Page 94 of A Kingdom of Sand and Ice (Kingdom of Gods #2)

Arden raised a brow, amused. ‘And since when has that ever troubled Wren Wynter?’

She opened her mouth to respond, to tell him that she didn’t know anymore.

Since leaving her home, Wren had felt adrift, unmoored from the girl she once was.

Day by day, she questioned everything. Who she’d been.

Who she was now. And most of all… who she would choose to become if she lived to see the end of this war.

‘What’s on your mind, little wolf?’

‘I’m praying me brotha’s safe.’

Arden gave a slow nod. Wren wondered whether he truly grasped the weight of such worry, when he had no family left to fear for.

Perhaps, in some strange way, that absence was its own kind of freedom.

To have no one to lose, no one to mourn.

It must quiet the heart in ways she could only imagine.

But oh, how desolate it must be, too. To have no one to love so fiercely that every passing minute is a silent plea for their safety.

‘Why didn’t you stay home?’ Arden asked quietly. ‘Why throw yourself into this war? You could’ve stayed in your warm bed. No one’s going to sing songs about you one day.’

Wren let out a soft sigh, her eyes drifting to the buttons on his shirt. They were shaped like tiny leaves, handcrafted and delicate. So beautiful, in fact, that she felt a thief’s familiar urge tug at her fingers. She toyed with one absentmindedly .

‘Becas I’m scared,’ she said at last, her voice barely a whisper.

‘Scared of sitting still, waiting for da worst. Scared of watching others do what I’m not brave enough to do becas of a voice in me head that tells me I’m not enough.

So I keep moving. I keep fighting. Becas if I don’t stop, then maybe I won’t hear it…

that cursed voice whispering that I’m a failure. ’

Arden reached for a white strand of her hair, holding it delicately between his fingers, glaring at it as though it were the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

Wren wasn’t sure if he’d even heard her speak.

He sat so still, so intent, his thumb gently stroking that lone thread of moonlight caught between them.

‘Why would you think you’re a failure?’ he asked at last, frowning, his voice low and taut.

There was a glimmer of anger in his eyes.

Not at her, but at the cruelty of the thought itself.

‘You crossed half the kingdoms searching for help when no one else would lift a finger. You gave up everything to try and save us all.’

‘Well, I haven’t saved anyone yet,’ she muttered.

Arden reached out, cupping her chin with surprising gentleness, guiding her to face him fully, to see the truth behind his fierce green stare.

‘You saved me, little wolf.’

Wren pulled his hand away, shaking her head.

‘No, I didn’t. Yer just saying that to make me feel betta.

I’ve neva saved anyone. Not my ma, when sickness took her.

Not Haven Blackburn when Hagan came for her.

I’ve done nothing in this war but run around like a headless chicken.

I left me home without a plan, left me brotha to handle everything I should’ve stayed for.

Me papa always said I’d be da death of them all…

and I’m starting to think he might’ve been right. ’

A faint smile ghosted Arden’s lips. Soft, barely there, but in the hush of the room, Wren felt it like a balm .

The last sliver of light in the kitchen faded, drawing a curtain of shadow around them. She could no longer see his face, but she felt his hands take hers, steady and sure, his touch grounding her as if he could hold her fears at bay.

‘Not all heroes lead the charge on the battlefield,’ he whispered, his breath brushing her mouth.

‘Some remain unseen, tucked into the margins of history. Forgotten, even. But that doesn’t make them any less vital.

They’re the ones who sacrifice quietly, so others may carry on.

The ones who speak out against evil, knowing it may cost them everything.

No songs will be sung for them. No statues carved.

And yet they are the reason wars are won. ’

Wren’s heart thundered so loudly in her chest, she wondered how on earth he couldn’t hear it.

‘When ya found me in da Forest of Endless Trees…’ Wren’s voice was quieter now, fragile in the dark. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him, not even with night cloaking her expression. ‘Was it a coincidence, or…?’

Arden exhaled slowly, the sound like wind brushing through leaves. ‘It was. I’d been preparing to travel, sent by the King himself to avenge the deaths of his daughters. But then you came crashing through the undergrowth and landed squarely on top of me… naked.’

‘Ya knew who I was?’

She felt him nod beside her. ‘I was trained to kill from the moment I could hold a blade, Wren. And just as thoroughly trained to recognise the faces and names of the noble Houses. When you told me your name, it only confirmed what I’d already begun to suspect.

