by C. L. Wilson
“To the Heir of Wintercraig,” Wynter said. He downed the second half of the wine and thumped the goblet down on the table beside Verdan’s abandoned cup.
“Spring, Summer, see to your sister,” Verdan commanded. His chin lifted, and his dark eyes snapped with haughtiness. “It is tradition for a bride’s female family members to ready her for the wedding night. They will escort her to the rooms we have prepared.”
The two princesses hurried around the table and took Autumn’s arms. “Come with us, sister,” they said, casting nervous glances up at Wynter.
“Valik.” Wynter jerked his head towards the women. His steward snapped his fingers and gestured. Four armed Wintercraig guards surrounded them. “Make sure these royal ladies arrive at their destination without incident.” Before the women could turn away, he reached out to grasp his bride’s bare chin in his hands. A tiny jolt of electricity zinged between them, shooting a thread of heat through his veins that sizzled straight to his groin. His eyelids lowered half-mast over his eyes. “Thirty minutes, wife. And then I join you.” He ran a thumb over her full lower lip and caught her faint gasp on his fingertips.
Her sisters tugged her away, and she went with them. His hand fell back to his side, still tingling with warmth as if her touch alone could banish the chill of the Ice Heart.
Something other than wine had been in the wedding cup, Kham knew. She felt energized. Her senses were tingling, her muscles replete with new strength. The pain from her wounds and bruises had all but disappeared. Everything seemed bright and crisp, every sense heightened, magnified almost.
Blood rushed through her veins, and her steps quickened. If someone were to challenge her to a footrace, the way she felt right now she’d not only accept the challenge, she’d likely win.
What had they put in that wine?
She didn’t dare ask. Not with Wynter’s guardsmen surrounding them.
To her surprise, her sisters didn’t lead her to one of the guest wings of the palace but rather directly into the heart of the family wing. Curious. They were heading towards the family’s bedrooms. Autumn’s bedroom to be exact.
Only, when the doors opened, they revealed a bedchamber very different than the one Khamsin had secretly visited numerous times before.
The elegant but functional bedroom of Her Royal Highness, Princess Autumn, had been converted into a sensual, shadowy garden filled with hothouse blooms and lush greenery. Candles flickered around the perimeter of the room, casting a pale golden glow around the edges of the room and leaving the silk-draped bed a dark, mysterious cavern. Incense filled the room with rich, decadent scents. It was a bedroom designed to seduce the senses.
As soon as the doors of the “bridal bower” closed behind them, Khamsin threw back her veils and turned to her sisters in astonishment. “What’s going on here?”
“Tildy warned us the Winter King could identify a person by scent,” Summer said. “Since he thinks you’re Autumn, Tildy said the wedding night should take place here, in Autumn’s bedroom, where her scent is already absorbed into everything.”
“She added the flowers and incense to help mask your own scent,” Spring added, “and deliberately arranged the candles so he won’t be able to get a good look at your face so long as you keep to the bed.”
“Where’s Autumn?” she asked.
“Here.”
Khamsin turned. Her sister emerged from the connecting wardrobe room wrapped in a forest green satin robe. Her long auburn hair spilled around her shoulders in ringlets.
“Scenting up your nightclothes.” Autumn grimaced. “I know I’m clean. I bathed this morning, but there’s still something wrong about rolling on sheets and rubbing myself on clothes all day. It just seems so . . . so . . . dirty.”
Despite everything, Khamsin laughed. For some reason, Autumn’s complaint struck her as funny. “You rolled on the sheets?”
“Tildavera suggested it. She told me to make sure I put my scent on anything you were likely to wear or touch.”
Tildy again. Friend, mother, traitor. Kham’s humor evaporated. Her hand clenched tight.
“Quickly,” Spring whispered. “We don’t have much time. Autumn, you and Storm need to change clothes before he gets here. He said we only had thirty minutes, and something tells me he’s not a man to run late.”
A low heat had begun simmering in Kham’s veins. She tossed off the silk veils and tugged at her bodice. “It’s hot in here.” She ran a hand across her brow, not surprised to find beads of perspiration blooming on her skin.
