The Winter King by C. L. Wilson
Seated between Valik and Wynter at the dinner table, the golden-haired beauty spent the entire meal entertaining everyone with humorous anecdotes and prompting them to share their own adventures. She did it in a way that seemed so innocuous on the surface yet had the effect of drawing a distinct circle of friendship in which Khamsin clearly did not belong. “Oh, Valik, tell the queen about the time you wrestled that boar to its knees,” or “My king, tell her about the time you found the ice dragon’s nest.”
To Khamsin’s right, Lord Chancellor Firkin and his wife, Lady Melle, listened to Reika’s conversation with indulgent smiles and murmured occasional asides to Khamsin to explain some of the customs and terms that might be unfamiliar to her. Whether they were blind to their countrywoman’s actions, approving of them, or merely trying to smooth over a potentially awkward situation, Khamsin didn’t know. But she had been raised in the shadows of the Summer court, where Summerlea courtiers regularly spoke of passion and desires through subtle and not-so-subtle body language, and she understood the woman’s meaning all too easily. Reika Villani was staking her claim.
Khamsin was no fool and no starry-eyed romantic either. Sex in Summerlea was pleasurable entertainment shared by most courtiers without regard for marital status. Fidelity was rare, and in arranged marriages, virtually nonexistent. Logically, she knew she should not expect Wynter to be faithful to her, but after sharing such deep intimacy and shattering pleasure with him, the idea of another woman in his bed made Khamsin grip her eating utensils with unnecessary force.
Reika was also the sister of Wynter’s former betrothed. That came out during the course of the meal, too, in another anecdotal tale that ended with, “Who knew you were going to fall so deeply in love with my sister Elka?” At the mention of Elka’s name, dead silence fell across Wynter’s end of the banquet table. And in a truly gifted performance of tearful remorse, Reika cast Wynter a fluttering, fragile, sorrow-filled glance—complete with two perfect, crystalline tears shimmering in her limpid blue eyes—and said, “Oh, Wyn, I’m so sorry.”
He covered her hand with his, and gave her long, thin fingers a squeeze. “It’s all right, Reika. The past is gone.”
Khamsin stared at Wynter’s hand touching the Villani woman’s, and something very dark and very unpleasant swelled inside her. She reached for her silver water goblet and drank, hoping the icy snowmelt would cool her temper.
Wynter removed his hand, and that helped more than the ice water. But then Reika launched into another series of humorous tales about their adventures, and she seemed to take Wynter’s brief, conciliatory handclasp as an invitation to touch him freely. She started brushing the back of his hand with her fingertips, squeezing his arm as she laughed, leaning towards him and bumping shoulders in a way only intimates had a right to.
So much for Khamsin’s earlier plans of learning the lay of the land and befriending the locals. This woman was the enemy. And the rest of the court, eyeing her with such indulgence and laughing their approval of her behavior, were enemies, too. Khamsin clutched her goblet tightly. Outside, the clouds gathered, and the banquet-hall windows began to rattle.
“Oh dear,” Lady Melle murmured. “It sounds like we’ve got a bit of a storm brewing.”
Wynter and Valik glanced out the darkened windows then, in unison, turned to Khamsin. Wynter’s brows drew sharply together. She knew her eyes were pure silver now and swirling with magic.
“Khamsin?” Wynter half rose from his chair and leaned towards her.
Crystalline laughter pealed out. “Oh, Wyn,” Lady Reika grabbed his arm as if to pull him back, “remember the time when we—”
BOOM!
Lightning split the sky, so close, the banquet hall went blinding white. A deafening crack of thunder made ladies scream in fright, then burst out in peals of nervous laughter.
Khamsin set down her silver water goblet, which now bore the distinct impression of her fingers melted into the metal. All the ice in the goblet was gone, and the water was steaming. She pushed back her chair to stand. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long day. Please excuse me.”
“Khamsin!” Wynter growled, reaching for her. She skirted his outstretched hand and walked swiftly for the door.
