The Winter King (18 page)

Only swift reflexes honed by years of battle saved him. Valik leapt a scant instant before lightning struck the spot he’d been standing. The tent flashed with blinding light, and thunder cracked with earsplitting fury. The canvas caught fire, but pelting rain extinguished it almost as soon as the first flame flickered. Electricity jumped and sparked along the metal binding of the tent pole, then leapt in frenetic arcs towards Khamsin’s body.

Her eyes flew open, shifting silver, glowing as the wild energy surged through her. Her back arched; her hands splayed out, fingertips sparking with flashes of light. The curling, white-streaked strands in her midnight hair began to move, rising as Valik’s had done on invisible bands of energy while a violet glow surrounded her. She wasn’t controlling or feeding the storm any longer, but she was still a lodestone for its energy.

Wynter lunged towards her, but the lightning reached her first. The explosion of it flung him backward with such force that it drove the breath from his lungs. He lay on the tent floor, stunned and gasping as the lightning speared her, filling her slight body with shining light. Another bolt struck, its white-hot charge seeking her out with unerring accuracy.

He lurched to his feet and stumbled out of the tent, summoning his power as he went. He could not control lightning or storms, but by the Frozen Gates of Hel, he could certainly summon enough cold, dry winter to rob this tempest of its fuel. He reached deep into the bottomless well of power that was the Ice Heart, shouting with a mix of pain and defiance as the devastating fury of it ripped through him. His head flung back, his eyes flew open. Power erupted in a shining column, shooting high into the atmosphere. Rain froze and shattered. Water vapor flash-froze to tiny flakes of snow and ice.

He dug deeper into the icy depths of his power, plunging into the abyss, gathering the bitter cold and driving it into the sky like a sword thrust to the storm’s heart. Magic and nature exploded in a collision of power. But a storm—even a great storm—could not sustain itself when robbed of its warmth and moisture. The clouds shrank, bleeding their strength out in showers of brittle snowflakes.

Wynter held the Ice Heart’s dread power with unflinching determination, until the wild, roiling storm transformed to clear, cloudless sky, filled with stars so bright they dazzled the eye and a cold so bitter it sent every man and beast in the encampment running for shelter and the warmth of campfires and huddled bodies. Only then did he release his hold on the magic.

His body felt stiff and hollow. As if there were a terrible, empty void within. Some elusive memory niggled at his mind, some faint alarm whose meaning he could not remember. He turned and stepped back into his tent.

Valik had beat out what flames the rain had not extinguished. Now, shivering violently, he was crouched over Khamsin’s still form. His hands were shaking with cold as he dragged furs and blankets over her to protect her from the dangerous drop in temperature.

“Does she live?” Wynter asked in a voice bereft of emotion. Some part of his brain remembered that Valik was his beloved friend and that the woman lying on the heap of furs was his wife, whom he was pledged to protect. But the memory felt coldly detached, as if the concept of emotion was little more than alien words on a page. He felt . . . dead inside . . . frozen.

Valik turned to look at him, concern etched across his face. “Wyn? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” His vision had changed. Everything seemed paler. Whiter. A red glow emanated from Valik’s chest and radiated outward through his body, down his arms and legs, growing fainter as it extended. Heat bloom. Wynter was seeing the heat of life in Valik’s body.

He glanced down at his own hands and saw white with the barest hint of pink. The girl . . . Khamsin . . . his wife . . . looked white, too, but there was something different about her that he couldn’t define. “Is she dead?”

“What? No. Far from it. I don’t know how she did it, but damned if your Summerlea bride didn’t just use that lightning storm to heal every wound on her body. Here, see for yourself.” Valik moved aside so Wynter could come closer, then hissed in sudden surprise as Wyn drew near. “Thorgyll’s freezing spears! You’re cold as ice!” His body went stiff. His hand fell to the hilt of the sword still strapped to his waist. “Wyn?” he asked again in a cautious, clipped voice. “You all right?”

Wynter ignored him. He crouched down beside the pallet and reached out his hands towards the unconscious woman. Now he understood the difference in her whiteness. It wasn’t the chill of death. It was heat. A concentrated, simmering well of it. So much stronger than what lived in Valik that it glowed bright as day. Not the white of ice, but the white of a blazing summer sun. He could feel it tingling across his palms, thawing his frozen skin. Nerve ends prickled with returning sensation.

