35. Isla
35
ISLA
I trail my gaze down the pillar of Konstantin’s neck that is ropy with strained tendons. Although he’s bare chested, he’s kept his braies on. They’re entirely translucent, revealing a thick trail of hair as dark as the twin strokes accentuating his stare.
“Won’t your underwear get ruined?” I enquire.
“Better it than you.”
My heart misses a beat but then mends its rhythm. “I’m not some delicate ice sculpture, Vizosh.”
His throat works over a swallow as he peers at me through the wisps of steam, the shadows beneath his eyes moving, encroaching over more of his face.
I’m more convinced than ever that something must’ve happened while I was gone…
Something which my father hasn’t shared with me during briefings, which means it’s a private something.
“Did you…did you sleep with someone else? Is that—is that—” My face feels hot, as though Konstantin’s opened the tap and is holding my head under the scorching flow.
“Of course not!” His bright anger sends the shadows scurrying.
His palms climb the outer edge of my legs and then he’s hinging at the waist and snaking an arm around my waist to pluck me from my side of the bath and settle me—my back to his front—between his spread thighs.
I rest my head in the crook of his neck.
“Why in the world would I destroy the single best thing that’s happened to me?” His lips graze my temple, while his hands graze my rib cage.
“…but something’s tormenting you.”
His white hair floats on the surface of the bath, twining with my black strands and the velvety petals. “Thoughts.”
I crane my neck. “What thoughts?”
His charmed trinket presses against my spine as he breathes in and out…in and out. I reach up to dance my fingers along his jaw, then higher, along his ear.
When I reach its tip, his big body jerks, and his sex begins to harden and swell underneath my tail bone. “Isla…”
“Yes?” I caress again.
Again he shudders, but then he clasps my wrist and drags my hand down.
I sit up. “Please tell me what’s going on? You’re scaring me. I thought you were glad to see me.”
“I am fucking glad to see you.” His tone is as cutting as the line of his jaw. “I’m much too fucking glad,” he mutters while snaking a hand between us to readjust himself. “I’ve been fucking miserable since you left.”
“Then why the underworld are you half-dressed at the moment.”
One of his eyebrows quirks. “ Half-dressed ?”
“You know what I mean,” I mutter.
He snorts, and although he still stews, his posture eases as he slumps against the curved backrest.
“Was keeping your cock out of me part of my mother’s bargain?”
The corners of his mouth tuck in and just the slightest bit up. “That would’ve been an awkward clause, but to answer your question, no. Unless I harm you with it, in which case, her magic might keep it away from you.”
“Don’t dust it in obsidian powder, and we should be fine.”
“Isla, Isla, Isla… What am I going to do with you?”
I climb onto my knees and twirl to straddle him. “Is that a rhetorical question? If it isn’t, I’ve quite a few ideas.”
I give him a smile that softens his features an iota further. But then they crisp up like dough left too long in the oven.
“While you were gone, I had a conversation with my brother and sister—Izolda,” he adds. “I told them the truth.”
My pulse hisses like the water being transformed into steam. “Izolda knows we’re not mates?”
“Yes.”
I purse my lips as I recall Aodhan asking me to reach out to Konstantin to let him know of our impending arrival.
Bastard.
“Did they tell you it was a shit idea and warn you to cut things off before either of us grew attached?”
With a sigh, he drops his chin, fastening his attention to the ornament that sits right beneath his damp, glistening pecs. “No.”
My forehead furrows. “Then what’s with the sullen mood and underwear?”
He scrubs a hand down his face. “You’re a shifter, Yegmenka .”
“I thought you knew,” I deadpan, not seeing at all where he’s going with this.
He shoots me a droll look. “The talisman Meriam gave me blocks everything that contains a high amount of iron, which is why it impedes your shifter powers.”
My attention moves off the platinum pendant and back to his hooded stare. “It still doesn’t explain why you’ve preserved your underwear.”
“They’re my last stronghold.” Though impossible, the circles beneath his eyes seem to have bled down the taunt planes of his face. “The only thing that’s keeping me from being fully invaded by a person who might leave me, in the event that I’m not her mate.”
I snag my lip, tempted to tell him about my speculation that he just might be the one . “So, you want to end this…?”
“Fuck no.”
“But you don’t want to go any farther than foreplay?”
“I…” He sucks in his cheeks.
“You…?”
His jaw clenches and his nostrils flare. Keeping his gaze locked on mine, he runs his hands up the sides of my body, lightly scraping each rib before growing bolder and outlining my breasts. My nipples become jealous of the attention he’s paying the skin around them, wishing he’d?—
His thumbs swish, and I moan.
“My siblings think…” he begins.
I’m torn between not wanting to discuss his siblings and wanting to hear all they think, since it seems to be related to his mood.
As he teases my tight peaks with small, feather-light circles, he continues, “They think that we might indeed be mates, and that my talisman is what’s impeding the connection.”
