Page 22 of Blood Beneath the Snow (Blood & Souls Duology #1)

22

When a weight sank the other side of the mattress enough to wake me, I acted entirely on instinct. In a millisecond, a dagger occupied my dominant hand and I rolled onto my side, kicking off the blankets to knee my attacker in the stomach. They let out an “ Oof ” and lost their balance, the perfect opportunity for me to launch myself onto them. The momentum carried us off the bed and they landed hard, flat on their back.

My eyes adjusted to the semidarkness as we sat there, both breathing heavily, my knees rammed into the Hellbringer’s rib cage, my dagger at his throat.

S?ren studied me, not nearly as surprised as he should have been. By some instinct, his hand had moved to palm the back of my thigh. I hated it. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

I rolled my eyes and rolled off him. “I wish you hadn’t.”

“Wait, Revna. Please.”

Ignoring him and crawling back into bed was easy. Until he clambered in after me, hastily discarding his armor piece by piece with loud clangs. “Please, Princess. Give me a chance to explain.”

“No.”

He groaned, and when I peered briefly over my shoulder, he was on his knees, head hung, hair falling over his face. “I fucked it all up. I’m sorry. I was trying to do my duty, all right? Same as you. To serve my queen.” His throat worked as he swept a palm over his forehead. “I believe you. I hope you know I do.”

I sat up grudgingly, wrapping my arms around my knees. The prison was warmer than usual tonight, but I had no doubt the cold would seep back in sooner rather than later. “How do I know you’re telling the truth? How do I know you’re not using me—or, worse, that you’ll discard me the moment I prove to be as powerless as I always have been?”

He stretched his long frame out along the bed, his face in front of me. “I’m not sure how to prove it to you. But asking was stupid. Insisting was even worse. I made a mistake. I don’t care whether you have a Lurae—regardless, you’re winning those Trials and taking the throne. You have enough grit and determination to make you far more dangerous than anyone with a Lurae.”

There was raw honesty in his eyes. And more than that, I wanted him to be telling the truth.

After spending so long in no one’s company but his, I felt we were finally coming to understand each other. What kind of person would I be if I faulted him for attempting to fulfill his obligation to the queen? Was I not here because of a commitment to my own people? Did I not know exactly what it was to disregard my own feelings in favor of something bigger?

We both deserved to trust each other for a while longer before I returned to reality.

“I’m not the only one whose future is being determined right now,” I said softly, rubbing the edge of the blanket between my fingers. The sensation was a comfort against the storm of emotion flooding me—emotion I didn’t want to even begin deciphering. “There are people counting on me. Not just Freja but…” I hesitated, then decided to prove I had forgiven him. “There’s a rebellion. A small one, but they need me. If I win, we might stand a chance of decimating the priests. Rooting out the corruption. Killing every head at once, so no new ones can grow back.”

S?ren’s brow creased. “Winning the Trials is all-or-nothing, then.”

I nodded. “I know you said you believe me. But what about the queen? What will she do when she discovers I have no magic? Will this be over before it’s even had the chance to begin?”

He sat up, swinging his legs to stretch them out on either side of me, then took my hands in his. “No. I won’t let it. I’ll make her see reason—understand you still have a chance at winning. You said you’re allied with your brothers, right? There’s no way the three of you together can be defeated. Not when you’re this strong even without a Lurae.”

I tackled him to the bed and kissed him.

It was the same as our other kisses—hot, heated, passionate—and different at the same time—slow, heady, filled with words we couldn’t say aloud. He wrapped his arms around my waist and twisted us onto our sides, legs intertwined, and we kissed like we were lovesick.

Maybe we were.

I ignored the hot tears burning behind my closed eyelids. “I won’t let her hurt you,” S?ren promised, his nose nuzzling beside mine. “I won’t.”

We both pretended we didn’t know the truth: the Queen of Kryllian could do whatever she wanted; S?ren had a sister to protect who mattered infinitely more than the woman he’d never see again after this war ended; and if by some miracle the queen decided not to kill me, I had two brothers waiting in line to do the deed themselves.

“What would this be like,” I whispered against his mouth between kisses, “if we were both entirely different people?”

He hummed quietly, chest rumbling with the sound. Twisting strands of my hair in his fingers, he mused, “We’d have met in an equally hostile way but doing something utterly domestic. Like buying fruit.”

I snorted, picturing the image in perfect clarity. “You’d have demanded a bad price for something and refused when I tried to haggle. So I would have picked up the nearest tomato and hurled it at your head.”

We both burst into laughter, and it felt even better wrapped in each other’s arms. Like the joy of the moment multiplied because of our nearness.