He leaned closer and drew a deep breath. His eyes closed as her warmth infused his lungs and drove back the frozen hollowness inside him. “Yes,” he murmured, suddenly weary. “I’m fine, Valik.” He rose to his feet and turned to clap a hand on Valik’s shoulder. “I know what you fear, but for now, at least, there’s no need. Go,” he urged, “get some rest. I’ll stay here with her.”

Valik reached up to cover Wynter’s hand with his own, and enough human warmth must have returned to Wyn’s fingers to reassure him because he nodded, and the rigid, battle-ready tension of his muscles relaxed slightly. “I’ll send someone to repair the tent.”

Wynter glanced up at the scorched holes in the canvas roof where the lightning bolts had shot through. Stars twinkled in the crystalline night sky. The air was still now, with no hint of a breeze. He hadn’t been able to feel the cold in three years, and with the heat radiating from Khamsin’s body, he doubted she would be able to feel it either.

“Leave it ’til morning. We’ll be fine.”

“They can clear up the mess, at least,” Valik insisted. He poked his head outside the tent flap and shouted a series of quick commands. Moments later, half a dozen shivering men gathered up the twisted, melted remains of the growing lamps and everything else that had been damaged in Khamsin’s delirium-induced storm and carted the wreckage out. When they left, much of the tent had been stripped bare.

Wyn waited until they were gone, then arched a brow. “Satisfied?”

“No. But it’ll do for now.” After a last, brief hesitation, Valik bowed and left.

When he was gone, Wynter moved back to the pallet and lay down on the furs beside Khamsin, moving close to the waves of heat emanating from her. The pleasure of that warmth sinking into his flesh was sublime, and so sensual it was nearly erotic. He curled and arm around her waist, threw a leg over hers, and snuggled closer.

Once she was healed, he decided, he would find out exactly how much of the shattering pleasure they’d shared on their wedding night had been real rather than arras-induced.

Khamsin woke to the nip of frost in the air and the heavy, warm weight of furs draped over her. She opened her eyes and glanced around to gain her bearings. She was in a tent. Wynter’s tent, she realized. Only most of the furnishings were gone, and there was a fine layer of frost lying over everything that remained. The tiny ice crystals sparkled in shafts of bright sunlight like the sugar coating of Tildy’s favorite pastry.

Frost? Sunlight?

She sniffed the air and caught the acrid remnants of char. Something had burned, and the scorched smell was familiar. She looked up with burgeoning dread and found bright morning sunlight streaming through dozens of holes in the canvas roof overhead. There were three large, gaping rents, and at least two dozen smaller, coin-sized punctures, all surrounded by a sprinkling of tiny pinpricks. The edges of all the holes were blackened, scorched.

It was as if someone had upended a pail of embers on the roof of the tent. Only she knew no one had. In the way that Wynter could detect the faintest of scents, she could feel the electric echo of lightning. Her lightning.

She’d called a lightning storm down upon this tent. Upon the encampment.

How many men had she killed?

She sat up with a sudden, graceless jolt. The furs covering her body fell away, and she gasped at the slap of freezing air against her naked skin. Naked? She stared down at her bare breasts, the nipples hardened to small, dark points by the cold. Her mind scrambled for the fragments of memories. She’d not felt well. Her back had begun to fester. The last thing she remembered, she’d been riding in the coach, praying for death to end her torment.

Kham reached a hand behind her towards her spine. Fingers fluttered over smooth skin, feeling the small raised ridges of scars but no torn flesh or scabs. She stretched her arms and twisted her back experimentally. There was no pain, not even the twinge of bruised flesh. Her wounds had healed. Completely.

But at what price?

Without warning, the tent flaps parted. Cold air swirled in. Khamsin gasped and slapped her hands over her breasts just as Wynter ducked into the tent, a steaming kettle in one hand and a cloth-covered pot of something that smelled delicious in the other.

All worry over what she might have done evaporated in an instant. Her mind went blank. Her mouth went dry. She couldn’t have moved if her life depended on it.

