47
Voran released me. “Get off the river.”
He didn’t look at me. His eyes had brightened to sapphires, fixed to the hole in the ice where I’d knelt.
“Now, Ayla.”
I did as I was told, rounding ruined ice to where the two warriors waited. One was half drenched and trembling, but he seemed more worried about the serakan than his icy clothing. He surveyed the cracks and chunks of ice as if it might return at any moment.
It wouldn’t.
But I didn’t dawdle. Warriors lined the bank I carefully hurried toward. When I eventually reached them, they stepped aside to let me through.
There was no clapping as I stopped in the snow between the wolves. No congratulations nor even a smile. Silence shrouded the valley. Those who looked at me did so with unmistakable skepticism and shock.
As adrenaline waned, my cold extremities began to protest. Peering around, I asked, “Where is King Raxon?”
A female with braided brown hair and a severe frown pushed through the males before me. “The king awaits your arrival in the Ceremonial Cave.” A look was tossed to someone behind me. Voran, I realized, when she said, “The prince will escort you and guard the cave entrance until dawn.”
Voran then marched past me.
Warriors separated to give him a wide berth, and he prowled toward what appeared to be a snow-heaped chasm between slowly rising hills.
“You’re to follow him,” the female said when I didn’t move.
As soon as I did, the silence ended. Chatter resumed. Only some of it made its way to me—mentions of the blood vow and murmurs of it being an offering.
The foothills astride the chasm quickly grew taller than me. Piling ever-higher, the snow became difficult to walk through. Voran disappeared around a sharp curve, and smoke lured my eyes toward the darkening sky.
It came from a chimney, I discovered when the chasm curved again and I encountered an open steel door, a woodfire within.
There was no other source of light.
I didn’t care. I failed to remember why I was even here, let alone pay any mind to the door closing—the steel bar sliding across it to lock us in. I ran to that small fire and dropped to my knees before it.
I spread my hands and inched as close as I dared to the rock-made hearth. Feeling returned to my fingers, then my toes as I sat and rubbed them. Only then did I remember what needed to happen next.
And who was in this Ceremonial Cave with me.
Voran paced the length of the bed between us. His steps were slow, eyes cast to a small metal door in the wall as he pushed a hand into his unbound hair.
My gaze snapped back to the bed. It was dressed in light gray sheets and ivory furs, likely to better collect evidence of our consummation. The large frame had been crafted from tree branches, crossed and secured with what looked like old rope.
My stomach dipped violently.
How many consummations had taken place in this cave?
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, nor did I want to find out if the mattress had been changed after all the years this cave hadn’t been visited.
Not much bigger than an antechamber, it resembled a cottage.
The stone walls curved into a ceiling smattered with roots, soil, and more stone.
Perched next to the hearth was a metal tub, a single towel draped over the edge.
On the hearth’s other side stood a tiny square table. Its chairs were crafted in a similar fashion to the bed. Wax had gathered beneath an unlit candle, affixing it to the wood beside a carafe and a basket of fruit and dried meats.
Voran halted there and picked up the basket. He brought it to his nose, sniffed it, then plucked a piece of meat from it and sniffed that too.
I wondered whether he was trying to determine what kind of meat it was or if it had been poisoned, perhaps laced with something. I squashed the desire to ask.
He tossed the meat into the basket he dropped and removed his leather coat. “Get in the tub, Princess.”
I should have ignored him. The betrayal I felt wouldn’t allow it. “I would appreciate it if you stopped giving me orders.”
His coat was dumped on the stone floor. “Would you?”
My thumbs dug into my foot. “I would.”
“But you’re so good at taking them.” He sniffed an apple and murmured, “So good at doing everything you’re told.
” Letting the apple roll from his hand into the basket, he gave a mirthless laugh.
“Why, you even agreed to wed the golden prince, despite knowing how unwise it would be to deceive my kingdom. Despite knowing that I would need to hunt you down and kill him.”
Chilled anew by his tone, those words, and that laugh, I could only stare as he sauntered across the cave.
“But look, broshklin…” Crouching before me, he inspected my face as if it were a puzzle. “Look where being a dutiful princess delivers you.” Low and lethally cold, he said, “Continuously into my bloodstained hands.”
My heart failed to beat.
He was too close. So close after moons without him—and after learning why I’d had him in the first place.
Remembering, I hissed, “You will not touch me.”
“Won’t I?”
“You lied to me.”
His head tilted. “Did I?”
