The Winter King

CHAPTER 6

The White King’s Bride

In the dark of night, while Wynter slumbered heavily beside her, soft hands woke Khamsin. “Come sister,” a quiet whisper urged. “It’s past three. Time to go while you still can.”

She opened her eyes to the faint glow of a shuttered candle. The familiar shadowy shapes of her three sisters huddled beside the bed. They carefully lifted the weighty anchor of Wynter’s arm and helped Khamsin slide free and sit up on the edge of the bed.

Satin, cool and slick, spilled over Kham’s shoulders, drawing an involuntary hiss from her throat as the fabric brushed across the torn and sensitive skin of her back. She tugged the robe into place and accepted the hands that helped her stand up. Her knees wobbled, and her legs started to buckle. She would have fallen, but Spring and Autumn quickly slipped their shoulders under her arms and took her weight upon themselves.

“Careful,” Summer shushed with soft urgency. “You’ll wake him. This way. Hurry.” The pale, golden glow of Summer’s shuttered candle cast a faint illumination across the far wall, lighting the gaping darkness of the open dressing-room doorway.

They had all agreed last night that it would not do for Wynter to wake and find his bride unveiled in the stark, revealing light of day. He was not a man to take deception lightly, and the longer they could hold off the revelation of Khamsin’s identity, they’d decided, the better. And to ensure that he would sleep through her depature, one of the incenses that had burned in the chamber last night included a powerful sedative.

Khamsin cast a glance back over her shoulder. In the faint reflective glow of Summer’s lamp, she could see the shadow of the Winter King, large and magnificently naked, sprawled facedown across the bed. A sharp bite of warmth drew her womb tight at the dimly illuminated sight of rounded, curving buttocks, broad, heavily muscled shoulders, and powerful limbs. Summer Sun! If not for the silky spill of winter white hair, she might think Roland himself lay there in her marriage bed.

For all that he was fearsome, for all that he could freeze a body with a single look, she suspected there were worse fates for a woman than to be tied in marriage to such a man.

Despite his reputed coldness, despite even her own painful wounds, when he’d touched her, he’d turned her body to living flame. And no matter how much she might wish otherwise, she knew that wasn’t just the arras leaf. It frightened her, that power he seemed to have over her. Frightened her . . . and intoxicated her. Even now, she could feel the hunger growing again, the pull drawing her towards him. She tamped it down and resolutely turned away.

Leaving Wynter to his drugged slumber, her torn back aching fiercely, Khamsin crept from the bridal bower and exited through the servants’ corridors to avoid the detection of the guards posted at the bedroom door. Summer hurried before them, holding her lamp. Autumn and Spring kept supporting arms around Khamsin. Together, the four of them climbed the narrow, lamplit servants’ stairs and made their way to the remote wing that housed Kham’s rooms.

Thankfully, Tildy was not there. The nurse had vacated her post and left behind healing cream, a collection of growing lamps, and a pot of herbs on an unlit burner with instructions to simmer the contents for their healing vapors. Khamsin’s sisters helped her to her bed, rubbed the cream gently on her torn back, and started the herb pot simmering. To her surprise, they insisted on staying with her.

“We’ll each take turns watching over you,” Autumn said.

“There’s no need,” Khamsin objected. “You should go, before anyone finds you here.”

“It’s the least we can do, Storm,” Summer said. She smiled so sadly, Kham wanted to weep. “Don’t fight us on this, sister. In your current condition, you know you can’t win.”

“I’ll take first watch,” Spring said. “There’s a bed in the next room. You two go get some sleep. I’ll wake you in a few hours.” When the others were gone, she bent over and brushed a spiral of dark, white-streaked hair from Khamsin’s forehead. “Poor little Storm,” she murmured. “Don’t fight so hard against everything. You’ll batter yourself to death.”

Khamsin turned her head away. When she heard Spring sigh and move to the corner of the room to take Tildy’s chair, Kham let the tears gathered in her eyes spill silently into her pillow.

Wynter woke alone.

He knew it before he opened his eyes. Knew it the moment he smelled the scent of his bride, not warm and womanly soft but cooled by the hours that had passed since her departure. She’d left him. In the middle of the night, while he slept in a drugged and exhausted stupor, she’d fled.

