9. Chapter Nine
Chapter Nine
Gerta
M y frozen fingers do not want to move, but I don’t want Kay’s hands on me even more.
He’s not wrong about this being the necessary path for survival. And now that the blanket is between us, I’m less afraid that he’s seeking to take advantage of me.
I tug off my layers of furs, moving closer to the fire each item I I disrobe. Finally, I am down to my own pair of braies that are masculine but much more pragmatic for wearing under my leggings and breeches than petticoats are.
My chest is covered by homemade bindings since no Gaelia-loving woman would submit to the corsets that Constantinium ladies wear. For the first time in my life, I wish I wore it if only to have more coverage even if I’m told those garments do not add to warmth.
Warmth . . . I’m not planning on leaving this fire as I try to rub life back into my skin. This cabin is expertly built to keep out drafts, but the cold seems to live in my bones now.
Speaking of this cabin . . . Did Kay trek all that way uphill instead of taking the path? It was a struggle to see my hand in front of my face, so I cannot blame him for getting lost, but getting lost up a mountain is something else.
Unless the cabin found us. If it’s the Snow Queen’s trap for travelers like everyone says, who’s to say it doesn’t hunt?
I shudder from more than just the cold .
“Are you finished?” Kay calls.
I mumble my assent. Why can’t he make this easier for me and remain silent where I can’t see him? Because after what he’s done, I never want to see him again— but especially not while he wears only his tight small clothes.
Kay shakes the blanket. “Then come hither. I’ll dry you off and wrap it around you.”
Coming hither is the last thing I want to do— except ignore the offer of the blanket.
Every joint in my body creaks, but I stand and stumble forward. Then I touch the blanket.
No sooner do I than it’s suddenly on my skin. It moves up and down my body, wiping away the moisture furiously, like Kay wants to knock away droplets rather than absorb them.
More than the blanket, though, the sensation of Kay’s hands pressing through the cloth heats my skin.
The blanket lowers, but before I can recoil, I see Kay keeping his head ducked below it as he kneels. He moves from my torso and arms to rub down my legs.
“I-I think I can dry myself,” I say.
“Your teeth are chattering, but mine are not.” Kay gives his reason so straightforwardly that I almost think that he’s making a good point.
By the time I have the presence of mind to properly demand the blanket, he stands and wraps it around me.
I stare at his bare shoulders that really ought to be covered, too. “What about you?”
“Just a moment.” He pulls my wet braid out from beneath the blanket. Then he sweeps me into his arms again.
I gasp, and Kay’s arms shake from exertion. However, he sets me down next to the hearth without injuring me.
“I’ll be right back.” With that assurance, Kay moves back toward the door and the table .
Carefully following his movements, I remind myself I am keeping my eyes on him because he is my enemy. It has nothing to do with the fact that his muscular body moves with the litheness of a snow leopard.
But he can be just as deadly as one of those predators. I must never forget.
Kay grabs one of the two bowls of soup and hurries back. He sets it down by the fire before grasping the edge of the blanket.
It takes me a moment to realize he’s unwrapping it. “Hey! What are you doing?!”
“Surviving.” Kay slides onto the blanket and wraps it over him and me both.
I slide as far away from him as I can, but I feel the brush of his warm skin on mine for a moment before I escape.
“Here.” Kay reaches one bare, muscular arm over me to grasp the bowl. Then he holds it between us. “This will renew your strength and warm you from the inside.”
“What? So, you can focus on warming me on the outside ?”
“Yes.” Kay doesn’t even bat an eye. Then his arm, still trapped in the blanket with us, slides beneath me.
Goosebumps prickle down my spine, and only the fact that he holds the soup I don’t dare spill keeps me from flailing away from him.
Then Kay hoists us both into a partially sitting position.
The earthen pot presses against my lips. “Drink.”
My lips part, and warmth itself flows through me. It takes me several sips before I can detect the taste of chicken mixed with herbs I was never wealthy enough to purchase before.
I drink several swallows before pushing it away. “Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?” He brings the bowl to his own lips.
