The Winter King

by C. L. Wilson

  She cupped them in her hand, scraped fingernail lightly on the underside. A muscle in his thigh leapt. His sex twitched, growing straighter and fuller, starting to rise.

  “Does it hurt when it does that?” She’d heard her father’s courtiers sometimes cursing the ache in their loins.

  She knew the instant his eyes opened, felt the tingling energy of his gaze like sunlight on her skin. She glanced up and, sure enough, found him watching her from beneath the thick lashes of his half-shuttered eyes. “Only if you don’t finish what you’ve started.” His voice was a low growl again, and the deep, raspy sound of it sent shivers racing across her body.

  “Ah. I’ll be sure to finish, then.” She turned her attention back to the intriguing mysteries of his sex. She stroked him, traced one long blue vein running the length of his shaft with the rounded edge of a nail, and smiled to herself when, despite his claims of exhaustion, his flesh strained upwards, as if rising to meet her hand. His body was a marvel. So different from her own, yet fascinating and beautiful in its own right.

  She curled her fingers around him. The flesh that had only moments ago been soft and malleable was now a thick, rapidly hardening shaft. Her fingers spanned little more than halfway around the base.

  She jumped a little when his hand stroked her bare bottom and slid between her heels to caress her inner thighs. One broad finger curved up, found her damp heat, and thrust up while a second finger slid up between her folds and began stroking the tiny nub of flesh that sent flares of electric heat shooting throughout her body. Her inner muscles clenched tight around him.

  “Does it hurt when it does that?” he asked with a slow smile.

  Her eyes fluttered down, and she swallowed thickly. “Only if you don’t finish what you’ve started.” His finger moved up and down inside her, a pale mimicry of what was to come but dizzying in its own right.

  He shook his head slightly. “Nay, Summerlass,” he denied. “This time you finish it.”

  “How?” She was willing. The ache was there and building. She wanted more than his finger inside her. Her hand clenched tighter around his shaft, moving up and down in a rhythm that instinctively matched his own strokes.

  “Mount me. As you would a horse.”

  “I don’t know how. I’ve never ridden a horse.” Oh. She caught her lower lip between her teeth and shuddered on a delicious wave of pleasure. She felt her inner muscles ripple and clench around his finger. It was only the beginning. He’d already taught her to expect much more.

  “Then today is a good day to start.”

  She gasped and nodded. Her eyes fluttered closed. “How?”

  She bit back a cry of protest as his hands ceased their erotic magic and slid towards her waist. Damp fingers stroked her thigh. “Put this leg across me and kneel over my body.”

  She shifted her weight and rose on her knees. He helped her, lifting her by the waist as she flung a leg across his hips and straddled him. Cool air mixed with warm swirled across the hot, damp skin between her legs. The dark, earthy scent of sex wafted around her like a dizzying cloud of incense. She saw Wynter’s nostrils flare as the wolf tasted the scent on the breeze. The hands at her waist slid down to her hips and squeezed briefly before sliding between their bodies.

  “Now, fill yourself with me and ride.” He guided his shaft to the entrance of her body and held it there while she impaled herself slowly on him. Inch by devastating inch, she took him, feeling the burning pull as her body stretched to accommodate him. He watched her with eyes of blue flame and his hands slid up her waist to cup the weight of her breasts in his palms and roll her nipples between his thumb and index finger.

  Her body clenched. Her hips bucked.

  “Gently, eldi-kona. Find your rhythm.” His hips rose and fell, showing her the tempo.

  She rode. Slowly at first, rocking against him, feeling the tug and burn where her flesh had stretched to accommodate him, then slowly increasing as she grew in confidence, and the heat coiled within her. He rose on his elbows to capture the tips of her bobbing breasts with his mouth. Teeth closed gently around one nipple and held fast, so that every time she rocked, she felt the tug at her breast like a spear of lightning shooting from chest to womb.

  “Wynter.” She speared her fingers into his hair and gripped his head. He would not let her end the torment. His tongue flicked out in teasing touches, flickering across the tight bead of her nipple in concert with each thrust of her hips.

