Winter's Kiss (25 page)

Today. That word seemed so final.

Tomorrow night they might have to fight Willem.

She didn’t think that she would be ready by then, not even if they trained through tonight and the whole of tomorrow. She was already exhausted and they had only covered the basics.

Lifting her sword took all her strength and she struggled to adopt a fighting stance. Winter’s fingers flexed around his sword. His muscles tensed and his feet shifted further apart. Moving into a position he could easily attack or defend from seemed like instinct to him. His movements looked subconscious but calculated at the same time.

She tried to mimic his pose but didn’t have the energy to hold the sword with the same rigidity as he did.

A heartbeat of time passed.

She launched herself at him, raising the sword and bringing it down in a swift arc. He knocked it aside with his sword and the blade came within millimetres of cutting her shoulder. With perfect precision, he swept his blade around to disarm her. She tightened her grip and her wrist snapped back quicker than she had expected. The sword tip cut across Winter’s chest plate and he growled at her. Clearly, that was why he was wearing armour. With a flick of his wrist, her sword was clattering to the ground.

“I’m tired,” she said, holding her hands up in surrender.

Her eyes widened when he came at her and she stepped to the side to dodge the blade. Was he serious? He had disarmed her. How was she supposed to fight now?

She rolled to avoid his next attack and ducked the moment she was on her feet. He slashed at her again and although she knew he wouldn’t hit her, genuine fear made her heart pound and her blood thunder through her veins. He grinned at her, teeth sharp and menacing. She dodged the blade again and stepped into him.

His left hand shot around to punch her. She blocked the attack with her hand and grabbed his arm. Tipping him off balance, just as he had taught her, she threw him to the ground and his sword fell from his hand. Before he could move, she was on him, sitting astride his chest with her knees pinning his arms.

“I said I was tired,” she repeated and leaned over, pressing her hands into his shoulders to keep him on the ground. He could flip her off if he wanted to, but he seemed to be more interested in lying beneath her.

“Now is not the time for sleeping.”

She looked around the dull grey training room at all the weight and exercise equipment and then back down at Winter. Sleep did sound good.

The look in Winter’s eyes that said it wasn’t going to happen. With a sigh, she leaned more heavily on him, forcing his shoulders into the floor. His bare skin was

cool beneath her fingers but soon warmed to match hers. She looked into his eyes, lost in the sea of deep blue, drifting along with her thoughts.

“Winter?” she said and his eyebrows rose. She took it as an invite to ask her question. “You said that some people chose death… welcomed it. Did you welcome your death?”

His look became pensive, his eyes narrowing on hers. A myriad of emotions flickered across them, each conflicting with the last. A voice inside her said not to push him but rather to give him time to find the answer to her question. She was sure that it couldn’t be an easy one. The choice of life or death couldn’t be a decision made on a whim. He had to have had his reasons for becoming a vampire. His comfort with his vampire status and how proud he was of his species said that he had chosen to become one rather than having it forced on him.

He sighed, pulled his right arm free and thoughtfully rubbed the bridge of his nose, and then looked into her eyes.

“I do not remember the details of my human life or the face of my salvation, but I do remember some things. Some things will never leave me. Three thousand years of life as a vampire would not be enough to erase them. One thousand years has only dulled them.”

The solemn expression in his eyes and the quiet tone of his voice said that whatever those things were that he remembered, they were painful to recall. She remembered that look from the village. Had he witnessed something so terrible in his past? She didn’t want to hurt him with her question. She had only wanted to know why he had become a vampire. She only

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wanted to know more about him so she could understand him and his decision to leave.

She wanted to ask him what those things were but stopped herself. It was best that she let him continue at his own pace. If she pushed him, he might not answer her, and she needed to know.

“I remember a time when I was strong for a human. I held great responsibility as I do now. Something ended that time and my life altered. Rather than leading men and having their respect, I became an
object
of their disgust. In the mire of this time, my only memories are of squalor and the pain of my pitiful existence.”

When she saw that pain cross his face, she went to touch his cheek but he brushed her hand away. She frowned at his action and he took hold of her hand, his fingers toying with hers in a subconscious way that made her believe that he sought comfort from her touch and distraction from his thoughts.

“I remember a constant fight for survival and the offer of an escape from that life,” he said and closed his eyes, his eyebrows knitting as though he was bracing himself against pain. She held his hand, clasping it tight in hers, wishing that she had never asked him the question and silently thanking him for allowing her to know him better rather than refusing to answer. “It was a chance to lead a better life. I took hold of my destiny as any man would and what was given to me was far beyond my expectations.”

His eyes opened and met hers. Tears laced his lashes. She didn’t dare sweep them away for him, sure that he wouldn’t appreciate her drawing attention to the fact that she had noticed them.

“I chose to live, Nika, not to die. If I had not accepted the offer of eternal life from my sire, I would have suffered… I would have died a slow death in that dark world. Now I live free from the horrors and the fear, although I witnessed many humans die. I saw many I had known fall victim to plagues and disease and starvation. I saw them burn the infected homes and the still-living victims of the plague. I heard their screams and smelt their fear as they died.”

Her eyes widened. Was that why the sight of her village burning had
shaken
him so much? He had been reliving his memories, seeing the fires that had taken the people he had known from him and hearing their screams.

“Why didn’t you offer them the chance to live as you did?”

