34. Isla
34
ISLA
A fter a sleepless night and a whirlwind farewell breakfast with my family, I take off for Glace with Aodhan, Lachlano, Izolda, and Elio. My mind remains so consumed by my conversation with Shoshair that the trip seems to wink by in a single wingbeat.
When land appears on the horizon, steeped in inky blueness, I think it’s Nebba, until Aodhan says through the pack link: Ahh…polar twilight. Or as I like to call it: limbo-indigo.
Polar …?
I must think the word into the pack link, because Aodhan says, Welcome home, Princess.
But it’s early fall, I gasp. I thought it would be at least another month until winter arrived and night fell.
So, it’s not true winter. It’s, like, half winter. True winter will hit in about a fortnight in the north and a little after that in the south.
The realization that the prophecy is nearing makes me forget to beat my wings.
Isla! Lachlano shrieks, diving after me, causing Elio to pale from the harsh slant of their descent.
I snap my wings and veer back up. Sorry.
You should inform Konstantin that we’re arriving, Aodhan says. He wanted to be part of our welcoming committee.
The moisture flees from my mouth as Aodhan’s dark eyes roll over me, quickening the already mad pulses of my heart. Does he suspect something? Was his remark meant as a challenge, or did he speak with no ulterior motive?
I prefer surprising him, I finally answer.
Lachlano must sense my distress because he engages Aodhan in a conversation about polar twilights that I cannot, for the life of me, focus on.
Agitated, excited, exhausted, energized, I speed up and away from the others. My blood courses dizzyingly fast through my veins, and although it numbs my skin to the ambient nippiness, it also causes me to swerve and dip like a drunkard.
A shadow darkens the sapphire sea beneath me. I think I must’ve dropped too close to it again, until I make out a black-haired rider atop the Crow and realize it isn’t my shadow; it’s Lachlano and Elio. My friends must fear my erratic flight pattern will launch me inside the orca-infested ocean. Though not inherently scared of orcas, I prefer not to get my feathers wet all the same.
In what feels like the next minute, we surf past the beach, past the fringe of conifers, past the capital’s ramparts. The glass ceiling of the vestibule gleams like a faceted gem against the blue-tinted snow. And then a man with moonlit hair and star-pale skin emerges, black boots devouring the white.
I touch down with such haste that my knees buckle and my belly smacks into the ground, gathering cold flakes that melt the instant they connect with my overheated skin. Konstantin lurches forward. When I straighten, and abruptly at that, he freezes. Could I have made a more chastening arrival?
I’m back. Did you miss me?
I push the words into his mind. When his voice fails to ring between my temples, a slight lump obstructs my throat, and I finally molt into skin.
I moisten my lips, then my throat, and croak, “I’m back.”
“I see that.” Tension bleeds into his vocal folds.
I don’t ask whether he missed me, since a mate would. That, and I don’t want the entire world to be privy to his answer. I’m not even certain I want to be privy to it, because, what if he didn’t?
The circles beneath his eyes are as marked as my stripes, and the hollows in his cheeks seem to have been punched in deeper. Has he been sleeping? Eating? Did something happen in Glace in my absence? Did Mestyla come out of the icework?
His gaze lowers to my hip. No, not my hip…to the hand curled against it. When he spots the glimmer of his ring, the line of his shoulders tempers. Had he been worried I’d lost it or that I’d taken it off?
Izolda brushes past my motionless form to plant a kiss on her brother’s cheek. “You look horrid, Kostya.”
His dark eyebrows jostle. “Glad to see you, too, sister.”
“First separations always suck,” she says.
Aodhan strides up to her, head slightly tipped, short brown hair matted to his temples from the sweat of the voyage. “And subsequent ones get easier, now, do they, Izzy?”
Izolda laughs, throwing him a wink before striding past her brother and into the castle. “If you don’t mind, brother, I’ll ask that dinner be served in our respective chambers, because I plan on flopping into bed and remaining there for the foreseeable future.”
“Because of all that flying you did, kohanosh ?” Aodhan taunts her.
Her laughter rolls through the twilit air—bright, happy, warm. As he goes after his mate, Aodhan gives Konstantin’s shoulder a squeeze and murmurs a few words I don’t catch.
“You brought back a friend.” The king eyes Elio, who’s parked himself beside me.
Said-friend crosses his arms and eyes Konstantin from head to toe with impressive brazenness.
“Would you and Lachlano prefer separate accommodations this time?” he asks. “Or would you prefer to share?”
“I’m happy to crash with Isl—” Elio wheezes as Lachlano smacks him in the pecs.
“We’ll take two rooms, if that’s not a bother? This one snores louder than your chuffing trains.”
“I do not snore,” Elio mutters.
“Do, too.”
Their bickering sloughs the sharp angles of Konstantin’s visage as though he realizes neither is his rival. He holds out his hand; I step forward and clasp it. The instant our fingers plait, I release an exhale that’s so deep, my lungs must’ve trapped it back in Luce.
