This was simultaneously the most mind-blowingly incredible and most terribly awful time in Kirastasia’s young life.

Two completely opposite descriptions, true, but the white heiress practically seethed with contradictions. She was coy and flirty, sly as a vixen and airy as a bubble, honey-sweet and venom-bitter. Her heart sang with an aggressive, tireless thirst for freedom, and yet she never felt happier than when she was lazing around doing absolutely nothing. Well . . . lazing around doing Kahlan, more accurately. But she always felt boneless and sleepy afterward, more than pleased to drape herself around her earth-born lover and snooze until the next invigorating wave of lust hit. Oh Kah. Lovely, luminous, luscious Kah. Kirastasia had captured the gentle healer with eyes of purest sunlight at long last. Her goddess. Her muse. The flawless she-wolf her capricious mind kept circling back to like a fish swimming after its own tail, the star she orbited like a lovesick moon. Even now Kira rolled the delectable taste of her schoolgirl crush around on her tongue, a sugary residue like golden syrup between her fangs. Sometimes the reality of her conquest seemed too perfect to be any more than a crazy night’s dream . . . but then the snowbird would groom her plumage and find traces of Kahlan’s perfume woven into the ivory silk of her robes and know with a joyous squeeze of her empty heart that Kah belonged to her. That those sultry evenings spent in each other’s tangled embrace had been more than her lonesome, frustrated fantasies. For the first time since she could remember, Kira was not alone.

That obviously took care of the “mind-blowingly incredible” portion of Kirastasia’s life affairs. Which brought her wandering thoughts back to the not-so-enticing plate of shit rudely placed on the metaphorical banquet table.

The alabaster princess . . . no longer had her crown. She had never actually possessed the title she so arrogantly flaunted; both she and her strange brother Kavik were the product of their monstrous mother’s cunning—an Alpha’s plan to secure power for her own pack. Kirastasia was, bluntly put, a pawn. But her heated blood still bore the mark of not one, but two royal bloodlines, and the amber-eyed lassie had never stopped believing that she deserved all the finer things that such prestige offered. She’d been content to wander in and out of Malignant as she chose, for it was her birth pack and its shaded forests belonged to her more than anyone else. When Carnival had stepped up to take the crown, Kira had allowed her to, fully understanding that the freedom she coveted so much would not be touched. The wanderess had not known how easy she had it. How spoiled she’d been. Not until that pig-headed oaf Lucifer crawled in and—before the girl had even known what was happening—stolen her beloved kingdom.

The darkened halls now teemed with all manner of brainwashed fools lapping at Lucifer’s heels like idiot dogs. Her home, her sanctuary, ruined forever and barred from her grasp. It was as if Malignant were a juicy apple Kira had been tossing idly from hand to hand; she let it fall, and as soon as she reached to pick it up she saw that it had been infested with disgusting ants. A few days ago the snowy damsel had almost made the mistake of trotting over the border, just as she always did, to return to her den. The scent of a legion had so unnerved her that she bolted from the area, skin crawling with the desperate desire to wash the thickness of unseen filth from her spotless pelt. Kira should not have cared as much as she did, not when she’d treated the territory as no more than a place to sleep for so long . . . but the fact that she literally couldn’t take it for granted speared her with agonizing despair. Lucifer hadn’t just robbed her of her home, he robbed her of a freedom. And she loathed him for it.

Trying to keep her mind off of it drove Kirastasia to all manner of creative outlets. She’d regrettably sent Kahlan away to obtain some fresh air; in the grand scheme of things this strategy worked well in Kira’s favor, since Kah always appeared to love her more after she missed the Ice Queen’s presence for a few minutes. Of course, that meant Kira was now alone, and she had to turn to her other past time: vandalism. Pretty polished daggers sawed into new spring grow with a vengeance as she rampaged angrily through the forest. Dainty paws build for sprinting over snowdrifts mercilessly crushed blooming flowers and smeared deep prints into fresh mud. All the while she wore an attractive pout upon her lovely face, the beginnings of a snarl crinkling the bridge of her pert little snout. She adopted an irritating nasal voice, poorly imitating the raven floozy Lucifer had wrapped himself around. “Oh my KIIIIING. How HAAAANDSOME you look today!” Jaws snapped shut on a branch and snapped it clean in half. Her hackles lifted like the feathers of an eagle. “Stupid, idiot, worthless piles of dung.”