I snap out of my lust-filled daze so violently that my lashes displace steam. His hands trail to my waist and set there, as though he senses that if I’m not held, I will tip over from shock.
He’s right. I very well might.
I scrutinize the metal snowflake, then his face. “Take it off.”
His thumbs begin to rove again, this time, over the edge of my last rib. “There’s a catch, unbeknownst to all save for Meriam and me. And now, you .” At the slant of my eyebrows, he murmurs, “If I remove it, then it loses its magic and becomes no more than a pretty trinket.”
My breathing turns so labored that my head spins.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime gift from the Cauldron, who will view its ejection as a dismissal of its generosity.”
“Mimi can surely fashion you a new one. Or perhaps I could learn how to make one. I may be as gifted as a chicken with a paintbrush, but with some guidance?—”
“I didn’t know chickens were talented at art.”
I halt my rambling. “They’re obviously not.”
“Then why are you insulting my extraordinary fiancée?” he asks, scraping his nails along my spine.
“Because I’m shit at spellcasting, Konstantin. Like I’m shit at?—”
“Stop.” He presses on the small of my back to tilt me forward and capture my mouth in a brief kiss. “Stop.”
“Perhaps Mimi could amend its magic so that it doesn’t snuff out mating bonds?”
“I’ve asked her. I’m still waiting on her reply.” He caresses my back with little sweeps of his thumbs that grow harder and deeper.
I groan, then outright moan when he works the knots from my shoulder blades. The words I love you rush over my tongue, but I bite them back.
It’s his wondrous fingers that you love, I tell myself. What you feel for him is a lot of affection and attraction.
“It’s possible it doesn’t hinder bonds,” he murmurs, taking care of my deceased shoulder muscles. “It’s possible I’m not—” He swallows. “That I’m not the one for you.”
I lean back—well, as far back as his hold will allow—then imprison the harsh angles of his face between my palms. “You feel too much like the one not to be the one .”
He wraps me in his arms and pulls our bodies flush, nesting his mouth against mine.
“Is the underwear staying on until you receive Mimi’s reply?”
“No. Only until I feel certain that I could lose you without losing myself.”
Against his mouth, I murmur, “Perhaps you never lose me. Perhaps this is why your ring is on my finger in the first place. Not because of a sham engagement to piss off your niece and the antimorphs, but because I’m the woman you spend your whole life with.”
“Tell me how you’ll react if Meriam says the necklace doesn’t block bonds.”
“Mating bonds aren’t instantaneous.”
“But it’ll put doubt in your mind.”
“How will you react?”
“With more levelheadedness than if she tells me it does.”
Realizing what he means by that, I rush to say, “Konstantin Korol, I call forth my bargain.”
His eyes widen as he realizes what I’m about to do. And then he slaps his palm over my mouth. “Don’t. Isla, no. Don’t.”
But I do, because I can’t let him lose his shield to uncover whether we’re true mates. “You can never remove your talisman without my authorization, Konstantin Korol.” Though my words are muffled by his palm, I feel the band on my bicep fritter away and see a luminous dot scorch the skin over his heart.
Konstantin growls, “That was my decision to make, not yours!”
He stands abruptly, yet somehow still manages to slide me off him gently. A vein webs the skin at his temple and makes his eyes flash so bright I half expect him to blow me out of his bath, out of his suite, out of his life.
But he doesn’t blow me away. He’s the one who leaves, slapping a towel over his hips before pounding into his corridor.
Have I just ended us before we ever really began?
I’m starting to believe that I have when I don’t cross paths with Konstantin for three whole days after my return.
Every time I ask anyone, be it Ilya, Salom, Borat, or one of his many guards, I’m met with the same roster of answers: “ He’s in a meeting. He’s visiting the army barracks…a grieving family. He’s touring a new construction…a new factory. ”
“Is your brother back from…? Where was he this time again?” I ask Izolda as I reshuffle the deck of cards and begin to deal.
Her lips hook to the side as she picks up the glossy little rectangles of inked paper and scrutinizes each in order to avoid my gaze. She knows what happened. Elio and Lachlano, who are seated on either side of us, do as well.
“Apparently”—she twists her lips—“the meeting has turned into dinner.”
I huff out an exasperated sigh. “Of course it has.”
“I didn’t think anyone could beat El at holding grudges,” Lachlano muses.
Elio hikes up an eyebrow and looks down his perfectly straight nose at him.
“Aside from Naev,” Lachlano adds. “And maybe that character in Empress of Ice . Cauldron, she’s stubborn.”
Izolda is biting at her lips, which come apart around such a sudden gasp that my heart misses every beat.
“What?” I choke out. “What’s happened?”
“Holy baby cherubs…” She springs out of her seat and races to the couch, then returns with one of her favorite novels, which she’s currently rereading, flipping it open to the dedication page.
“ What ?” My voice is thready with panic, even though I’m unsure what there is to be panicked about.
She jabs her finger at the inscription above the author’s signature. “I know where Mestyla’s hiding!”