Damn her.

He opened his eyes and jackknifed up into a sitting position on the bed. He would not tolerate arrogance, he would not tolerate defiance, and he would definitely not tolerate rejection from his bride. She would come when he called and stay until he bid her go. That was a lesson he would see to it she learned as soon as he tracked her down.

He rubbed his jaw. The arras leaf had left him with a foul taste in his mouth. His bride’s cowardly flight had left him with a temper to match.

He rose and yanked on his clothes. He winced a little at the sting of the scratches clawed down his back, then smiled in spite of everything. He’d not been the only one maddened by lust last night. Her passion had been just as wild and overwhelming as his. Not a bad way to start a marriage. His smile disappeared. Then again, her enthusiasm probably owed more to the arras leaf they’d both consumed than anything else. Certainly, the moment her head had cleared of the drug’s effects, she’d fled.

He glanced back at the bed and frowned at the brownish smears on the white linens, recognizing the sight of dried blood. Much more of it than he would have expected from a virgin’s breach. Guilt assailed him as a different explanation for his bride’s flight occurred to him. Had he . . . hurt her?

Wynter put his hands to his head, closing his eyes and trying to remember, but so much of the night was a blur. He remembered bodies, scorching heat, the slick, clenching feel of hot flesh sheathing him with unbearable tightness. Lips . . . hot and gasping. Breasts . . . Winter’s Frost, what breasts—plump little pigeons, fitting perfectly into the broad palms of his hands, driving him mad with their lush softness and stabbing, hard peaks.

He’d not been kind or gentle. He knew that. The tormenting burn of arras had driven him wild. But . . . hurt her? Had he done so? Had she cried out against him? Had she begged him to stop and he, too drunk on her father’s idiot drug, not listened?

Wynter hung his head in shame and closed his eyes against the silent accusation screaming at him from the bloodstained sheets. Brute. Monster. Rapist.

He was a man of devastating strength, with all the terrible risks and responsibilities that entailed. Even amongst the hard, tough men of the Craig, he stood head and shoulders above most, with bones like Wintercraig granite and rock-hard muscle to match. He had faced a Frost Giant in single combat and emerged victorious. He knew no woman’s strength was a match for him. He knew he could kill with a blow. Always—always!—he kept himself in check when dealing with those weaker than he. He wasn’t above threats—a healthy dose of fear was an excellent antidote to recklessness—but he’d never unleashed his brute force against a woman, and it near slayed him to think the first might have been his wife.

He drew a deep breath and caught his emotions in a firm grip. Too much of his discipline had been torn away, by anger and arras and overwhelming passion. He was a Winterman, King of the Craig. Wintermen were not plump, self-indulgent peacocks like their southern neighbors, who wallowed in emotion and called it sensitivity. Wintermen were disciplined, unflappable, stoic, as any man must be to survive the rugged, unpredictable, and oft-inhospitable challenges of life in the Craig.

Instead of wasting his time worrying, he would track down his bride, discover if he had indeed harmed her, and make restitution if he had. But none of that changed the fact that he had made her irrevocably his. He had wedded her and bedded her, and there was no turning back.

So today, whether she liked it or not—and no matter what sort of brute she thought him—his Summerlea princess would be leaving with him, heading back to the cold, fierce beauty of the Craig. Where, he thought grimly, she would learn to face him with her grievances rather than flee like a thief in the night.

It took Wynter the better part of an hour to track Autumn down. He found her just as she was leaving a chamber tucked away in a remote part of the palace.

She looked shocked and horrified to see him. Those pansy purple eyes had great rings beneath them, as if she had slept nary a wink since sneaking from their bed, but it was the fear that struck him like a blow. The door behind her closed with a snick, and she stood before it as if frozen in place. Her voice shook as she said, “Your Grace—you startled me.”

He raked her from head to toe with a cool, brisk gaze. Her wrists were bare, the dark, creamy skin smooth and unmarred by any sign of last night’s passion. He was sure as often as he’d rubbed his face against her, tasting her skin and breathing in her intoxicating scent, there would be some small abrasion from the edge of his teeth or the rasp of his stubble. Some proof of his claim. Yet her skin remained smooth as rose petals.