S?ren was always beautiful, but laughing? He lit up like a sky full of stars. I wanted to bottle up the moment and make it last forever.

“But we’d find ourselves together regardless,” he continued. “Maybe we’d live in a cottage on a beach somewhere.”

“You like the ocean?” I scrunched my nose.

“Sure. Don’t you?”

I shook my head. “That much water in one place isn’t natural.”

“It’s the very definition of natural.”

“You know what I mean.” I shoved him half-heartedly, immediately pulling him back into my embrace. “I’d rather live in a forest. Maybe near a mountain.”

His eyes lit up. “That sounds lovely.”

We basked in each other’s gaze for a long while before he added, “And there would be no war. No Lurae. No corrupt rulers, no duties, no people to save.”

“No mask,” I interrupted. “No death. Just… this .” I tightened my hold on his hands.

S?ren leaned in to press his lips to mine, hard. “Maybe one day all of this will end and we can have that.”

I smiled sadly. “It’s nice to pretend.”

The next week passed in a blur.

The topic of my Lurae wasn’t brought up again. We returned to our normal routine of training and sparring, with additional time spent learning to throw the daggers the Hellbringer had given me. He said it was better to walk into the arena with both a close-range and a long-range weapon, to be safe. I agreed. During the days, I trained alone while he put on the mask and continued whatever missions the queen sent him on before he returned in the evenings to teach me.

S?ren had shown even more trust in me by presenting me with the key to the prison door. “In case you want to hike to the hot springs or train outside while I’m gone,” he’d explained, running a hand sheepishly over the hair on the back of his head. “You haven’t been a true prisoner for a while, but, honestly, if you tried to escape, you’d die in the snow long before you made it—”

I cut him off when I wrapped my arms so tightly around his middle that he couldn’t breathe.

Seeing the sun every day cheered me up significantly, though the Hellbringer had asked me to make sure I was inside with the door locked in the evenings, when Mira arrived to transport him back. “No one can know,” he’d said. “This thing between us…if the queen found out, she would use it against us both. And I don’t want that.”

My hands clenched in anger, my nails biting into my palms at the thought. S?ren was afraid of the queen. He’d never admit it, but the way she coerced him, held the knowledge of his sister’s safety and whereabouts from him in case he protested an order…it made me furious. And yet there was nothing I could do about it, especially if I was plotting to win the Trials so I could enter into a treaty with her.

One step at a time, I told myself. Maybe when everything has settled you can free him from her hold.

To S?ren, I’d simply said, “Of course. I understand.”

Whatever remaining time we had left was spent talking, laughing, and kissing. We hadn’t gone further, despite ending up in compromising positions several times. I’d stopped us on multiple occasions, afraid we would break an unspoken pact of keeping enough distance to not be too hurt when the time came to part ways.

Part of me didn’t care, though.

One morning S?ren declared he didn’t have duties from the queen, and we were heading out to train in the snow. Eager to put the skills I was honing to use, I readily agreed.

Three hours in, my ankles were killing me. We were still in the same sparring session that we first started, our skills so evenly matched now, it was difficult to determine a winner.

S?ren made a swipe at me with his sword, but I saw it coming and parried in time. Then I lunged at him, aiming for his leg. He blocked it, but I shifted my weight and leveled a kick to his ribs.

As he moved to slice my face, I brought my blade up to deflect his. We were inches from each other, and he pushed against my defensive position with all his might. My hands trembled under the pressure. I gritted my teeth and swung my leg upward, aiming for his crotch.

He leapt back and I pulled a dagger from a sheath on my arm, throwing it straight at him with my non-dominant hand. It spun end over end, and he stepped to the side to avoid it. But the distraction was enough. I had him pinned in the same moment.

I stopped the blade right before it sliced his throat.

Breathing hard, we stared at each other. A triumphant smile lit my face. I had beaten the Hellbringer in battle.

“You’re ready,” he declared. “You are ready to win the Bloodshed Trials.”

We relaxed in the silence, on our backs in the snow. S?ren had laid our cloaks down for us to rest on. He’d shot and cooked a deer for our midday meal, and for once he wasn’t pushing me to keep training, keep practicing. Instead, we were sharing stories of our youths, my head nestled on his chest.

It was blissful. Peaceful.

Only for a moment, though.

He inhaled deeply. “I’ll be taking you back tomorrow.”

I sat up. “Tomorrow?”

His expression was grave. “The Trials…they’re in four days. We have to make sure you are able to depart the front and go back to the city with your family.”

I swallowed, refusing to let him know how the tender spot beneath my rib cage ached. “I lost track of the time.”

Four days until my life changed irreparably. Until my fate was decided.

Until Bhorglid’s future was set in stone.