“We’ll open a window before we leave, but first let’s get you out of those clothes.” Summer’s fingers went to work untying the laces at the back of Kham’s gown. “Autumn, take off that robe and gown.”
Autumn shrugged out of the satin robe, and Khamsin’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. “I’m supposed to wear that?”
Autumn blushed dark red. “Indecent, isn’t it?” The sleeveless, formfitting gown covered her from neck to ankle, but the center panels covering her breasts and belly were virtually transparent—and held together only by three simple ribbon ties that would be all too easy to release. Like the rest of the room, the gown was meant to inflame and dizzy the senses.
“Was that Tildy’s idea, too?”
“Well, it certainly wasn’t Father’s.” She hurried into the wardrobe and came back wearing a different robe and carrying the scandalous nightgown.
“Autumn, grab that pot of ointment.” Spring pointed to small ceramic pot on a table near the wardrobe door. “Tildy said we had to rub it on Storm’s skin. She didn’t say, but I guess she meant all over.”
“No,” Kham said. “Just on my back.”
Behind her, Summer let out a gasp as she freed the last of the laces and pushed the velvet gown off Khamsin’s back. “Storm . . . what happened to you? You’re covered in bandages.”
“I know.” Khamsin wriggled free of the velvet gown, shoved it down around her ankles, and stepped free of the heap of fabric. She was naked except for a pair of loose-fitting silk drawers and the bandages wrapped around her torso. “Do you have scissors to cut them off? They’ll show through that gown, which means I can’t keep them on.”
“Of course.” Autumn ran to a dresser and returned with a pair of scissors. “Here.” She handed the scissors to Summer, who immediately began slicing through the strips of linen.
Spring and Autumn let out shocked exclamations as their sister gently tugged the cloth free to reveal the ugly results of Verdan’s fury.
“Who did this?” Spring hissed. “Who would dare?”
“Who do you think?” Khamsin muttered.
“But why?” Summer’s hands trembled on the skin of Khamsin’s back. She was the gentlest of the sisters.
“The Winter King demanded a princess for a bride, and the Summer King wanted me gone.”
“He wouldn’t do this,” Autumn protested. “He couldn’t. Father wouldn’t risk cursing his own House this way.”
“You underestimate how much he despises me. I made him angry, then I defied him. He wasn’t thinking about the family. He was only thinking of breaking me.” She tossed her head. “Hurry. Put the ointment on. We’re running out of time.”
“You can’t possibly mean to go through with this,” Spring exclaimed. “Not in your condition.”
Now Khamsin did turn around. “I’ve been in a worse condition for three days now, and I will go through with this. It’s my choice. This isn’t the Summer King’s will: It’s mine. Now, put the ointment on my back so I can finish getting ready. My husband will be here soon, and if the marriage isn’t consummated before he discovers I’m not Autumn, everything I’ve done will have been for naught.”
Weeping, Summer dipped her fingers in the pot of salve and smoothed the fragrant gel over Khamsin’s battered skin. “I’m sorry, Storm. If we’d known, we would have stopped him.”
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Khamsin frowned and lifted her hair off the back of her neck. The room was stifling. “It’s not your fault. I don’t blame any of you. This is between the Summer King and me, no one else. Are you done? Good.” She took the nightgown from Autumn and pulled it on. The silk settled against her back, sticking to the still-damp residue from the salve. Even without the heavy velvet gown, she was so hot. “Spring, open the window, would you? I’m burning up.”
Her sister hurried to unlatch the window and throw it wide.
“Don’t worry sisters,” Khamsin added as she climbed into the middle of the dark, shrouded bed. “I’ll be fine. I’m actually feeling better than I have all day. Whatever you put in the wedding cup seems to have done the trick.”
A cool breeze blew through the window, wafting across the thin fabric of her gown. A frisson of heat shot through her veins. She couldn’t stifle a groan as her breasts and belly tightened with sudden, shocking need, almost painful in its intensity.
Her sisters exchanged long, worried glances. Guilty glances.
And then Khamsin knew why she was so warm. She knew why the pain in her back was gone, and where the seemingly boundless supply of simmering sensual energy had come from.
The wedding cup. Tildy.
