure arrogance and control. "They want to kill me? How original. Tell me something I haven't expected for the last ten years."

"They're going to poison you," I urged, frustrated by his lack of panic. "At the welcome banquet. They want to make you feel safe, get you comfortable, and then slide something into your drink. I heard them discussing it in Lex's chambers."

He took another step closer, his shadow completely enveloping me. The scent of him—intoxicatingly feral—flooded my senses, making my head spin. "And why would you betray your husband to tell me this? What's your gain, lady Luna?"

"He is not my husband," I said fiercely, with disgust coating my tongue."

"Not yet..." He chortled darkly, his mocking gaze resting on me. "But sooner than you expect, he would become your husband. Isn't the ceremony in a matter of hours?"

The reminder was like a slap to my face and I gritted my teeth, realizing that Rune wasn't someone I could easily reason with. I thought he could be easier to manipulate, but he seems tougher than even Lex.

"I—"

His immediate gaze flickering to the door, and the tightening of his jaw sent shivers down my spine as I realized that I had spent more time than I expected to. The arrogant smirk had vanished, replaced by the cold, calculating instinct of a warlord. He looked back at me, his gaze dropping to my lips for a split second before returning to my eyes.

"Leave this instant," he whispered, his voice a low command.

"But I wasn't done talking," I murmured, refusing to move until I had an answer.

"Get the fuck out of here!" He growled softly, pushing me toward the heavy wooden door. "Before I decide to burn you again."

I didn't need to be told twice. Terrified of the overwhelming intensity in his eyes, and even more of the strange, foreign power sleeping inside my own hands, I turned and slipped out into the shadows of the hallway, running barefoot across the cold tiles to my room which I had deliberately left slightly ajar.

By the time I shut my bedroom door, resting my back against it, my lungs were burning. I held my hands up in the dim light of my room. A tiny, faint frost pattern was etched across my skin, slowly fading away as my body temperature stabilized.

"What am I?" I murmured to myself. "And what happened in there?"

It was almost as if I sensed the danger before it came and I felt this energy pulsing through my veins. I thought I was... a wolfless omega.