’ He gave a small shrug. ‘I thought it might be easier to reach my target if we travelled together. Gain some information along the way.’

‘So when ya realised I was a princess at da palace… it was al l an act.’

There was a slight shift in his posture. A tension she felt rather than saw.

‘In a way…’ he admitted. ‘I felt bad for deceiving you, and thought it would be best if we went our separate ways. I thought if I acted angry, you’d leave.

But you didn’t. When I saw you by the entrance to the city, alone and defeated…

I couldn’t leave you behind. I know what it’s like to feel that way.

But I didn’t lie. I do hate royals. I don’t believe power should be inherited like trinkets.

It made me angry to see you there, bearing a title granted by birth alone. ’

‘Do ya regret it?’ she asked suddenly, her voice trembling with a fear she hadn’t meant to reveal.

‘What?’ he said with a dry breath of laughter. ‘I’ve got a long list of regrets.’

‘Sleeping with me.’ The words hung heavy between them. She heard the sharp intake of his breath.

‘No.’ His reply was swift. Certain. ‘I regret many things I’ve done… but not that. Never that.’

‘Then why?’ Her voice broke like light through leaves.

Arden sighed again, but this one sounded like it came from somewhere deeper, older.

‘Because I wanted to feel something,’ he whispered. ‘For once in my life, I just… I wanted to feel . And I thought you might be the one to make me feel, something, anything at all.’

Wren felt her heart beat so violently she thought it might tear through her ribs. And when his hands found the sides of her legs, touching her not with hunger, but with reverence, with care, it only made the ache worse.

‘Did I?’ she whispered. ‘Did I make ya feel something, Arden Briar?’

He didn’t answer with words.

Instead, his hands left her legs and found her face, guiding her towards him with a quiet urgency.

His lips met hers—firm, unyielding, desperate.

It was not a gentle kiss, not the kind that lingered like a promise.

It was fierce, consuming, laced with desire and something unspoken.

Wren gasped against him as his hands swept over her body with wild, reverent hunger, as though he were trying to memorise her touch, her shape, her very existence.

Every doubt dissolved beneath his touch.

The war, the witches, the endless gnawing voice in her head that told her, morning after morning, to give up, to go back to sleep because she had achieved nothing and would achieve nothing…They all vanished. Silenced.

She let him take the weight from her shoulders with every layer he stripped away, piece by piece.

Her clothes fell like forgotten burdens, lost in the shadows.

And in that same darkness, her fingers trembling, Wren pulled at his garments in return, fumbling in haste, needing to feel him, all of him.

Her cold hands met the hard planes of his chest, and she exhaled shakily.

As her fingers traced downward, exploring the muscles carved into him like stone, she found the scars, each one a silent story beneath her touch, invisible in the dark but unmistakably real.

The map of a life that had endured more pain than it ever confessed aloud.

Arden lifted her bare body with ease as he stood, her legs instinctively wrapping around his waist. He took two slow, deliberate steps forward before lowering her gently onto the wooden table at the centre of the kitchen.

The surface was cool against her skin, but his hands, his hands were fire, tracing the length of her thighs, her hips, her stomach, until they found the soft weight of her breasts.

Wren gasped as he moved her, as he arranged her body with a quiet authority, shaping her to his will while his hands explored with reverence and hunger. And yet, beneath every possessive touch, every searing caress, she could feel it. Hesitation. Patience.

He leaned over her, his breath ghosting across her lips a moment before he kissed her. His tongue sought hers with aching desire, but still he waited, for her.

He would stop if she asked him to.

Even as his grip tightened on her skin, even as his teeth found flesh, it was she who held the reins. No title, no reputation, no whispered legend about the Black Lotus, the deadliest assassin in the eight kingdoms, could alter that truth.

Wren ruled over him .

The moment she parted her legs for him, a silent invitation spoken in breath and body, she heard the moan that escaped him, low and ragged against her ear.

His hands tightened around her knees, gripping her as though the sheer pleasure of knowing she wanted him, of being granted permission to feel her, had unravelled something deep within him.

‘I’ve dreamt of touching you again,’ he whispered against her ear, his fingers slipping slowly into her warmth, drawing a sharp gasp from Wren’s lips. ‘You’re already soaked.’