A loud, high-pitched shriek ripped through the snow-covered lawn from inside the castle. The walls trembled, the glass windows rattling against the frames. The snow stacked up against the castle shook, little chunks rolling off. An explosion rattled the walls and then the glass windows of the ballroom exploded into shards.

Sweyn’s screams echoed through the trees.

Pierce and I glanced to each other and then hurried inside before she questioned our delay in arrival. We slipped in through a broken window and hid behind one of the columns near the doors to the ballroom. Vampires lined the walls and huddled behind furniture. Sweyn was on a rampage. She charged through the room, picking up furniture and ripping it to shreds. She smashed one of the columns on the far side, causing part of the ceiling to collapse. With a shriek, she hoisted chunks of marble and stone, then slammed them into the white marble floors, shattering them like glass.

A male with white and red eyes, the mark of a born vampire, hurried to her side with his hands raised. “My lady⁠—”

Sweyn screamed and plunged her nails into his throat. I looked away, burying my face in Pierce’s shoulder. The vampire bellowed but only for a second before his voice gurgled out. Several other vampires gasped sharply, bringing my attention back to them just as they leapt out of her way. Her arms were drenched in blood up to her elbows, dripping rivers from her fingers onto the floor as she moved. She shouted and dove for them, reaching blindly and grabbing whomever had the unfortunate luck of being too close to her.

Pierce gagged, then dragged us farther back into the room, clinging to the shadows.

The ballroom doors flew open and slammed against the walls, the hinges breaking under the force. The Unseelie Prince stormed inside, his black hair shining vibrantly against his now tan skin. “SWEYN!”

But she ignored him. She just kept screaming and cursing. She raced to her own throne and started ripping chunks of glass apart with her bare hands. Words left her lips, but they were too high-pitched to recognize, and I was fairly certain she’d spoken in Unseelie language. She bellowed with rage and threw the glass chunks of her throne, which had to be the size of her head, into the walls. White marble exploded into dust, little chunks dropping to the floor.

“SWEYN!” the Prince snarled. Those new eyes of his sent chills down my spine. They were yellow but the pupils were narrow, vertical slits almost like a cat’s.

Azazel let out a bored sigh, then pretended to look at a watch he wasn’t wearing. He pushed off the column he’d been leaning on. “I have more pressing places to be.”

And then he was gone.