Page 202 of Season Warriors & Wolves

I hooked a finger on her necklace and pulled her up to her feet. “If only you were as good at rendering me defenceless as you can render me speechless,” I said, dragging her to another court.

She sucked a sharp breath when I wrapped the necklace around my finger until the chain was tightly pressing against her neck, digging into her smooth skin where my mouth had been not even days ago.

“Try pushing me off without touching me or using magic directly on me,” I said.

My eyes never left hers, but from the corner of my vision, I could see ice taking shape and then two creatures prowling towards me.

Ice crashed against shadows before they even got close enough to stand near the shade of my shadow. “Ah, isn’t that cute, bird?”

She refused to look away or give up. More wolves of ice took shape, doubling, tripling, not even hesitating to launch towards me this time.

I clicked my tongue when they didn’t even last a full five seconds. “Now that is just stinking adorable.”

“Stop taunting me.”

“Taunting you?” I stepped closer to her. “Thora, you’ve never heard the noise of battle. The chaos. The absolute insanity that crosses you when you can hear or see nothing. If you cannot shut your mind off your surroundings, the tethers will fade or won’t be as strong. You’re an elemental, one too many tries and your fuel ends, then the seal opens. What happens when that seal opens?”

“Bad things.”

“Very bad things, sweetheart.”

She swallowed, her eyes dropping to my hand that was now pressed to her throat. “Malik p—”

“Don’t beg me, Thora. Push me off.”

“I can’t.”

“You can.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You actually just did. By insinuating that you can even get to me.”

More creatures of ice rose around us. Angry little bird was quite the character.

She didn’t hold back and neither did I.

The wolves evaded my shadows more efficiently, but still crashed against my magic. This time, however, she was relentless. Each time she tried, each wolf that rose, it lasted longer than the previous. Avoiding being met by my shadows, jumping and sliding between them, until…the tip of an icy paw flashed in front of my face for a fraction of a second before it crushed against shadows.

“Very good.”

“It was not,” she said, breathing just a little bit heavier from the use of magic.

I let go of her and stepped back. “It was. No one gets that close to me.”

“Then you must have let me.”

“Just a little. But that was some good effort.”

“I’d take that to heart,” Kilian said, finally throwing a shirt on. “My Eldritch Commander is very spare with his compliments.”

“Nonsense,” Snow said, wrapping her arms around my brother’s sweaty chest. “He gives me compliments all the time.”

I pried her hand off my brother and kissed her knuckles. “Only for you, sister-in-law.”

Kilian grabbed her hand back and put it on his chest, fading them away to probably do what only gods and the whole castle of Amaris knew.

Cai crossed the camp, dumping a bunch of weapons in the pile behind us. “You should be keeping an eye on Golgotha or training your men, not romancing your brother’s wife.”