Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Graham was fucked. Well and truly fucked.
He lay stretched across the width of Raveena’s bed, his skin still slick with heat and the aftershocks of her mouth. His eyes were half-closed, his breath slowing. The scent of her clung to his skin—snow lilies and salt and something darker that always rose after she’d had her fill of him.
Raveena was sprawled across his back. Her body was a silken weight, all supple limbs and contented sighs. Her cheek rested against his shoulder blade. Her fingertips moved over the broad plane of his back, tracing idle patterns as if she were trying to write her name on his skin.
The long stem of the R had her nail dragging from the back of his shoulder downward.
There was a bite to it, just enough to make his muscles clench.
Then the curve of the R, drawn with the soft pad of her finger, looping outward and then back in again across the top of his shoulder blade. A caress with a whisper of possession.
Her fingertip lifted, then pressed down just below to start an A.
The angled line bit into his skin with twin strokes—nail again—sharp enough to stir a low growl in his throat.
She finished it with a horizontal line across his lower back, this one softer.
A soothing stroke after the sting, like balm after a brand.
By the time she curved an E just above his hip, Graham was trembling with want. He wanted to belong to her. He did belong to her.
He'd come into this room to take her crown. With just the tip of her tongue, the tip of her finger, she was rewriting him. Letter by letter. Line by line.
He didn’t stop her. He lay still and let her brand him.
Most couples would lie like this in reverse—the woman curled against the man, his body curled around hers, his eyes trained on the door. The protector. The watcher. That was how he and Raveena used to sleep, when everything between them was new and uncertain and touch had to be earned.
Over time, it had changed. This was his favorite—her weight blanketing him, her breath at his neck. It was the only time he ever truly relaxed. Not because he thought she’d defend him from attack. Because when she was on top of him like this, he knew exactly where she was. He had her.
Her fingers paused, then resumed, drawing slow circles over the scar on his shoulder. “Tell me about the war.”
He stiffened. His mouth closed, not wanting to offer her any words. That didn't stop the images in his head.
Flashes crowded his mind—fangs and fire. The thunder of troll feet charging across ice, the screams that echoed too long in dark ravines sounding in his ears. He smelled the iron in the snow. Saw the red of the blood. Remembered the names of friends who didn’t rise from the frost.
“No,” he said, voice low.
“It was that awful." Raveena exhaled, more breath than sigh. "I shouldn't have let you go."
"You couldn't have stopped me."
He felt her shrug. It was the same shrug she gave when an adversary underestimated her.
“Let's talk about my stepdaughter instead. We need to start planning how to deal with her. How to remove her.”
“Is that all you really care about?”
“I care about keeping the crown on my head and this castle under my command. I’m a queen. What else is there to care about?”
He shifted beneath her, forcing her to slip from his back.
Raveena hit the mattress with a thud and a hiss of surprise.
She landed beside him in a tangle of limbs and disheveled hair.
The white strands framed her face like fallen snow, but there was nothing soft in her expression—only irritation.
Like a cat whose owner rubbed its fur the wrong way.
Graham sat up, chest heaving. The ache in his back from where she’d traced her name still burned like a brand, and gods help him, part of him wanted to drag her back down and mark her the same way. Instead, he answered her rhetorical question.
“You should care about your people. Your lands. Me.”
“The people are fed and warm. The land is thriving under my rule. And you—” She reached for him, but he stepped back, standing now, the muscles of his back taut with anger. “You’re mine. I have all of it, and I’ll keep it, so long as I have the crown and the castle.”
Graham laughed—sharp, bitter, a sound torn straight from his chest. He paced away from her, bare feet slapping against the stone floor. The window called to him. Or maybe it was the storm outside, the snow hammering against the glass in thick, relentless sheets.
The cold always came for her. Tried to breach her skin, sink into her bones. The fire always moved away from her, as if even the flames knew better than to get too close to a woman made of frost and fury.
“She can’t manage it,” Raveena added. “Snow’s too na?ve. If Charming marries her, we lose everything.”
You lose everything, he thought. Not we. Not the kingdom. You.
Because all that meant anything to Raveena—was power. And the palace built to reflect it. She didn’t know Snow had already moved against her. Didn’t know Graham had been the one chosen to end her reign.
He bent and retrieved the dagger from where he’d dropped it. The cool weight of it steadied something in his chest. He wouldn't use it on her, not for a mortal wound. Maybe for a possessive marking. But not tonight.
“Where are you going?” she demanded.
He didn’t look at her as he pulled on his trousers. “I have to prepare for the Winter Games.”
She cocked her head. “Why?”
He punched his arms into his tunic, yanking it down over his chest. “I’ve got the urge to gut something.”
Raveena reclined lazily on the bed, unabashed in her nakedness, her thighs parting like a promise. “What about my matching pair of bruises?”
Graham turned to look at her. He should have known better. The sight of her always made him putty inside. But he wasn't letting her get her hands on him. Not for a while.
“I’ll claim that as my prize. If I win.”
"If?" she scoffed. “When you win.”
The way she said it—like he couldn’t possibly fail, like she believed in him more than anyone ever had—tightened the emotions in his chest. The rage became a smaller ball.
The desire flared hotter. And that pissed him off all the more.
He growled under his breath because he didn’t understand this woman.
In the bed, Raveena clung to him like he was her world. She surrendered everything to him when she was naked. Her body. Her mind. He'd thought that included her heart.
But that organ was cold. Unreachable. No matter what he said. No matter what he did. She would never love him the way that he loved her.
He was just a possession to her. A tool. A piece on the game board.
For him, she was the only thing that ever made him feel whole.
Graham wasn't going to kill her. That had never been in the cards for him. He wasn't going to leave her either. That, her saying her vows to another man, more than any troll, had been the thing that had nearly killed him.
He had two options left. Kill the princess that stood in the way of his love keeping what she coveted most. Or kill the prince that could give her what she wanted while also standing in Graham's way.
Decisions, decisions.
Blade in hand, fury in his chest, and her scent still on his skin, Graham stormed out the door of the queen's bedroom.