He was nearly naked. Bare-armed, bare-chested, with shoulders so broad and arms so powerful, he looked like he could bear the weight of the world. Over seven feet of impressive golden muscle, clad in nothing but a grayish white, animal-pelt loincloth and a pair of furred boots strapped to rock-hard calves. Silvery white hair spilled down his back and over his shoulders like a snowfall. The air outside was frigid, but he seemed not to notice it at all. His vivid eyes, pale and piercing, fixed on her with breathtaking intensity.

“You’re awake.” The look in those eyes made Khamsin shiver and squirm. She’d always thought herself immune to the intense sensual passions that afflicted most Summerlanders. Until now. Just the sight of him made her body melt as if she’d eaten arras straight from the tree.

The flare of his nostrils and the faint, satisfied curve that lifted one corner of his mouth told her he knew it.

Damn him for finding it so amusing. And damn her for not being able to look away.

“Where are we?” she asked, forcing a coolness she was far from feeling.

“About two hundred miles south of the Rill. We set up camp here when you fell ill.”

The Rill was the border river that separated Wintercraig from Summerlea. If they were still two hundred miles away, they’d barely traveled ninety miles north of Vera Sola. “How long have we been here?”

“This is the fifth day. The night before last, your fever came to a head. You’ve been sleeping ever since.”

He walked towards her. She stared, fascinated, at the ripple of muscle in his legs and the hard, carved definition of his chest and flat abdomen. The front of his loincloth bore a very distinctive, very large bulge. She licked her suddenly dry lips. The bulge twitched and grew visibly more pronounced. Oh. My.

“Have a care, woman.” His voice was a low, throbbing growl. It vibrated across her skin and raised the fine hairs on the back of her neck. “If you didn’t need food more than I need a good fucking, I’d flip you over right now and fill you ’til you scream and beg for mercy.”

She should have been shocked by his raw coarseness. Spring and Summer would have gasped in outrage. Autumn would have slapped his face. But she, wild, mannerless heathen that she was, only shuddered with helpless lust. Images from her wedding night flashed across her mind on a hazy rush. Silken skin, unexpectedly soft and fragrant, sliding against hers. Broad hands skimming across her, touching her in ways that made her gasp and quake. A burning mouth, raining fire upon her flesh.

She wrenched her thoughts to the present and her eyes away from all that dangerous, seductive skin and that impressive jut of flesh straining against his loincloth. She forced her gaze back up to his face.

Then wished she hadn’t. The look in his eyes was stark and stunning, as powerful and elemental as any storm she’d ever conjured from the skies.

His gaze dropped lower, and she could have sworn blue flames leaped to life in the center of his eyes. She glanced down and realized her hands had slipped from their protective clasps over her breasts. The burnished bronze of one nipple was peeking out between her fingers.

She gasped and snatched a fur, bringing it up to cover herself.

“Don’t.”

The simple command made her freeze. Then scowl. She cast him a defiant glance and pulled the fur higher.

“We both know I’m only going to take it from you before you leave this tent.”

She’d never backed down from a challenge in her life. Not even when retreat served her best interests. Her fingers tightened around the pelt, and she arched one dark brow in return. “You can try, Winterman.”

“I’ll do more than that, Summerlass.” He drew closer and sank to his knees beside her in a single, fluid motion, setting pot and kettle on the ground before him. The long, thick muscles in his thighs bunched and flexed as they absorbed his weight. He smelled of wind and snow, fresh and clean and brisk. Power, a mix of magic and male, swirled around him with dark mystery, deepening his scent with an underlying core of danger. Even without his magic, he would be a formidable man. One to be wary of.

“Here.” The rounded top of the kettle was a removable bowl. He plucked it free and poured a stream of steaming liquid into it, then offered it to her. “Drink. You’ve been too long without food. And be careful. It’s hot.”

The liquid was a rich brown broth of some kind, and the scent of it made Khamsin’s stomach growl. Suddenly, she realized how famished she truly was. Securing the pelt beneath her armpits, she reached for the bowl and brought it to her lips. The first sip nearly scalded her, but pride wouldn’t let her gasp and fan her mouth to cool the sting.

He removed a cloth from the pot to reveal a deliciously scented, stewed meat of some kind. “This is
borgan,
” he said. “A mix of venison, wild boar, and fowl, flavored with basil, wild onion, and sweetberry and stewed until the flesh falls apart.” A small spoon hung from the edge of the pot. He freed it and handed it to her. “It’s flavorful, but easy to digest. Try a bite.”