His ears flicked back at the sound of his name. He recognized the voice faintly—too faintly to name the speaker without seeing her, yet knowing beyond any reasonable doubt that he had met this fae before. And he didn’t like her. At all. A snarl was already warping Kershov’s ravaged mask before his mind had even begun to imagine the nervous light of her mismatched eyes, the submissive bow of her spine, the soft sandiness of her fur as it spiked in fear of the sight of him, the same fur that carried the damnable stench of Bright Moon in every follicle and lock. His obsidian stare narrowed, the picture in his mind’s eye vivid enough to inspire rage despite the fact that he hadn’t yet turned around to really catch a glimpse of the girl foolish enough to speak his name. “Venga,” Kershov purred in a voice edged with the ragged beginnings of a snarl, black gaze still trained on the vast white horizon ahead. His tail gave a friendly wave—though the needle-sharp spiking of his hackles betrayed any savage intent the Snow King wished to hide. “A pleasure to run into you. Shame that such happy happenstance will never happen again.”

He pivoted around wearing a maniacally charming mask, ears perked and alert and the handsome half of his muzzle curled in a mischievous grin. His banner continued its frivolous wagging: the tick of a metronome counting the seconds until—no, no, not murder, not yet, Kershov would give the girl some time to really savor the tense strangeness of this conversation before he did anything rash. “What do you think dear Tamlin would think of you coming to talk to the big bad tyrant of Abendrot, hmm? You’ll start another irritating mess, don’t you think?” She had asked if he felt “pissy.” Ha. What a lark. Kershov didn’t get “pissy”—he got PISSED, somewhat similar to how he felt this very moment and the moment right before Venga had decided to show up and start a conversation as if they were old friends. Who precisely did this bird think she was speaking to? She hadn’t given him the damn time of day they’d first met.

The alabaster Alpha dipped his head as if suddenly chagrinned at his behavior, although the action was truly carried out to hide the smirk slicing toward his cheekbone. His tongue darted out to slick over the permanently exposed teeth gleaming from the right side of his muzzle. Scars pulled wickedly over the bridge of his snout before Ker finally composed himself enough to lift his skull. He treated Venga to a vaguely apologetic display and then proceeded to slowly stalk from his position between the stones, walking in an arc around the sandy lass so that he was in her vision at all times—but only if she turned her head to keep him in her sights. All the while, Kershov breathed deep and calm: containing his emotions while trying to sniff out a possible ambush.

“Honestly, I’m surprised Tamlin let you out on your own at all. I thought he was nursing this irrational fear that Abendrot wanted to eat all his soldiers? Poor simpleton. As if we’d deign to choke down any measly scrap of your Bright Moon carcasses.” Kershov peered at Venga from the corner of his shadow-dark glare, gauging her reaction. “Isn’t he trying to keep all of you safe in that ridiculous kingdom of yours? Aren’t any of you walking around with supervision? Tammy must be quite busy if he doesn’t have the time to keep track of his soldiers . . .”

The falsely amicable act dropped from Kershov and cracked into pieces on the ice-slaked rock beneath his feet. He glowered at Venga with a deadpan, predatory expression: a raptor that had not only sighted the mouse it wanted—but knew beyond any doubt that the mouse was going to die. “You didn’t think I’d play nice, did you?”