Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Sylvi
Isat on his bed as he moved toward the weapons rack. The silence between us was strange, foreign, broken only by the rustle of leather as Jack reached for the buckles on his armor.
“I’ll go get Ingrid to help with that,” I said, pushing to stand.
“No.” The word tasted of finality, and it struck a chord in every muscle, rooting me to his mattress. “Not her.” He didn’t turn, didn’t look at me. But the plea embedded in those two words made my chest tighten.
When he finally did glance over his shoulder, his eyes darkened, but there was something else there. Something quiet and aching.
“You want me to do it?” I asked.
“Not as my attendant,” he said gently. “As my friend?”
Friend. It was what we were, but for some inexplicable reason, the word stung.
I swallowed and stepped toward him.
My fingers brushed the cold edge of the metal buckle at his shoulder, and I let them linger a moment longer than necessary before I unfastened it. The scent of frost, cedarwood, and worn leather surrounded me, and I breathed it in too deeply.
The armor gave way with a strained groan, the damp leather peeling from him, weighty and reluctant, as if it didn’t want to leave his body.
I moved to the next strap, then the next.
Layer by layer, I peeled him down, and not just from his armor.
With every piece I removed, it was as if I was stripping him of his burdens, of his guilt, revealing the parts of himself he never let anyone else see.
His breath hitched when I slid the final layer down his spine, my knuckles grazing his lower back. His muscles flexed beneath my touch, tightening like he wanted to pull away but didn’t.
I hesitated as he pulled off the shirt himself, the thin linen clinging to his body, wet and cold from diving into the lake. I would’ve been a shivering mess, but I forgot for a split second how little the cold affected him.
And then I saw them.
The scars. I couldn’t even distinguish the new ones from the old, the ones Soulstripper had carved into him from the ones left behind by the leopard’s claws.
Some were faint, some were angry and red.
Others twisted and ridged like lightning had split open his back and tried to stitch itself into his flesh.
My breath caught. “Skadi’s grace…”
He shifted away from me, as if to shield me from his marred back, but I stepped closer.
“Don’t,” I said softly. “You don’t have to hide these from me.”
I raised my hand, my fingertips hovering, then light as a feather, I pressed against the worst of them. A breath shuddered out of him, and he flinched.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“No. It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt…it’s just tender.”
One by one, I traced them. Memorized them. Each one like a tally etched into his skin, proof of the savagery he endured. Of every slash. Of all he’d bled. For Skadgard. For me.
Because of me.
I leaned in. Placed my lips over one. Then another. Until my mouth had kissed every scar it could reach. I wanted—needed—to replace the memory of the pain with something else. Something sacred and gentle. Maybe gratitude. Love.
Something rumbled in his throat, like some part inside him was finally beginning to thaw. His shoulders rose, then softened. His head tilted forward, and I knew, without even looking, that his eyes were closed.
The light of the brazier cast an amber sheen over his skin, catching the curve of his spine, carving shadows across his shoulder blades. My eyes couldn’t stop skimming every inch of his back, greedy for the shape of him, the story of his body, every curve and hollow.
This prince and I had known each other practically our whole lives. We’d developed our own wordless language, a synchronicity only we understood.
No one knew me like Jack did. No one ever would.
And I knew him like no one ever would.
Knew all his secrets. Knew the things that made him laugh, made him burn with anger, with shame.
I knew his favorite books, his favorite foods and sweets.
His deep connection with animals. Knew about his struggles with his magic, the deep turmoil with his mother, the unfathomable depth of his pain at the loss of his father.
And yet, here, in this small pool of firelight, wrapped in silence and breath and heat, I felt like I was discovering a version of him I’d never seen before, didn’t even know existed—a version I ached to know more intimately, like tracing the edge of a dream I never wanted to wake from.
I kissed another scar, and another.
His breath shook.
The scent of his skin filled me. Frost-touched and forest-wild, but underneath that…something raw. Primal. Utterly male.
It did something to me. It awakened a fire hidden in my blood, and parts of me began to ache. To yearn.
I moved to his side, to the front. His chest rose and fell, devastating slow, his breath laced with longing, need, a sound I didn’t know could thrum the intimate places between my thighs.
My breath deepened. I didn’t mean to touch him, not at first, but my hands forged their own path.
