Chapter One
Tamani pressed his forehead against the chilly windowpane, fighting back a wave of exhaustion. Sleep wasn’t an option, not while the only thing between him and an angry Winter faerie was a thin line of table salt.

Tonight, he was Fear-gleidhidh twice over.

The old word was one he normally wore with pride. It marked him as Laurel’s guardian, her protector. But it had a richer meaning, one that went beyond the more traditional Am Fear-faire. Fear-gleidhidh meant "warden," and Tamani was charged with not only keeping Laurel safe but making certain she accomplished the mission Avalon had given her as a child.

Now he played prison warden too.

He looked over at his captive. Yuki’s chair sat on the scuffed linoleum in the middle of a thick circle of white, granular salt. She slept, her cheek resting on her knees, hands remained cuffed loosely behind her. She looked uncomfortable. Beaten.

Harmless.

“I would have given up everything for you.” Her voice was hushed but clear.

Not sleeping after all. And she could never be harmless, he reminded himself. The small white flower blooming from the middle of her back, marking her a Winter faerie, was proof enough of that. It had been over an hour since David cuffed her to the chair—an hour since Chelsea had exposed the irrefutable proof that she was, in fact a Winter faerie—and Tamani still hadn’t gotten used to the sight. It filled him with an icy fear he had rarely felt before.

“I was ready. That’s why I stopped you before you brought me inside.” Yuki looked up and unfolded her legs, stretching as best she could under the circumstances. “But you knew that, didn’t you?”