The Winter King (19 page)

She was too hungry to refuse. She dipped the spoon into the
borgan
and brought it to her mouth. The meat was meltingly tender and slightly sweet. “It’s delicious,” she said, dipping her spoon a second time.

Wynter sat back and watched her eat. He missed nothing. Not the graceful play of her slender fingers. Not the way her pretty lips closed around the spoon or her fluttering pleasure as the sweet flavors of the
borgan
burst on her tongue.

The sight of her made his cock twitch. Ah, gods, he lusted. The need so fierce it was a living thing inside him, a hunger like nothing he’d ever felt before. Not for just any woman. His hunger had a name: Khamsin Coruscate Atrialan, his wife.

Her hair spilled in unkempt ringlets down her back, threaded with those shots of white that fascinated him so. The warm brown skin of her bare shoulders and neck was creamy smooth, the delicate bones more pronounced after her days of illness, lending her a frail air.

She was fragile. He knew she didn’t think so. Many fools might agree with her, because her spirit was so fierce she seemed more formidable than she was. But he could crush her bones to dust with one glancing blow.

He remembered the cold fury that had filled him the morning after their wedding, when he’d seen the state of her back and realized the crime her father had done against her. He could still feel the icy rage that made him want to flay the skin from Verdan’s bones in retribution and freeze his bloodied corpse in a block of ice so thick he would never thaw, so he would remain an eternal warning to corrupt cowards who would turn their gods-given strength against the women and children they were born to protect.

“How many men died?”

The sound of Khamsin’s voice ripped him out of his dark thoughts. He realized he was still kneeling there beside her, his hands gripped in bloodless fists against his thighs, his muscles bunched tight with suppressed fury. A distinct chill was emanating from him. “What did you say?” he asked.

“When I summoned the storm that caused that”—she jerked her chin up, towards the tattered canvas roof overhead—“how many of your men did I kill?”

He glanced up, then back at her. Perhaps if he had never swallowed the Ice Heart, he would not have recognized the look in her eyes. But he had, and he’d lost count of the times he’d come back from battle with that same bitter dread in his eyes, wondering how many friends his power had slain, how many innocent lives were extinguished because of him.

“None, Khamsin. All live.”

Her eyes widened. “None? But how is that possible? I know what my storms can do, and judging by the state of this tent, the storm I summoned was a bad one.”

“It was a bad one,” he agreed, “but I stopped it.”

“You—” Her voice broke off, then she whispered in astonishment, “How?”

“I starved it into submission.” Her brow furrowed, her gray eyes filled with disbelief and suspicion. “I use the Ice Heart to steal its heat and moisture,” he explained, “so it had nothing to feed on. It died away before it could harm anyone.”

“You . . .” She closed her mouth. He saw her absorb what was obviously an astonishing possibility, saw wary disbelief battle the fragile bloom of hope in her eyes. “No one’s dead? No one’s even harmed? You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“I—” She dropped her head, lashes shuttering down to veil her gaze. Her jaw worked. When she finally spoke, her voice was a low, strained whisper. “Thank you.” She looked up suddenly, her eyes fierce. “Thank you,” she said again. This time her voice was firm and fervent. “You don’t know how much that means to me.”

He smiled sadly because he’d only just realized what similar creatures they truly were. “Yes,
min ros,
I think I do.” Like him, she despised the destruction she wreaked. The difference was, he’d chosen to wield his deadly magic. She’d possessed hers since birth.

He rose to his feet. He wanted to comfort her but knew enough about wild things not to be so foolish. “No doubt you’d like a bath.” He didn’t give her a chance to refuse. He simply stepped outside and motioned to his men. She’d been asleep for one full day, out of her mind with fever for three days before that. He’d never met a noblewoman yet who could stand to go so long without the feel of warm water and soap against her skin.