“Taking care of me. ”
Kay lowers the bowl enough to say, “Because I vowed I would, and I always honor my vows.”
“Even those made to your enemies?”
“Of course.” He says this like there is no difference between friend and foe, between Gaelic and Constantinium, between rebel and soldier. “I was ordered to bring you in, dead or alive, and I have determined it shall be the latter.”
“What happens then?”
“Not to worry; you shall no longer have to suffer my company, for my ambition shall be rewarded. I have been promised a promotion to commander if I can break the barrier and capture the leader of the rebel cell terrorizing it.” Kay glances at me as he lifts the bowl to his mouth again.
My gaze falls on where he drinks from the same bowl I just did, and I feel myself flush— from the warmth of the fire, of course.
“Not to worry.” Kay holds the nearly empty bowl back to me. “This still does not constitute as kissing.”
“Oh, and you’re an expert on kissing, are you?” Too late, I realize how flirtatiously that could be taken. If Biggs heard it, he would spend the next hour propositioning me.
Kay’s gaze drops to my lips. “I could be.”
My entire body prickles as my skin comes alive after so long being numb.
“You know nothing about my life beyond two days ago. I could be an expert in anything for all you know.” With that, Kay places the bowl between my lips like that was the only reason he glanced at my mouth.
I choke down the rest of the soup, if only to encourage him to finally put it away.
Except after Kay sets down the bowl, he draws closer to the fire— closer to me. Once again, too much of my skin is against his as he tightens the blanket around us .
“Wh-what—?” I can barely choke out a word, let alone a complete question.
Kay picks up that I’m asking him something. But instead of explaining how he has the audacity, he answers, “No, I am not an expert, for I have no wife to practice with.”
My mind is racing over too many sensations of touch, so I have no control over the next question that comes from my lips. “You wouldn’t kiss a woman you were not wed to?”
“Or betrothed to, if that is what she wished. Kisses are sacred, powerful things, and one ought not to go around bestowing them with no thought of the consequences.”
I blink as every exhale both brushes his chest against mine and blows his breath over my face. While there have been nights where my company and I abandoned our cots to pile on top of each other for body heat, survival never felt so . . . intimate .
Especially since I seem to be the only person affected. Kay keeps scanning the cabin like a soldier on watch. He does not seem pleased to have his back to the door, but this is the pose that has me closer to the fire.
“You are a strange man, Kay of Constantinium.”
“How so?” He furrows his brows as he glances back down at where I am tucked in his embrace. “Because I have a code of honor?”
“No— because you adhere to it.”
Kay purses his lips, like he has not yet encountered the hypocrisy of the world and is confused to hear of it now. “Do you not have your own code of honor that you adhere to? Surely, it is not for your own health and wellbeing that you live in a cave and live off the scraps you steal from the caravans?”
“You think that because I rob your people, I have a code of honor?”
“I did not say that you have honor; only that you have a code that you believe gives you honor and that you adhere to it. ”
I wrinkle my nose at his petty distinction, glad to even feel my nose. “My code is that all people deserve to be free.”
“What about criminals?”
“It depends on their crime.”
“So, there are some people who do not deserve to be free?” His face is too expressionless and his tone is too even to be a man holding a woman he has any attraction to.
Which shouldn’t even be a thought that crosses my mind, but I can’t help but feel a little insulted. Both in that and the fact that he is casually trying to rend my so-called code of honor.
“Very well; all innocent people ought to be free.”
“Innocent in what respect? Do the sacred texts not teach that none are sinless but the Son of the Emperor-God?”
I smack his naked chest and immediately regret knowing the feel of it. “You know what I mean.”
“I do? That is a lot to assume of a stranger you’ve known for two days— let alone one you view as your enemy.”
“Why do you say that like you don’t also consider me your enemy?”
Kay studies me for a long moment before glancing away. “I don’t know.”
My lips part in shock. Has this man ever confessed to saying he didn’t know anything in his life?
He turns back to me, and his expression is just as smooth as before, but there is a strange intensity in his gaze. “Tell me, O mine enemy, who is this Snow Queen you fear so much?”