Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
DAHLIA
Dahlia hadn’t slept, despite the deep bone fatigue.
The massive rumbling giant wrapped around her all night hadn’t helped.
Every time she’d moved to get space, he just pulled her back into his warm embrace with a discontented growl.
It wasn’t what she expected. Tears heated the backs of her eyes, and she blinked them away.
While she could practically taste his anger, he had not been rough with her at all.
Even though part of her felt like she deserved it.
The explosions in the distance didn’t help either. They shook the mountains, making it feel like they were going to topple down on top of them. What was going on up there? Was Olwen winning or losing?
A lick of fear ran up the back of her neck at the idea of the monsters winning. What would life be like for humans and halflings if such a sect ruled the kingdom?
The lanterns had well since burned out, and the woodstove glowed with the tiniest of embers, leaving the tent shrouded mostly in darkness.
Neve’s breaths tickled the top of her head, moving the loose hair that had fallen out at some point.
Her whole body ached, and while she found she wanted to sink into the Frost King’s heat, Lia wouldn’t allow herself that comfort.
All too soon, this fluke of geniality would be stripped away, and if she gave in, it would hurt all the more when it was gone.
“I can feel your thoughts,” Neve said, his deep voice leaving goosebumps along her arms.
Lia licked her lips and opened her mouth to speak but hesitated. She would need to be very careful with her words from here on out. The lives of Cosmos and Loshika depended on it.
Your life depends on it.
He hissed, sending fear skittering down her spine. “Speak.”
Be brave.
“I would like to know when you will have me killed, my lord.” His whole body tensed, the arm banded across her belly tightening.
Lia refused to use the word execution. It was too formal for what had happened between them.
She hadn’t known how deeply she’d cared for the frost giant when she’d betrayed him.
It was only in the aftermath of her decision did Dahlia realize what she’d sacrificed for her family.
One type of love for another.
She didn’t regret saving her brother, but she regretted hurting Neve.
His hand released her hip and slid up between her breasts to capture her chin.
He lifted until she met his bottomless gaze.
He bared his teeth, and she didn’t even flinch.
She was so tired of being afraid, and he wouldn’t hurt her in this moment, at least. He liked to play the monster, but he’d been nothing but gruffly gentle with her since the beginning.
“Your fate is mine. You are mine.”
She blinked slowly, a little bit of fire igniting inside her chest at the statement.
Keep your mouth shut. His words don’t matter.
But she couldn’t.
“No, I am not,” she said simply. “You might control my life and death, but my heart, soul, and mind are my own.” Perhaps it was stupid to taunt the monstrous male, but she didn’t belong to anyone but herself.
Too many people had tried to control her, and enough was enough.
He controlled when she died, and that was it.
The rest of her life was her own. However long that was.
His eyes narrowed, and he opened his mouth to speak but paused when the cut beneath her chin snared his attention.
He turned her face to the side to examine the healing wound and hesitantly ran his thumb along the edge of it.
“This was intentional,” he said, a bite to his voice.
“And it’s not fresh. Who did this to you?
” The warmth of his body seemed to flare, or maybe that was her own. “I’ll kill them.”
So, Olwen really didn’t tell him. . .
She turned her face away from his probing gaze, staring at the wall of the tent that slightly rippled with the wind. That bit of information could be handy in the future. “It’s nothing, my lord.”
“Someone cut you. It is not nothing.”
Her hands curled into fists. Why was he acting like this?
Like he cared? What sort of game was he playing?
Well, she wasn’t going to participate. Lia rolled away from him, forcing him to let go, and crawled out of the bed.
Neve followed her, unfurling to his full height, his bare indigo chest rising as if he’d run a far distance, his nipple piercings shimmering in the low light.
Sweat glistened on his chest, one rivulet tracing the contours of his muscular abdomen to the waist of his low-slung leathers that barely hung onto his hips.
She blushed at his undone state. It was too intimate. It made her think and want things that weren’t possible. Lia clasped her hands together to keep from doing something stupid—like reaching for her enemy.
“Why?” she demanded, glaring at him. “Why aren’t you yelling at me? Where’s the torture? The pain? The retribution?”
Lia ran a shaking hand through her tangled hair, her bare toes wiggling in the plush fur on the floor.
Sometime during the night, the Frost King had stripped her wet stockings from her legs and feet.
It was a miracle that she hadn’t lost a single toe due to frostbite.
The patchwork pattern of creams and browns of her shins were on full display, yet she felt no shame.
Neve had been the first outsider to accept them.
There was no need to hide them now. Who cared?
“Is that what you want?” he asked slowly, each word punctuated.
“It is preferable to what is happening now.” She curled her fingers into fists at her side. “Neve, I tried to take your life.”
He came at her, slapping his huge palm over her mouth. Her eyes widened at the intensity in his face. Neve glanced at the door as if someone was listening. “Do not utter those words out loud again.”
She wrapped her hands around his calloused fingers and pulled his hand away from her nose and mouth, following his gaze.
Why was he trying to hide her crimes? “It’s the truth.
