Winter's Kiss (12 page)

“Hyperion will not tell anyone. He is opposed to the laws.”

Did Winter have an answer for everything? There were
questions she could ask that she knew he wouldn’t be able to answer. Did he love her? If she spoke that question, he would turn quiet, as he had done on all the occasions when he hadn’t had an answer.

Her gaze rose until her eyes met his. He was staring at her now, dark blue eyes looking black in the dim light from the moon. Quiet resolve and confidence filled her. If she didn’t say what was on the tip of her tongue, she would be letting him go without a fight. She would regret it forever.

“I would sooner die than be without you. I want to be yours.” She shook her head, hating how weak she sounded and felt. This wasn’t like her but she felt so tired and cold, so empty and lifeless. Everything that had happened had stripped her strength from her. Tears streamed down her face. “I don’t want to live without you.”

A frown marred his brow and his eyes narrowed, turning warm with affection that melted into pain.

“You will find another to love,” he whispered. She could see the hurt it caused him to say those words. He raised his hand as though he was going to touch her cheek. “I am not worthy of you and I will not risk you.”

She slapped his hand away and slid off the saddle, landing with a harsh thud on the bracken and snow covered ground. A shock jolted up her wounded leg. The pain jarred her enough that she gripped her thigh as she ran. She didn’t know where she was going or why she was
running,
but the moment
Winter
had tried to touch her, she had needed to escape in order to save herself from more pain.

The thundering of hooves made her
run harder
but it was only a matter of seconds before the horse was in front of her and Winter was hauling her back onto the saddle. She flailed her legs and, when he went to wrap his arm around her waist, she punched him as hard as she could across
the face. He dropped her and she collapsed on the floor, her fist stinging. Before he could grab her, she was running again, weaving through the dark trees and heading back towards the village.

She heard him land on the floor and start running after her.

Winter grabbed her wrist. Her breath left her when he slammed her back into a tree. His hands pressed into her shoulders, restraining her. She leaned into the tree, glaring at him, knowing that she wasn’t strong enough to fight him.

“What has got into you!” He snarled the words at her and she noticed his teeth were sharp points.

His eyes narrowed. Long strands of his black hair danced across his face, escaped from his ponytail. The moon made him pale. It made him beautiful. To look at him and know he would never be hers made her heart break, but she couldn’t look away. The tears chased each other down her cheeks in a continuous unrestrained stream. She was too weak to stop them, too weak to fight him as she wanted to, and too weak to look away even though it hurt her to see him now.

Her hands rose and she clutched at her chest as it tightened and stung. Her eyebrows furrowed and sobs wracked her cold body.

Winter shook her, sending tears tumbling down her face. “What’s
wrong?”

Her eyes met his. She felt pathetic for admitting how deeply he affected her but the floodgates were open and there was no holding back now. If she wanted to convince him to stay then she had to say it. He needed to know.

“I don’t want to love anyone else,” she said between sobs
and gasped at air in an attempt to calm herself down. “I’ll never love another and it… it hurts so much… I can’t bear it.”

Hanging her head forwards, she cried harder, her whole body convulsing with each sob. She buried her face in her hands. Winter’s grip on her shoulders loosened and he sighed.

“Do not cry,” he whispered.

She laughed at him for saying something so ridiculous. Her heart was breaking. Her dreams were shattered. Her life was gone. Her family were dead. What else was she supposed to do when the whole world was falling apart?

Her eyes opened and she stared at his boots through her tears. They swam in her vision, wobbling shapes. It even hurt to look at them.

“You took everything from me,” she said on a sigh and drew in another shuddering breath, clawing back control. She didn’t care anymore about how he would react to the things she wanted to say. She had to say them. He needed to know just how much it hurt her to be so close to him and so far away at the same time. “My hopes, my dreams, my love! I’m empty. Alone… leave me alone!”

She shoved him hard in the chest. It must have caught him off guard because he stumbled backwards a few steps before catching her shoulders again and stepping up to her.

“I cannot!” he growled and she flinched away. He took a deep breath and sighed. “I have to protect you… even if it is from myself.”

The world fell silent again, the air heavy with unspoken feelings and hurt. She closed her eyes and her shoulders slumped in resignation.

“I would have let you,” she whispered to his chest, unable to find the courage to look at him.

“What?”

She raised her head a fraction, enough that she was staring at his jaw and could see his mouth on the periphery of her vision. His teeth had been so sharp. Would it have hurt?

“Make me like you. I would have.” Her gaze darted to his for a split second and then back to his jaw where it was safe.

His eyes had held the strangest fire she had ever seen, a volcanic mixture of pain and love, of happiness and misery.

She tensed when he lowered his head and then relaxed into the tree when he gently kissed away her tears, one hand capturing her jaw to hold her still. His kisses were so soft that new tears came, drawn out by the show of affection and the thought that she might never feel anything like it ever again. It was torture. There was no other word for it.

“This does not only hurt you,” he whispered against her skin.

When she raised her mouth to kiss him, he stepped back, his hand falling away from her. His eyes spoke of pain and suffering, pleading.

“I am sorry, Nika, but I cannot.”

She turned her face away and stared into the darkness, wishing it would swallow her and take away the pain that was eating her alive. Her eyes closed when Winter pressed his forehead to her temple and whispered into her ear.

“I wish I could.”

His breath was cold against her cheek, as icy as the wind. His skin held no heat. Reaching up, she gently laid her hand on his cheek and held her sigh inside. She could feel the struggle within him as clearly as her own and wished there was something she could say or do to make him change his mind.