Khamsin, still sitting on the pallet of furs and clutching several of the pelts to her chest, scuttled back when four soldiers entered carrying in a large, beaten-copper tub. They set it near the fire burning in the iron stove and left. Another four men entered, carrying pails of steaming water. They formed a line leading out through the tent flap. Outside a longer line wound all the way to the large cookfires burning in the center of the camp. Pail after pail of water passed down the line until the tub was well filled. The last of them handed Wynter a stack of linens and a small wooden pail filled with soap, a bottle of fragrant oil, and a washcloth.

Wynter found himself fighting back flares of aggression as he waited for them to finish. The wolf in him was getting snarly about having so many men near his female.

When he was finally alone once more with his wife, the tension of Wynter’s protective, territorial instincts faded, but a new tension, sultry and simmering, rose to take its place. He reached for the bottle of oil, unstoppered it, and poured a thin stream into the bath. The scent of mountain jasmine rose up on wisps of curling steam.

“Come, wife.” He stretched out a hand towards her. “To your bath.”

She didn’t move. She continued to clutch the pelt to her chest as if she truly thought he would let her leave this tent before he reacquainted himself with every inch of her skin, every intimate detail of her body, and every breathless nuance of her pleasure. He had an heir to sire, both to ensure the continuation of his line and to free him from the Ice Heart, but even without that, from the moment he’d realized his wife was the intriguing little firebrand he’d not been able to erase from his mind, he’d known he would spend every day of the next year learning her pleasure and teaching her his.

It began now.

“Come,” he said again. “I’ve already acquainted myself with everything you’re trying to hide. I’ve spent the last several days nursing you back from the brink of death, tending every need of your body. There is no part of you I have not seen.”

“That is different,” she snapped. “I wasn’t aware of what you were doing.”

“And what of our wedding night? You were aware then. I drank the same arras you did, but I still remember everything. I remembered learning the taste of your skin on my tongue, the weight of your breasts in my hands, the feel of your sex gripping mine. I know you remember it, too. There is no place between us for false modesty.”

She still didn’t move. “I am not bathing with you here, and that is final.”

“You will,” he corrected. “If I have to strip those pelts from you and drop you kicking and screaming into the tub, you will.”

Her eyes narrowed, beginning to swirl with silver. “You. Wouldn’t. Dare.”

“Oh,
min ros,
I would.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Wrestling a beautiful, naked woman out of her furs and into her bath? What Winterman worth his stones would pass up a chance like that?”

“I’ll fry you before you lay a finger on me.”

It was all he could do not to laugh at her outraged expression. She was so fierce for such a tiny woman. Rebellious, headstrong, and so sure of her own power. She probably thought she could take on Frost Giants single-handedly. She definitely thought she could best
him.

She couldn’t. Her power, no matter how impressive, was no match for the Ice Heart. Trouble was, he didn’t want to force her. Her father had already brutalized her enough for two lifetimes. Besides, he wanted her bathed, yes, but afterwards he wanted a warm, sweet-smelling,
willing
woman in his arms, not an angry firebrand determined to shoot a lightning bolt up his tender bits.

“I hadn’t thought you such a faithless coward. You are a princess of the Summer Throne, wedded Queen of the Craig, and my wife. You swore an oath, before a priest and your father’s court, to accept my counsel and my care. You swore to offer me all the fruits of your life. And now, you would deny me that which you swore to offer? Do you have so little honor?”

The accusation stole the silver from her eyes, leaving them pure, plain gray filled with shock and dismay. “I . . . No! Of course not! I’m no oathbreaker.”

“Then come to your bath. Accept my care, as you swore you would. Offer me the fruits of your life, that I may dine once more on peace instead of war.”

C
HAPTER 9

A Fragile Truce

She’d been outmaneuvered.

She knew it, and the brief flash of triumph that lit his pale eyes when she rose to her feet confirmed it.

But what was a woman of honor to do? He’d used the one weapon against which she had no defense. She’d sworn an oath. He demanded she fulfill it. Even Roland would have laid down his weapons and accepted defeat under such circumstances.

