And it bothered Alador more and more.
He turned his left palm over and stared at the marking for at least the tenth time, tracing the spidery lines of a snowflake that’d appeared on it the second he’d touched her shoulder. He’d felt the bite of frost rage through him, but rather than make him want to scream, make him want to turn and run and hide, he’d craved more.
He’d not suffered from the burn but instead had been consumed by it in a different way entirely.
Even then, remembering the way her power had rippled through him, had roared through his veins like a lion seeking whom it could devour, he shuddered. He clenched his fingers tightly as the tiny snowflake in his palm burned brightly.
But on the heel of that powerful emotion came a thought…what did the marking mean exactly? Had she bespelled him, or—as he was more inclined to believe—had he been marked because his soul recognized its mate?
The thought so startled him that he shook his head. It wasn’t possible. Centaurs didn’t mate. Not in the traditional sense.
Except they did.
Though the herd often denied it, saying it was unnatural to be loyal just to one, there were rare and few cases of it—Chester and Kym and even a few others in history.
There was even a mating ritual that was often taught to them as children, though they all laughed because surely it was nothing more than fables and fairy tales…every centaur knew what to do if by some bizarre stroke of fortune they were blessed to find a mate.
The door opened then—cutting him off from his thoughts—and a maiden with short blue hair that stood up shockingly like frosted icicles on her head peeked in. “Time for bed, children,” she said softly.
“Have the castle grounds been checked over?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yes. Astrid and the mistress have built snow monsters who are even now guarding the exits of the castle. And there are dark magick Yetis in the castle proper.”
He lifted a brow.
But she’d routed his question before he could even ask it.
“The Queen built them to detect the dark magick traces of the Under Goblin. If he returns, we will know it.”
Gerda and Kai turned to look up at Alador.
“We’re frightened,” Gerda said softly. All smiles they’d worn earlier were gone as she grabbed Kai’s little hand. “Can we sleep in your room, Alador?”
He shook his head. “No. I’ve nothing but piles of straw. It is not nearly suitable for children.”
“Do not worry, children,” the maiden said as she stepped inside, and unlike before, when the maidens had been dressed as scullery maids, that one was dressed in thick, icy plates of battle armor. “You shall each have a guard standing just outside your doors. The Goblin will not return this night. He’d be foolish to try.”
Alador wasn’t so sure but had no wish to frighten the children either.
Holding out her hands to them, the ice maiden waited for the children to slip their hands into hers.
“I will check on you before I go to bed,” Alador promised. Then looking at the ice maiden, he said, “Perhaps the guards should—”
As though knowing his thoughts, she smiled serenely. “We know what’s happened this morning, and we’re now prepared. An attack such as that will not occur again.”
Alador raked his gaze down her form, studying the body armor again. Not that he didn’t believe that they’d try to be prepared, but even he couldn’t fathom how a slight child like Gerda had been able to take on Antigua in the first place.
“Do not worry, male,” the ice maiden repeated. “The Yetis can taste dark magick. If the Goblin returns, we will know it.”
He supposed there was nothing more to be said after that. It didn’t sit right with Alador to leave the children alone, and yet, he knew he’d have no choice but to stay with Luminesa in case the ice demons returned.
Gerda nodded slowly, but Kai pursed his lips tightly. The boy was upset.
Understandable, really. No doubt he was worried about his family. Worried about how to leave that place. He might be younger than Gerda, but Kai seemed to better understand the kind of danger they found themselves in.
Tomorrow, Alador would make an extra effort to comfort the boy as best he could. But right then, he needed to find the Queen. They needed to talk about what’d happened that morning.
Once the children were out the door, he stood and went in search of her.
Luminesa
Luminesa heard his footsteps long before he’d entered the glass room.
She did not move from her spot, didn’t turn her face to look at him. She continued to gaze up at the nighttime sky ablaze with winter’s kiss.
But she did light the hearth behind them, filling it with the heat of frost fire, a lambent flame that would not melt ice but warmed the room up.
He inhaled deeply, pausing only once he’d gotten to her side.
“The moon is so full tonight,” she said softly, taking a quick second to glance at him.
He nodded.
The moon looked triple its normal size, a giant, glowing orb filling up the navy sky with its soft radiance and turning the snowstorm into a crystalline shower of light.
“Thank you for going out of your way to keep us warm. I know it cannot be comfortable for you,” he said.
Hugging her arms to her breasts, she turned, looking up at the tall, exotic male and wondering all over again why it was that she felt so relaxed in his presence.
“You’re welcome. But it is not uncomfortable for me.”
Those green eyes she’d dreamed about last night studied her so intently that, for just a moment, Luminesa forgot how to breathe. And the world around them ceased to exist.
She forgot about the snow outside, the howling winds, the children sleeping warmly in their fur-lined beds, the Goblin’s riddle, or even the fact that if she couldn’t figure out his game in a month’s time, she’d cease to be who she was. What she was.
Because right then, the only thing she could focus on was Alador and how his words from last night continued to haunt her.
