Page 154 of Winter Gods & Serpents

Henah and the dark sky. I startled upon entering my room, pulling the nearest item of clothing over my bare chest.

“I’m no shy blushing maiden, Kilian, no need for that,” Snow said, leaning back onto the dresser. Her eyes darted to the towel wrapped around my waist and a clean smirk rose on her lips. “No need for that either.”

“How did you get in?”

“Mal is a sweetheart.”

He would be hung by his ears once I saw his face. Throwing the cloth away I grabbed the towel behind her, the gold shimmering irises following me intently. “What do you want, or was the captain not to your satisfaction and you have come for a show?” I said, pulling my breeches up.

She bit her lower lip, her face lit in amusement. Hells this woman. Hells my dissipating self-control.

“It is you and me today,” she said, pushing herself from the dresser, the sage silk dress she wore shifted with her. “We are heading out of castle grounds.”

“Why? Where is Nia?” Let her not have punished her friend, gods, what was this woman doing? Let Nia be well.

She moved around my chambers peaking about the furniture, her finger tracing a line along the walls. The look of a hunter etched on her features, one that played with their pray. She was playing with me. “The sweet backstabber is excused from her duties till further notice.”

“Did you have to do that?”

She halted and innocently cocked a brow up at me. “Do what?”

“Spew more venom at one of the few who actually seems to love you? Aren’t those few to spare that you spend your chances so loosely, or does a viper need no companions?” I didn’t like the words that came out of my mouth, but it felt easy to dislike her right now and I feared for Nia.

“I don’t know, you tell me, you're kin to them, correct?” she asked in a snide smile, batting her lashes all force of battle. A battle where I’d be fallen, she’d already won the war without lifting a sword.

She looked at me with such distaste, blinking slowly, never losing my gaze; now I wanted to strangle her and not the good kind. The air was becoming heavy, almost choking. There was no breeze in the room, but her dark hair floated lightly around her. Such an alluring creature. Just why—why on gods did she turn her facade on so many times and why did she do it even to hurt those that cared for her?

“You intend to have a staring contest with me?” I asked again after her loud silence.

“You would win, you love staring at me after all,” she said approaching, parting my knees open till she stood between me. Her thin gloved fingers gripped my chin, pulling my head up to meet her gaze. “Don’t be mad at me for things you do not understand.”

Hells again, this woman. My fingers curling in tight fists, forbidding myself from rounding them around her. “Don’t touch me, Snow.” Don’t touch me or you might regret what I will do next, when I have you pinned down to the bed, my mouth over yours, my hands all over your body, you screaming my name. When I break all promises I’d made to myself. Step over every border that keeps me still and have you. That is what I wanted to say. Instead, it had come out as that. As if I didn’t crave for her every moment of the day and all night.

She dropped her hand away from me. “I forget sometimes, who you are and what I am. How forbidding and repulsive my touch is to you.”

“Go,” I managed to gather. “I will meet you outside.” I was never mad at her. I’d always been mad with myself.

“You look like a wet puppy,” she said, ruffling my hair before making for the door. “Do not make me wait.”

My hands fell over my face and I breathed out a heavy exhale, and some relief that I’d not lose restraint.

* * *

She stood by the door, thankfully wrapped in a warm furry cloak, her eyes lost about in the distance, however no more sharpness in them, only lassitude.

“Tell me that is your reconsideration face.”

She shortly glanced at me. “It is my ‘what I should snack on’ face.”

“Did you not eat?”

“I don’t like eating alone,” she said, pushing from the wall towards the dark castle corridors.

“You should have asked Nia then.”

She halted and turned all fury to me. “Shut up.”

“Why?” I asked nearing face to face with her. “Just why do use all that head and all that wit for things so gruesome and painful and terrible, but cannot see a friend who cares and treat her almost as your enemy. She is suffering, Snow.”