Why are you pretending it’s otherwise?” Her attention dropped to his fingers when they flexed over her own.
Immediately, she dropped his calloused hand and took a step away when his whole body began to tremble.
“Like you pretended?”
She swallowed hard. “Yes.”
He stalked after her until Lia’s back hit the enormous table in the center of the room. She swallowed a squeak when Neve planted his hands against the wooden top. The Frost King leaned down into her space, so close they almost touched noses. All she could see was him.
“Like how you plotted my death for months? How you pretended to be on my side? How you pretended to care for—” He bit his words off, but she heard them loud and clear.
He thought everything was a charade.
Dahlia longed to tell him it wasn’t true.
That she loved him, but it was too dangerous.
If he knew the depth of her feelings, all it did was give him more power.
She knew what royals did with power. They used it to their advantage.
While she knew what kind of person Neve was, Loriia came first. Lia had betrayed Loriia just as much as its Frost King.
Such things could not be swept underneath the rug.
It had been easy to admit her feelings when she thought him dead.
But loving him now . . . the cost was just too high.
She swallowed hard. “I don’t have any justifications. I know what I’ve done is unforgivable.”
“It is,” he replied, voice thick with hate.
“And it has been eating me alive ever since I left you. But for a moment, can you imagine what it was like for me in our marriage? Do you think I didn’t hear the whispers and rumors of what you planned?
” A hollow laugh fell from her lips. It was easier to lean into the scorn and rage than the hurt and fear.
“You never meant for me to stay with you. You were planning to lock me up in a tower until I died. Or breed me and let me die in childbirth.”
“But I did not,” he snapped, leaning closer until he was all she could see.
“Only because your sister played games and you were stuck with me.” She glanced into his glittering eyes, just barely able to spot the difference between his black scleras and irises.
“From the moment we met, I have been a means to an end, a pawn for you to do with as you wished. Is it really a surprise that I didn’t trust you?
I was sold to you, my lord. I didn’t know we were to be married.
I was supposed to go home.” Her mother’s face appeared in her mind.
She closed her eyes and shoved down the grief.
“I’ve experienced more pain in the last two seasons than in my whole life.
” She opened her eyes. “You took me from my home, gave me a crown, and expected me to be your perfect little wife. I played the part as long as I could.”
He inhaled deeply, his fingers flexing, claws gouging the table.
Neve shook his head, a sneer on his face.
“You reek of grief and pain. You have no right! You are the one who struck first.” He stabbed his pointer finger at her.
“You are the one who left me. You are the one who climbed into our bed with deceit in your heart and welcomed me to you.” She winced at the image he painted.
“What right do you have to such sorrow?”
She pulled her dirty hair away from the mangled bite on her neck. “Because this is what your people do. You maim and destroy just as much as anyone.”
A hair-raising snarl exploded from him, and he shoved away from the table. The furniture skidded a few inches, and she stumbled backward with it. Why was she taunting the monster when he could literally break her in half?
Because deep down, you know he would never hurt you.
He paced in the dark, the muted moonlight a halo on the ceiling above.
“Why did you expect anything less from me? You are my enemy,” she whispered.
Lia braced herself when he spun around and stalked toward her.
She gasped when his hands grasped her waist and tossed her onto the table.
Her bum stung, but all she could pay attention to was the irate hulking male who stepped between her legs, his hand curving around her neck. He squeezed and her eyes rounded.
Perhaps she had been wrong. Maybe this was the play all along. He wanted to hurt her as much as she had hurt him.
With his fingers shackling her throat, she leaned back on her hands and waited for death. It would be a simple flick of his wrist to break her neck. “It’s okay,” she murmured. “Finish this.”
But no pain came.
He continued to stand there, his touch soft, fingers flexing.
Neve leaned into her space and inhaled near her temple, and her heart sped up.
His thumb tipped her head back, the muscles of his arm straining.
He pulled back enough so he could really examine her face, his own slacking in shock and then scorn.
“You want . . .” he choked out, “me to end you.”
Shame washed over her, and she tried to school her expression to hide whatever secrets it revealed. “I don’t want to die,” she replied, feeling all too exposed.
Curses spilled from his lips, and he gave her a little shake. “But you do not want to live. I can smell it on you—the anguish and torment. The longing for oblivion.”
Lia looked everywhere but his face as her cheeks heated. “Just because you can scent emotions doesn’t mean that you’re entitled to mine,” she said sharply, losing some of her composure.
“That is where you are mistaken,” he growled, slipping a hand around her waist and sliding her to the edge of the table until she was pressed against all his intoxicating heat.
“You bound yourself to me before your people and mine. Everything that you are belongs to me—your heart, your pain, your secrets, your lips . . .”
A lump rose in her throat when all his attention focused on her parted lips. He skated a black claw along her bottom lip, a groan vibrating his muscled chest. “I have had dreams about your lips. Your taste has haunted me for months,” he said raggedly, a whispered secret just for the two of them.
The air changed between them, and she shook her head. “Don’t you da—”
He slammed his lips against hers. Hard.