Lowering her head to rest on his chest, she closed her eyes and said, “I’m tired, Finn.”
“If you want to sleep, I will keep watch.”
“I want to sleep with you,” she declared.
“It’s not safe.”
“I don’t care about being safe right now.” She lifted her head again, surged onto the tips of her toes and brushed lips to his, murmuring, “I just… want you to hold me. I need to feel our arms around me, Finn.”
Sliding her hand down to catch his, she drifted past him and drew him with her, into the dark near the fire where they laid down upon the stone. Under the surface, the wolf inside her wanted to connect more deeply with him, to actualize the bond between them and embrace what they were, but the woman still wasn’t ready. She was confused and frightened, and though there had never been anything beyond infatuation between her and Brendolowyn, it felt wrong to give herself to Finn so soon after losing him.
Finn just held her, stroking fingers through her hair and listening to the sound of the relentless waves thundering against the cliffs.
She slept deeply and she didn’t dream, and for that she was glad.
EPILOGUE
“The U’lfer chancellor is a sniveling coward who knows nothing of consequence. All he does is cower and whimper and claim he did everything the king asked him to do.”
The window fogged beyond the exhale of his breath, the cold glass responding to the warmth and blocking the dismal grey morning beyond the castle walls. A golden orange carpet of color blanketed the courtyard below, the barren trees naked sentinels standing guard around the palace.
“What am I to do now? How do I find her?”
“Now you wish for my counsel?” The lurid drone of her voice was like a tiny dagger pushing its way into his heart, the casual laughter that followed causing just enough pain to make him feel insignificant. “I warned you not to pursue her in the first place. I told you to focus on her sister, on Aelfric’s real daughter. The U’lfer bitch would have come to us, practically thrown herself at your feet had you listened to me, but now it’s too late. You have disrupted the flow of events and everything you wish for hangs in the balance.”
“Is that all you do, Dea?” Shoving off the wall, he whipped his head around to glare at the woman indolently relaxing among the pillows. She wore little more than a flimsy silk dressing gown, its silver sheen gleaming against her dusky skin. “Take pleasure in my failures? Mock my suffering?”
“You would not have failed if you listened to my counsel. Ninvariin told me…”
“I don’t give a damn about your goddess!” he railed, stalking toward the edge of the bed and gripping the post in his hand. He shoved it, shaking the canopy over her head, but she remained indifferent to his anger. She languidly tilted her head at him, as if to remind him who actually held the power, that with little more than the flick of her wrist she could pin him to the wall on the other side of the room and strip the flesh from his bones.
He hated her for that.
She played the game with him, allowed him to manipulate and abuse her because she enjoyed it, but in truth she could crush him at any time. She simply chose not to because some twisted part of her claimed to actually care for him. She craved power just as much as he did; it was the very thing that tied them to one another in the first place.
“If you care so little, Highness, perhaps I should leave you to it. You can work this out on your own. You clearly don’t need my help.”
“Why do you do that?”
“I could ask the same of you. You ask for my advice, beg me to confer with Ninvariin, and then you ignore what She tells you to do. Even the gods grow bored and weary, my prince, most especially when you do not heed them.”
“And what would She have me do?”
“What does it matter now?” she shrugged. “You won’t do it.”
“You are an insufferable bitch. Pretentious, self-righteous…”
“And yet, you love me.”
“I should have you collared and thrown into the dungeons.”
“You should,” she shrugged. “But you won’t. Because you’re a coward. A scared little boy who thinks only of winning the love and respect of a man who does not deserve your devotion. You did not come here for a kingdom of your own, no matter how many times you tell yourself that lie. You came here to make your father proud, to make him love you.”
“Shut up!” he hissed warning.
“I speak only the truth, a matter you have spent far too long ignoring. Do you want to fix this, Highness? To win your daddy’s love and then hold it over his head like a bleeding heart dripping down upon him?”
“Of course I want to fix it. I want her on her knees before me begging for her life, and then I want to take it from her and crush it in my hand.”
“You cannot kill her. She is protected by forces beyond our understanding, important for reasons I have not yet seen, but you can hurt her. You can make her suffer.”
Intrigued by this notion, his hand slackened as it slipped down the bedpost. “Go on.”
“The U’lfer your men brought back spoke of a witch’s prophecy, did he not.”
“A senseless, rambling collection of words that mean next to nothing.”
“Not next to nothing. What he told the torturer was true. In the south, hidden away in the tundra… All that remains of the wolves in this world await extinction. Her brother, her nephew, her love… If you crush all she holds dear, she will fall before you.”
“Her… love?”
“You are jealous of him, even though you say you don’t really want her. You only want to ruin her because she escaped you. Because she foiled your plans.”
He looked away, ashamed of himself for the thoughts that rippled through him. He didn’t want her, but part of him did just because she’d run from him.
“I am not jealous,” he insisted, but even he doubted his own words. “I just find the idea of destroying something she loves more appealing than you could possibly imagine, that’s all. I want her to suffer.”
“Then march south with your men, merge with the king’s soldiers near the mountain pass, lead them into the tundra and destroy everything she cares about.”
“Your goddess,” he began, “She has shown you this? She has seen me do this?”
Deallora regarded him, cold golden eyes flitting across his features as he turned inward to look at her again. “You defied Her counsel before. What She shows me now is your final chance for greatness. You began this, Trystay. It is up to you to finish it before it’s too late. But if you waver again, if you ignore Her wisdom, She will not hesitate to crush you where you stand.”
Steeling himself against that warning, he attempted to hide the sound of his gulping swallow unsuccessfully. “I will not defy Her again.”
“Good,” she grinned. “We march south then, on the morrow. But first things first, come,” gesturing across the bed, she reached toward him. “Let me show you what She has seen, my love.”
Studying her hand, Trystay hesitated. For so long he’d sought the advice of a foreign goddess, one not of his people, only to please Deallora. He’d defied Ninvariin’s will, ignored Her advice and done the opposite of everything She’d instructed him to do. It brought him nothing but grief. He would suffer grief no more. It was time he started listening.
Reaching forward, the tips of his fingers brushed Deallora’s. A surge of magic tingled through his hand and made him shudder.
Leaning out, she curled those fingers around his and drew him into the bed with her and with a kiss she showed him his glorious future.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jennifer Melzer spent the majority of her life as a writer denying she actually liked to write romance, only to wake up one morning and discover that every single tale she'd ever written had somehow revolved around the heart.
She has since given into the whim, spinning yarns of love and firmly believing that everyone deserves a happy ending.
; Jennifer lives in Northeast Pennsylvania with her husband and daughter, but dreams nightly she is laying on the beach watching the stars fall over the Atlantic Ocean.
Subscribe to the newsletter on her official website: JenniferMelzer.com for news and updates on upcoming books.
Sorrow's Peak (Serpent of Time Book 2) Page 57