Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Heavy snow was already falling when Cerise awoke the next morning, cold pressing in against the cabin walls.
Despite sleeping in her bed for the first time in two nights, she was more stiff than usual, her body clenched from stress.
Eirwen restoked the fire and started breakfast, and by the time Cerise’s belly was full, both Beloved and the woodcutting axes were sharpened, and Eirwen had pulled the nighttime chill from Cerise’s body.
Her muscles relaxed, the aches in her bones eased, and with her home free from a clawless, pink-eyed bear, Cerise had an hour of restful hope that her life would return to normal.
That she could go outside, conduct her perimeter check, then walk her spiral around their home, looking for more runes and checking the traps.
If time allowed, perhaps she could ice fish in the ever-diminishing Evriel River that flowed from the Merathel Mountains near their home.
If the bear—no, the prince—could do it, so could she.
As Cerise readied to leave, Eirwen tended the fire and brushed her hair while reciting her morning rites.
But the front door would not open.
Cerise pushed against the wood, as sometimes frost seeped into the cracks and iced it shut. She heard the crystals in the frame crack and shatter to the ground, yet still the door would not budge more than a hand’s width.
Maybe a billowing wind blew downed wood onto their porch.
Maybe part of their roof collapsed.
A muffled grumble sounded behind the wood, and as the blockage shifted, Cerise’s freshly eased muscles once again tightened with rage.
She shoved the door open. The prince, wrapped in nothing but his old bear skin, rose from where he lay on her porch.
She ground her teeth as she glared at him, jaw clenched at this arrogant, selfish man who thought that he had any right to be on her land.
That despite how his family let the clerics trade children from Vhypael’s Temple between orders like tokens, despite how his family didn’t offer veterans housing no matter their sacrifices, he was welcome to rest in her home. As if he thought it was his.
Heat bloomed in her chest, igniting a fire that coursed through her veins.
The prince brushed aside his sleep matted hair, frost clinging to his beard.
They stood around the same height, making it all too easy for Cerise to stare back into his pleading, dawn-pink eyes.
Air tufted from his firm lips, barely visible beneath his beard.
“Cerise, please let me explain.”
The sound of his voice, rougher than before from the cold and grogginess of sleep, spread the flame in her core through the rest of her being, red overtaking her vision.
Cerise, balancing herself with Beloved, swiftly kicked the prince’s sternum.
He exhaled, harsh and surprised, doubling over as she knocked the air out of him.
She swept Beloved’s staff at his feet, and he plummeted to the porch with a sturdy smack.
He grunted as his chin met the frosted wood, and before he could stand, Cerise wound around him, grabbing his arms and wrenching them behind his back.
The prince let out a low, frustrated grunt of pain as she wrung his arms and dragged him off the porch, his feet scrabbling to find stability.
He twisted and fought against Cerise’s grasp, her name passing through his lips in desperate pleas. The prince was strong and almost escaped her grip, but she, too, was powerful, and would not let his will dominate hers.
Summoning the reserves of her strength, she flung the prince outside of her home’s blessed boundary. He stumbled with the momentum but didn’t topple over. The prince turned to her, naked as the day he was born.
Not looking at the planes of his masculine form took more strength of will than dragging him away from their home had. It truly had been too long since she’d seen a naked man, and her base needs tempted to betray her good sense.
All it took was one look into his eyes, those supposedly granted by Mirvadel, the Celestial of Blessings and Good Fortune onto the royal family, for Cerise’s loathing to flare anew.
“I told you, if you ever stepped into my home again, I’d take your hide. Being human, being royalty, doesn’t mean I will forfeit that promise.”
His beard twitched, as if a smirk flickered underneath. The prince stretched open his arms, the taut muscles of his limbs and torso stretching. “Go ahead and take it, if you like what you see.”
Heat, both of anger and one of an entirely different kind, bloomed through Cerise’s body and warmed her face, as she tried to keep her gaze from roving over him.
“Do you have a death wish, prince? Surely you can tell we need all the warmth we can get. And since you’ve already given us one skin, I see no reason why we should not claim two.”
“Cerise!” Eirwen shouted from behind her, soft footsteps pattering closer. “What’re you doing?”
She didn’t respond, letting Eirwen see for herself. Her sister approached, the discarded bear pelt in her hands. Eirwen’s mouth popped open when she saw the shivering, naked prince, snow drifting on his bare skin.