They skimmed up the hard planes of his abdomen, over the defined lines of his chest. The warmth of his skin sent tingles dancing across my palms, and suddenly, I couldn’t get enough.
Winter’s grace. He was a masterpiece hewn of ice and battle-forged steel, and yet here, with me, he trembled like a male on the edge of losing control, and Náldrún curse me if I didn’t want to see him unleash that side of him, the beast I knew he was holding back.
Our eyes met, and I thought I might fall apart right there, undone by the depth of his gaze, a molten sea of silver and blue, like winter’s fury kissed by fire, looking at me not as a friend, not as a prince…but as if I were the first sunrise he’d ever seen after a thousand years of night.
And I couldn’t break from his stare. Because just like I was his sun, he was my moon, glowing with cold, aching beauty, distant and untouchable, yet somehow always pulling at the shores of my soul, at the rising tide of wildness in my blood. The one I hadn’t known was waiting to be claimed.
A silent call stirred beneath my skin…to awaken, to chase, to hunt.
I slid a hand down his sternum, over the ridges of his stomach, and down to the firm line of his waist. His muscles strained as my fingers swept over the waistband of his trousers.
A low, unmistakable sound escaped his throat, more growl than breath. It raked across my skin, igniting something feral in my core.
“Syl…” His voice was one of fraying restraint, and Gods, I never loved the way he said my name like I did in that moment.
It sounded like a curse and a prayer, commanding me to meet his eyes yet again. That simmering adoration I’d seen minutes before had transformed into something darker and starving, like a flame hungry for oxygen.
A wave of desire flared over my skin.
I’d dreamt about this, about touching him. Skin to skin. To know every inch of his body. Not just his chest or abdomen, but lower. Much lower.
To know the feel of his length, his hardness. Not over clothes, like I’d felt when he’d kissed me out by the lake. But the heat of his taut skin. The weight of him in my hands as I stroked him, his groans in my mouth until he shattered.
Our gazes remained tethered, his lips parting in a soft, gentle moan as I slipped my fingers beneath the waistband’s edge. I didn’t need to look down to know his body had reacted to my touch. My mouth watered, and the thoughts that pillaged through my mind shocked even me.
Vile, filthy things filtered through my mind. All of them temping and delicious; all of them urging me to do something I’d never done before, but something I was more than willing to indulge in even here, inside a war tent. Surrounded by all the royal guard.
I didn’t even care that a princess waited to wear his ring. I didn’t care that I’d been half-dead a few hours ago. Didn’t care that the realm teetered on the edge of war.
I wanted Jack. Here. Now. With a hunger that threatened to devour me whole if I didn’t drop to my knees and worship the fuck out of him until he came undone inside my mouth.
But just as my fingers slid lower beneath the waistband, he caught my wrist. “I can’t,” he said, voice barely audible, thick and torn.
I blinked, startled. “What’s wrong?”
He let go of my hand as if it burned, turning away from me. The fire that had been raging between us iced as if he’d used his magic to dampen the coals. “We need to get some sleep.”
The words sliced. No explanation, no acknowledgment. Just…distance.
I stepped back, pulling my arms around myself as if they might hold the pieces of me together that he’d just shattered. “Right,” I muttered.
Jack pulled a clean shirt from his satchel and dragged it over his head. Then he grabbed the bedroll that had been brought for me and tossed it to the ground.
“What are you doing?” I asked, irritation rising.
He didn’t meet my eyes. “I’ll sleep on the ground. It’s the respectful thing.”
Respectful?
I wanted to scream. “It’s fine. You can take your bed. I’ll sleep on the ground.”
“You won’t,” he replied flatly.
“And neither will you. Or I’ll go sleep in the tent with the rest of the guard.”
He paused. Sighed. Then finally relented. “Fine. We’ll both take the bed.”
The brazier still glowed, casting long shadows on the canvas walls as Jack moved around the tent, snuffing out the lanterns. I stayed where I was, rooted to ground, fury and heartbreak battling in my chest like twin storms.
More silence.
What the Hel had just happened between us?
“After you,” he said, motioning to the bed, cold and removed, as if he were talking to some court lady at the palace.
I’d gone from wanting to worship him to wanting to rip his eyes out. I sucked in a steadying breath and climbed under the furs, jaw tight.
He joined me a heartbeat later.