Page 181 of Winter Gods & Serpents

“Permission?” I asked, grazing my thumb over her lips.

She groaned. “You righteous fool. Hells, I imagine there is a need for a ritual for you Adriatians. What about when you fuck, do you demand a human sacrifice? The blood of a lamb? Henah herself as a witness?”

I laughed hard, harder I’d laughed before. It might have been at her frustration or her joke or both. I cupped her face, lowering mine to hers. When I nudged my nose to hers, her eyes drew shut. Then I tasted her impatience in the air…and something else. The way she swallowed, how tightly her lids pressed, the nervous patter of her fingers on her leg. Maybe she had lied to me? Maybe she hated it, terribly. I’d hate to think she was forcing herself through this.

“Call it to effect, Snow,” I said, half-heartedly. “If I kiss you, I will never be able to stop, you already hate this enough as it is, don’t give yourself a reason to hate me anymore than this.” Perhaps it was what she wanted—to find reason and hate me. She’d admitted to struggling to hate me, this would do the trick.

She hates you either way, will hate you even more later. Taste her, have her, feel her, kiss her. I wanted to be greedy how my insides demanded, but it was no longer only about hate.

“Kilian—” I was right, I felt it in her shivering voice. “It is not that.”

I shook my head. “Don’t make me one of your conquest, please.”

She rose her hands to my face. “You’re not.” Her voice small and defeated. “You’re not.”

Fuck, I wanted her. Damned hells and guardians I wanted her badly, but I didn’t want her hurt or upset or forcing herself or hating me anymore than she already did. “Call it, whatever it is,” I urged fighting against all instinct of my body demanding for her. “Call it or I will not know how to wrench my body from yours.”

She tightened her embrace around me, her head burying deep in my chest. “Just be my friend then.”

Chapter 33

Friends and Lovers

Snowlin

After our return from Venzor we had separated quietly, heavy on what we might have found out. We could now track Melanthe, but we needed a crafter and that was my plan. My father had banned all craft in Isjord, even those hiding he probably knew so I had to go somewhere he could not find out what I needed, and his crafter not to scent the veil of a blood trace craft under her nose, wherever she was.

I wrote to Albius who I had been frequently exchanging communications and keeping a good relationship with, notifying him I was going to travel to his city as I had no duties to attend to at the moment and was looking to leave Tenebrose walls. He was a polite and quiet man, he had shown the most respect to me out of all the lords, as well as responded the least drastically to my not so agreeable actions. He had been the only lord to show to my father’s meeting after I had roasted the pig of Brogmere.

I also loved hearing his stories, so I was looking forward to the trip. He remembered so much of Eren, so much that I myself had forgotten and I loved hearing him speak about him. Albius had not refused each time I’d asked him to describe my brother detail by detail, over and over again till I had fallen asleep at the image his words had painted. He had told me Eren was everything he expected a future king to be, his wits and skills despite my brother's young age had beyond impressed him.

A knock sounded by the door. The list of those fearless to visit me so early in the day was extremely small, but I was curious to meet the brave one, so I slid out of bed and threw a gown over my night slip.

“Good morning, Snowlin,” the crinkled crone said entering my room. She looked all the same feathered peacock I had left her to be after I stopped attending my father’s happy family breakfast routine. Her lurid yellow dress washed her out severely and I wondered if stomach sickness was the look she was after. If it was, an applause to her, she had well achieved it.

“My, my, my, Moreen don’t you look,” I said as my eyes traced her top to bottom “sickly?” I asked in a teasing uncertainty.

She had always been unreasonably jealous of my mother, despite how she knew my father never loved my mother as he did her. Moreen looked frail and soft but she was a twisted maniac, how many smart ways she had found to torture my poor mother. I remember once she had ordered my mother’s servants to sprinkle her bath with thyme, to which my mother had a severe reaction forcing her to rest sick in bed for weeks only so she could attend the solstice ball along my father instead of her. Moreen had paraded in that ball so proudly and happily alongside him, I swore she’d shone like a torch. She held her nose so high and mighty, how did she even think to breathe around me when I knew what she had done—when I knew her darkest of secrets, that even my father was not aware. How was she so courageous to bring her throat so near my hands, her heart so near my dagger and her puffed up confidence near my blood hungry mine. However, it was not her time yet. I wouldn't want for her to pass easily through the sift of my anger, which right now was honed for kill.

“I see you are not coming to attend breakfast anymore. Your father has been most upset about it. I wanted to come to invite you to join us today, no matter if he has wronged you he is still your father and loves you,” she said, and I could not hold it any longer.

I howled in laughter, so deep I had to hold my stomach from aching, and I could not prevent tears from wetting my face. This was so very entertaining, it made my morning brighter, it truly did. The old peacock really dared to come directly to me and thought she could be the one to convince me to return, to obey my father with such wrong words, such wrong lies. I knew what she was planning, she had earned my father’s affections like everyone else, she was just another in his court. Moreen had always bargained her way to people's trust with empty and decorated words making herself appear as if she were the one to convince them to turn his side in the first place. She wanted me to return so she could get credit for it from my father and appear as the pure little saint everyone thought she was. For her to take such dramatic actions would have to mean father was truly starting to lose whatever affection he had for her.

Her face finally betrayed her in front of me, her eyes widened at my amusement. “Oh dear, thank you for that. Will you pass a message from me to my father? I did not know he missed me to this extent.”

“Of course, whatever you wish I will pass it on, my child.”

A shiver crept down my spine and I almost brought another Moreen in the room from my throat. “Yes, well,” I said, opening the door, motioning for her to exit, “tell him I said I will return to breakfast.”

Her eyes and mouth drew back in satisfaction.

“I will return when he is able to fit an apple up his loving arse. Also be a dear and notify him I am leaving for Arynth,” I added with a kind smile and nod to her. If I had a smudge of talent I would have painted the shocked view of Moreen all over the castle walls, such a shame this masterpiece had to be lost at the uselessness of my skills.

After Moreen left, Mal and Cai shook with laughter, which I didn’t know whether was directed to me or the old peacock, but my amusement different from theirs was now almost non-existent, she had done a perfect job at annoying me.

“Are we really going to Arynth?” Mal asked.

I nodded, entering my room. “Ready everyone by the stables. I have a crafter waiting for us.”