Behind her, the silence exploded in a sudden buzz of conversation, and she heard Lady Reika’s voice asking, “Wyn? What just happened? Did she do that?”
Bella was sitting at the secretary, scratching an ink-dipped quill rapidly over a scrap of paper, when Khamsin burst in. The little maid leapt to her feet and whirled towards the door, one hand clutching at her throat. The other swept out, knocking over the inkpot and spilling black ink across the paper. “Oh, Your Majesty!” she exclaimed. “You gave me such a start.” She started mopping up the inky mess with the ruined remains of her letter and several other sheets of paper. “Is dinner over so quickly?”
“It is for me.” Khamsin headed for the bedroom, tearing off her velvet overdress as she went. She reached for the laces at the back of the satin gown, but the ties were hopelessly tight. “Come help me out of this dress.”
“Of course, Your Majesty, but I need to clean up this mess and wash the ink from my hands before I dare touch that gown.”
“A stain or two wouldn’t hurt it,” Kham muttered under her breath. But she raised her voice, and called, “That’s fine. There’s a storm outside. I’m going out on the balcony to enjoy it.” She pulled open the leaded-glass doors that led to a private balcony circling the castle turret where her bedroom was located. The wind rushed to greet her, cold and hard and stinging with icy rain, but she only spread her arms and lifted her face up to meet it. This storm was strong but not deadly. She’d left the banquet hall before it had become so.
Her skirts whipped wildly around her legs, the pins pulled loose in her hair, and long, curling strands of white-streaked black blew around her. She breathed deep, drawing the chill, fresh air into her lungs, and turned her face up into the sluicing streams of rain. Storms, for all their rage and potential danger, were cleansing and ultimately calming. She gave her temper up to the winds and wished her body could float up and join it. What joy it would be to skate the skies on swirling black clouds or ride the lightning as it raced miles in mere instants.
She stood there for a long while, letting the wind whip at her, the rain soak her through to her skin, until the last remnants of her hot anger had faded away. When she was finally calm again, she went back inside. Bella was gone. Kham poked her head in the main parlor and called to her, but got no response. The girl must have gone to wash up in the servants’ washroom down the hall instead of doing the reasonable thing and using Kham’s bathing chamber.
With a muttered curse, Kham returned to her bedchamber and tried once more to untangle the knotted ties at the back of her bodice. Really, how ridiculous was it that ladies wore fashions they could not put on and take off without assistance? Men weren’t such fools.
She twisted her arms, fumbling blindly with the ties. The rain had soaked the fabric and swollen the cords, making them even harder to unknot. Her chin dropped down to her chest. The wet, tangled curls of her hair fell forward and dripped a steady stream of water on the floor that joined the greater puddle seeping from her gown.
“Summer Sun!” she exclaimed bitterly, giving the ties a furious yank.
“Let go. You’re only making it worse.”
Khamsin froze at the low rumble of Wynter’s voice and the jolt of electricity that jangled across her nerves when his fingers brushed against hers. She stood still, her heart in her throat, while he tugged at the ties of her gown. After a few moments, the ties loosened, and the fabric at the back of her gown parted. She started to clutch the gown to her when Wynter slid it from her shoulders, but she remembered her oath of matrimony and let the gown fall.
His hands went to the ties of the silk underdress, loosing them with similar ease. “Why did you summon the storm?”
Holding the last flimsy shred of protection to her chest, she stepped away and turned to face him. “You aren’t so blind as that.”
He wasn’t, and he surrendered the pretense without a fight. “She is just a childhood friend, nothing more.”
“She wants to sit on the Winter Throne,” Khamsin countered, “or at the very least, lie in the bed of the man who does.”
“Reika?” He laughed and shook his head. “She’d sooner bed down with a wild wolf. I’m too big and rough for her. She wants a man with poetry in his heart. She’s said so many times.”
“Has she said so since the day you chose her sister over her?”
His look of consternation was all the answer she needed.