“You look no worse for the wear,” he murmured. “I did not hurt you, then.” The relief he felt was immense, even if some primitive part of him found its fur ruffled by how untouched by him she appeared to be.

“I . . . no, you didn’t hurt me.”

“There was blood on the sheets . . . more than I had expected. Did I . . . wound you?”

She blushed and looked everywhere but at him. “No, of course not,” she assured him in a faint voice. “There is a wound on my back . . . it must have opened while . . . er . . . during . . .”

Wynter closed his eyes in a brief moment of thanks. “I am glad to know the cause was not any harm I did you,” he said, “but why then did you leave me? Without even a word?”

She swallowed, and he watched her throat move convulsively. She licked her lips and seemed to be having trouble thinking what to say to him.

“I had hoped to wake beside you,” he told her. “I thought perhaps we might enjoy with clear heads what your father’s drug clouded last night.” He let his eyes warm, watched the flutter of her pulse in the delicate skin of her throat. She was shockingly beautiful. No doubt about it. But where was the hot rush in his veins? Where was the electrifying connection between them? Surely that had not all been the arras leaf?

His hands rose to cradle her neck, fingers curled just past her spine, thumbs resting lightly just below her chin. He forced as much gentleness as he could muster into his smile. “Surely, I gave you some pleasure?”

Her cheeks flushed a dusky rose, and she gave a muffled groan of embarrassment. “Please, Your Grace, this is unseemly.”

His brows shot up. She’d been no shrinking flower last night. She’d been pure enchantress, untutored but just as driven as he. Just as ravenous for him as he for her. “Unseemly? My queen, the women of my land would say ’tis far more unseemly had I taken my pleasure from you and given you none in return.” She tried to flee, but he caught her and held her fast. He thought—unkindly, it seemed, to make such a comparison—of the little maid who would have spat defiance in his eye rather than whimper as Autumn was now doing. Be still, Wyn, he chided himself. Forget that maid. She is none of your affair.

“Come now,” he told his reluctant wife. “You fled in the night, without cause that I can see, and now you say a man’s wish to pleasure his wife is unseemly? I know you Summerfolk are not so timid with your desires. Or is it the touch of a Winterman you cannot abide in the light of day?”

“No . . . it’s not that . . . it’s . . .”

“Then you will grant me a kiss, wife,” he interrupted in a tone that brooked no refusal, “and greet me as you should have done more properly at daybreak. In my bed. Where I left you last, and from whence you admit I gave you no cause to flee.”

His thumb traced her lip. He bent his head to hers. With a protesting squeak, she yanked free of his hand and turned her head so that his lips landed not on her mouth but on the high, flushed curve of her cheek. She pushed ineffectually against his chest, but he caught her hands and twined his fingers with hers.

Her scent wafted up to him, gardenias and herbs. Familiar . . . yet not. He frowned and leaned closer, inhaling, separating the scents, examining the flavor of them. Something was different . . . missing. She smelled plainer, less intoxicating than she had last night, and there was none of his own scent upon her. Had she spent the morning ridding herself of all traces of him?

He glanced at the fingers clasped in his own and the frown became an outright scowl. She’d removed his ring, the Wintercraig Star. What kindness he’d hoped to show her shriveled. Her fingers were bare, as if she thought that would undo the vows they had spoken and consummated. Icy rage flooded his veins.

“Not even one day wed, and already you try to deny me? You flee my bed, scrub my scent from your body, refuse my kiss, and now I see you have even discarded my ring? Is this how Summerlanders honor their word?” He glared, feeling the power surge within him, the cold anger gathering.

“Your Grace!” she exclaimed. “You’re freezing my hands!”

He released her with a snarl and thrust her from him. “We leave for Wintercraig within the hour. You will meet me in the bailey by ten o’clock. And when you come, my ring had best be back on your finger. Do you understand me, wife?” He was angry enough to be pleased at the way she blanched and nodded. “Do not defy me on this. I promise you will not like the consequences.”

The princess—his queen—clutched her throat with shaking, ringless hands and nodded again. Gritting his teeth against the cold rage burning inside him, he spun on his heel and stalked away.

“Oh, Storm, this was all a mistake. We must find a way to have the marriage annulled.” Distraught, her hair disheveled by the last several minutes of running wild fingers through it, Autumn looked more unsettled than Khamsin had ever seen her before.