He frowned and sighed. All emotion drained from his eyes.

“A Validus cannot turn a human without permission. It is the way of our lord. I was chosen, approved, and turned. When I was accustomed to my new life, I was told to watch my old world crumble and die, to appreciate the might of what I had become and see how precious this gift I had been given was.” He paused and removed his hand from hers, dragging it down his face as he sighed again. “I realised that I no longer held ties to the human world. I had moved beyond it. I had been reborn. I had been given life anew, exactly as I had wanted it.”

Nika cursed the coldness in his eyes and the fact that he believed that he had severed all ties to the human world on becoming a vampire. She could see past the lie to the truth. It had hurt him to see those he knew die, but he had been unable to do anything about it. Over the centuries, he had convinced himself that he hadn’t

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cared. Foolish Winter. She touched his cheek, stroking it, her eyebrows furrowed and her heart warmed by the feeling that she knew him better now. She understood him at last and his need to return to his family. They had saved him from pain and suffering and restored his position as a respected man. They had given him back his strength. Now she was his weakness and again he needed to find his strength so he could continue to live. But was that the only reason he was leaving her? Her heart said that there was more to it than just his loyalty to his bloodline. He wanted to protect her. She was sure of it.

“Winter… you said that your lord must give permission for one of his vampires to change someone else. Does that mean you would have had to ask him for permission to
turn
me?”

He nodded and caught her hand, holding it still against his face.

She didn’t dare ask him if he had been planning to ask his lord. Her heart thumped hard against her chest at the thought of it. The lord of Validus may have granted Winter permission and Winter might have sought to convince her to be his.

She wanted to be his.

She was his.

He frowned at her when she sighed and leaned down, resting her head against his chest, her body pressing into his.

His hands stroked her bare arms, a slight caress that warmed her and soothed her tired heart. These past few days had been a rollercoaster, but she felt as though she

was finally finding the straight. She knew Winter a little better now, could understand his motivations and his needs. She understood the depths at which he felt things and they were similar to her own. If she had been in his position, she would have done the same thing. She would have sought freedom from a horrible existence and then watched those she loved die, convincing herself that she felt nothing, covering the truth of her pain with the lie of indifference.

She had done the same thing in the village. When her father had died in her arms after confessing that he had given her to Willem, she had been convinced that she hated him and that she didn’t love him. In reality, it had hurt her beyond measure. It had hurt her and she had tried to erase that pain by pretending that she no longer cared about him because he had betrayed her. She loved him still. She had been unable to save him. Closing her eyes, she focussed on Winter where he lay below her. Had it hurt him when she had asked him to
turn
her father? Had he been
telling
her the truth when he had said that he couldn’t turn her father because he had wanted to die?

“Winter… at the village when I asked you… did you lie to me?”

His hands paused against her arms and cold crept in, her body missing the calming motion.

“I did not lie to you, Nika. I would not lie to you. Your father had welcomed death. If he had wanted to continue living, I would have turned him for you, but it was not the answer. He did not wish to live a life of regret.” His fingers shifted against her again, running up to her shoulders. He wrapped his arm around her, holding her close, as though he had sensed that she needed to feel him right now, she needed him to hold

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her. “You must know how difficult it is to enter this world of ours. Regrets in the span of a human life are painful enough. In the span of our lifetimes, they would tear someone apart. He did not wish for that pain and suffering. He had been judged by your God for what he had done and had paid the price. He had been happy to leave this plane.”

A tear crept from the corner of her eye and dashed down her temple towards her ear. She turned her head and buried it against Winter’s chest, wishing that he wasn’t wearing his armour so she could feel his skin against her.

“How do you live with regret, Winter?” she whispered and he tensed beneath her, his arms going rigid. It had been a cruel question to ask him. She had a heart full of regrets and she needed to know how to cope with them. She feared that she wouldn’t be able to live if she couldn’t move past them and become as comfortable with this
new
world as Winter was.

“It is not easy,” he said and drew her closer to him. Her eyes opened and she stared blankly at the cut on his arm. “I cannot lie to you, Nika. There are some things that you will always regret.”

Reaching across, she wiped her thumb over the cut on his arm, clearing the blood away. She stared at her thumb, at the smear of red that stained it. Blood. The marks on her neck tingled. Mikael’s and the woman’s reaction to her marks had been branded on her mind and she knew that others would react to them the same way, or worse. She didn’t care though.

Winter took hold of her wrist, brought her hand to his mouth, and licked the blood off her thumb. She caught a flash of fangs when his lips parted, her heart jolting at

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the sight of them and heat sweeping through her aching body.

His rich purple eyes slid to meet hers, a hint of a smile telling her that he had noticed her reaction.

She held his gaze. The hunger in it didn’t frighten her. Neither did the way the werewolves here would react to her marks.

“There are some things that I will never regret,” she whispered and stroked his cheek before running her thumb across his lower lip. They parted enough for her to see his fangs. “Never.”

He pressed a kiss to her thumb and then took hold of her hand.

“Winter?” Her voice shook but she couldn’t let this moment pass her by. She had to know why he was leaving her, and now was the best chance she’d had. “What do your laws mean?”

He frowned. “Death.”

That
single word
sent a chill down her spine. “Death? Is there no other sentence? Wouldn’t they just separate us? Why aren’t the master and mistress of this place tried for their crime?”