Within minutes, the snowstorm outside was starting to rebuilt the wall covering the cave’s entrance. In an hour or so, it would be completely buried again. While his breath smoked before his muzzle in clouds like a dragon’s exhalations, Kershov sat and waited for his chosen victim to awaken.

She didn’t take long. Her blazing eyes made his heart start to shudder again.

Not for the first—or even fifth—time in his life, Kershov questioned the validity of a deity that would grant a bastard like himself access to this pretty flower and yet give her nothing to defend herself. She did not even recognize his infamous mask, something that Ker supposed some wolves used in stories to scare their children with at night. In the back of his mind he wondered if the lass were new to this land, or if Abendrot had fallen so low under the radar that few bothered to fear him anymore. Oh well . . . the white outlaw preferred anonymity. It made his job so much easier.

Standing up, the tiny thing barely came to the level of Kershov’s maw. He blinked down at her quietly, bone-colored hackles stirring with the frigid wind howling into the cave. “We are miles away from where anybody would hear you scream. You may call me ‘sir,’ if you wish. And as for what I want . . .” The arctic vampire tried so hard to keep his voice steady. To speak with utter control, matter-of-fact, not to frighten the poor thing before they’d even begun. Still, a seismic growl thundered in his breast, crawling over every word like the skittering of flesh-eating insects. “You will find out soon enough.”

If Kershov chose to let the Secret Beast out, if he simply relinquished the reins and let it rampage recklessly down its savage path, there wouldn’t be anything left of the delicate little fae. He’d only have her grisly bones to play with, and the Beast wasn’t interested in playing. It wanted teeth pulling apart meat, bones crushed between jaws, the sweet release of a an aggressive tempest imprisoned behind frozen bars for years and years and years. But should Kershov destroy this toy so quickly, he’d have to find another . . . and another . . . until all the free game was used up, and pack wolves started to notice the shortage. Ker knew he had to grant his inner demon some sort of freedom, yet that viciousness had to be tempered. He had to make this girl last. Right now, she was his only salvation. His precious angel. Deliverance.

“I will not apologize, little miss, because I do not feel sorry for what I am going to do . . . so instead I will offer my most sincere gratitude.” An odd, rare gleam of emotion lit Kershov’s lone black lantern like a single candle flickering weakly in total darkness. There was that unwelcome pressure again, looming in his chest like a solid ton of slicing glass shards, all at once heavy and aching. For so long the winter monster had been an empty thing, a machine that looked out at the world with eyes as expressionless as mirrors. And now he felt—yes, that was what it was, “felt”—something terrifyingly close to pity for the girl. It made him sick to his stomach. He took a breath and released it in a sigh, gentle as snow sliding off a branch. “Thank you.”

Both of his giant forepaws hopped off the ground and slammed into the girl’s side like a polar bear pouncing on ice, trying to knock her to the floor in one swift move. From there Kershov straddled her, sturdy stilts forming a four-barred prison about her prone body, clenched teeth hovering over her throat. “Start counting backward from one thousand,” he ordered, lyrics shredding out in a snarl. Then his knives were at her right forelimb, cutting so deep he had to purr at the savory tang of blood on his tongue. A contraction of muscles, and Kershov abruptly pulled upward and back, dislocating her slender silver leg with a gut-churning crunch. Seconds later he’d repositioned himself at her hindquarters. He grabbed her ankle and repeated the process, yanking in one clean jerk to pop her hip out of place. She might escape limping on three legs, but two was hard for even a veteran soldier. “Are you counting?”