“The wedding cannot be annulled,” Khamsin pointed out. “That was the entire point of last night—to ensure the knot was permanently tied.”

“But the things he said . . . what he thought to do . . .” Her face flushed bright red. “He tried to kiss me! Right there, in the hall!”

Kiss? “You didn’t let him, did you?” There was a fierce snap in Kham’s voice that made Autumn look at her in surprise. The very thought of the Winter King and her sister locked in an intimate embrace sent a violent shudder down Khamsin’s spine. The brush she was holding in her hands grew hot, and with a hiss of pain, she dropped it into the half-filled water pail beside her bed. The hairbrush—bearing the imprint of her clenched fingers melted into its metal grip—sizzled when it hit the water.

“No!” her eldest sister exclaimed. “Of course, I didn’t. I was terrified if I showed the slightest encouragement, he might flip up my skirts and ‘pleasure me’ as he called it, right there in the hallway! He’s a brute! A barbarian!”

“He’s my husband,” Khamsin corrected. On her left hand, the heavy, beautiful diamond ring winked up at her, its platinum band a cool circle undamaged by the heat that had melted the hairbrush moments ago. “And he thought you were me—or rather that I was you. How did he find you? What did he want?”

“How should I know how he found me? Someone must have seen Summer and Spring leaving earlier and figured it out. As for what he wanted—I’d say it was you! Or me, because he thought I was you, pretending to be me. Oh, you know what I mean!” She threw up her hands. “Your wounds bled on the sheets—quite a bit, apparently—and he came to make sure he hadn’t sundered you in his great lust last night. I told him he hadn’t.” She peered uncertainly at Storm. “He didn’t, did he? Because you didn’t say, but I hoped the blood was from your back.”

“No, he didn’t hurt me.” Khamsin reached into the water pail to retrieve the now-cooled brush and dried it off before brushing her hair into some semblance of order.

He’d worried that he’d wounded her. He’d set her on fire, showered her with gift after selfless gift of pleasure, shattered and remade her time and time again in a crucible of devastating ecstasy—and he worried that he’d been too rough. She’d deceived him—was deceiving him still—and he, the supposedly heartless ice man from the north, had come to make sure he had neither harmed nor disappointed her on their wedding night.

She lowered her eyes to hide the vulnerability and guilt that one simple gesture of kindness made her feel. Oh, Khamsin, why must everything you touch get so wrong-headed?

She rolled the length of her hair into a knot and pinned it to the back of her head, wincing a little as the gesture pulled the still-tender new skin on her back. Several more hours of sunlamps and herbs had provided enough healing that she could at least dress without needing drugs to keep her standing. She’d eaten earlier, her belongings were packed, now all she needed to do was don her veils, and she would be ready to go.

She looked at herself in the mirror. Was she different? She felt different. Her face was wan beneath its rich, Summerlander brown. She pinched her cheeks to add color and touched the raised ridges on her cheekbone where her father’s heated signet had burned her, branding her with the Summer Rose. Tildy had wanted to heal that, but Kham hadn’t let her. She wore it as a badge—a reminder of her home, and of the Summer King who despised her.

What would Wynter do when he learned the truth of their deception? Would he kill her? Freeze her on the spot with that deadly Gaze of his? Or would the devastating passion they’d shared last night stay his hand?

She tossed the remaining few personal items from her room in a small satchel and pinned the heavy veils in place over her hair. “It’s time,” she said. This continued deception was a farce, but one she was committed to carrying out. If she could just make it to the carriage without being unmasked, then she would have some hope of making it past the city gate before she was discovered. And if she could make it past the city gate, she had a chance of reaching the first posting stop without being discovered. The farther they got from Summerlea before Wynter realized how he’d been tricked, the less likely he was to kill her on the spot and return for a different princess.

Or so she told herself.

“Storm,” Autumn murmured. Tears welled in her eyes. “It should have been me. I should have told father I would be the Winter King’s bride. I was the one his eye settled on first.”

“Don’t torment yourself. This was my choice.” Khamsin forced a smile, trying for brightness, hoping that at least she’d avoided terrified. “You know how I’ve always dreamed of the ancient heroes who saved Summerlea. Well, this my chance to play Roland Triumphant.”

