The Winter King Read online

  Her father was going to be in such a rage when he realized she’d openly defied him and entered the tower. Worse, that she’d been caught there by the White King.

  Newt herded her down the tower stairs and through several levels of the palace towards the king’s private office. As they walked, Khamsin puzzled over the strange, unseemly twist her foray into the bower had taken. What had come over her? He’d touched her, and it was like electric flame—like the lightning she could summon—shooting sparks through her veins. She’d all but melted, boneless, at his feet. He was the Winter King, her enemy, a man feared for his killing coldness, yet when he’d touched her, she had not frozen. She’d burned.

  Her face flamed just thinking about it. About him. His eyes, so pale, so foreign, piercing as if he could see into her very soul. His hands, commanding, callused from years spent holding sword and reins, capable of violence, yet also capable of rousing such . . . incredible sensations.

  She shivered and felt the clenching in her loins that left her weak at the knees. Best she stay away from him from here on out.

  Far, far away.

  “What in Frost’s name that was all about?” Valik demanded as soon as the two skittish maids finished fumbling their way through their duties and departed.

  Wynter stood beside the broken window, staring out at the storm-tossed sky. The maids had cleared away the broken glass, but the carpenters and glassmakers hadn’t yet arrived to replace the window. “I don’t know what happened, Valik. I can’t explain it.”

  “I’ve known you since we were both infants, but I’ve never seen you act that way before.”

  “I’ve never felt that way before.”

  “What way?”

  Wynter glanced down at the cap in his hands, surprised to find his fingers gently caressing the fabric as they’d wanted so desperately to caress the maid’s soft skin. He clenched his hands, crushing the cap, twisting the fabric in his hands.

  “Driven,” he admitted. “Possessive. Enchanted, almost. I touched her and it was like . . . like fire in my soul.” He looked out into the roiling clouds. He could still see her in his mind, her flashing eyes and fierce temper, her hair like a night sky streaked with lightning. He could still smell the captivating, enthralling scents of her, the soft aroma of her skin, the heady perfume of her undeniable sexual response that even now made his body grow painfully hard just remembering it. He threw the cap on a nearby table and turned away from the window to pace the gleaming hardwood floor.

  “I don’t like the sound of it, Wyn,” Valik declared, frowning as he watched his king pace. “You dined with the Seasons earlier. Think they spiked your food with arras leaf?” Summerlanders were infamous for their hedonistic ways, and arras leaf was one of their most powerful and renowned aphrodisiacs.

  “To what purpose? So I’d plow a chambermaid? Or be off my guard for an attack that never came?” Wynter shook his head. “I’m not drugged, Valik. I didn’t leap on those little fawns Pansy and Leila.” He hadn’t felt so much as a passing interest in either of them even though he’d still been rock hard and aching from his all-too-brief interlude with the storm-eyed maid. “No, it was her. Something about her.”

  He paced the length of the room again and paused beside the jeweled vanity set and the worn leather gardener’s journal Valik had removed from her skirts. Nothing about the girl made sense. Who was she? What was it about these trinkets that were so important? And what was that disturbing enchantment she’d cast over him?

  “If the storm hadn’t crashed that tree branch through the window, I think I might have laid her down whether she willed it or no. Even with you in the room.” He cast a troubled glance at his friend as a new thought occurred. “Have I embraced the Ice Heart so long, I’ve become it?”

  Valik’s furrowed brow smoothed. “No, Wyn,” he declared staunchly. “You might have swallowed the monster when you set out on this path, but it hasn’t consumed you yet. There’s still warmth in you. I’d know it if there wasn’t.” He clapped a hand on Wynter’s shoulder. “Forget the maid, and whatever witch’s trick she’s played on you. Claim your Summerlea bride. Breed your heir. When you hold your child in your arms, the Ice Heart will melt.”

  Wynter nodded and took a deep breath. It was the longest speech Valik had made in months. And, as usual, he was right. Wynter was here to claim a royal wife and breed an heir—both for his kingdom and the one he’d spent the last three years conquering.

