Chapter 17 #2
I pull off a glove and press my fingers to her throat to search for a pulse, but I’m shaking so hard that I can’t feel anything.
A wave of panic slams into me, so strong that blood roars in my ears and black spots dance before my eyes.
She can’t be dead. I have to do something.
But all I can do is stare at Zenevieve’s lifeless body as panic pounds through my blood.
Nilak nudges my shoulder. I look around and see a dark opening in the side of the mountain. My dragon goes over to investigate, and she disappears inside. I stand up with Zenevieve in my arms and carry her to the opening, Minta limping after us.
The cave is freezing cold, but at least it’s out of the snow and wind.
Zenevieve needs heat, and she needs it fast. I pull a spare cloak out of one of Nilak’s saddlebags, find a blanket among Zenevieve’s things on Minta, and spread them out against Nilak’s side.
Under my dragon’s sheltering wing, I place Zenevieve on the makeshift pallet and strip her down to her underclothes, and then I do the same to myself.
I pull her ice-cold body against mine and huddle with her under my cloak.
Minta is on Nilak’s other side, also huddled under a wing.
I chafe Zenevieve’s hands against my chest and wipe the ice crystals from her lashes. There’s no warmth in Zenevieve’s body at all. Zenevieve left my home and my life, but I can’t lose her from this earth as well. Seeing her every day with Minta was the only thing that made the loss bearable.
“Zenevieve. Zenevieve, can you hear me?” I pull her closer into the warmth of my body, but she feels like a block of ice. “Gods, Zenevieve, please open your eyes.”
A small sound reaches my ears. A soft, faint breath.
I seize her face in my hands. “Zenevieve? Zenevieve. Open your eyes. Open your eyes now.” I don’t mean to use my roar, but I’m so wound up from fear and my oncoming rut. My words reverberate through my chest, commanding that she obey me.
Zenevieve’s eyelashes flutter. She opens her eyes, and her gaze fastens on mine.
“Am I dead?” she whispers.
I cry out in relief and hug her to my naked chest, rocking her back and forth. She’s alive. She’s alive. Thank the gods and the stars in the sky.
I pull back, cradling her head in my hands so I can get a better look at her, reassuring myself that Zenevieve is all right.
I snatch up her hands and examine her fingers.
They’re stiff and cold, but not frostbitten, thanks to her gloves.
I hook up her knees and feel her toes, rubbing life back into them.
Zenevieve is so weak that she can only watch me through heavy lidded eyes. “I’m dreaming, aren’t I? I’m always dreaming of you.”
When I’m certain that she hasn’t lost any toes, I lay down and pull her against me. The warmth from Nilak’s soul core is bathing Zenevieve, and as her blood begins to recirculate, she starts to shiver violently. She shakes so much that she nearly slips into unconsciousness from sheer exhaustion.
“Don’t fall asleep. Keep your eyes open.”
“I’m trying,” she whispers.
I press kisses to her forehead and chafe her bare back. When most of her shaking subsides, I find a waterskin and let her take a few sips. She swallows them, and finally some of the color returns to her cheeks.
I groan in relief and let my head fall back onto a balled-up cloak. If I hadn’t noticed that Minta was missing, she and Zenevieve would still be trapped under that avalanche.
Zenevieve half sits up with a gasp. “Minta?”
Minta gives a soft cry from Nilak’s other side. She’s all right as well.
I coax Zenevieve to lay back down. “Just keep still. I need to keep you warm.”
As we lay together on the blanket beneath my cloak, I’m suddenly aware that we’re both nearly naked. All I cared about was getting Zenevieve warmed up, and now I don’t know where to look.
Actually, my rut knows exactly where I want to look. My scent is so strong that even I can smell it.
Zenevieve’s cheek is cushioned on a fold of the blanket, and our bodies are very close together. She breathes in deeply and sighs in pleasure. “You smell wonderful. Now I know I’m dreaming. You’re in a rut, and you’re holding me close instead of pushing me away.”
I have no choice. We can’t go anywhere while this storm rages and Zenevieve and Minta are so weakened. I try not to notice that all Zenevieve is wearing is a breastband and drawers. I’m only in underbreeches, and our legs and feet are tangled together.
When I raise my eyes to her face, which is just inches from mine, she’s smiling at me. Our heads are resting on the same fold of blanket.
“I always dream that you’re my mate,” she whispers, her fingers playing across my jaw, my lips. “My favorite dream.”
Her words are torture and so is her touch. Every brush of her fingers sends sparks rushing through my blood.
I grasp her wrist. “Zen, please lie still. It’s dark outside and the storm will last many more hours yet.”
