Page 86 of The Pakhan’s Hidden Heir

“Your nose is rosy,” she says, touching the tip of it with her mug-warmed fingers.

“Your face is beautiful,” I tell her, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Thank you for coming here with me.”

“I was under the impression I didn’t have a choice.”

“You didn’t, but you could’ve protested and you didn’t.” I grin against her skin, happier than I’ve been in a decade. Life feels whole when she’s around in a way I never imagined I could experience again. After losing my first wife, I gave up all hope that the miracle of having a family would happen to me. Now here I am.

I guide her through the maze of ice, glowing walls behind which rooms are adorned with low-heat fixtures and privacy features.

Knowing Felix is safe with Ingrid, two of my men watching them carefully, I usher my wife to our private room, where the ice welcomes us to its chilly embrace.

The walls curve up into a low dome and the bed sits on a block platform under reindeer hides stacked four deep.

The lamps set into the ice make the whole room glow in shades of blue and red and pink.

Raina stands in the middle of the room with her coat still on and her hands tucked under her arms, turning a slow circle with her eyes wide in fascination.

“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” she says.

It’s expensive too.

They can’t make these castles every year.

Only on years when the temperatures get low enough for long enough, and even still the life of this “building” is only a month, two if it’s a bitter season.

But it’s something I’ve always wanted to experience, and who better to experience it with than the woman I love?

I close the door behind us, shutting us into the cold.

I won’t have a problem snuggling down under those hides to rest, so long as her body is pressed against mine.

“It’s warmer than it looks,” I say, but I’m looking at her, not the room. Her eyes drift around for another moment, before they fall on my face.

But Raina doesn’t respond with words. Her fingers rise to my coat and she starts unbuttoning it, slowly one at a time until the buttons are worked loose and her hands splay on my chest.

“Thank you,” she says softly, sliding her arms around my torso until she’s holding me and her chin presses to my sternum. I place a kiss on her forehead and breathe her in. She’s still so cold, but I intend to rectify that.

“For what?” I grimace when she starts inching my sweater up in back, pressing her cold fingers to my skin.

“You know…”

I do know, and she doesn’t have to say it. Akim was a disease and though I’ll mourn him because he was like a brother to me, I don’t regret it. My wife and my child come first, no matter how rough this relationship is now—or how bumpy the road has been getting here.

I cup both of her cheeks and brush the melting snow droplets off her cheekbones. “You’re everything to me, Raina.” I’ve been waiting for so long to do the right thing, to tell her how I feel.

She has fought me and pushed back.

I’ve demanded things angrily and forced her to follow every command.

It’s what I learned from my father, although I’m learning now that maybe it’s not necessarily the right thing. Agnya never tolerated it, but I worshipped her.

I worshipped Raina too, in my mind. But the exterior never followed. I was too stubborn to let myself be that weak again.

But it was never a weakness to love her.

I know that now.

It was my greatest strength, and I’m a stupid, foolish man for not allowing my strength to shine through.