She leaned into him and he sighed again when her other hand brushed against his. Surprise filled her with warmth when his fingers tangled with hers and he held her hand. She longed to remain here in the silence and the darkness with him, away from everyone, alone. Here he could love her and she him. Here he could be with her without repercussions. Here they were free.

“People don’t venture much into these parts,” she breathed the words softly into the night and kept her focus on Winter, monitoring his reaction to what she was saying. “If Willem were to die, then no one would tell the Law Keepers. We could be together.”

He said nothing.

She hadn’t expected him to.

In the short time that she had known Winter, she had grown to realise that he was a man who thought things through and acted not on instinct but on sense. His sense of duty and loyalty to his kin was clearly strong, as was his sense of self-preservation, but these had to war against his sense of loyalty to her and his desire to protect her. She was counting on it.

Winter held Nika’s hand and led her back to the horse where it waited in a small clearing in the trees. The weight of her hand in his was more than he could bear at that moment and the warmth of it made a dull ache settle in his
chest. Everything she had said echoed in his head, tormenting him with endless possibilities and outcomes. He could see them all playing out in his mind like miniature movies, dreams that he wished he could reach out and catch, and hold close to his heart and treasure. He let them flit away one by one, fading into the darkness of his mind, until only one thought remained.

If Willem were to die, no one would know about them.

That thought echoed within him, a torture that he couldn’t endure and couldn’t escape. He planned to kill Willem as revenge for taking Nika away from him. What if he killed Willem and then couldn’t resist taking Nika for his own? Would it really be as simple as she had said it would be? Hyperion would still know about her and his feelings for her. He couldn’t disgrace his bloodline and turn his back on the laws as easily as Hyperion could. He wasn’t strong enough.

There was another reason though. Once she was at the werewolf stronghold and he returned to the mansion, it would be difficult to cross the land to visit her without someone seeing him. The other Watchmen were sure to start asking questions about where he went and something told him that Hyperion wouldn’t protect him forever. Hyperion had asked him to return his horse and to be back at the mansion before he returned. In his heart, Winter knew that his lord was commanding him to return alone and never to venture out to see Nika again.

But still the thought lingered.

If he killed Willem, only his lord would know about them.

He mounted Demeter and pulled Nika up onto the saddle, settling her in front of him. Her clothes were freezing to the touch, cold enough that he noticed it through his gloves. He wrapped her in her cloak again and then covered her with the two front sides of his. She curled close to him, her warm scent filling his mind and stirring his senses. His fangs itched and hunger rolled his stomach. It had been too long since he had fed and the temptation to take her blood was overwhelming. Having her so close, hearing her heart pounding and her blood rushing through her veins, pushed him to his limit and

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he wasn’t sure if he was strong enough to keep control. If she offered her neck, even unwittingly, he would have a hard time stopping himself from biting her. The smell of her blood was so strong that he could almost taste it.

She leaned into him, shuffling on the saddle and rubbing him with her body. He closed his eyes and geed on the horse, wondering how long he would be able to ride with her so near to him. If it became too much, he would find a place to stop and dismount to give himself a little space.

The horse broke into a trot. Nika bounced against him and his arm went around her waist to steady her. She grasped the edges of his chest armour and clung to him. He held the smile inside, amused by how frightened she was of falling even though it wouldn’t hurt her. His momentary amusement faded when he realised that they were both afraid of falling, but for different reasons. The emotional tumble he was scared of taking was one she had leapt into with both feet.

He stared up at the moon through the trees as clouds drifted past it, obscuring it. Nika had confessed everything to him and it had only made things harder for them both. Her silence was testament to her hurt. Each tear she had spilt had been for him and, as much as he hated himself for paining her, they had tasted sweet against his lips, forbidden nectar that he had never imagined he would drink. Her suffering had made her feelings clear as night, and had left him in no doubt. She loved him. That knowledge alone would help him through an eternity without her. If he had left her wondering if she returned his feelings, eternity would have been a cruel torment. At least this way he wouldn’t desire to return to her purely to satisfy his curiosity about her feelings, and he would know that they had both suffered because of Willem. That gave him reason to kill the man next time they met. It gave him reason to hunt him down.

“Will I be able to run like you?” Nika whispered into his chest.

The moon peeked out from behind another cloud, not quite full, waning now. It would be another month before it was full again. Would Nika change then? He shut his mind to his own questions and sought an answer to hers. He had fought a few werewolves in his time and had worked with some from the compound. Hopefully, his experience and his studies would enable him to answer any question she might have.

“Not quite as fast,” he said and pulled the reins to his right, guiding the horse around a tree. He extended his senses outwards, scanning the forest ahead and mapping it.

“What are you looking for?”

Winter frowned at her question. She had felt his change in focus. She was maturing far quicker than he had expected and her abilities were strong. How old was Willem? How had Nika gained such power? Perhaps werewolves inherited their abilities from their sire but at a slightly lower level, unlike vampires. Vampires inherited strong blood from their sire but not abilities or even strength. Those developed over time. If Nika’s abilities were already this strong, Willem had to be powerful and old.

“I need to see the way ahead so I can guide the horse.”

There was a tiny change in her signature. A smile touched his lips. She was trying to focus too.

“Is that a vampire ability?”

“More or less. A werewolf can sense things in a similar way to us, but they are more limited. My senses have been honed by years of experience. I could easily detect things that you may not be able to for another two thousand years.”