  Her hips rose and fell. The hard, wide shaft worked in and out of her body, in a slow, incinerating slide. “Wynter!” Heat coiled inside her, winding tight.

  He grabbed her hips, broad fingers sank into soft flesh and gripped her tight. He lifted her hips and brought her down hard, forcing his body deeper inside her. Up. Down. Up. Down. Up. Slow, burning strokes, each one robbing her lungs of breath, each pulse making her heart race. Down. His own hips bucked up to greet her.

  “Wynter!” Sensation exploded inside her, radiating out from her womb in jolting electric spikes. Sparks burst in a million dizzying flashes behind her closed eyes. Dimly, she felt the last, pounding thrusts of his hips. Her body exploded again, and she rode the waves of shattering senses into darkness.

  When she woke again, sunlight was shining through the holes in the tent roof, and Wynter, fully dressed, was slipping on the last of his armor plate. The wolf’s head helm gleamed white and silver in the hands of a young soldier whose battle-aged eyes didn’t fit a face that couldn’t have seen its first shave more than a year past.

  She sat up in surprise and barely caught the covering pelt before it fell away. She was naked beneath the furs, her skin still tingling from the long hours of their coupling.

  “This is Stoli.” Wynter jerked a chin at the boy. “He’ll ride beside you. If you need aught, let him know. Get dressed now. Your clothes are there.” A woolen dress, fur-lined cloak, and warm boots had been draped across one of the camp chairs. “You have twenty minutes before my men take down this tent.”

  He spared a last look at her naked shoulders rising from the furs, long enough for her skin to heat beneath this gaze. Then his eyes shuttered, and she felt the deliberate, distant chill fall between them. What tenderness they’d shared was gone. He took his helm from the boy, ducked out of the tent, and was gone.

  Stoli followed seconds later. He didn’t look at her, but his bitterness was plain in the stiff, prideful line of his back. He didn’t like playing nursemaid to a woman any more than she liked having some downy-faced boy-soldier assigned as her jailer.

  Khamsin threw off the pelts and rose. Dizziness made her sway, and she stood still, eyes closed, hands to her head, until it passed. She would dress, and she would eat. She would be in enemy territory soon and would need all her strength and all her wits about her.

  Someone had removed the copper bathing tub, but they’d replaced it with a bucket of still-warm, jasmine-scented water, a bar of sweet soap, and a fresh cloth. It had to have been Wynter who’d ordered it, but such thoughtfulness in light of his coolness just now left her puzzled, unsure what to make of him. Was he the enemy king she’d wed or the caring husband seeing to his wife’s comfort?

  Both, she decided. Use the care to your advantage, Khamsin, but never lose sight of the enemy.

  She dipped the cloth and soap in the water and hastily bathed as best she could. He’d told her she had twenty minutes, and didn’t doubt his men would start pulling up the tent stakes the second that time was up.

  Laid across the camp chair beneath the woolen gown was a full white chemise of soft cotton. She tugged it on over her head, and let the billows of fabric drape her still-damp body from neck to toe and shoulder to wrist. Soft, blue lamb’s wool skirts followed, then a separate, formfitting bodice that fastened up the front with two rows of gleaming gold buttons, each bearing the raised stamp of a rose in bloom. The outfit had been Summer’s. Khamsin had n
ever owned a gown so fine except for what came from her sisters’ wardrobes when the Summer King wasn’t looking. The boots were soft kid, with a small, stacked heel, the cloak velvet-lined gray wool, trimmed with the plush, soft fur of a snow lynx around the generous hood. A matching fur muff dangled on a string from one of the cloak’s buttons.

  She fastened up her boots, ran a brush through her wild curls. She had just picked up the cloak when a youthful voice called coolly, “It’s time, my lady.”

  That brief call was the only warning she received before the tent flaps parted, and Stoli poked his head through.

  “Good,” he said. “You are ready. The king says you must eat before we leave. Bjork, the king’s cook, has prepared a plate for you. Follow me.” He ducked back out before she could answer.