“Roland died, Storm.”

The bright smile faltered. “Yes . . . well . . . maybe Roland isn’t the right example.” She drew the veils down over her face, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

Downstairs, the court had gathered. Spring and Summer were waiting at the top of the stairs, and they took up flanking positions at Khamsin’s sides as she grew near, threading their arms supportively through hers. Together, they descended the palace steps.

The Summer King was there, too, looking pale and pained. Too much drink, Kham thought, then remembered how Wynter had forced him to share the wedding cup. Ah, that explained it. But judging from the worn, unhappy look about him, he’d not spent his arras hours gorging on shattering pleasure as she had.

There was no remorse in his eyes, only fierce loathing, which he tried to hide with a false paternal smile for the benefit of his court. “Daughter,” he murmured, and stepped forward to embrace her. “Enjoy your life,” he taunted on a hiss meant for her ears only. “What’s left of it.”

She stood stiff and suffered the peck to her veiled cheek. She wanted to taunt him back, to sneer and inform him she had survived the worst he could dish out and would survive Wynter as well. But that had yet to be seen.

Metal clanked against stone. A cold, harsh wind swept into the palace, sending Summerlander skirts and doublets swirling. Several ladies cried out and clutched at fashionable curls tossed into disarray.

Outfitted once more in full plate mail with Gunterfys strapped to his side, Wynter strode into the marbled greeting hall. Temper snapped around him like crackling frost. He caught sight of Khamsin, and his mouth flattened to a grim, bloodless line.

“Veils again, my queen?” he sneered. He approached her with such scarcely contained force, she was surprised his boots did not strike sparks against the ground. His gaze flickered down to her hands. The sight of the large blue-white diamond glittering on her left hand made the line of his mouth soften slightly. “So, you can follow directions. That’s something, at least.” He caught her hand in his, and the now-familiar flash of energy leapt between them at the point of contact. His pale brows drew together, the golden brown skin furrowing, winter blue eyes narrowing.

Oh no.

Her fingers curled, and she gave her hand a tug, trying to free it from his grip. He would not allow it. He lifted her hand, examining the ring of faint bruises and the even fainter abrasions from where he’d pinned her hands to the headboard in one of their more passionate moments last night. His thumb brushed across the Summerlea Rose burning on her inner wrist. He splayed her hand against his, threading his fingers through hers as if measuring how her hand fit in his.

Slowly, inexorably, he brought her hand to his lips, and on the pretext of pressing a kiss to her hand, he breathed her in, drawing her scent deep into his lungs. A faint shudder rippled through him, followed by absolute stillness.

His eyes flashed up, bright and piercing, burning through the thick layers of her veils. Khamsin froze. Her heart slammed against her ribs. He knew. He’d touched her hand, breathed in her scent, and without the potency of arras to muddle his senses, he’d deciphered the truth in mere seconds.

His hand shot out. Fingers curled around the corners of her veil and gave a swift yank. The pins holding the veils in place pulled loose. The unanchored layers of cloth slid free and fluttered to the ground. Cool air swirled around Khamsin’s bare head, tugging at the white-streaked curls dislodged by the sudden removal of her veils.

“The little maid,” he muttered, sounding dazed. The moment of shock didn’t last long. His other hand shot out. He grabbed her by the throat and dragged her close. His eyes flared with ice-bright magic, and frost crackled on every surface of the room, leaving Khamsin and all the Summer King’s court shivering with the icy force of Wynter’s fury.

“Who are you?” he demanded. “And no more lies.” His voice was so cold and throbbing, the chandelier shivered overhead, and several of its frozen crystal drops shattered.

Khamsin forced herself to lift her chin, forced her eyes to meet his with as much calm as she could muster. “I am the princess Khamsin Coruscate. Your wife.”

Wynter paced the gleaming, intricately inlaid parquet floor of the luxuriously appointed private parlor Verdan had led them to after Khamsin’s unveiling. All three of the Seasons—Autumn included—stood pale and silent, ringed protectively around the little storm-eyed maid who bore the Rose and claimed she was Wynter’s bride. Verdan stood off to one side, smug and arrogant despite the pallor that testified to the torment he’d suffered last night. Valik guarded the door, silent and watchful. He knew how close his king’s temper was to breaking, and he knew what that would mean.

