Mag-log inI spent the night drifting in and out of sleep, with my body fighting off the cold that had seeped into my bones.The fire burned high in the hearth, and the blankets were piled thick on top of me, but I could not stop shaking. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the boy sinking beneath the ice, and every time I opened them, I saw Alejandro's face hovering above mine, his golden eyes wide with fear. The memory of his hands on my face and his forehead against mine stayed with me long after he left.He had stayed until I fell asleep. I remembered his hand on my face, the warmth of his palm, and the low rumble of his voice when he said, "Do not ever do that again." Then he was gone, and I was alone, and the room was quiet except for the crackling of the fire and the distant howl of the wind outside.I woke to a knock on the door.It was not Camila's rare soft knock, and it was not a guard's heavy fist. It was something in between, hesitant but d
Three days passed after Camila's warning, and I could not stop thinking about her words. "He will destroy you. Not because he wants to, but because he does not know how not to." They echoed in my head every time I closed my eyes, they followed me through the halls, and they sat beside me in the silence of my room.But Alejandro had stayed. He had put his hand on my back, he had lain beside me, and he had not left even when I fell asleep. That was not nothing. That was something I had never had before, and I did not want to let it go. Every time I started to doubt him, I remembered the warmth of his hand and the low rumble of his voice when he said, "I do not know how to be good, but I am trying."The castle had started to feel less like a prison and more like a place where I might eventually belong. The nobles still whispered when I walked past, and Felipe still smiled with those cold golden eyes, but something had shifted. The guards
The morning after Alejandro stayed in my room, I woke to find him gone.The space beside me was still warm, and the indent of his body was still pressed into the mattress, and I could smell him on the pillows, like snow and smoke and something wild that I was starting to recognize. I lay there for a long time, staring at the ceiling, and I tried to remember the last time I had woken up without fear pressing down on my chest, but I could not remember.But this morning was different. The nightmares had come, and they had been worse than before, but Alejandro had been there. He had put his hand on my back, he had stayed, and he had not left even when I fell asleep again. I did not know what that meant, but I knew that something had changed, and I did not know if that change was good or bad.The fire had been relit while I slept, and the room was warm. The tray of food on the table was fresh. There was bread and cheese, a cup of tea that
I woke up screaming. This time, he was there.The dinner with Alejandro stayed with me long after I returned to my room. His words echoed in my head, and I could still feel the warmth of his golden eyes on my face. I could still hear the low rumble of his voice when he said, "I do not know how to be good, but I am trying." I lay in bed that night with the cloak wrapped around my shoulders and the note still in my pocket. I stared at the ceiling and wondered if I was brave enough to believe him.Sleep came slowly, and when it finally came, it brought the nightmares with it.The dream came without warning, and it swallowed me whole before I could fight it.I was standing in my childhood home again, but this time, everything was wrong. The walls were dripping with water, the floorboards were rotting beneath my feet, and the air smelled like blood and sickness and something else, something that reminded me of death. The cottage that had once been filled with my mother's warmth and the sce
We sat across from each other, and neither of us spoke. The silence was heavier than any words.A servant came to my room the evening after my conversation with Ramona, and she was not carrying the usual tray of bread and cheese.She stood in the doorway with her hands folded in front of her, and she would not look at me when she spoke, like the message she was delivering might get her in trouble if the wrong person heard."The king requests your presence at dinner," she said. "In his private dining room. Just the two of you."I wanted to say no. I wanted to press my back against the headboard and pretend I had not heard her, the way I had pretended so many times when I was a child when something scared me. Hiding had kept me alive, and it had been my shield for as long as I could remember.But Ramona's words were still fresh in my mind, and they echoed in my ears like a bell that would not stop ringing. "You will need to be more than a weakness if you want to survive this place."Hid
I found Ramona in the library the morning after Felipe brought Lady Veronica to the castle.The library was quiet this morning, nothing like the day I had seen Alejandro standing in the shadow of the bookshelf, watching me with those burning golden eyes.Today, the shelves stretched from floor to ceiling in peaceful silence, packed with books so old that their spines were cracked and their pages were yellowed with age. Dust motes floated in the pale light that streamed through the tall windows, and the air smelled of paper and ink and something else, something ancient and forgotten.Ramona was sitting in a tall chair by the window, with an open book in her lap, but her grey eyes were not moving across the pages. She was staring out at the snow, watching the flakes fall against the grey sky, and she looked as tired as I felt. The fire in the hearth had burned down to embers, and the room was cold, even colde
Serena's POV The nobles smiled at me whenever I walked through the halls of the ice Castle, and that was how I knew they wanted me dead, because I had learned to read smiles a long time ago, back when I was a child who needed to know whether the person approaching her was going to hurt her or just
Serena's POV Three days passed while I sat in that room with the fire burning and the snow falling outside the window, and Alejandro did not come near me, did not send word to me, and did not give any sign that he remembered I existed at all.I counted the hours as the sun rose and set behind the
Serena's POV The room had a fire, and that was the first thing I noticed when the guard shoved me through the doorway and closed the door behind me with a click that echoed in my ears like the sound of a cage locking shut.It was a real fire, with logs burning and flames dancing and heat pouring o
Serena's POV I had expected a monster, the kind of monster that lived in the stories my mother used to tell me before bed, with sharp teeth and claws and eyes that glowed in the dark, but when the doors of the throne room opened and the Lycan King Alejandro walked in, I realized that I had been wr