  Scowling a little over the boy’s high-handedness, she flung her cape over her shoulders and followed him outside. With the exception of Wynter’s tent, which a dozen men were already swiftly disassembling, the trampled snow of what had been the army’s encampment was barren, smoky tendrils of mist rising up from snow-doused cook fires. Less than a tenth of the original force had remained behind, and they were already packed and waiting on the road, ready to march. The cook wagon was packed also, save a single plate of bread, cheese, and borgan and a cup of steaming broth which a large, scarred Winterman who introduced himself as Bjork handed to her.

  She thanked him and ate quickly, aware of all the eyes upon her. By the time she was finished, Wynter’s tent had been disassembled and loaded for travel, and Stoli returned to escort her to the waiting carriage.

  Just the sight of the four-wheeled torture chamber stopped her in her tracks. The meal she’d just consumed churned in her belly.

  “Hurry, please, my lady,” Stoli urged impatiently. “The day’s already half-gone.”

  Kham swallowed the sick queasy knot in her throat. If she knew how to ride a horse, she would have asked for one. Nodding, she gathered her skirts. You can bear it, Khamsin. You can bear anything if you put your mind to it. Just open the windows.

  The air of stale perfume and sickness still clung to the velvet-lined interior. She opened the window, turned her face towards the fresh outside air, and breathed through her mouth, praying the gods would be merciful and spare her the travel sickness this time. But with the first lurching jolt of the carriage, she knew no mercy was in the offing.

  Khamsin threw open the door on the far side and leapt to the ground. Her boots sank knee deep in snow, and the dark blue of her skirts and yards of cloak billowed out around her. She stumbled, slapped a hand on an icy tree trunk to steady herself, and took off running for the privacy of the forest.

  Shouts rose up behind her, followed by the clatter of horse hooves pounding frozen ground, but she ignored them and plunged into the snow-covered shadows of the trees. She ran until she could no longer see the road or the Wintermen, and then fell to her knees and emptied her stomach into the snow.

  When the nausea passed, she staggered back and fell against the trunk of an aged oak tree, sliding down the rough, broad trunk until she was sitting on the ground. She scrubbed her face with fistfuls of clean, cold snow and dragged breaths of cold air into her lungs.

  That was how Wynter found her. Her wild, white-streaked curls tangled about her shoulders, snowflakes glittering in the dark of her lashes and skin, her breathing shallow and skin wan. She glanced up at the sound of Hodri’s belled bridle, then closed her eyes wearily and let her head loll back against the trunk of the tree.

  The acrid scent of sickness curled on the winter wind, and the tension that had gripped Wynter’s chest in icy claws began to fade. She’d not been fleeing him. She’d only been seeking privacy to hide her weakness, as all wild things did.

  He drew a breath, released it slowly. His fury went with it on a long, chill exhale.

  He’d seen her leap from the carriage and race for the cover of the trees, and all he’d been able to think was that she was trying to escape, that she’d sworn to honor her vows and betrayed them at first chance. His fury at the prospect was surprisingly strong and violent. He didn’t know why. He’d been expecting deceit from the moment he’d ridden into Vera Sola, and she’d already been party to one lie.

  He swung his leg over Hodri’s hindquarters and dismounted. The snow came halfway up his calves as he walked to her side.

  “I can’t go back in that carriage,” she said, her eyes still closed. “I just can’t.”

  “No,” he agreed. “I can see that.”

  “If I could ride, I’d ask for a horse.”

  “If you could ride, I’d give you one.” He reached down to take her hand and pulled her to her feet. “Come. Hodri’s strong enough to bear the both of us. You’ll ride with me.”

  She gave him such a startled, hopeful look he almost smiled.

  “It’s no favor,” he assured her. “We’ll ride hard, and we won’t stop often. And you won’t find the front of my saddle the kindest seat.”

  “I won’t complain.” She wouldn’t. Even if the saddle bruised her so badly she could barely walk, she wouldn’t make a peep.