  Fiery little maids—even dangerously enchanting ones—did not figure into his plans.

  He would put her from his mind. Tomorrow, he would complete his conquest by taking one of the Seasons to wife, then he and half his army would depart. With a bit of luck and a lot of pleasurable effort, his princess would prove as fertile as she was beautiful, and he’d never set foot in Summerlea again.

  Gravid, King Verdan’s steward, cast yet another disapproving glance at Khamsin’s appearance, sniffed. “His Majesty will see you now.” He nodded to the liveried footman attending the king’s office door. The footman pulled open the heavy, carved oak door and stood at attention as Newt and Khamsin passed.

  They’d been forced to cool their heels in the outer chamber, waiting while the king concluded his meeting with General Furze and three lords Khamsin recognized as chief advisors of the king’s council. Khamsin had used the time to button up her dress and try to make herself more presentable. She would have liked to repin her hair, so as to avoid upsetting her father any more than necessary, but Gravid had no pins, and Newt had told him not to send a servant to fetch some. “Let her father see her as she is,” Newt had ordered.

  Now, with her father’s dark, hot gaze searing her where she stood, Kham realized it made no difference anyways. Just the sight of her was offense enough to him.

  Newt took every advantage to play it up, all but chortling with glee as she told him all about how she’d discovered the wayward princess acting in direct defiance of her father’s kingly will, making sure to put the worst possible spin on the entire sordid tale. “She was there, Sire, in the tower, bold as you please. Hair down, gown unbuttoned. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what she was about.”

  Khamsin glared at the Mistress of Servants. “I wasn’t there to seduce him and you know it, you foul-minded old bat! Tell the truth, if you’re capable.”

  “Silence!” her father roared. He shot a hard look at Newt. “Leave us!” he snapped.

  The woman’s face fell. She’d obviously been hoping to witness Kham’s disgrace and punishment. One hot glance from her king seared away any possible objection. She curtsied and backed rapidly out of the room.

  Verdan waited for the door to shut behind her, then advanced upon his daughter, his dark eyes flashing. “Is it true? You went there to play whore to the enemy of this house?”

  “No, of course not! Newt is a liar, Father. I ran into her while trying to get away from him, and she knows it.”

  Her father’s brows shot up. “So you admit you were there. In the tower. When I had expressly forbidden you to leave your rooms?”

  “Yes, I was there, but—” She didn’t dare say she’d gone for her mother’s things. To admit that was to admit that she’d been in the tower before, in direct violation of his long-standing royal decree.

  “But what? What were you after?” His hand shot out and his fingers wrapped around the same part of her upper arm left tender by Newt’s unkind grip.

  She’d be bruised for a week. It was ironic. In the last hour, she’d been manhandled by the Winter King, Maude Newt, and her father. Yet of the three of them, her family’s sworn enemy was the only one whose hands had left no mark on her.

  Verdan shook her with fierce, barely restrained fury. “Are you the traitor in my midst? Are you the one who’s been feeding him information?”

  Khamsin blanched. “No! Of course not!” There was a traitor in Summerlea?
/>   “Don’t lie to me, girl!” He shook her again, using both hands this time, making her head snap back and forth until she was dizzy. The book and picture in her skirt pocket banged against his thigh and he froze, scowling with sudden suspicion.

  “What are you hiding?”

  “N-nothing, Father.” The lie popped out, more from instinct than conscious thought, and she immediately wished she could call the foolish words back. Oh, Kham, you dolt! If you’re going to lie, try a lie that actually has a chance of being believed!

  “Empty your pockets. Now, girl!” he barked when she hesitated.

  Newt she might defy, but not her father, not her king. At least not openly in his presence. She was well and truly caught. Red-handed, just as Newt had crowed earlier. Kham reached into the depths of the pocket hidden in the folds of her skirt to extract the one remaining book and the framed miniature of Queen Rosalind.