Where had the time gone? Five weeks had disappeared in a blink. Closing my eyes, I lay back down, wishing I could stay here with S?ren forever. Wishing this wasn’t going to be our final night together. Wishing it didn’t make my throat and eyes sting to think about never seeing him again.

The sun began to sink below the horizon, preparing to rise over the mountains again the next morning. Wordlessly, he wound his fingers through mine.

My duty and his. We were inexplicably bound together, but our paths would more than likely end here.

His thumb caressed my palm, the touch sending a spark of heat through me. I’d spent the whole week holding back despite how desperately I wanted him. But I was tired of being afraid. And if I was going back to my death, never to see him again even if I did live, then surely it was fair to take part of him with me.

“Come to the hot springs with me.” I stood up, pulling my cloak from the snow and shaking the powdery flakes off it. Every beat of my heart ricocheted against my bones in anticipation of what I was planning. I held out a hand to him.

He looked it for a moment, gray eyes keen, and I knew he was reading my mind. I wondered how his magic worked. Did killing with a flick of his wrist mean he could hear my pulse beating beneath my skin? I wasn’t subtle. He had to know what I wanted. How I wanted him .

The tension between us grew thicker, and I worried it would snap. Worried he would turn me down. But instead he reached out and accepted it, tugging me back down until I tumbled, collapsing with my knees on either side of his hips.

“We shouldn’t.” His voice was rougher than usual, a few notes deeper. “I’m already too attached to you. And once we start…” He swallowed. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop. I’ve been dreaming about you for weeks.”

My blood heated, and I leaned forward, my forearms resting on his chest. Already he was growing hard, and the feel of him beneath me, between my thighs, sent a thrill down my spine. “Who says we have to stop? Haven’t we earned this?” Slowly, I rubbed myself up and down his body. His head tilted backward, his eyes fluttering closed. I summoned every ounce of boldness I could muster and continued. “Don’t I deserve to make you come?”

“Keep talking like that and you might make me before we’ve even taken our clothes off.” He opened his eyes, his gaze traveling over my face before pausing on my neck, where he’d sucked a blooming bruise into the tender skin just the day before. “I don’t want you to regret this.”

I shook my head. “I won’t. I was afraid of being too attached, of not wanting to leave. But that was all going to happen anyway.”

Something solidified in his eyes. “Then let’s go.”

Evening was falling in earnest when we arrived at the hot springs, the steam misting in the air and reaching like whisper-thin fingers. I was shivering from the cold, my cloak too wet to truly keep me warm, so I stripped and rushed into the water, splashing a bit as I went before relaxing in the heat.

When I turned around, S?ren was watching me, hunger in his eyes.

“Well?” I said, my confidence building as he surveyed my bare skin. “Care to join me, Hellbringer?”

He began to take his armor off, one piece at a time. The plates landed in the snow with a thud, and when he was standing in only his black leather, he began moving toward the shoreline. He removed his shirt with little thought, focused like a predator on me.

I waded back until only my face was above the water, watching him with wide eyes. I’d dreamed of his bare torso more times than I could count by now, and yet I still hadn’t managed to remember every detail of his pale skin. His muscles were defined in a way that bore testament to how long he spent training every day and working as a soldier. S?ren was not the product of a life of ease, and I was glad. It made us all the more evenly matched.

He tugged off his pants with an impatient huff and I laughed. He rolled his eyes and stripped off his underwear, leaving him naked for a flash before he splashed into the water to meet me.

I couldn’t tear my gaze from his body even as it slipped beneath the surface. When he reached me and noticed my line of sight, he chuckled.

My cheeks heated and I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly conscious of my body on display for such an attractive man. But he sank into the water and gathered me in his arms, skin against skin in the warmth, and pressed a kiss to my temple before leaning close to murmur, “Look at you. A body like yours might be enough to make me believe in the gods.”

I flushed, tracing the tips of my fingers over his stomach, brushing against the swollen head of his cock. He shivered and I grinned. “You’re not half bad yourself.”

He nipped at my earlobe playfully. “Rude.”

“I’m joking,” I reassured him. “I’ve been imagining you naked ever since you took your shirt off in the forge.”

He laughed, a full-bodied, full-throated sound. “I can’t believe that was only a few weeks ago. I was gone for you even then.” Before I had time to question him, he slid me down his body a bit, enough for me to feel his cock hard against my stomach. I let out my breath in a rush, suddenly desperate for his hands and his mouth and his thickness in the soft place between my legs.

S?ren’s eyes gleamed in the evening light. He placed his thumbs carefully along my jaw and leaned in to kiss me.