Wynter stopped pacing. The sudden cessation of motion left the restless, wild energy of his magic with no outlet. He held himself still, letting the power gather and his anger grow so cold it burned.

“I offered you peace, Verdan,” he said softly. “You answered with deception.” In a sudden explosion of motion, he spun around and lunged towards the Summer King. Gunterfys whipped from its sheath in single, flashing moment, and the business end of the razor-sharp blade kissed the vulnerable skin right beneath the Summer King’s jaw. “Give me one reason why I should not separate your head from your shoulders right now.”

“I did not deceive,” Verdan retorted. The edge of his arrogance wilted a little, but he still met Wynter’s cold eyes head-on, without flinching. “You asked for a princess to wife—one of my daughters. I gave you one.”

“Liar! It’s well-known you only have three daughters.”

“It’s well-known I have only three? Or only three are well-known?” Verdan countered.

Wynter’s eyes narrowed. The girl bore the Rose. He couldn’t deny that. He considered trickery—that Verdan had somehow managed to fake the royal mark—but there was no way to fake the surge of energy that sparked whenever Wynter’s Wolf covered the girl’s Rose.

“A by-blow?” he asked. That would explain why he’d not heard of a fourth princess.

“I wish she had been. Then, at least, my wife would still be alive.”

“Father!” Summer and Spring exclaimed in unison. Autumn just curled her arm more tightly around the girl as if to ward off the king’s cruel claim.

The girl—Wynter’s wife—winced and extracted herself gently from her sisters’ protective clutches. Her chin lifted. “King Verdan has four daughters,” she said. “All of us are legitimate heirs to the Summer Throne, though until our wedding last night, he’d only officially recognized my three older sisters. He blames me, you see, for my mother’s death.”

Though she spoke softly, defiance sparked in her eyes. Wynter noted the pride, too, made obvious by the way she held her small chin so high. The pain, however, was so carefully shuttered he almost missed it.

“He couldn’t banish me outright,” she continued, “so instead he kept me confined to a remote part of the palace, away from the court, and away from him. Then you came.”

Images spun in Wynter’s mind like leaves on the wind. His first sight of the girl, standing in the oriel near the Queen’s Bower, garbed in cast-off gowns, as neglected as the tower around her. The way she’d snuck into his room—not a thief, just a girl retrieving her dead mother’s treasures. The gloating and open malice of Verdan’s toady, that Newt woman. The servants who claimed they knew nothing about her.

The corner of Verdan’s lip pulled up in a sneer. “You wanted a bride, Winter King. Well, now you have one. And may she deliver upon your House the same plague of misfortune and heartache she’s brought to mine.”

Wynter stepped back and sheathed Gunterfys before the urge to slay Verdan overcame reason. Though his bride was not the Season he’d come for, the terms of the peace had still been met. He would not be the first to break them, no matter how strong the temptation.

His enemy had outwitted him, he acknowledged grimly. He’d come to claim a beloved daughter, to make Verdan suffer as painful a loss as Wynter had when Garrick was slain. Instead, Verdan used the terms of peace as an opportunity to rid himself of a daughter he despised. The wedding was no punishment for Verdan. It was a boon.

Wynter turned to the girl. The lethal threat of the Ice Gaze burned at the back of his eyes, and he knew he looked frightening. “Come here,” he commanded.

The Seasons clung to her as if to hold her back and keep her safe from him. Verdan’s dark eyes gleamed with triumph. He was all but gloating. No doubt he and his daughters thought Wynter would kill the girl now. That was the reputation Wyn had spent the last three years earning. Those who deceived him died. Usually by ice, sometimes in a messier fashion.

But Wynter remembered other things about last night. He remembered the slow, careful way his bride had walked to the altar. The curious smell of poppies and herbs that had made him wonder if she’d sought courage from a potion. The flinch when he’d put a hand at the small of her back and the way she’d refused to surrender her gown in bed—even when the only thing it covered was her back. Most of all, he remembered the blood—too much blood—on the sheets of their bridal bed.