“Yes.” My eyes narrowed on his. “And now I hate you.”
His lips twitched. “Do you?”
I couldn’t help it and growled in frustration.
Bright and distracting, he unleashed a crooked grin. “I don’t believe you, broshklin.”
That smile—sinister, yet it seemed genuine. My voice hitched. “You should.”
Then I stood to do exactly as he’d ordered. Not because he’d told me to, but because I wanted to cleanse my wounds and rid the residual cold from my body.
Uncaring that he’d see all of me when he was about to have all of me, I unlatched the brooch and let the pelt fall to the ground. Then I lifted my eyes, hoping he’d see the defiance in them or merely look at my body.
Still crouched, he looked only at my face, that smile lingering in his eyes.
I shivered and climbed into the tub.
It must have been filled right before our arrival.
Though it wasn’t hot, the water was warm enough to thaw the remaining ice in my limbs.
The tub didn’t allow me to stretch my legs.
So I washed then folded them to slide deeper into the water, wincing as it covered the grazes on my shoulder and side.
A clink drew my eyes to Voran, who draped his leather belt over a chair.
His weapons belt. A mean-looking dagger with two jagged sides glinted in the firelight. A smaller blade, thin yet long, shone beside it.
He ripped his tunic over his head.
Given what I now knew, I should have at least tried to look away. Instead, I laid my head on my knees. I watched the shadows and muted light dart in and out of the crevices between his abdominals, and lost myself to the memory of touching the inked scars adorning his torso.
Then his hands moved to his leather pants, and my stomach dipped again.
He was getting ready. Getting ready to fuck me for his king.
I stared down at the water between my knees, trapped in a haze of conflicting feelings. In the end, it really didn’t matter how I felt about it. How I felt about him and all he’d done certainly didn’t matter. People were waiting. The king was waiting.
Celestine’s life was at stake. As was Elynia’s.
So I left the tub and dried myself. Determined to see this through, I strode naked toward the bed.
But then Voran turned. Also stark naked, he prowled right past me to the tub. He squeezed in, water sloshing as he roughly cleansed his body. Not a minute later, he rose. Water cascaded down his muscular thighs.
He took the towel I’d used from the edge of the tub. Gazing at me with lupine focus, he dragged it down his body, then dropped it. “Time to show me just how much you hate me.”
I nearly fell back onto the bed, attempting to retreat. “If we’re doing this, you will—”
“We have no choice but to do this.”
I moved down the bed, walking backward toward the door. The action and my question were both foolish—and provoking. “Just like you had no choice at the archives?”
He was before me in an instant.
I turned to leap onto the bed—halted by his hand at my stomach. He pushed, forcing me back three steps until I was against the door. As his body crowded my own, his hand rose to my throat. His fingers found the marks he’d given me moons ago and stroked.
His other hand slid over my mouth. A harsh whisper at my ear, he said, “Two things can be true, myishla.” The hand at my throat traveled down to my breast. He gripped it and groaned. “I can do what I must, and also want to do it.”
I sagged against the cold steel.
“I can be honest while deceiving you.” Another squeeze of my breast. “And I can know you are all fucking mine when you’re not.”
My chest caught fire.
It wasn’t that I didn’t believe him. It was that I did, and as the ache I’d carried abated, something far worse took its place. Because he was right. He could want me all he wanted, but he would never truly have me.
The burn in my chest spread to my eyes as I dared to catch his. There was nothing there. Nothing but darkest blue.
“But you always knew I’d end up here,” I said, the words muffled by his palm. “Didn’t you?”
A muscle feathered in his jaw.
He’d known.
He’d known, and he could have warned me. Given me a chance to escape this cruel fate. I lowered my eyes and blinked again and again to clear them of tears. There was no escaping this—Raxon—I knew that.
But for all the good it wouldn’t have done, he could have proven he cared by warning me anyway.
Then, so soft it shouldn’t have cut so deep, he whispered, “I can want you here and loathe that you are.”
Futile, but I pushed at his chest. “Release—”
I became airborne, upside down, and dangerously close to his perfect ass before he dumped me onto the bed.
I gasped.
Voran crawled over me, took me by the hips, and moved me up the bed until my head met a pillow.
I rose onto my elbows to glare at him.
“Pretend to hate me all you like, but you believe me.” He came to me on his knees, then dropped onto all fours. Our noses almost touched as he whispered, “You believe me because, although you must take my cock, you also want to.”