“Borat, see our guests to bedchambers in the west wing.” And then Konstantin spins on his heel, towing me along.
So much blood is swirling through my veins that I feel as though I float into the castle. Twice, I check to see if perhaps the king’s gliding us forward, only to hear my boots squeak against stone and brush against carpet.
The instant we’re through his bedchamber door, he slaps the tall panel shut with a burst from his palm, and then his mouth is on mine.
He gathers me close, closer, slanting his face and flexing his arms until not even a whisper of space remains between our bodies. I tunnel my cold fingers through his hair, then curl them around his strained, hot nape, holding on for dear life as he devours.
The metal buttons of his jacket scrape against my heaving chest, stamping the Glacin crest into the supple leather I want out of immediately. As I carry my hands to my collar and begin to tug on the zipper, Konstantin softens his knees and scoops me up.
I wrap my legs around his waist, somehow managing to maneuver my arms out of my sleeves. I discard my jacket on the floor of his bedroom. My top comes off next. Like twin beams, his gunmetal eyes latch onto my brassiere and my straining nipples.
When his pupils flood his irises, every inch of my flesh tightens. I don’t allow myself to wonder if my body’s reaction could be for any other reason than the depth of his desire for me and my desire for him.
His lips, which had slipped off mine when he swept me off my feet, brush along my jawline before pressing against the side of my neck and suckling. A soft moan drifts from my parted lips as he starts walking again.
Away from the ice-blue bedspread shimmering like a shallow pool beneath the indigo sky.
“Take me to your bed,” I breathe.
“No.”
When he fords down his private corridor, I assume he’s taking me to my bed, which is fine, albeit slightly confusing—does he not want me in his?
I’m wrong, though. His destination is his bathing chamber.
Of course… I must smell wretched after my flight. Though perhaps not too wretched since he tongues my neck.
The air is muggy and heavy with the scent of eucalyptus and roses. Holy, almighty Cauldron… I twist around to find the glass door of his steam chamber already white with fog and his filled bath overflowing with candlelight and white petals.
I almost blurt out that I love him, right there and then, but by some miracle, I manage to rein in the excessive sentiment before it can send him—the man who’s sworn off any and all relationships—running for his snow-tufted hills.
As the hiss of hot air coils through the marble room, he slides me down his body. I reach for my brassiere and snap it off. Lust blunts out the stroke of silver around his pupils, transforming them into magnetic pools of black.
He blinks, but it doesn’t evict his palpable hunger.
I hook my fingers into the waistband of my leather trousers but don’t apply any pressure, because his fingers are fisted at his sides instead of ridding his form of cloth. “You’re coming inside the bath with me, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know how”—his throat dips—“judicious it’d be.”
I unbutton his jacket. “ Very judicious.”
“Isla…”
Before he can add an injunction to stop, I roll onto my toes and move my lips over his. “Please come with me.”
His mouth trembles around breathy indecision. I wait for him to say yes, but he stays silent. I tentatively push the jacket off the broad mantel of his shoulders. He doesn’t stop me. Nor does he put any resistance when I guide the sleeves down his arms, or when I start on his shirt.
He lets me strip him of both. The same way he allows me to unclasp his trousers. My heart scuds as, layer by layer, I reveal his naked form. When I seize the ties that hold up his linen braies, he shackles my wrists and breathes out my name.
Just my name.
Nothing else.
Yet I understand he means for me to stop, so I do.
I go back to undressing myself. Once I’m down to my underwear, his smooth, hairless torso is lifting and falling at such speed that it jars his necklace.
I take a step back, sinking my fingers into the slender bands holding up my skimpy underwear, and then pirouette before letting it fall. His breath catches. I glance over my shoulder to find his eyes pressed against my bared backside. It’s not the first time he’s seen me naked, yet the way he stares makes it feel like it is.
My gaze lingers on his tented braies before roaming up the ladder of his defined abs. My king is all whittled muscle and lean bone sheltered beneath creamy skin.
While one of his hands flexes at his side, the other toys with his pendent.
I linger by the giant quartz tub—one heartbeat, two, three—begging him with my eyes to follow me. When his bare feet remain planted wide, unmoving, I understand that he won’t. Before he can spot my disappointment, I climb into the bath. A sigh swells my lungs as the steamy water kisses my legs, soon enveloping all of me.
I lay back, letting my lashes collapse. “What are you so frightened of, Konstantin Korol? Breaking your celibacy streak? Baring all of yourself to me? Letting go and enjoying yourself…for once?”
I strain to hear his sighed reply, but all that fills my ears is the hiss of steam from the adjoining stone chamber. Did he leave?
I throw my senses out as far as they can reach, snaring first the masculine scent layering itself over the scented wax, then a muted, wet plop— two plops—like something dipping into the bath.
Or some one .