“Arras leaf,” Wynter spat. “The bastard dosed us with arras leaf!”
Winter’s Frost! His sex was hard as ice and all but burning through his trousers. Each step was an agony, the material of his pants rubbing against tight, ultrasensitive skin, setting nerves on fire.
“Son of a whoring bitch. I’ll freeze his cock so cold it shatters.” He glared at Valik, who was striding quickly beside him. “Better yet, you find the bastard and lock him up. He drank from the same bottle. Tie him up so he can’t give himself any relief, and leave him that way ’til his balls turn blue.”
“Done. Do you want me to find an herbalist? See if there’s an antidote?”
“No. If he was this determined I should plow his daughter tonight, I’ll see it done. More’s the pity for her. I’d hoped to be gentle.” The chandelier above their heads froze, and as they passed beneath it, it gave a loud popping sound and shattered in a cloud of crystal flakes. The Summerlea guard leading the way into the private wing of the palace flinched.
They turned a corner, and Wynter saw the double doors flanked by two Wintercraig guards.
“Your queen’s bedchamber, Sire,” the guide stammered. He stepped aside to let Wynter pass, then turned and ran in the opposite direction.
The guards flanking the doors opened them as he drew near. Hot, heavy air swirled out, heady with the dizzying scents of incense and woman.
Wynter strode into the room and stopped in surprise. What surrounded him was no bedroom but rather a lush, sensuous garden, dense with foliage. Lights flickered along the edges of the room, and a carpeted pathway led through a virtual forest of plants and flowering trees and shrubs towards the dark, shadow- and silk-draped bed in the center of the room.
The hiss of Valik’s sword leaving the scabbard sounded at his back. “Don’t like this, Wyn,” Valik muttered, his voice clipped as it always was in enemy situations. “Don’t trust it.”
A flash of bare skin shone dimly in the great bed, a leg, slender and shapely. Moving restlessly, rubbing against the silken coverlet with the same desperate hunger that filled Wynter’s own body. This was no ambush. It was just that fool Verdan’s determination to see the Winter King fulfill his part of the marriage bargain.
“Get out,” Wynter barked at the men behind him. “Now. You, too, Valik.”
He waited for the click of the latch, then drew a deep breath of the heady, perfumed air and plunged towards the shadowed heart of the garden. The incense was so thick it left him dizzy. The arras leaf made his flesh burn from the inside out. The heat and the assault on his senses jumbled his thoughts. Logic would soon be gone, leaving only rapacious hunger and need.
“Your father is a fool, princess.”
He stumbled towards the bed, crawled into its plush softness. A groan broke past his lips and silks and velvets rubbed against his hands. Hot. He was so hot. Every sensation was a torment. His fingers tore at the silk of his shirt and the too-tight bond of his breeches. Fabric ripped, freeing steaming golden skin. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.
He reached for her. His hands closed around a slender ankle, ran up towards the softer skin of her thighs. The gown parted without resistance, fabric falling away to bare soft, sweet-smelling skin. Hot, burning skin.
He heard her breath catch, felt her body shift on a convulsive shudder.
“I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I didn’t know . . . I should have suspected.”
His hands tore at the fragile fabric covering her breasts, yanking satin ribbons free. The soft, round weight of feminine flesh filled his palms.
In a groaning voice that seemed torn from her, she cried, “Please.”
He bent his head, drawing the tightly pebbled tip of one breast into the scorching heat of his mouth. His tongue swirled around the beaded flesh. His right hand slipped down between their bodies to the soft curls and even softer flesh between her legs. A strangled cry ripped from her throat and her back arched up against him. Hot cream bathed his fingers. Her body shook in a hard, helpless paroxysm of tremors. The heady, earthy scent of female pleasure filled his nostrils. His balls drew tight in an almost painful clench, and his cock pulsed with sudden, straining urgency.
There was no waiting, no long, drawn-out pleasure. Only driving need and hunger. He lifted his head, eyes gleaming in the dim light.
His mouth closed over her, claiming her lips with the same rapacious hunger as he’d just claimed her breast. His hips surged forward with blind, mindless force. Virgin flesh resisted for a brief instant, then sundered. Tight muscle yielded.
