Page 191 of Winter Gods & Serpents

You know why Snow, you know, I wanted to say. “I do not need to explain myself to you.”

She came closer and closer to me. The warmth of her body spread towards mine. I wanted to move my hands to tuck her hair, to run my fingers over her skin, over her lips. I wanted to trace every bit of her. My skin burned at the thought and the desire to act to my thoughts. I had wanted to strangle her, she had been the cause of my worry, anger, and frustration. She was dangerous, vengeful, angry, a vixen. How many times had I chanted those very words to get her out of my head?

Her eyes roamed over my face before meeting my own. “Do not play games with me, my importance to your king must be tremendous by the look of it, isn’t it?” A wicked smirk stretched on her face, looking to incite me. “Holding something from me?”

“Think what you want if it helps that ice shield of hate, anger and vengeance of yours stay intact.”

“Don’t chastise, answer me,” she spat, her palm hit my chest. “Answer me and tell me this is all nothing, tell me that this is all but—but,” she continued taking a step closer, “but nothing.” Her whole body shaking with anger, she hit again and again, and I stood there silently holding my truth, knowing I could not lie and tell her what she wanted to hear.

Her head dropped and her chest heaved, panting half breathless half from rage. “Fight back,” she said, hitting me again. “Fight me back like you always do, hate me like you always did.”

How could I, when she was the only person I wanted to protect, the only one who I would fight the whole world for.

“I can’t and I think you already know why,” I answered, instinct taking over to hold her face, resting my forehead to hers. To feel her, inhale her. “Here it comes Snow, all that I’d promised not to say. Here it all comes.”

She stilled under me, her chest flailing in and out of breath.

“It is hard, so hard not to think about you so I dare and let myself. I think about you when I look at you, when I eat, walk, talk, think. Hells, I even dream about you. You’ve plagued my days and my nights with daydreams—terrifying daydreams of smiles I can never fully have as mine, of eyes that I cannot stare to all my life, lips that I cannot make mine, a head that once I’m in I don’t want to get out, of words and jokes that I could hear for eternity and never get tired. I think about you. I think about you now. I think about you always. My thoughts are only of you, my hunger is only for you and it is starving me to insanity. It is more than the need to claim you, it is the need to have you, all of you. Your silent head and your loud heart, I want them both. I want all, mostly and especially all.”

A slight tremble permeated her limbs, and she blew a heavy breath. “I think I’m in trouble, what do I do?” Her eyes rose to mine, filled silver with regret, doubt and fear. “My thoughts are only of you as well. That day I was…afraid that I felt for you…and I do. I think I do.” She took my hand and placed it over her chest. “Why can’t you read me, see my shadows? I can’t read myself. I don’t even know myself. Read me, Kil. Read and tell me what it is.”

My heart stilled, then summersaulted in my chest at the unexpected reaction and words. She felt like I did? She felt for me? “Snow—”

She rested her fingers over my lips to stop me. “How is it so hard to breathe when I am with you, yet you have become like air that fills my lungs. What do I do? I cannot want you, yet you are what I want the most. So here it goes, the words I’d promised not to say.” She took a deep stuttering breath. “Where do words go once we’ve said them? Do we forget them, do I live regretting them or wishing I’d said more, do we pretend we never said them in the first place?”

I kissed her palm. “What do you want, my heart?”

Her eyes drew shut. “I want to hear more, I want to hear you more, call me that again.”

“Come to me, my love. Do not push me away. Let me hold you, let me hold you like this, even if for a while, even if it is for a short while. For however long you want.” I wanted her to allow me more than just that, I wanted her to allow me in her whole world, I wanted to see her skies and land, I wanted to understand her better, know her better.

A smile rose on her lips and she put her thumb in the middle of my chin, stroking so gently my body slumbering in peace. “Do you know how long I’ve been wanting to do that? It drives me mad. Do you know how many times I’ve gone mad because of it? This damned, damned dimple.”

My body released from the tension and shook with laughter at her unexpected words. At the same beat her eyes rounded and stared at me with that odd unexplainable expression.

“I have lost count,” I stated, lacing my fingers through her silken black hair. “Of times when you look at me like that.” I liked when she did, it was a look she had only ever given me.

She looked taken aback by my comment for a moment, but she then gave me a berating scowl. “Don’t laugh like a madman then.”

I understood then, the trigger for her odd eyes as my thoughts begun tracing since when she’d seen me like that. “Is it that strange, to hear me laugh?”

“Rare, not strange. Enough that it makes me want that sound for myself only, to lock it in a soundbox and let it soothe me to sleep every night,” she said, tracing the centre of my jacket.

Her words felt dreamlike. What god was messing with my mind to play me like this? This was my torture. I groaned pulling her closer, drunk in her presence, her face a thin page away from mine. “What are you doing to me, woman?”

“You started it.”

“If I get to see you give me those eyes again I might never stop and laugh myself to death,” I said half smiling, I was immensely pleased.

She narrowed her eyes in slits and hit my chest with her palm in anger, I took my chance grabbing her wrist and pulled her into a hug. She wiggled around till she gave up and wrapped her arms around my waist. She was tall but compared to me much smaller, her head rested just above my chest and I rested mine on top of hers, planting a kiss atop.

“I forbid you,” she murmured. “You cannot smile at anyone that is not me.”

“It’s all yours. I am all yours.”

“All mine,” she repeated taking a deep breath. “I have never had someone all mine before.”

We stood there for a while, to me it seemed a small eternity. Her hands slid under my jacket exploring every corner of me. “You remind me of spring, you smell like it as well,” she murmured between us, breaking the silence, and I laughed again. I did not know how anyone smelled of a season, but I was satisfied nonetheless at her comment.