Khamsin stilled her sisters’ objections and pulled away from their fearful grips to approach him. He learned something else about his wife that moment. She was brave. He could see the paleness beneath her dark Summerlander skin, could smell the fear on her, but still she came to him, step after courageous step.

“Take off that cape,” he ordered, when she drew near.

For a moment, he thought she might defy him, but apparently she thought the better of it. She fumbled with the golden frogs at her throat until the fasteners slipped free. Fur-lined wool puddled at her feet.

“Turn around.”

She obeyed, then flinched at the snick of metal against scabbard as he unsheathed his dagger. He lifted the blade to the back of her neck and plunged it downward in a single, carefully guided thrust of restrained violence, slitting the ties of her gown and her underlying corset and chemise in one pass. Material parted, and she flinched again as the room temperature plummeted several dangerous degrees.

With effort, Wynter sheathed his blade, stilled his hands from shaking and pushed aside the fabric to bare her back. He examined the extent of the damage without a word, fingers hovering so close to her skin little bursts of energy arced towards his hands as they passed. From one shoulder to the other, down the length of her spine to the inviting dip just above her buttocks, where her skin disappeared into her skirts, her back was a horror of yellowing bruises, angry red scars, and half-healed wounds.

His hands withdrew. Without a word—he did not trust himself to speak—he bent to retrieve her cloak from the ground and handed it to her. She tugged it back into place to cover her naked back, refusing to look at him. She’d been beaten like a cur, and he could see it shamed her deeply to have him know it.

He would not allow her even visual retreat. Cupping her face in one broad hand, he forced her with gentle implacability to face him. His anger was a burning flame, one that did not emit heat but rather consumed it. It grew even icier when he saw the mark, high on her left cheek. A shape very familiar to him, having only just seen it on scores of documents.

The Rose of Summerlea. The king’s royal seal. Not the large, ostentatiously engraved seal of the office of the king, but the smaller simpler version made by Verdan’s signet ring. Burned into her cheek like a brand.

“I will not ask who beat you,” he said. His thumb brushed across her cheek, over the ridges of the Rose branded into her skin. “As he signed his work, there is no need.” Then his voice dropped to a low whisper for her ears only. “Was marriage to me such a terrible fate that this was the better option?”

Her eyes shot up to lock with his. Her full lips trembled. “I—”

His lips thinned, and he stepped back. “Go with your sisters. Put on a different gown. Something loose-fitting that will not damage you further.”

He waited for his wife and her sisters to leave the chamber, then advanced on Verdan with slow deliberation.

“You sought to deceive me. You beat your own child within an inch of her life so she would go along with your deception. Which hand did you beat her with, Verdan? Which hand did you raise against the woman you gave to me as wife? This one, I think.” His hand shot out, snatching Verdan’s right wrist—his sword arm—and holding it in a grip of stone.

“You made a mistake, Summerlander,” Wynter continued. “She is my wife now. By the laws of the Craig, it is my duty to seek justice for any crimes done against her—even those crimes committed against her before we wed. The blows you struck against her are now blows struck against me.

For the first time all morning, genuine fear crept into Verdan’s eyes.

“This hand, which beat my wife until she could scarcely stand, you will never lift again against another. She lives, and so you live. But the hand you raised against her dies.” Power came to his call, burning his veins with ice, traveling down his arm to the hand that gripped Verdan’s right wrist.

Verdan hissed as the first, painful tingles of cold shot through his skin. As the blood and flesh began to freeze, his eyes widened, and he began to struggle, but Wynter grabbed him by the throat and squeezed, sending the Summer King to his knees.

The frost spread, creeping up the Summer King’s arm to his shoulder and down to the tips of his fingers. His choked cries turned to outright shrieks as the skin of his frozen hand and arm began to harden. Relentless, icy, unmoved by the other man’s pleas for mercy, Wynter held his grip until the arm was a dead, useless hulk of flesh.

Through it all, Wynter felt nothing. No remorse, no pity. Not even a particular rage. His heart was an unmoved block of ice in his chest. When he released his enemy, the once-haughty Summer King hunched over his dead arm, weeping and moaning, his body racked by shivers.

“If ever again you consider deceiving me or harming anyone under my care, remember today,” Wynter advised in a voice of pure ice. “And consider this also: I will now do everything in my power to ensure that Khamsin’s child—the child of the daughter you loathe—will be the next ruler to sit on the Summer Throne.”

