Page 235 of Winter Gods & Serpents

I stared at the ring on my finger, refusing to look at him. “Had I really downplayed the pain caused by you this much or did you put the matter on your hands to disregard it?”

“I did not disregard it, my love.”

“You did,” I shouted, patting my aching chest. “You did, why did the king of night…why did you even think of breathing near me, let alone cheating your way into me.”

“There is much I have to tell you, but I never intended to, my heart, to deceive you. But this—this I couldn’t stop this from happening, even if I tried. You had me as yours since perhaps the beginning of it all.” He took a step to me, cupping my shoulders to turn me round facing him. My skin erupting in shivers, not those of fear or cold, not those of repulse but because of him and how he made my heart pulse. He rose my chin and when I lowered my eyes still refusing to look at him, he pressed his forehead to mine and I drowned once again in his inhale, every piece of me refusing to move away. His fingers soft on my face. “I’ve been dying slowly day by day and I’d never known this and how this feels. Now…now, my Snow, I die a little less. I began dying a little less when you smile and when you make me smile. When I held you, I had held my stars. I had been in the dark and never known. You are my stars. One doesn’t get to stumble upon them, not in a thousand life time’s, yet I did. Call it fate. Call it twisted fate, but I did.”

It made my skin crawl and my body shiver in hate at how those words made my heart tremble.

“Fate?” I asked, my voice a fraction from breaking. I swallowed taking my trembling lip between my teeth. I broke from his touch, scratching the searing feel of him red raw from my arms, the pain numbing my feel.

“Don’t, please,” he pleaded, drawing his eyes shut.

“Let’s call it fate but don’t you find it strange Your Majesty, how one moment your heart burns and burns and suddenly in a flicker of a mere ember it turns completely to ice? So there—there goes your fate. Our fate was meant to burn and hurt, it is written in blood and sealed in death. You knew and yet you ignored it and my feelings.” I felt blood leaking down my arms. “You disgust me, repulse me. Seeing you breathe so close to me I wish I could choke on this very air.”

His silver gaze withered at every step I took away from him. My heart had not turned exactly to ice, it had turned to a razor flame of frost, one so sharp that it could carve your very bones.

“All of this must have been so very entertaining for you, well at least I hope it would have been because what comes after this, won't be all so pleasant.”

“I know you, Snow, do not push me away like this, not without hearing me first,” he said, trying to close the distance between us, but I moved further back. Each step of mine his chest rose, hope fleeting from his expression.

“You know absolutely nothing,” I spat without hesitation. I didn’t care for his explanation. “You never did, had you known even the slightest you would have not even thought of looking at me.”

I was not going to let his words break me, I would not allow it, he already shattered me to pieces—pieces that for years I have not been able to collect, they were still missing, probably never to be found.

I unsheathed the dagger hidden between the layers of my skirt and pressed it to his neck. He did not flinch, not even waver only stared at me like he always did, like I was his whole world, like there was nothing else to see, like he only saw me beneath what most saw.

A tear slid from my eye and I trembled in front of him, weightless and willingness to finish what I’d waited twelve years to do. He’d done it, truly won his way out of me killing him.

He reached for my face, wiping the tear with his thumb. “Don’t cry, my love, do it with a smile.”

“Be afraid,” I barely managed to utter between stuttering breaths. “Be afraid.”

“I am afraid.” His knuckles grazing my cheek. “How can I not be afraid when I am losing you.”

“Enough,” I said, covering my ears and turning away from him.

His arms wrapped around me, the presence of his body melting to mine. “Do what you came here to do, but listen to me first.”

I didn’t want to hear it. I wanted to hear none of his reasons. “Let me go.” I wiggled out of his touch as furiously as my weakened will allowed me too, yet not enough to push him off me.

He rested his forehead at the side of my head, his warm air over my skin. “Forgive me, one last time, for what I am about to say.” His hands caressing me, as he whispered the next words so gently to me they had sprung around, scents of care and colour of want. “You have turned this realm upside down and sideways right into the hottest of hells, Snow.”

“Enough, enough, enough.” I said, shaking my head. A plea more than a demand.

“I’m in love with you, so in love with you. To keep you, I kept quiet so selfishly.” At his words my whole body reverberated of pain and fear of the worst kind. “I want you to know even if it is wrong, even if I do not deserve to do so, even if you won’t allow me, even when…I lose you. I want you to know that I am utterly and completely in love with you. Even though it hurts to know that you will slip away from me, that these feelings will die with me. I want you to know that despite everything, despite all, I love you and always will.”

He buried his head between my hair, I could feel the speeded paces of his breaths, the want in the tightness of his embrace, how he shook holding me. “You taught me how to feel, you taught me love but you didn’t teach me goodbye, so I waited, said nothing because I knew that you would teach that now. Forgive me, for not saying anything and forgive me for not regretting having loved you.”

I broke myself free and turned to him, grabbing onto the lapels of his jacket I rose to my toes and pressed my lips into his. Touch of cold darkness against the smooth moon, a dark so bright it shone. The contact broke me, and a whimper left my throat. Every inch of me burned and ached and tingled at the warm feel of him on me, at the touch of his hands over my skin, the flutter of his breath, the scent of season enveloping me. I understood then what he’d meant that day—I understood that I too would have to live knowing and never having again. I held him and he held me. I burned as if being in flames was being alive. His hands gripped my face, and he sank the kiss deeper, obliging to my demand. His hand spanned over my neck, the other bringing my body closer to press it against his hard one. I was never anyone’s, but at this moment I was his. His finger curled between my hair, my own tight around him almost afraid he’d part from me. Moans escaped me only to be drowned by his and I swallowed them deep till they vibrated low in my stomach, stirring my desire and desperate ache for him. If sky could touch land, forbidding and unfelt, epiphanic and longing as he devoured me and I salvaged him, for as long as what had been left from his Snow remained from fading. It was when my breaths ached and the cry in my throat welled beyond containment that I pulled away, biting his lip softly, each fibre of my being demanding to relish him more. It was how I’d imagined and so much more, overwhelming and strange, it made my heart hurt. I would break him, but I realized a moment too late that I would break me too.

He sucked in a breath of pain, the sound of steel parting flesh breaking the silence, and then the heavy air filled with metallic stink of blood.

“Such pretty words, had I a heart it would have been yours.” I whispered over his lips. “Ah, yes, you ripped that away twelve years ago. Soon, I will have yours with all its roots, King of Adriata.” I pulled back away in a voice that was no longer mine, a step that would hunt him and an unforgiving gaze that would soon see his pain. “Expect and be aware, I have great plans for you.”

My dagger had embedded in his shoulder, yet he did not flinch or remove it. A silver thread of a tear slid from his eye and I tore my gaze away, making for the doors before I could no longer hold it in.

The skies welcomed me ghastly, spinning, lightless and tempest brewing. Behind me doors heavily creaked shut as all the ones in my heart did. Finally tears streamed down my face, I let silenced small whimpers and cries escape my mouth, unbearably hard to suppress. The overwhelmed wave of emotion that had not drowned me since when my family died, rolled all over me again, the feel of loss. I clutched my chest tight, fear cursing every corner of it—illogical, unconscious fear. My fingers grazing the top of my lip afraid, as if I would wipe away his presence there.