I spend several seconds glaring at the treetops and berating myself as they lead me away before I remember.

I am the Night King’s mate. I’m no victim, I’m a survivor, a fighter.

I’m someone’s nightmare.

“Let me go,” I say calmly.

The soldiers ignore me.

“I said, let me go.” This time when I speak, it comes out as a command.

“My lady—” one of them protests.

I begin to glow. “This is not how you treat your king’s mate. You will listen to me, and you will follow my orders.”

Now they do listen to me. Their hands fall to their sides.

I turn around, stalking back to the tree, my skirts swishing around my ankles. “Men,” I call over my shoulder, “leave this place and go find your king. It’s not safe for you here.”

This time, they don’t follow my order. Seconds after I give it, all four remaining soldiers flank me. “We’re not leaving you,” one of them says,

I want to growl at them. Surely they know how dangerous this is for them.

I push my worry and frustration aside. I can only focus on one thing at a time.

Several feet away lies the captured soldier’s sword. I grab it then face off the tree that ate one of Des’s men.

This was a bad day to piss me off.

I pull the sword back like a baseball bat, well aware that this is not how you hold a sword.

One of the soldiers at my back says, “It’s against the law to cut down—”

I swing the blade, embedding it into the tree trunk. With a swift yank, I jar the sword out.

“I’m not cutting the tree down,” I say over my shoulder.

WHACK.

I strike the trunk again.

“I’m saving one of my guards.”

Again I yank the blade from the bark, wood splintering away as I do so.

“There’s a difference.”

There’s not really a difference. Sure, my goal isn’t to cut the tree down, but I probably will chop the fucker down to save this soldier.

The tree moans, and I can hear the neighboring ones hissing at me, some of their branches bending down and swiping at the group of us.

I’m pretty sure I just made enemies with the oaks.

I look over my shoulder at the guards at my back. “Well, are you all going to just stand there, or are you going to help me get your comrade out?”

That’s all the encouragement they need.

What’s left of my guards and I take turns sawing into the tree trunk, bits of bark splintering off with every hit. The tree begins shrieking, the ungodly sound carrying through the woods.

We do this until we see a swath of skin.

The night soldier is still cocooned in vines, his body curled inside the core of the tree.

That is not a sight you see every day.

I drop my sword, and together with my guards we pull out the coughing soldier from the heart of the tree.

He pants, pulling off fine, spindly roots that seem to have wedged their way under his skin and into his veins.

“Thank you,” he wheezes to his comrades, clasping one of them on the shoulder. His eyes move over the group until they find me.

The rescued guard gets up, dusting dirt and bark off of himself. He kneels before me, taking my hand and pressing it to his forehead. “I owe you more than just my allegiance, my queen. I vow that as long as I live, my shield and my sword will protect you. My life is yours.”

Chapter 47

The oak we hacked into is making strange, wheezing noises, and its neighbors have quieted for the moment. The vines that once entrapped the soldier now roll up into the tree’s core, withering away.

The soldiers, meanwhile, are tending to their comrade, leaving me to assess what exactly just happened.

A voice called to me, I saw Des’s likeness, and then two soldiers disappeared, one whom we recovered, the other who is still missing. The sequence of events is hauntingly similar to the tales that have been coming in.

I turn to the other trees that surround us. Never have I been so sick of the color green in my life.

But green isn’t the only color in this forest. Dark blood drips down many of the branches around me, turning the sacred wood into something macabre, something I’d be more likely to see on Memnos, the Land of Nightmares.

An ungodly thought hits me.

The men that are missing …

I stride over to where I dropped the soldier’s sword. Picking it up again, I head to a particularly bloody tree several feet away. Once more I lift the weapon.

“My lady,” the female soldier calls after me, “cutting down one tree to save a soldier is bad enough. To cut down another will be seen as an act of war.”

Too bad for Mara, she already swore an oath of peace with Des’s kingdom.

“I don’t give a fuck what the Flora Queen sees this as.”

I roll my neck, and then pull the sword back and take a swing. The blade embeds itself into the thick trunk, something warm and wet spraying from the wound.

The tree screams—the sound like a pig squealing—as I cut into it.

I yank the blade out of the bark. From the gash, blood oozes.

Bleeding trees. What a grisly, grisly sight.

No one else dares to join me, though they all avidly watch.

I swing again and again, ignoring the strain in my arms. Each successive blow cracks a bit more of the bark, spraying out shards of wood and bits of blood. The tree continues to shriek, its canopy rustling.

I’m covered in gore. It speckles my hair and paints my face, reminding me of that fateful night years and years ago when I stood up to my stepfather … stood up and watched him die.

Slowly but surely the hardened bark of the oak gives way to its soft core. I begin using my claws to rip it away, studiously ignoring the fact that my hands are now coated with blood. With one final rip, I unearth exactly what I feared.

In the heart of the tree, covered in gore and a web of roots, is a sleeping man.

It’s downright spooky, staring into the face of a man who’s been missing for who knows how long, his arms crossed over his chest as though someone laid him out.

Unlike the Night soldier we just retrieved, this man looks like he’s been here a particularly long time. The vines wrapped around him have now fused together, and his long hair is matted to his skin.

Whatever color his uniform originally was, it’s now crimson, steeped in blood. But I don’t need to make out the color of his uniform to figure out which kingdom he belongs to. The curving ibex horns indicate that he’s a Fauna solider.

“There’s a tree cutting party, and I wasn’t invited?” a familiar voice says at my back.

I turn around.

Des leans against a neighboring oak, watching me with those eyes that see everything, his white hair stirring in the breeze.

His arms are folded over his chest, his biceps looking massive and his tattoos particularly menacing. I have to remind myself that the three bronze bands on his other arm are for valor because right now, even clad in fae attire, he simply looks like the Bargainer, the man who strikes deals for gain and breaks bones for slights against me.

“If my mate is going to break the law, she should at least invite me along,” he says, pushing away from the tree.

His face changes seconds later, when he takes in the scene.

“What happened?” Des asks, all humor gone from his voice.

I wipe my bloodied hands off on my dress. “I think I found the missing soldiers.”

Chapter 48

Des disappears, materializing at my side a moment later. He scrutinizes the man sleeping in the tree.