There were benefits to living in the shadows as Kham had done all her life, being unseen, unnoticed. One of those benefits had been to watch the court ladies work their wiles on the men, to observe not only what they said to men’s faces but also what they said behind their backs. Khamsin had no doubt Reika’s youthful protestations had been flirtation, intended to call attention to her delicate femininity and instruct Wynter how to woo her.
Unfortunately for her, Reika hadn’t realized Wynter would interpret her protests so literally. And Kham had no intention of letting her amend her past mistakes.
“I swore an oath to offer you the fruits of my life,” she told him. “You swore the same to me, and you promised to keep only to me. As I honor my oaths, I expect you to honor yours.”
Surprise flashed across his face for the briefest instant before he marshaled his features into an inscrutable mask. “You ask me for fidelity?”
She hadn’t meant to. It had just sort of popped out. But now that she had, she wasn’t going to back down. She lifted her chin. “I demand it. Considering my life lies in the balance, it’s only just that you restrict your . . . breeding efforts . . . solely to me.”
He took a single, purposeful step towards her, a predator stalking prey. His eyes burned like blue flame. “Is that the real reason? Because you fear death?”
Every instinct for self-preservation screamed at her to back away. Pride would not let her. She had issued her challenge, and she would stand her ground. “What other reason could there possibly be?”
He took another step towards her. A growl vibrated deep in his throat.
Her body went weak, legs nearly collapsing beneath her. Heat burst across her skin in dizzying waves. That was so supremely unfair. One intent look, one low, thrilling growl, and she went up in flames.
His nostrils flared, and the muscles in his jaw clenched hard as stone. With a swiftness that left her blinking, he reached out one hand and snatched the underdress from her hands, leaving her standing naked before him. He didn’t even bother to remove his own clothes. He simply freed his jutting sex from his trousers, lifted her up with both hands, and lowered her onto his shaft, growling, “Put your legs around my waist” as his hips surged forward, and his body drove deep into hers with devastating effect.
Then again, she thought dazedly as the first orgasm exploded across her body, perhaps instant, undeniable lust wasn’t so unfair after all.
He bent her backward, one hand holding her spine, the other clutching her buttocks, lifting and lowering her with effortless strength as he bent over her body. His mouth moved across her neck and breasts, nipping, licking, leaving trails of heat and ice burning together in lines of indescribable pleasure. His voice whispered over her skin. “Tell me, Khamsin, why you demand my fidelity. Tell me why.” Whether he was using magic or not, she could not tell, but the words acted upon her like a persuasion spell, dragging the truth closer and closer to the surface with each whisper and each thrust of his hips. “Why Khamsin?” His body drove into hers, then withdrew with aching slowness. “Why?” Another thrust, deeper, making her gasp and shudder. “Tell me.”
She grabbed the soft folds of his shirt, wanting skin beneath her hands, not cloth. “Because,” she bit out, “I will not share with her or any other woman.” Power crackled at her fingertips. The shirt singed in her hands and shredded from his body like paper, baring the silken skin and hard muscle of his arms and chest and back.
“I will not share this.” She dug her fingers into heavy muscles of his chest, then dragged her arms around, running her hands up his back to clutch his shoulders. Her body pressed against his. Her thighs clamped tight around his hips. Her inner muscles clenched his shaft, clinging tight as she lifted her body up and held his gaze with the burning fire of her own.
“I will not share you.” Still holding his gaze, she drove her body down onto his. Tiny threads of lightning danced over his skin in a shocking web of blue-white light. He gave a choked cry. His spine arched. His buttocks clenched tight. The tendons in his neck stood out like cords of steel. His hips surged again, powerfully, rising up to meet her downward slide. She felt the shock of it to her bones.
“I will not share,” she cried out fiercely, one final time as both of them shattered.
When the firestorm passed, Wynter lay on the bearskin rug beside his wife. He stared up at the frescoed ceiling overhead and tried to regulate his breathing and gain some measure of strength back in his muscles.
Winter’s Frost! What she did to him.