“I do feel,” she finally admitted into the heavy silence that hugged them.
The muscle in his jaw tensed.
“Keenly,” she whispered.
“I am sorry. I should not have—”
But she didn’t let him finish. Instead, she shook her head. If she was going to be honest with him, if she was going to open her heart to him, then she couldn’t look him in the eye as she did it.
And as much as it hurt to turn away from him, she did. She faced that night sky and whispered her truths out into the world for the first time since the dawn of her rebirth.
“I ran away from you this morning because what you did, when you touched me, it broke something in me.”
“I am—”
“No.” She shook her head. If he said anything else, she’d lose what little dregs of bravery she possessed and would never be able to get it out. “Please, just listen.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw him nod.
She turned her palm over and stared at the horse hoof marking that’d appeared not too long after he’d touched her. She wasn’t sure what it meant. All she knew was that anytime she touched her finger to it, a shot of warmth pulsed up her arm like a welcoming wave and that somehow, some way…Alador was becoming so much more to her than just another centaur male.
Taking a deep breath, she plunged feetfirst into her tale.
“Long ago,” she began, “I was not the woman you see today.”
The only sound she heard was his steady but heavy breathing. Closing her eyes, she tried to imagine that it was just her there; that no one else was around, that no one could hurt her again. That she was safe and protected. It was easier to speak that way, when she was separated from the rest of humanity, when there was no one around to make her feel…alone.
Thinking back on that day a hundred years ago, Luminesa finally let herself give it life again.
�
��I thought I’d known him. Or known him well enough to feel safe in going to his tent.”
She tracked the flurry of snowflakes that fell right in front of her, swirling and twirling in the blustery wind. Her eyes were glued to the night, awaiting the first flicker of ruby-red demon eyes. Her heart thundered in her chest.
Luminesa recalled that night with the startling clarity that usually came only from a fresh memory. But no matter how many years passed, how many lifetimes she walked through, or how many silent admonishments she’d given herself that Josiah of Scarta no longer lived, she could also never forget.
Alador’s calloused palm landed on her shoulder, and just as before, his touch burned her to her core. A fire that she didn’t want to leap back from but rather jump headlong into.
He was giving her a chance to change course, a chance not to say the words hovering on the tip of her tongue. Words that she’d swallowed for so long that giving them life felt a lot like squaring off against a demon crawling straight from the deepest, darkest pits of perpetual fire.
The first tear rolled down her cheek, crystallizing the moment it fell off her chin.
“His name was Josiah of Scarta. A man I’d known all my life. We’d been raised together as children in the same little village. I thought I knew him.”
Funny how time could pass, a hundred years, but always some memories—the ones that cut through a person’s soul—could remain just as startlingly clear as they had the day they’d happened.
She’d been a barkeep at a local tavern. An unassuming, mild-mannered woman with brown hair and brown eyes…nothing truly extraordinary about her. She’d liked people and generally thought the best of them.
“The genie woman—Nixie—she walked into my tavern. She’d come on an errand from her newest master. Josiah said he wanted to see me again.”
Looking out the window, she didn’t see the snow-dusted plains of night but the depth of sorrow in Nixie’s eyes as she’d asked the favor of Luminesa, compelled by her own bonds of servitude to perform. Luminesa had known immediately that Nixie hadn’t wanted to do what she’d been forced to do.
It’d been that hesitation that’d compelled Luminesa to go, not for Josiah but for the slave woman. To save her the heartache of forcing Luminesa to go if she chose not to do it willingly.
“So you went, to spare the genie the pain of using her magic to compel your willingness.”
Alador’s deep voice, so wise, so full of insight, caused her to tremble. Why did she like him so much? She hardly knew him, and yet he was the first male that she genuinely liked since the night with Josiah.
He took her hand. And she let him, even as every molecule inside her froze. Because once again, she was bombarded by emotions. The warm feeling rippled through her stomach in waves from the rough feel of his ridged palms and fingers.
The smell of him—a mix of moss, earth, pine, and man—invaded her brain.
Her fingers were so pale compared to his bronzed ones. They were slender and small next to his large, strong ones. She couldn’t help looking at him and was drowned by that malachite gaze that pierced right through her soul.
Yesterday morning when they’d met, he’d been what everyone else had ever been to her—distrustful, uneasy, angry even. So what had changed since then?
He bent his forelegs and then his back, kneeling on the floor and bringing her down with him.
Again, she suffered the thought that she should shake free of him. But his was the first touch that made her feel something other than dead inside, and goddess help her, she was coming to crave more.
Then his strong forearm banded tightly around her waist, and he dragged her flush to his side so that she was settled upon him in a half-sitting, half-supine position.
His scent of earth and fresh cut hay was a delicious combination that made her body tingle in a most unusual way. His eyes never left her face through the entire process, as though asking without words if what he did was okay.
It was strange.
They’d hardly known one another, and had he been any other male, even a centaur one, she’d have flashed him in ice for the impertinence. But something deep inside her recognized something deep inside him, even if she didn’t know exactly what it was yet.
