Kershov should not be here.

He knew exactly what would happen the moment he stepped into the entrance of the cave, when his eyes fell upon the old claw marks and the dark, sinister spatters that stained the stone. A ringing trembled in his ears, and the arctic monster knew it was just his mind . . . but he couldn’t help flattening his auds against his crown as if to block out the ragged reverberations of a long, unending scream. One massive paw reached out to trace a smear of flaking brown-red paint; he flinched—the memory of its warmth abruptly too real and too powerful for him to ignore. Weeks of subzero temperatures and insidious winds had erased all scent from this cell, yet Kershov found himself gagging on the stench of old blood and matted fur, the ghostly echoes of an agonized shriek growing louder and more powerful within his skull, and a terrible hopeless rage arched up from the scratched stone floor and buried itself in the constricting cage of his chest—

“Enough.”

The single, quiet word was enough to break Kershov from his own spell. Without hesitation the massive beast pivoted and exited the cave, marching back down the way he came without a backward glance. He channeled the sickening anger that roiled in his gut through his paws and crushed it with each step. He breathed deeply, levelly, using the frost in the air to clear the black oil from his brain. Eventually the hollow howling of wind swooping by frigid cliffs drowned out the lingering notes of torment. Inhale. Exhale. And the mad king was sane again.

After Scarlet Nights had disappeared, Kershov found himself shuddering on the edge of another mental precipice. He recalled—with visceral vividness—the depth to which he’d fallen the first time she left without a trace. His thoughts had fractured—and with them, the careful infrastructure of his self-control. Gone were the walls that penned his overwhelming savagery. The chains holding his inner beast had shattered like glass, setting it free to rampage with reckless abandon throughout Ker’s once tightly regulated system. The white warrior had always held the capacity for mindless violence; chaos at such a scale would surely mean the destruction of not only himself but all that had had worked so hard to achieve. The monster he imprisoned did not care whom it hurt. It did not distinguish between friend or foe. Kershov’s secret beast thrived on the heat of blood and the rush of dominance—all were prey in its pitiless eyes. Lately Abendrot’s Alpha had been able to re-cage the thing he feared most. No longer did he feel the necessity of removing himself from his pack to save them from his blind hunger. But that had been while Scarlet Nights slept by his side . . . and she was missing, again and so he faced another possible slip from which he may never recover.

Considering his situation, the worse possible action would be to seek out stimuli that would trigger another ruthless spree. So what did Kershov do? Why, hike up to the mountains, up toward the cave he’d held a female prisoner in for more than a week—a dungeon that contained his sins. He had not forced himself on her in the traditional sense a male might force himself upon a fae; no, the tundra dragon had merely used her as a punching bag, torturing her in ways that would have meant her death had Kershov not known how to deliberately prolong her life. He snarled quietly to himself, thinking of it. What a pointless waste of time! What a humiliating lapse in judgment! But it was either her, or his pack . . . and Kershov would always choose the life of one over the collective lives of his army.

Drawing away from the clandestine site, the mountain was actually quite beautiful. Fresh layers of snow glittered with blinding brightness beneath a luminous sky of pearlescent greys and smoky hues. Everything was pale, pristine, perfect . . .

It was easy to spot the femme poking her snout across a precipice. The onyx weaving of her hide distinguished her starkly against the landscape.

Kershov’s heart skipped a beat. He waited for the spike in emotion that signaled the monster’s approach. They were alone, with no witnesses, in a secluded environment . . . but his beast did not rise to the temptation. Satisfied, the Alpha swallowed another snarl and began to walk quietly toward the girl.

“Counting caribou?” The question was softly spoken, no more above a murmur: it didn’t need to be louder when surrounded by such thick silence. Kershov’s gigantic paws stopped when he was a few body-lengths away from the lass, far enough that she could run to safety if she chose. “Careful by those cliffs, young lady. That’s an awfully far distance to fall.”