“Cerise,” Eirwen chided, clicking her tongue. Her sister strode to the prince, wrapping the fur around his shoulders.
Cerise tensed, the prince’s fingers sliding over her sister’s, hand resting a little too long on Eirwen’s.
He thanked her, his gaze filled with warmth as he looked upon her, a lecherous grin spreading beneath his beard.
She’d seen that expression bestowed on Eirwen one too many times.
The yearning to grasp her ethereal beauty.
To devour it. If she’d known what it meant earlier in life, she could’ve spared Eirwen so much suffering.
But she knew what it meant now, and she’d never let her experience that devastation again.
Cerise whipped Beloved in her grasp and aimed the dagger point at the prince’s heart. “Stay away from her,” she growled.
Adjusting the bear’s pelt in his hands, the prince gazed upon Cerise with a curious expression. After a moment’s thought, he said, “If I had lustful designs on one of you, it would not be her. I prefer my women looking like they won’t break.”
Cerise paused, uncertain what to say to that, let alone how to feel. Complimented? Outraged for Eirwen’s sake?
“No offense, milady,” the prince added, glancing at Eirwen, whose face brightened with a smile.
“None taken.”
Cerise glared at her sister. She had no reason to be this gleeful, especially since he just insulted her. This man who Cerise told several times to leave them alone yet still stood in front of them.
“A trail cuts through the lower hills to the north, which is the closest path back to Tyrnoraen. Though since you made it here, you probably know that.” Cerise stepped away, turning her back to the prince and motioning for Eirwen to follow her. “Come, we have much to do today.”
“Wait, please let me explain.” The prince’s palm landed on her shoulder, tugging to swing her around.
Yet as soon as his meaty hand landed on her body, Cerise shuddered with the recollection of all the unwanted touches that’d ever tugged and clawed at her skin.
She whirled on her heel despite the lance of pain in her knee and whacked his arm away, the bones of their forearms smacking.
The strength of her strike unbalanced the prince, and he swayed back with the force of her shove.
“Don’t you dare touch me,” Cerise seethed through gritted teeth. “If you ever do so again, your arm will be added to the collection of body parts you owe me.”
The prince raised his hands in surrender as best he could while still holding the discarded bear pelt around himself. “I apologize.”
Well. That was something she’d never expect to hear from a prince.
“Perhaps we should listen to what he has to say before he goes?” Eirwen suggested, voice as delicate and soothing as trickling water. “It wouldn’t be right to send him on his way without warming him up and offering some food for the journey. He can tell us his story and then leave.”
“No. I do not want him in our house.”
“Come, now. You let him rest inside when he was a bear. He’s less dangerous to us now.”
Cerise stared at her sister, dumbfounded.
An embarrassed flush crept over Eirwen’s cheeks. “What I mean is, without his teeth and body mass, it’ll be harder for him to kill us.”
“I’m not worried about his teeth. I’m worried about his words.”
The prince lifted a hand to his face, resting three fingers over his nose so that his palm covered his mouth.
“What on Azkanix’s cursed earth are you doing?”
“Demonstrating I mean you no harm, in the same manner I did as a bear.” The prince paused, shrugged. “Perhaps it isn’t as effective without a snout.”
It wasn’t, yet still something softened in Cerise.
Or maybe gave up. Despite her physical and verbal aggression toward him, the prince remained patient and understanding.
The calm of his demeanor doused the flame of her indignation, and she didn’t have the energy to rile herself up again at this moment.
She needed to get on with the day. And with Eirwen determined to help him, it would be easier to comply.
The sooner they spoke to him, the sooner they could move past these strange few days that had upended their lives.
“Get on with it, then,” Cerise grumbled.
Relief washed over the prince’s face, stepping behind Eirwen who glided to the cabin. As he walked past Cerise, she whispered, “Don’t try anything stupid. If you do, she’ll either freeze your balls or I’ll chop them off.”
Pity flickered across the prince’s rugged, ice-crusted face when he met her gaze. As if he saw through the words into Cerise’s bruises.
She wanted to punch the expression off his face.
Cerise clenched her fists, the knuckles of the hand around Beloved turning white, restraining the urge. She’d offered hospitality. Eirwen would give her another silent treatment if she ruined that peace.