The Arcana Chronicles 3: Dead of Winter

A chill ran through me.

“Sieva?”

I changed the subject. “Now that you’re making the effort to trust me, will you tell me about your childhood?”

He inclined his head. “I told you my father was a warlord, but he was also a noted scholar. He raised me to be both as well. I had martial practice every day, then reading, then debates after dinner.” Aric peeled at his beer label, then smoothed it back with his elegant fingers. “I can’t imagine what he would think about all that mankind has learned. In his day, everyone believed the world was flat.”

Aric had grown up in that age, and yet I’d expected him to act like a modern boyfriend? That he’d come this far was astounding. “What was your mother like?”

“She was merry, quick to laugh. She and my father always wanted another child, blaming it on me: ‘If you weren’t such a wonderful son . . .’ I could ask for no better parents.”

“You miss them.” After all this time?

“Every single day out of hundreds of thousands.”

What could I say to that? Anything I came up with sounded trite. Silence fell over us.

Aric drank, lost in thought. And I knew he was remembering the night he’d killed them. . . .

30

Hot water poured over me in the upstairs bathroom, but it did nothing to shower away my buzz.

Or my confusion.

After dinner, Jack hadn’t checked in, and worry preyed on me. So I’d grabbed my bag and told Aric good night.

As I’d left the kitchen, he’d said to my back, “You once told me I was so good at this game because it’s all I’ll ever have.” The sadness in his voice had drawn me up short. “Your words were true, though I didn’t wish them to be. Not then. Or now.”

I’d heard Aric enraged, playful, fierce, in pain, and in lust. I’d never heard this soft sadness before.

In a murmur, he’d added, “I am ready to defy the will of gods and the dictates of fate to possess you, and yet a mere mortal stands in my way.”

My shoulders had stiffened, and I’d hurried away as if chased.

Now as the water sluiced over me, I raised my hand to my mouth, tracing my lips. My emotions might be in total turmoil, but my body wasn’t. I equally desired Aric and Jack.

I adored Jack’s raw passion; I craved Aric’s seething intensity.

Both had given me pleasure—and heartache. . . .

Once I’d finished with the shower, I returned to my room. I locked the door behind me and removed my hoodie to bundle up for a pillow. Lying back in my sleeping bag, I stared at the ceiling. What was I going to do?

I felt connected to Aric in inexplicable ways. At his castle, he and I had settled in together. We’d read in his firelit study, talking through the night. We’d been happy, his home nearly becoming my own.

Jack and I had never lived together per se, always out on the road—

My bug-out bag! I’d left it in the bathroom, forgetting Jack’s harsh lessons. Maybe he should’ve been harder on me.

I rushed from the room, skidding to a stop in the hallway.

Aric had just exited the steamy bathroom. He wore a towel. Nothing else. His lean face was clean-shaven, his wet hair in disarray, his cheeks tinged with color.

He spied me there, his lips parting. His eyes began to glitter, and I was momentarily blinded by the sight of him. Like staring at the sun.

Glorious man.

When my gaze dipped, his magnificent body tensed, as if I’d struck him. Sinews of muscle contracted, making the black slashing tattoos across his torso appear to move.

I’d wanted to kiss every inch of those runes. I’d never had the chance.

A drop of water trickled down the center of his chest, past defined pecs and rigid abs to his blond goodie trail. . . . My mouth went dry.

He rasped, “You want this?”

I raised my gaze, gasping at the dark hunger in his expression. My mind blanked. Want his body? How could I not? He was pure temptation.

“I meant this”—he held up my bag—“but I could easily be persuaded to share anything else my wife might desire.”

Say something, Eves. Words would be good here.

He closed in on me, all lethal grace and harnessed power. I realized I’d been backing away from him when I met the wall. He kept coming until we were toe to toe.

The damp heat from his skin was like an embrace. Up this close, I could see the blond tips of his eyelashes.

He tossed my bag past me into the bedroom. Then his gaze dropped to my tank top. It hugged my breasts, outlining them.

“I recognize these clothes. It fills me with satisfaction to see you dressed in them. Not as much satisfaction as when I undress you, of course.”

He might be inexperienced, but he was naturally sensual—his every movement, his expressions, even the cadence of his accented words brought to mind promised pleasures.

I was out of my league.

“A week ago, you were naked in my bed for the second time. I kissed you. Petted you.” He eased down to say at my ear, “I was about to taste you once more.”

My breaths shallowed. “B-but then you broke my heart.”

“I’ll mend it. I’ll repair the damage I’ve done between us. In these games, I’ve trusted you when I shouldn’t have, and didn’t trust when I should have had faith.” He cupped my face with both palms. “If you could see your way to forgiveness . . .”

I bit my bottom lip. “I can forgive you. But that doesn’t mean I want to put myself in a situation like that again.” When he leaned his head in, I said, “Aric, we can’t kiss. I’m not doing anything with you. With either of you.”

Was he gauging my resolve? “Then we won’t kiss. Just let me touch your stunning face.” He caressed the backs of his fingers over one of my cheekbones, then along my jawline. “It’s a luxury I will always savor.”

I had to fight to keep my eyes open, to keep my body from moving against his.

“So beautiful. I won’t stop until you’re mine. I won’t ever rest. Es tevi milu.”

I breathed, “What does that mean?”

He smoothed his elegant fingers over me the way a sculptor would touch his statue. “I love you.”

Answering words bubbled up, but I couldn’t be in love with Aric. “There’s a difference between love and desire,” I said, reminding him—and myself.

“If all I wanted was a bedmate, then why do I feel such jealousy? Why was I racked with misery to be parted from you? For one like me, a week is a blink of an eye, yet it felt interminable.”