Her chin came up. Very well, then. She’d known this time would come. She’d known from the moment he had not slain her for her deception, that he would demand she fulfill the obligations of their marriage. And by agreeing to wed him, she had accepted his right to claim and use her body for his pleasure and the conception of his heirs.

He’d not been an unkind lover that first night. Driven, yes, but except for that first, wild coupling, he hadn’t just leapt on her, shoved her legs apart, and stabbed. Even burning with arras, he’d taken the time to ensure her pleasure her first.

Of course, he’d still believed she was Autumn then.

She walked towards the copper tub with its swirling cloud of jasmine-scented steam, towards the man she had accepted as her husband and king. The pelt still clutched in her hand covered her from breast to knee, shielding her from his view but leaving her back bare. Chill air whispered across naked skin, underscoring her vulnerability.

He watched her approach, his unblinking stare cold as ice yet, paradoxically, where it touched her body, her skin felt hot and tingling.

At the tub, she stopped and gathered her courage. His gaze never wavered. He was waiting to see if she was a woman of her word, all but challenging her to prove her cowardice. Her chin lifted and she met his fixed stare with a haughty, defiant one of her own.

She had come. She would obey. But she was neither cowed nor coward.

Khamsin forced her fingers to open and her hands to fall to her sides. The fur slid down her body. It whispered with tormenting friction across the tips of her breasts, then spilled down in a puddle at her feet. Cool air swirled around bare flesh. Already-tight nipples drew even tighter. Her muscles began to shiver, tiny uncontrollable tremors that had less to do with the cold of the air than the sudden flare of heat in Wynter’s eyes.

His gaze swept over her with near-tangible intensity, and she was glad she’d waited until she’d reached the tub before releasing the pelt. He had a clear view of her breasts, but little else. Still, that was enough in its own right. The touch of those bright, piercing eyes felt like physical hands skimming across her flesh.

“Your bath, my queen.” His voice had gone low, and a raspy edge had further deepened it so that his words came out on a rumbling growl.

Her shivers intensified. Summer Sun, what was it about him that drove all reason from her?

Bath, Khamsin,
some tiny, still lucid part of her mind urged her.
Get in the bath.

With some effort, she tore her gaze from Wynter and glanced down, then frowned in consternation. The copper tub had been made to fit Wynter’s near-giant height. The edge of the rim reached higher than her waist, and there were no chairs or stools for her to use as stepping blocks.

“Come here,” he commanded in that soft, low growl of a voice, “and I will help you in.”

“
Come nearer, and I will help you,
”
said the wolf to the foolish little lamb.
The words from one of the old fairy fables Tildy used to read to her when she was a child popped into Khamsin’s head, the story of a headstrong little lamb who had so wanted to be free of her belled collar that she’d trusted a wolf’s offer of assistance rather than heeding her instincts and fleeing to the safety of the flock.

Feeling very like the little lamb, Kham silenced the inner alarms clanging their desperate warning and walked with slow deliberation around the perimeter of the tub. As she rounded the curved corner, she lost the last veil of protection hiding her body from Wynter’s gaze.

He examined her with slow deliberation. Pride kept her arms at her side when what she really wanted to do was cover herself and run for shelter. She was slight and had always been. After the last week of illness, she was even thinner now than she’d ever been, but if he found her wanting, he did not show it.

His broad hands slid round her middle, spanning her waist with inches to spare. He lifted her with the barest flex of the heavy muscles bunched beneath his skin, and she rose. When her feet lost contact with the ground, she instinctively clutched his wrists for balance.

Gunterfys.
Giant killer. So, he’d named his sword. Feeling the rock-hard bone and unyielding muscle beneath his golden skin, she had no trouble imagining him battling toe to toe, fist to fist, with those ferocious monsters of the high mountains.

He lifted her higher, up over his head. Her breasts brushed against his chin. Wickedly, he held her there for a moment, letting her breasts dangle the merest breath from his lips, watching her with eyes of ice blue flame.