Leaving Verdan huddled on the floor, Wynter strode out of the room.

Khamsin was waiting for him outside, standing near the golden Summerlea coach he’d commandeered for the long journey back to Wintercraig. Her sisters were ringed around her, weeping, while she stood stoic and brave despite all she’d suffered. Feeling returned to Wynter in a painful rush, and he wanted to turn back around and freeze what he’d left of Verdan.

Instead, he drew a breath and started forward. “Time to go, wife. Say your farewells.”

Storm gray eyes met his. “My fa— King Verdan?”

“He lives, but he will never raise that hand to another. Say your farewells and get in the coach. I weary of Summerlea.”

She hesitated, almost as if she considered defying him, then thought the better of it. Turning to her sisters, she gave each a final hug.

“We each put a gift inside the coach for you,” Spring told her. “A little bit of Summerlea to take with you to your new home. Remember what I told you last night.”

“Write to us,” Summer entreated, “as often you can. Let us know you are well.”

“I put the growing lamps in the coach as well, and more of Tildy’s herbs,” Autumn said. “Be sure to use them each night until you’re fully healed.”

He gave her a few minutes more, until impatience outweighed generosity. Did her sisters not see she was already tiring? “Enough. Get in the coach.” He reached for her, and his approach was enough to drive her sisters back, as he’d expected it would. He took her slender hand and helped her into the carriage. At the touch, he felt again that little jolt of electric warmth, and the frigid ice surrounding his heart began to thaw.

The maid Verdan had insisted Wynter take to care for his bride was already inside, huddled in the far corner of the roomy coach, next to a collection of potted plants—most ridiculously ill suited to the world Khamsin was about to enter. Rosebushes, citrus trees . . . and was that a birdcage? Chirping song warbled from the cloth-covered cage, confirming his suspicions. Winter’s Frost! Songbirds. Probably the delicate, summer-fond kind that would keel over on their little pampered birdie feet and die at the first hard frost.

Which idiot sister had given her those things? He was the Winter King, emphasis on Winter. What part of that did they not understand? He pressed a hand to the bridge of his nose, squeezing as the first throb of a headache began to blossom. She already thought him such a monster that she’d let herself be beat near to death before agreeing to wed him. How much more would she hate him if he let her little tropical remembrance garden die? Or had that been the whole point of such a wedding-gift?

His arrogant claims to Valik and his own original plans to the contrary, Wynter had discovered he didn’t want a cold, political marriage. Last night, albeit beneath the influence of a potent drug, he’d shared one of the most intensely passionate nights of his life. With her. Khamsin Coruscate. His wife. Not the studied perfection of Elka’s lovemaking but something wild and elemental and very, very stirring. Just one taste had already addicted him. The hunger to experience such powerful, unleashed passion again was already an ache so deep it hurt.

“Are you . . . not riding with me?” she asked when he made no move to enter the carriage.

“No. Get what rest you can. Have your maid see to your back.” He slammed the carriage door shut and stepped back. It wouldn’t do to let her know the power she held over him. Unwilling though she might have been, she’d had a hand in deceiving him. She was a Summerlander witch, just like the rest of them. He could not forget that.

He whistled, and his white stallion, Hodri, trotted to his side, tossing his head and sending the long, silvery strands of his mane flying. Wyn thrust a plated boot into the stirrup and swung into the saddle in a smooth, practiced motion. Beneath him, Hodri pranced a little as he adjusted to the weight, then settled.

“Come, my loyal friend,” he whispered, stroking Hodri’s strong neck. “Time to leave this Summerland behind.” He lifted a gauntleted hand, and cried out, “Men of the Craig! The hot springs of Mount Freika are waiting, as are the lonely arms of your wives. Let’s go home.”

The gathered Wintermen gave a great cheer. Wynter clucked a command, and Hodri began his elegant, high-stepping walk down the long, curving lanes that led out to the valley below and north to the mountains beyond. The carriage holding Khamsin gave a lurch, and the iron-shod wheels began their rumbling forward motion. Within moments, thousands of hooves were ringing against cobblestone, filling the city with the sound of their departure.