SOMETHING IN THE SNOW
Outside, darkness had fallen, with only well-placed torches to give us light. The terrible screech sounded again, echoed by smaller, terror-filled cries from the Palm residents as they scurried for shelter. A flash of red caught my eye, and I grabbed Rhona’s arm as she ran past.
“What’s going on?” I demanded. Even in the flickering torchlight, I could see she was as pale as the snow around us.
“The storm,” she cried. “The storm is coming.” She tugged desperately against me and I released her, more confused than ever.
“What’s going on?” said Rurik, coming to my side. “Are they being raided?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “They keep saying that—”
I heard the roar again and this time its owner came into view. My jaw dropped.
“That’s the storm?” I asked.
If you could take every stereotype and caricature of the abominable snowman and roll them into one archetypal snow monster, you’d have what was standing before me. It was about twenty feet tall, covered in white shaggy fur. Three curved horns—one on each side and one in the forehead—protruded from its head. Its eyes were large and black, as were the six-inch claws on its hands.
When it roared, I caught a glimpse of a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth....
Books by Richelle Mead
The Georgina Kincaid Series
SUCCUBUS BLUES
SUCCUBUS ON TOP
SUCCUBUS DREAMS
SUCCUBUS HEAT
SUCCUBUS SHADOWS
SUCCUBUS REVEALED
The Eugenie Markham/Dark Swan Series
STORM BORN
THORN QUEEN
IRON CROWNED
SHADOW HEIR
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
SHADOW HEIR
Richelle Mead
ZEBRA BOOKS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
SOMETHING IN THE SNOW
Books by Richelle Mead
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Copyright Page
For my brother Steve,
who helps keep our family on track.
Acknowledgments
Bringing Eugenie’s story to a close is bittersweet. She was my first real action heroine—and a fellow redhead to boot. I’ve had a great time writing her series and am grateful to all the friends and family who have loved me, supported me, and helped me come up with new and terrifying monsters for her to take down! Many thanks go to editor John Scognamiglio at Kensington, who took the chance on Eugenie and helped bring her story to print. Thank you also to my amazing literary agent, Jim McCarthy, for guiding these books every step of the way. And finally, I can’t say enough how grateful I am to all the fans that have followed Eugenie on her journeys in both worlds. Your enthusiasm is what continues to make writing such a joy for me.
Chapter 1
I’m sure Ohio’s a perfectly nice place, once you get to know it. For me, right now, it was akin to one of the inner circles of Hell.
“How,” I demanded, “can the air possibly contain this much moisture? It’s like going swimming.”
My sister, walking beside me in the late-afternoon sun, grinned. “Use your magic to push it off you.”
“Too much work. It just keeps coming back,” I grumbled. Jasmine, like me, had been raised in the dry heat of Arizona, so I couldn’t understand why she didn’t have the same revulsion I did to the monsoon conditions of high summer in the Midwest. We both wielded weather magic, but hers was focused primarily on water, so maybe that explained her blasé attitude. Maybe it was just the resilience of youth, seeing as she was about ten years younger than me. Or maybe, just maybe, it was because she wasn’t nearly five months pregnant and hauling around an extra ten pounds or so of offspring who seemed intent on overheating me, sucking my resources, and pretty much slowing down every goddamned thing I did.
It was also possible hormones were making me a little irritable.
“We’re almost there,” said a polite voice on the other side of me. That was Pagiel. He was the son of Ysabel, one of the bitchiest gentry women I knew—and she didn’t even have excess hormones as an excuse. Pagiel hadn’t inherited his mother’s personality, thankfully, and possessed a knack for crossing between the Otherworld and the human world that rivaled mine and Jasmine’s. He was roughly the same age as her, and the fact that I had to have a teenage escort to get me to my doctor’s appointments only added insult to the many injuries I’d endured these last few months.
A block ahead, the Hudson Women’s Health Clinic stood among its carefully pruned pear trees and neat rows of geraniums. The business was right on the line of the commercial and residential zones of the city and tried to give the appearance that it was part of the latter. It wasn’t the pretty landscaping that made me keep coming back to this sauna, walking half a mile each time between the Otherworldly gate and the clinic. It wasn’t even the medical care, which was fine as far as I could tell. Really, when it came down to it, this place’s biggest appeal was that so far, no one had tried to kill me here.
That cursed wet heat had me dripping with sweat by the time we reached the building. I was used to sweating in the desert, but something about this climate just made me feel sticky and gross. Fortunately, a wave of air-conditioning hit us as we walked through the door. As glorious as it was for me, it was a miracle for Pagiel. I always liked seeing his face when he felt that first blast. He’d grown up in the Otherworld, where fairy—or gentry, the term I preferred—magic could work wonders. He wouldn’t blink an eye at magical feats that would make a human gape. But this? Cold air produced by a machine? It blew his mind every time. No pun intended.
“Eugenie,” said the receptionist. She was middle-aged and plump, with a kindly, hometown air about her. “Back with your family I see.”
We’d taken to passing Pagiel off as our brother, for simplicity’s sake. Really, though, it wasn’t a stretch to imagine us all being related. Jasmine’s hair was strawberry blond, mine a light red, and Pagiel’s a true auburn. We could have done advertising for the National Redhead Solidarity Group, if such a thing existed. No one at the clinic ever seemed to think it was weird that I brought my teenage siblings along, so maybe that was normal around here.