“Lift your feet, little flower,” he growled. His breath was not hot but cold, yet it swirled around her nipples like a breath of fire, making them leap to aching attention.

She bent her knees and lifted her feet clear of the tub’s edge. A moment later, she was immersed, tingling from neck to toe where the heat of the water penetrated the chill of her skin. Jasmine steam filled her nostrils with heady scent.

He reached for the bar of soap and a scrap of linen, ducking both into the water and rubbing them together. Her eyes widened when he set the soap aside and began to run the foamy cloth over her arm.

“There’s no need for you to bathe me. I can do it myself, or Bella can.”

He gripped her wrist, refusing to let her pull away, and continued to scrub. Hand, fingers, up her forearm. “Bella is gone.”

Kham’s breath stalled. “Gone?” She hardly knew Bella, they’d only been together those few awful first days of travel, but the little maid was all Kham had of Summerlea. A face from home.

“I sent her on ahead to the Craig.” His lips thinned. “I should have sent her packing back to Vera Sola. She was worse than useless. Hiding your illness.”

“On my command.”

His eyes shot up, pinning her with sudden, burning cold. “You think I don’t know that?” He finished with her arm and quickly soaped the other. “If she’d acted on her own to deceive me, she wouldn’t be headed for the Craig. Or still drawing breath.”

He rubbed more soap into the cloth and reached for her breasts. Her hands shot out, one closing around his wrist, the other reaching for the washcloth. “I can do it.”

He pushed past her resistance with effortless strength. “Be silent and be still.” The cloth touched her breast and began scrubbing in small, brisk circles. “I’ve already done more than touch every inch of your body and will do so again. This false modesty has no place between us.” The cloth scrubbing her breasts slowed. His fingers toyed in the slick, foaming suds, sliding over her skin, cupping her breasts. The pads of his thumbs brushed across her nipples, then lingered to tease the small beads that formed in response. “You have beautiful breasts.”

Her brows drew together. “If there’s no room for false modesty, there’s no room for false compliments either,” she snapped. “I know I’m not beautiful.”

His gaze lifted. “No,” he agreed. “Beauty is too tame a word to describe you.” He held her gaze for a long moment, and it wasn’t until he turned his attention back to her breasts that she realized she’d forgotten to breathe. “But these,” he murmured, filling his palms with the weight of her breasts, “are indeed beautiful. Perfect. You don’t know how much I’ve thought about them. About the way they fit in my hands.” Her nipples tightened to tiny pebbles. He smiled a little before coolness shuttered his expression once more. “Stand.”

Forcing her hands to remain at her side, she obeyed. Her chin lifted and she refused to look at him as he soaped her abdomen, her hips, her legs.
Think of him as a servant, Kham. A woman servant.
His hands slid up the backs of her legs and stroked her inner thighs.
An old, wrinkled woman servant,
she added frantically.

But the broad hand that slipped between her legs was so large and strong and masculine, she couldn’t hold the other images no matter how hard she tried.

Summer Sun! The cloth stroked back and forth between her legs, and there was nothing impersonal or servile about it. Each pass was a languid caress, slow, teasing. Testing. The cloth shifted, and then it was his fingers that stroked her, skin to skin, slick with soap and the warm, feminine cream that betrayed her will.

She sat down with a splash and glared at him.

His lips curved. “As I said, I’ve touched you before and will again. And you aren’t half so indifferent to me as you’d like to pretend,
eldi-kona.
” He shifted from a kneel to a half crouch. The muscles in his thighs and belly rippled with fluid, powerful grace as he moved behind her.

His brief humor faded, replaced by a sudden, icy chill. The bathwater dropped several noticeable degrees.

“Stop,” she complained. “You’re freezing my bath.”

“You should have told me what he’d done to you.” She heard the scowl in his voice. “On our wedding night, you should have told me.” His hands touched her back. She felt the slight tremble in his fingers as he traced the path of her father’s cane. “You made a brute of me, when I would not have been one if I’d known.”

She turned her head and glanced over her shoulder at him. “You would not have consummated the marriage.”