  Her father snatched the treasures out of her hands and stared at the small but perfectly executed portrait of his dead queen. With trembling hands, he skimmed the pages of the diary where she’d recorded the events of her last years of life in her own hand. The look in his face was horrible to behold. Staggering loss, utter devastation. If Khamsin had ever doubted her father could love as strongly as he hated, those doubts evaporated in an instant.

  He doubled over, shoulders heaving with silent, shattering sobs. Heat gathered, concentrated, poured off him in dizzying waves as the Summer King’s own, not insubstantial power, came in answer to his anguish. The portrait and diary in his hands began to smoke, then to Khamsin’s horror, burst into flames.

  “Father!” She rushed towards him, snatching off her apron so she could use it to beat out the flames that had engulfed his hands.

  But when she neared him, he looked up, and the moment his eyes fixed on her, all his grief, all the devastation of lost love, coalesced into a terrible searing rage.

  All focused utterly on her.

  Khamsin came to an abrupt halt. “Father?” She’d never seen him look that way at her before. Never. For the first time since childhood, she actually felt frightened of him.

  Without warning, his arm swept out and he backhanded her across the face with such force that she flew into the leather chair behind her. She landed, breathless and stunned, fiery pain shooting across her face from the place just below her right eye where his signet ring had smashed into her cheekbone. She cupped a hand over her cheek. The power of his gift was so hot, so raging, his ring had actually burned her.

  “You dare?” he snarled, his voice incendiary. “You dare defile her things with the abomination of your touch?”

  “She was my mother!” Khamsin cried. Was he really so cruel that he would deny her even a glimpse of her mother’s image or the chance to read a word written in her own hand?

  “She was my wife!” He advanced upon her, eyes shining black and vengeful. For a moment Kham thought he would strike her again, this time a killing blow. She gathered her own power, preparing to defend herself, but at the last moment he spun away. “She was the one thing I loved most in this world, and you took her from me. You and your cursed gifts.”

  The verbal blow struck harder than a fist, as it always had. “I was a child!” she cried.

  “You were a mistake!”

  Khamsin’s gasp sounded more like an anguished sob. The tears she’d sworn never to shed again in his presence burned at the backs of her eyes, fighting for freedom.

  “You should never have been conceived,” he continued bitterly. “And if I’d known what you would do to her, I would have slain you in the womb.” His rage flared hot again, heat pouring off him in waves that made the room seem to shimmer and dance.

  “Twenty years,” he snarled, his voice shaking with loathing. “For twenty years, I have suffered the affliction of your existence and the bitter fruits of your rebellious nature and destructive gifts. I will suffer no longer.”

  Cupping her throbbing cheek, Khamsin watched her father with burgeoning dread as he yanked open his office door and shouted for his steward. He would suffer no longer? What did that ominous warning mean?

  CHAPTER 4

  Veil of Tears

  As the city tower rang the dawn bells the next day, and two burly guards half carried, half dragged Khamsin’s limp, unresisting body back to her room in the farthest, most isolated wing of the palace, she had her answer.

  Her father had given her a choice: death or banishment.

  Oh, he hadn’t actually given her that choice, nor even implied she had one. He’d just taken her to a cold, windowless stone room carved deep into the city mount, far from access to the sky so she couldn’t summon its energies to defend herself, and informed her that the White King had come to claim a Summerlea princess as his bride. She would be that bride, Verdan declared, and he caned her viciously every time she refused.

  Khamsin, foolishly defiant as usual, had refused a lot.

  At first, she hadn’t believed King Verdan would go as far as he did, and she was more willing to face a caning or two than face the Winter King’s wrath when he discovered the thieving maid he’d caught in his room was to be his wife. She’d seen the hard side of Wynter Atrialan’s fury, faced his Ice Gaze, and felt him literally drain all warmth from her body. She’d felt the brutal whip of power in the skies when he’d answered her first challenge. She’d also felt the burning heat of his touch and seen the cold fire of possession flaming in his eyes. If she hadn’t escaped him when she had, he would have dominated her will and taken what he wanted, and she would have been helpless to stop him.