Our lips met in a tangle of heady lust, and I wrapped my legs around him. He supported me with one arm, the other tilting my head so he could devour me. When he broke away from my mouth to pepper kisses down the column of my throat, I was left gasping for air.

The first swipe of his fingers over my nipple made me whimper and grind against him. He groaned. “Fuck. You’re going to be the death of me, Princess. Want to take a bite of you.”

He hoisted me higher, until both of my breasts were bared to the cold, my nipples stiffening with the temperature against his lips, which wrapped around one taut bud and sucked. I arched my back, desperate for more as his free hand cupped my other breast and squeezed.

“Perfect,” he whispered. He sounded so dazed, I wondered if he knew I could hear him.

“S?ren,” I moaned, reaching my hand down and between us to wrap around him. He stilled, his eyes meeting mine. I was caught in his gaze, wondering how my hand could be enough to render the most powerful man in the world helpless. Carefully, I ran my palm up and down him.

The sound he made sent a thrill down my spine. Because, yes, I wanted to come at his hands. But I also wanted to show him what I felt, to try and explain the depth of my emotion with this act.

In one swift motion, he turned me around so my back was pressed to his front, then guided my arms up and around his neck. “What were you dreaming about?” he asked, voice husky. “That night, when I put my cloak over you?”

His teeth grazed the edge of my ear and I had a brief flash of thought: Was he the kind to be gentle with a lover, or rough? Would he stretch out my pleasure, keeping me on the edge until I had no choice but to tip over? Or would he force me to come again and again until I was overspent?

My thoughts were cloudy with the possibilities, and I didn’t comprehend his words. “Wh-what?”

His hands cupped my breasts, lifting and toying with them, and I rubbed my backside against him. “Think hard, Princess. When I laid my cloak over you that night? You were having a dream. At first I thought it was a nightmare—you whimpered, and I thought about waking you up. Until I realized you were rubbing your legs together beneath my blankets. In my bed.”

“Oh, gods. I was?” Slightly mortified, my arms fell to grasp his wrists and still his hands.

When I looked over my shoulder, his pupils were so dilated, I could barely see the grays of his irises anymore. “Tell me I wasn’t wrong, even back then. What were you dreaming about, Revna? Was it that boy you left behind, or…” I didn’t miss the way he spat the word, as though referring to Arne as a boy were the gravest of insults. He traced the curves of my breast with one hand, fingertips landing just above where I wanted him most.

“It was you.” The words spilled from me unbidden. “I was dreaming of this. Of your mouth on mine. Of your fingers inside me.”

The noise he made then was feral, and it sent heat blooming between my thighs. “Good. Good. Even then I wanted you—wanted this. I’ve craved you from the moment you first pointed your sword at me.”

He leaned in again, but I twisted fully in his arms to face him and pushed his shoulders back. “You were a complete ass back then!”

S?ren dragged his hands up my sides beneath the water and pulled me to him. This time I submitted, every inch of me hyperaware of all the places we touched. “I had to be. The last thing I should have been doing was imagining my beautiful captive naked.” His grin was sharp around the edges.

I traced the scar I’d noticed when I first saw him shirtless in the forge. It wrapped from his upper back over his right shoulder, ending just beneath his collarbone. “How did you get this?”

“My first battle,” he said softly. “I was so nervous that day—only fourteen. The only people I’d killed before had been accidents. I didn’t want to be there and I let someone get too close. This was before I knew how to use a sword.”

His sorrow radiated, and I wanted to take the question back. I pressed a kiss to his chest, nestling into him with my head just below his chin. S?ren wrapped his arms around me and for a long moment we embraced in the silence.

“Come back with me,” I whispered. “Leave Kryllian behind. I’ll protect you once I’m queen.”

His next exhale was a sigh. “And leave my sister at my own queen’s mercy? No. I can’t.” He tilted my chin up until our eyes met. The fire was gone, replaced only by certainty. “You can’t save everyone, Revna. And if I end up a casualty in this fight, so be it.”

I wanted to protest, wanted to dig my heels in and hold on to my desperation. Because wanting S?ren went far beyond a single night of pleasure, beyond a few weeks of forced proximity. Somehow, without me noticing, he’d carved himself into my soul. Forged a notch for himself that no one else could fill.

I knew intrinsically that I would feel the emptiness there for the rest of my days.

But I also had a war to end. Brothers to kill. A crown to seize. Priests to destroy. And as much as I wanted to reassure him that there would be no casualties, that everyone would emerge on the other side unscathed…I knew it wasn’t the truth.

So instead I demanded, “Kiss me, then. Make me forget it all.”

Determination set his jaw, and he obliged.

Gone were the soft, searching presses we’d exchanged earlier. