10. Winter
Winter paced a line into the carpet covering the floor of Raven’s receiving room, his gaze constantly swinging to the visible space beyond the open bedchamber door.
He had told her he would heal her, and he had failed.
He rubbed his lower lip as he gazed at her shivering form upon the bed. The tremble of her mouth, the blue lacing her skin, the flutter of her eyes.
Before his grandmother had him tossed from the room, he happened to notice that when he’d brushed his lips beneath Raven’s ear, the frosty magic had retreated from her skin. Been drawn to him. The same could not be said for when he had tried to rub the cold away with his hands.
His grandmother might have banished him from Raven’s immediate side, but he would go no farther until he not only knew Raven would be all right, but he got solid answers regarding his grandmother’s demands, and the arrangement between her and Raven, that somehow involved Valen.
I am the prince, and should the weight of the crown someday rest upon my head, I deserve to be kept informed. I should be included in matters that concern my citadel. Whatever is happening between the individuals in the next room, I suspect it very much affects my citadel. My people.
Raven was now in the palace because of him. And his magic…slivers of it, possibly more than slivers, appeared to be nestled under her skin. And that mystical element called to him something fierce.
He stopped pacing and fixed a stare upon Raven in the next room. His magic caused her suffering, and so he should have the ability to pull the magical infection from her…just not in the way he had considered and first attempted.
Her eyes fluttered open, her gaze locking upon him.
Following Raven’s line of sight, Winter’s grandmother turned her attention toward the door. She tilted her head in a silent order. Winter couldn’t see Valen from his vantage point, but the shift of shadows and shuffle of footsteps marked the royal healer’s motions.
In long strides, Valen swept from the bedroom, collected Winter by the arm, and dragged him straight out of the apartment to the central gathering hall beyond.
“Unhand me.” Winter jerked his arm free.
“Stay out of the girl’s room. Queen’s orders.” Valen pivoted and walked away, ignoring the growl of irritation rumbling in Winter’s throat.
He shook his fist and contemplated slamming it into the wall. Instead, he paced outside the door, not caring what the guards thought of his actions. When pacing grew long and tiresome, he dropped into one of the many seats in the center of the hall and waited―leg bouncing, foot tapping.
Time moved slowly and sluggishly, and despite how the turn of the clock appeared to crawl, Winter would not depart without news of Raven’s condition. After all, her current suffering was because of him.
While he waited, and waited, he summoned two of his most trusted servants and assigned them to the palace’s new guest.
The guard detail was in the process of the midday shift change when the door to Raven’s rooms finally swung open, and the queen appeared, leaning heavily into Valen’s support.
Winter leaped to his feet and rushed to her aid.
He held her elbow, taking on some of her weight. “What happened? Are you all right? Was the situation that draining?”
“Slow down, my boy.” She patted his hold upon her. “I will be fine. Just tired and in need of a good rest.”
“This way, my queen.” Valen escorted her toward the end staircase.
“We need the girl to get better,” the queen said to Winter. “But she does indeed have a healthy dose of your magic hunkered down inside of her. Quite a curious thing how that came to be.”
“Because it is my magic, I can probably help.”
The queen shook her head. “Leave her be for now and let her rest. Sleep is what she currently needs. We’ll see that staff is assigned to keep watch in case her condition should change for the worse.”
“Already taken care of,” Winter said as two servants came into view, climbing the stairs on approach.
At the sight of the queen, they stepped to the side and bowed.
“Very well.” The queen paused and turned to Winter, ignoring Valen and the servants. “But I implore you to let the servants handle any care the girl needs. She is not your charge, nor your problem. Not anymore.”
“Noted.” He bowed his head.
His grandmother huffed in a clear response of disbelief. She resumed her departure with Valen at her side. Neither the servants nor Winter moved until the queen was beyond earshot.
The two servants stood tall, their backs straight and chins high. Perfect form despite their years of service and ease in Winter’s presence. He considered them friends, or as close to friends as he would get among the staff.
Especially angelic-faced Neive, considering the handful of times she had shared more than conversation with him. And Lucas, who was smart, easy-going, and didn’t put up with Valen’s rude nature. For that reason alone, Winter wanted the man assigned to Raven.
“You understand what I am asking of you?” He glanced between them. “If anyone tries to reassign you, you come find me. Got it? Not Valen. Me.”
“Understood, Your Highness.” They both bowed.
Winter released a heavy sigh. And with the breath, the weight upon his chest lightened. “Thank you. I know you won’t let me down. You are dismissed.”
To the sound of Lucas and Neive’s retreating footfalls, he turned and headed for his own collection of rooms.
Leave Raven be to rest, his grandmother had said.
Leave her alone to freeze was more like it. If the queen’s magic had failed to pull the infection from Raven the first time, he held little faith this time around had been more successful.
The queen’s ability to modify and reroute magic was unquestioned, but something about Raven’s case was unusual. Just as she was unusual. He considered how his normal effect on the specters appeared nullified when in the tunnels with her.
Such a curious puzzle.
She had to have pulled his magic from the mystical cocoon he’d wrapped himself within after the specter attack. But how had she been able to take and retain any?