  He led her back to Hodri, mounted first, then leaned over to grasp her hand and lift her into the saddle before him. Together, they rode back to the rest of the men, and after a brief hour’s rest, they were back in the saddle and once more heading north at a punishing pace. Wynter, with Khamsin seated before him, rode in the lead.

  It wasn’t comfortable. He’d spoken the truth about that. The saddle was crowded, his armor plate against her back was hard as granite, but she didn’t care. Anything was better than the closed, miasmic imprisonment of that carriage.

  She leaned her head against Wynter’s armored chest, tilted her chin into the wind, and smiled for the first time in days.

  They rode for eight days. The pace was grueling, the saddle unforgiving, but Khamsin kept her vow not to complain. Despite his outward coldness, Wynter did everything he could to make her comfortable.

  The first day of riding sideways across the saddle left her thighs and buttocks black-and-blue from bouncing, and when they stopped for the night, Khamsin remained standing during dinner and barely managed to hobble the short distance to Wynter’s tent. He made her lift her skirts to show him the damage. He let out what sounded like a stream of muttered curses in his language, rubbed a healing liniment into her abused posterior, and slept curled tight around her throughout the night. She woke the next morning to find that someone had slit the skirt and the bottom half of her chemise and sewn them back together into wide, loose-fitting trousers. Wynter wouldn’t tell her who had done it; he just told her gruffly to put them on and be silent. She rode astride after that.

  He drew back the clouds to help her body’s sun-fed healing powers regenerate more quickly, and despite the snow on the ground, the warming air and her own hot Summerlea blood soon had her throwing off her cloak. The crisp, cool wind on her face was refreshing, and she loved the free, unfettered feel of it. Even if her hair did keep getting blown into the joints of Wynter’s plate mail and ripping out by the roots.

  The third morning, ignoring the fierce objections of his men and Valik, in particular, Wynter left off his armor. He claimed it was easier on Hodri—that the armor weighed more than Khamsin, and without it, Hodri would not feel the added burden of a second rider. That made a certain sense, and Khamsin would have believed him without question had she not overheard Valik hissing at Wynter after breakfast that his soft-hearted foolishness was going to get him bloody killed.

  “We may have crossed the Rill, but we’re nowhere near out of danger. One arrow in your unprotected back is all it takes, Wyn! Put your damned armor back on, and don’t give me that blather about weights and double riders! I saw you plucking her hair from your mail last night and scowling like you’d torn it from her scalp with your own two hands. Your mail could rub her skin bloody, and I’d still tell
you to wear it.”

  But he didn’t, and from that day on, Khamsin rode snuggled close against Wynter’s body, without the wall of cold steel between them. When they made camp, he came to their tent after dinner, rubbed healing liniment on her thighs and buttocks, then curled his body around hers with exquisite care. She slept each night spooned against his large, muscled form, and woke each morn to the dizzying sensation of hard, erect flesh sliding into her body while his hands stroked her breasts and teased the bud of flesh between her legs until she cried out and shattered with pleasure.

  On the eighth day, Khamsin caught sight of silvery white shapes darting amongst the trees on either side. Wolves.

  “They give escort,” Wynter murmured against her ear. “It’s not much farther now. We’ll reach the Craig by tomorrow midday.”

  “The Craig? But . . . aren’t we already there? We crossed the river days ago.” And much to her surprise, the snow that had blanketed Summerlea for the past three years was conspicuously absent on the Wintercraig side of the river. Instead, the land was in full, brilliant autumn bloom, and the only snow she’d seen yet was gathered on the very tops of the mountains.

  She felt his smile. “The kingdom of Wintercraig starts at the Rill, it’s true; but ask any Winterman, and he’ll tell you, these are the Hills. That”—he pointed—“is the Craig.”

  Khamsin’s breath caught in her throat. They’d crested the summit of a small mountain pass, and the trees broke enough to offer up a dazzling view of a wide, forested valley, filled with vibrant autumn color and towering evergreens. In the distance, great, jagged, snow-covered peaks rose up from the ground like ancient walls of stone and ice, filling the horizon as far as her eyes could see.