Although the cold, logical part of Wynter’s mind whispered, Leave her now. Keep a wise distance, he did not. He stayed with her throughout the night, waking her countless times to claim and reclaim her in the darkness. She was like a drug in his system. Every time he touched her, every time he sank his body into hers, she drove him to heights he’d never known, and he would think, This is it. This will sate me. But scant hours later, he would wake again, even more hungry for her than he had been before.
If it was an enchantment, as Valik feared, it was a very powerful one. The only saving grace was that she seemed as incapable of denying him as he was of denying her.
He woke her one last time just as dawn was breaking in the eastern sky. He let his hands skim across her soft skin, relearning the already-familiar curves of her flesh, and watched the passion bloom in her eyes, turning the gray to shifting silver. He smiled in triumph when her hands reached for him, and smiled again when he lowered his head, growled softly in her ear, and felt her body quake. His Wolf called to her as strongly as her scent called to him, and she opened to him like a summer bloom to the sun.
She was so fierce, so passionate, so willing in this, at least, to give him everything without caution or restraint. And so boldly, so fiercely insistent that he be faithful. Elka had never been so possessive. No woman ever had. Not of him. No woman until Khamsin.
One thing was certain: Keeping her at a wise distance was going to be exceedingly difficult.
Her hands clutched at him. Her power sparked across his skin, driving all rational thought from his mind. There was only wave upon wave of hot pleasure, driving need, sensation and instinct and the feel of his body pumping rhythmically into hers, pushing them both higher and higher. Her volatile heat gripped him tight, burning, scorching. Her hands urged him on. She sobbed his name on a keening cry that broke into a scream as the climax swept over them both.
Later, when he could breathe without gasping and see more than flickering stars in a field of blackness, he bent over her limp body as she drifted back to sleep, and whispered in her ear, “I am no oathbreaker either, wife. I will honor my vows.”
CHAPTER 12
Allies and Enemies
When Khamsin woke again, full daylight was streaming through her bedchamber windows, and Wynter was gone.
She laid her hand on the empty sheets. They were cool to the touch. Her body was aching and sore in more places than she’d ever known existed, but already the need for him was rising again. Her fingers smoothed over the indentation in the pillow beside hers and plucked a long, silvery white strand of Wynter’s hair
A knock sounded at the bedroom door, and the door swung open. Bella entered, carrying a thick robe draped over one arm.
Khamsin tucked the strand of Wynter’s hair beneath her pillow and sat up, dragging the linen top sheet free to wrap around her body. She sniffed the air. A warm, delicate aroma had wafted into the room. “Is that jasmine tea?”
The maid gave a smile. “Mistress Greenleaf said it was your favorite. There’s a pot steeping on the hearth. Will you rise, or shall I bring you a cup here?”
“I’ll get up.” Khamsin smothered a yawn and stretched. “What time is it?”
“Half ten, ma’am.”
“What? Half past ten?” Kham leapt from the bed. “Why didn’t you wake me? What about Vinca and the tour of the palace?”
“The king left word that you were not to be disturbed. Mistress Vinca has rescheduled your tour of the palace for this afternoon. Lady Firkin has arranged a luncheon for you with the ladies of the court before that. Mistress Narsk delivered a new gown for the luncheon a few moments ago.” Bella held the robe open for Khamsin, who swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood. As Khamsin thrust her arms into the robe’s sleeves, Bella added, “And Lady Villani is waiting in the parlor. She said she needed to speak with you. Shall I tell her to come back later?”
Khamsin froze. “Lady Villani?” What could Reika Villani possibly want? Khamsin put a hand to her tangled hair. She looked a mess: bed-rumpled, her lips still swollen from Wynter’s passionate kisses, faint marks on her neck where he’d nipped at her skin. Reika Villani would take one look at her and know how Khamsin had spent her night. Kham’s eyes narrowed. “No,” she said slowly. “Thank you, Bella, but I’ll see her now.” She tightened the robe’s sash. “I would like a hot bath though when I return, and a little something to eat. I didn’t have much of an appetite last night, but now I’m famished.”