So she nodded instead, letting him know that yes, it was okay.
Settling her shoulders against his strong body, she smiled as she suddenly slipped into a curve that fitted her like a snug pillow. A perfect little rounded bend that seemed as though it’d been shaped just for her.
Because they still needed to remain vigilant to the demons that could come crashing toward them at any moment, she changed the walls of the room from opaque to see-through, so that from every corner of her nook, she could see the outside, could see the gusting snow, could see the dance of the aurora borealis sway through the nighttime sky.
Luminesa hoped the demons would not return, but deep down…she knew the Goblin’s cruel games had only just begun.
Then twisting her fingers together, she played with her magic, creating a design—she wasn’t quite sure what yet—but she didn’t think, she simply allowed the magic to move through her as she spoke.
Sometimes, releasing a bit of the ice magic was enough to help her settle her equilibrium.
“I went to Josiah’s tent that night. Such a simple-minded fool I was then.” She said it softly. Her words echoed through the empty chamber, bouncing back at them teasingly. “But I’d gone to him before, with no issues. I’d assumed that night would be no different than the ones before it. He and I had grown up together, after all. I’d thought us…if not friends, well-known acquaintances. What could I possibly have to fear from him?”
All of a sudden, Alador’s fingers had begun combing through her thick locks of hair. She’d forgotten that she’d unpinned it for bed, but she’d been so restless and full of thoughts that she’d gotten up and come down there instead.
He was gentle as he slid his fingers through her blue curls, tugging gently on them but never painfully.
She sighed, her scalp tingling pleasantly as he did so. “To be touched again is…”
Her words trailed off as she fought for the right word to describe what she felt.
But he’d stilled in his ministrations to her. “I am sorry,” he said as he disentangled his fingers from her hair. “We centaurs enjoy the act of combing out one another’s hair during storytellings. I forget that you—”
Twisting, she looked up at him. His face was screwed up in a grimace, and her heart lurched because she didn’t want him thinking he’d done anything wrong.
Grabbing the hand nearest her, she guided it back to her head, keeping her palm over the top of his. His flesh hot. Her flesh cold. Moving into each other but not causing pain.
She’d always thought touching another would hurt. That her body wouldn’t be able to stand the shock of warmth again. And though she felt her body thawing under his hand, it didn’t hurt the way it had when she’d been in the Under Goblin’s domain.
“What I was going to say, horse, was…being touched by another after so long is a wonder.”
Gradually, the tightness around his eyes relaxed, and the outer edges of his lips curled up before finally blooming into the type of smile that shone brighter than the sun itself. His entire face lit up, and again her heart went crazy, pounding so hard against her rib cage that it was almost painful.
“Horse,” he murmured, but then he chuckled beneath his breath, shaking his head in humored exasperation.
And for just a second, a grin flashed across her face too.
But then he started brushing his fingers through her hair again, and she sighed with overwhelming contentment, continuing to weave particles of ice.
The mood grew calm between them, peaceful. And slowly, she was lulled back into that memory, but not with fear as it used to be.
For so long, she’d thrown shields up, running away anytime the memories tried to surge. Making herself busy in any way she could
so that she wouldn’t have to think back on them.
But there, with him, that was a safe place. Quiet.
“Josiah had been drinking. I smelled the stench of liquor on his breath the moment I’d neared him.”
She clenched her jaw, remembering his shifty eyes and the way his dark skin had gleamed with sweat. How his thinning hair had clung to the sides of his portly neck.
He’d changed so much since she’d last seen him that shock had kept her feet rooted to the ground. And though her mind had niggled a warning that all wasn’t right, for reasons she still couldn’t fathom, she’d stayed.
“He asked me to marry him again,” she said, the words so low they barely registered above a whisper.
Alador had begun braiding the thick strands of her hair, his touch as gentle as the glide of a butterfly’s wing against her skin.
“I said no.” She shook her head. A thick lump wedged itself in the back of her throat, and the heat of tears burned behind her eyes. She trembled. “I shouldn’t have said no. Maybe I could have gotten away from him if I’d lied.”
Alador’s fingers stopped moving, and in a voice as deep as the trenches of Seren, he rumbled, “What happened, Luminesa?”
Her mouth parted. That was the first time he’d ever called her by her true name.
Placing her hand atop his, she turned to look up at him. His eyes were hard, furious, and his beautiful lips that were usually so soft and easy to smile were thin, angry slashes.
“He took me. Over and over. And when I screamed too loudly the third time because it hurt, he cut out my tongue.” A lone tear slipped from the corner of her eye.
With gentle fingers, he reached over and took that crystallized tear off her cheek, and then in a gesture she’d not expected, he brought it to his lips and kissed it.
His warmth melted it back into water.
Her lips parted.
“There can be no gift greater than the trust of a woman’s tears,” he said softly, but then his countenance turned hard once more. “What happened to Josiah?”
Inside those words, Luminesa heard the steely ring of fury.
Alphas for the Holidays Page 148