  “No,” she’d told her father. “I won’t marry him.”

  After the fifth caning, the Winter King no longer mattered. It had become a contest of wills: hers against the father’s. She thought her stubborn defiance and steely resolve could outlast the Summer King’s determination.

  She’d been wrong.

  Sometime after the twelfth beating, when at least three of her ribs were broken and she doubted there were two consecutive inches of flesh on her back or thighs that weren’t raw and oozing blood, she’d finally realized the unspoken choice her father was offering her.

  She could marry Wynter Atrialan and leave Summerlea, or she could die.

  It was that simple.

  For all her defiance, for all the many sorrows of her existence, Khamsin was not ready to surrender her life. When her father raised the cane to deliver the first blow of the thirteenth beating, she agreed to be the White King’s bride.

  The bloody cane had dropped from her father’s hand to clatter on the stone floor, and he’d turned without another word and walked out, leaving the two shaken guards outside the room to gather her up and carry her back to her room.

  So here she was. Bloody. Beaten. Defeated in a way she’d never been before. Destined to wed the Winter King. Though how she’d manage that when at the moment simply breathing was a sheer act of will, she had no idea.

  The guards came to a halt. They had reached her room.

  Pride—and pain—forced Khamsin to stand rather than sag against the one guard while the other opened the door, but when it came time to actually walk inside, she couldn’t force her trembling muscles to obey. She took two shaky, wavering steps, and collapsed. Only the quick, sturdy arms of one of the guards, catching her before she fell, kept her from the further humiliation of landing facedown in an ignominious heap.

  He helped her to her bed. “I’m sorry, princess, I’m sorry,” he kept whispering as he helped her lie down on her belly, then peeled back the light cloth they’d wrapped around her earlier to hide the bare, oozing skin of her back.

  “I never dreamed anyone would do such a thing to one who bears the Rose,” the guard said again. “Forgive me. I should have stopped him.”

  She waved him off, eyes closed in utter weariness. “Not your fault,” she mumbled. She just wanted him
to leave and let her rest. Sunlight—what pale bit of it could shine through the winter gray skies—was streaming in through the window, its gentle warmth soaking into her raw flesh. Already she could feel the tingle of her magic returning, the regenerative warmth and healing light working to repair the awful proof of her father’s rage and loathing, but at the sun’s current strength, it would take days, possibly weeks before she was completely healed.

  She heard her bedroom door open and close as the guards let themselves out. She closed her eyes, exhaled, and gave herself over to pain and exhaustion.

  How long she floated in and out of consciousness, she didn’t know. It could have been minutes; it could have been hours. At some point, something tugged her back to awareness.

  She heard a gasp of horror and dismay: “Dearly!”

  The sound of Tildy’s familiar, beloved voice made Kham want to weep as she had not done once throughout the long, torturous hours of the night. The nursemaid had been more of a mother to her since Queen Rosalind’s death than Verdan had ever been a father. She had showered Khamsin with constant love and guidance, praising her when praise was due, accepting the bursts of rebellious temper that were Kham’s nature, never shirking from a firm reprimand when that was due either.

  She’d even administered the cane herself once or twice, when Kham’s transgressions had truly gone beyond the pale, but always—always—she tempered those punishments with love and restraint. Never, no matter how deeply Kham vexed her, would Tildy have even dreamed of beating her with such unrelenting brutality.

  The ultrasensitive skin of her back felt the disturbance in the air as Tildy rushed across the room and dropped to her knees beside the bed.

  “Oh, dearly, what has he done to you?”

  Khamsin peeled open one eye. Tears trickled down the nursemaid’s wrinkled face as she surveyed the damage Verdan had wrought upon his youngest child.

  Kham forced a wry smile. “It feels worse than it looks.” She started to laugh at her own, poor joke, but her ribs and the torn skin of her back protested the effort.