“No.”

“That’s why I didn’t tell you.” She turned back around. “You would have found out I wasn’t Autumn, and you would have annulled the marriage. You wanted a Season for a wife, not me.”

He didn’t say anything. He merely began scrubbing her back in silence.

What had she expected? For him to claim that, no, he was happy with the wife he’d gotten? Her jaw firmed. Her chin lifted. “Besides,” she declared, “why would you care if you hurt me or not? From what I heard, you’ve vowed to turn me out into the mountains unless I bear you an heir in a year’s time. That’s not exactly the claim of a caring man.”

“Did your father tell you that?”

“What does it matter who told me? Is it true?”

He tossed the soapy cloth aside, snatched up the small wooden pail, and filled it with warm bathwater. “Close your eyes,” he warned the barest instant before he upended the pail over her head. He doused her again two more times.

“Is it true?” she asked again.

He reached for the flagon of gelled hair soap, poured a thick stream of the fragrant, viscous liquid into his palm and worked it into her curls. “I need an heir. I cannot afford unnecessary delay in getting one. Too much is at stake.”

She knew ensuring a clear succession to the throne was no small matter. The stability of entire countries depended on it. History books were filled with tales of kingdoms torn apart by civil wars sparked by kings who died without leaving an undisputed heir.

She twisted around to see his face. “And if I don’t provide one within the year, you will turn me out into the mountains to die?” she prodded.

He didn’t say yes straight out. All he said was, “If you don’t provide me an heir, I must take another wife,” but she knew what he meant.

She turned away so swiftly, the bathwater sloshed over the rim of the copper tub. She stared, unseeing, at the miniature tempest of waves crashing against her kneecaps.

It was true then. She dragged in a shallow breath and let it out. She had wedded and bedded an enemy king. And if for some reason she did not or could not bear him a child within the next twelve months, he would slay her.

“Well,” she said. Thoughts spun in a dizzying whirl, all of them moving too quickly to grasp except for one:
If you don’t provide me an heir, I must take another wife.
Her mind supplied the unspoken meaning:
If you don’t provide me an heir,
you must die
so I can take another wife.

She slid down beneath the surface of the water, submerging herself completely. The lather in her hair streamed out in frothy currents. She ran her fingers through the tangle of floating curls to rinse out the hair soap, then grabbed hold of the tub rim and stood. Water sluiced down in sheets, splashing into the tub in a dozen noisy streams. She scarcely noticed it.

“Well,” she said again, turning to him and tipping back her head to meet his gaze. “As the begetting of an heir holds such dire import, I suggest we get to it.”

His eyes narrowed, surprise warring with suspicion.

She lifted her arms and made her meaning more clear. “Help me from the bath.” The motion lifted her breasts as well, and that caught his eye. His nostrils flared, quivering slightly as he drew in her scent, then his gaze rose back to her.

“Grown bold?”

“Bold, I’ve ever been,” she corrected. “It’s practical I sometimes lack.”

His hands reached out to clasp her waist, and he lifted her high as he’d done before, over his head. Beads of water dripped from her hair and breasts onto his face like a light rain.

“Put me down. I’m getting you wet.”

He grinned with unexpected humor. “Aye, you are, and you’ll get me wetter still before we’re done, Summerlass.” The grin turned slow and lazy and full of simmering heat that made her heart skip. He opened his mouth to catch a falling drop of water, then he tilted his chin up and licked the moisture directly from her breasts.

The sensation was indescribable. The chill of the air, the hot rasp of his tongue, followed by a deeper, more erotic chill as he blew cold across her mouth-warmed flesh, making her nipples pucker tight. Then heat again as he closed his mouth over her skin and drew the tight bud deep into his mouth. Tongue and teeth and heat and cold worked sensual magic on her skin until her entire body drew as tight and aching as the breast he held claim in his mouth.

“Wrap your legs ’round my waist,” he growled against her damp skin, as his tongue drew a burning line from one breast to the other.