He’d awoken with access to far more magic than he’d had since the onset of the curse. But he remembered collecting the supernatural strength to his body at the time, and for him, his magic was as natural as breathing. In no way should his magic be the same for Raven.
And yet she had clearly managed to pilfer a fair amount.
The effects upon her person hadn’t appeared obvious until he brought up Mr. Aldine’s condition. Dear gods. He had brought this upon her, with his words, his actions, his magic. And he hadn’t even told her about Chace’s current condition.
Not that he cared about the irritating ass. But she did. Her reaction to his earlier news regarding Chace’s freedom from the prison cell was a clear indication, whether she welcomed her unacknowledged feelings or not.
He tilted his head in greeting to the guards stationed beside his chamber doors and then stepped into the solitude of his rooms.
Life and death situations had a tendency to draw people together. Heighten a relationship. He and Raven had shared two. The likelihood that she shared anything similar or near as intense with Chace had to be near a probability of zero. Had to be.
And now that she lay huddled and freezing on the bed in her guest rooms, she could be slipping into her next near-death situation.
At least, that’s what Winter told himself as he sneaked through the door hidden in the back wall of his chamber and made his way through the secret halls connecting his rooms with all the guest chambers within his section of the palace.
Unseen passageways wedged between the walls littered the palace. The concealed corridors were ancient, dating far beyond Winter’s existence, and he rarely utilized them. But from time to time…such as now…they were an asset.
If Raven was freezing to death, it was his duty to save her.
At the end of the dark, narrow hall, Winter paused and stared at a charcoal door.
It was the backside of the full-length mirror situated at the far side of Raven’s apartment receiving area.
A small peephole to the side of the mirror, hidden behind a gemstone in the frame, allowed anyone within the tunnel to verify a clear room before entering, while rendering the passageway undetectable to guests and servants not in the know.
Sight through the gemstone tinted the scene a soft blue, but Raven’s rooms were quiet, the lights dimmed.
With a slight push, the mirror swung like a well-oiled door on hinges to a full open. He stepped into Raven’s room, the palace personnel and guards none the wiser.
At the sight of the crimson-tinted raven beauty, Winter sucked back a sharp breath. His grandmother had spent what felt like endless hours with the woman, but any improvement on Raven’s side was hardly noticeable.
How much of his magic had she syphoned?
“Raven?” His voice was soft, a barely audible whisper on a breeze.
Her response came in the form of an unintelligible whimper.
“Oh, Raven.” His muscles slackened even as his chest clenched, and he beelined for the bed. Took a seat at her side.
Her eyes cracked open a smidgen, taking him in.
“I think I may have figured out how to help you. Will you let me try?”
Aside from the shudders and shakes, she didn’t move. But she blinked her eyes once, slowly, which Winter accepted as permission granted.
“Okay,” he murmured. “I make no promises, but we’ll give it a try.”
She stared up at him from beneath ice-crusted lashes, and he desperately wanted to lick the frost away. Warm her skin in more ways than he had planned.
I can wait, he told himself.
They had time. And he would never take advantage of her in her current state. He would be a better male than that.
“Do you remember earlier,” he continued, “when I managed to warm the side of your face, pull the frosty magic from your skin?”
A strangled noise escaped her lips, and she shivered violently. He laid his hand on top of hers. Gods, she was ice made flesh. Surely, she couldn’t take much more of his magic at this level.
“We’re going to attempt that same method again, and I won’t stop, won’t leave you, until your body temperature rises.”
He leaned forward and brushed his lips against the thin layer of sleet coating her skin. The magic’s reaction to his breath was immediate. The ice retreated, and her cheek warmed. Her cheek only. Not her nose or forehead. Nowhere beyond the placement of his mouth.
He moved an inch toward her temple, took another breath. More frosty magic retreated.
Well. This could get interesting.
He dragged his teeth over his lower lip.
“Do you want me to keep going, even if…” It requires my lips close to your skin in so many places?
A muffled murmur rose in her throat, and Winter dragged his fingers down the length of her neck. Could her vocal cords be near freezing? He shifted and glided his breath, his lips across her skin, from her chin to her collar. Bluing skin blushed with healthy color.
“P-P-Please,” she stuttered. “Doo. Don’t. Stop.” She shuddered. “Soosoosoo cooold.”
Under different circumstances, Raven’s request would have brought a grin to his lips. But she was freezing on a dangerous level. His magic was taking command of her body, and he couldn’t be certain it wouldn’t kill her.
And damn be the gods, but he cared. About Raven and her fate.
He swept his lips across her jawbone, tracing a line from ear to ear.
He brushed his mouth in an arc across her forehead then softly coasted the line of her nose.
He breathed a kiss upon each eye, and with each touch, each exhale and inhale, magic rose off her skin in misty swirls and surged into his core.
Each intake was a keen mix of fire and ice dancing in his central being.
Beneath Winter’s touch, Raven’s body warmed, and her shivers abated.
She groaned, and his body responded…a tad too enthusiastically.
Her keening could be a reaction to her release from the freezing state, or possibly the methods he used to elicit the temperature change, but either way, when she released a second, softer moan, he captured it with his mouth.
And discovered a new method by which to extract the frozen magic from her system.