“Why should I lie still?”
“Because you must.” The sight of all her bare skin makes my dragines throb. The lacings on my underbreeches are pulled tight across my swollen knot.
“But why?” she whispers, drawing her thigh up over mine. She was knocking on death’s door just a few moments ago, a frozen block of ice, but now she’s wonderfully, deliciously warm and soft.
“I— Just because,” I falter, and swallow.
“Because your knot is swollen, and I’m moving against it?” she breathes, arching into me. Pushing her hips into mine.
I pant softly. Somehow, without knowing when, I buried my hand in her hair at the back of her neck. “Stop that.”
“You stop it,” she whispers because my fingers are massaging her nape.
But I can’t stop it. There’s a deep ache of need in my chest. “Gods, I’ve missed you.”
“You can have me back,” she whispers, tilting her lips up to mine, offering them to me for a kiss.
I stare at her lips with equal parts fear and longing.
“I’m not your ward anymore. I’m almost twenty-one. Would it be such a grave insult to my dead father if we kissed?”
“Zen, please don’t ask me that.”
“Don’t you sometimes want to put aside your duties and have some fun?
I’ve learned one or two things about Alphas since I left home.
” She slides her fingers through my hair and clenches them on the hair at the nape of my neck.
I groan long and low as pleasure shoots through my mating gland, and I close my eyes and bury my face in her shoulder. That felt like heaven.
“You needed that.”
“I didn’t,” I retort, my arms tightening around her and my body shuddering against hers.
“Liar,” she whispers, laughing softly.
I raise my head and narrow my eyes at her. “How did you know I would like that? Have you been seeing that Alpha from the ruthouse?”
She smiles. “Who, Oren? That big, rutting, white-haired Alpha who so desired me to spend his rut with him?”
A great wave of jealousy slams into me. “Yes. Him.”
Zenevieve strokes her fingers down my chest, and I’m fascinated by the sight of her touching me. “I never went to bed with Oren. I was tempted, but do you know why?”
“Why?” I demand.
She lifts her sparkling green eyes to mine. “The only reason I considered him for even a moment was because he reminded me of you.”
“That insufficient, posing, brainless lavish fiend reminded you of me?” I growl, insulted right down to my toes.
She laughs, and it’s the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard. “Indeed. But of course he’s second best to Maledin’s handsome dragonmaster.”
“Fourth best. Sixteenth best. More. He doesn’t even rate. Swear that he doesn’t place anywhere in your heart. Swear that your heart is just for me.”
Zenevieve’s eyes grow dark and hazy, and she pants beneath me, and I realize I’ve rolled on top of her. That I’m gripping her shoulders and ordering her to speak. My rut is coming on stronger than I’ve ever felt it before, and I’m having trouble thinking straight.
“Kiss me,” she breathes.
“I-I shouldn’t.”
“Kiss me, please. Kiss me because it will make me happy.”
I stare at her plush mouth. Maybe it’s not the gods who have kept me from Zenevieve. Maybe it is my own stubborn heart. I feel a stirring of something that feels like permission, or at least an excuse. “A kiss would make you happy?”
“Please.”
I stroke her cheek with my thumb, marveling at her beautiful face. Her sparkling eyes. As I touch her lips, they curve into a smile. “This is the first time I’ve seen you smile in such a long time.”
“Would you like me to go on smiling, or will you make me weep again?”
I only want to make her smile, and my rut-addled brain can think of only one way to make that happen.
I slant my mouth over Zenevieve’s and kiss her.
The whole world turns golden, and my mouth fills with sweetness. I kiss her again, the most intense sensations crashing over me. She opens her mouth, my tongue caresses hers.
“Is it all right?” I whisper, pulling away, conscious that I’ve never kissed anyone before. I want to deliver on my promise to make her happy. Zenevieve’s eyes are heavy lidded. Instead of answering me, she cups the back of my neck and pulls me back down to her.
I kiss her so many times that I lose my breath. I bury my face in her throat and inhale deeply. “You smell happy. Gods, I’ve missed your scent. How many kisses do you need to keep you smiling like this and smelling like this?”
“Thousands.”
I kiss her again. A thousand kisses it is. More. I pepper her cheeks and throat with kisses. I dare to slide a hand around her waist, then her lower back, and then finally cup her ass and pull her tight against my knot. Her scent is sweet with arousal, and she moans against my lips.
“All right,” I gasp, making myself loosen my grip on her. “All right. Let’s not get carried away.”
It’s important to not get carried away. I just can’t remember why.
“Do your dragines hurt, Stesha?”