His hands clutched hers, fingers twining tight. Icy Snow Wolf covered burning Summerlea Rose as her body sheathed his in blazing heat.
Lightning seared the sky. Thunder shook the earth with a tremendous, booming crash. Just as it had at the wedding, a wild, storming rush of air swept through the open windows, snuffing every candle and plunging the room into darkness.
CHAPTER 6
The White King’s Bride
In the dark of night, while Wynter slumbered heavily beside her, soft hands woke Khamsin. “Come sister,” a quiet whisper urged. “It’s past three. Time to go while you still can.”
She opened her eyes to the faint glow of a shuttered candle. The familiar shadowy shapes of her three sisters huddled beside the bed. They carefully lifted the weighty anchor of Wynter’s arm and helped Khamsin slide free and sit up on the edge of the bed.
Satin, cool and slick, spilled over Kham’s shoulders, drawing an involuntary hiss from her throat as the fabric brushed across the torn and sensitive skin of her back. She tugged the robe into place and accepted the hands that helped her stand up. Her knees wobbled, and her legs started to buckle. She would have fallen, but Spring and Autumn quickly slipped their shoulders under her arms and took her weight upon themselves.
“Careful,” Summer shushed with soft urgency. “You’ll wake him. This way. Hurry.” The pale, golden glow of Summer’s shuttered candle cast a faint illumination across the far wall, lighting the gaping darkness of the open dressing-room doorway.
They had all agreed last night that it would not do for Wynter to wake and find his bride unveiled in the stark, revealing light of day. He was not a man to take deception lightly, and the longer they could hold off the revelation of Khamsin’s identity, they’d decided, the better. And to ensure that he would sleep through her depature, one of the incenses that had burned in the chamber last night included a powerful sedative.
Khamsin cast a glance back over her shoulder. In the faint reflective glow of Summer’s lamp, she could see the shadow of the Winter King, large and magnificently naked, sprawled facedown a
cross the bed. A sharp bite of warmth drew her womb tight at the dimly illuminated sight of rounded, curving buttocks, broad, heavily muscled shoulders, and powerful limbs. Summer Sun! If not for the silky spill of winter white hair, she might think Roland himself lay there in her marriage bed.
For all that he was fearsome, for all that he could freeze a body with a single look, she suspected there were worse fates for a woman than to be tied in marriage to such a man.
Despite his reputed coldness, despite even her own painful wounds, when he’d touched her, he’d turned her body to living flame. And no matter how much she might wish otherwise, she knew that wasn’t just the arras leaf. It frightened her, that power he seemed to have over her. Frightened her . . . and intoxicated her. Even now, she could feel the hunger growing again, the pull drawing her towards him. She tamped it down and resolutely turned away.
Leaving Wynter to his drugged slumber, her torn back aching fiercely, Khamsin crept from the bridal bower and exited through the servants’ corridors to avoid the detection of the guards posted at the bedroom door. Summer hurried before them, holding her lamp. Autumn and Spring kept supporting arms around Khamsin. Together, the four of them climbed the narrow, lamplit servants’ stairs and made their way to the remote wing that housed Kham’s rooms.
Thankfully, Tildy was not there. The nurse had vacated her post and left behind healing cream, a collection of growing lamps, and a pot of herbs on an unlit burner with instructions to simmer the contents for their healing vapors. Khamsin’s sisters helped her to her bed, rubbed the cream gently on her torn back, and started the herb pot simmering. To her surprise, they insisted on staying with her.
“We’ll each take turns watching over you,” Autumn said.
“There’s no need,” Khamsin objected. “You should go, before anyone finds you here.”
“It’s the least we can do, Storm,” Summer said. She smiled so sadly, Kham wanted to weep. “Don’t fight us on this, sister. In your current condition, you know you can’t win.”
“I’ll take first watch,” Spring said. “There’s a bed in the next room. You two go get some sleep. I’ll wake you in a few hours.” When the others were gone, she bent over and brushed a spiral of dark, white-streaked hair from Khamsin’s forehead. “Poor little Storm,” she murmured. “Don’t fight so hard against everything. You’ll batter yourself to death.”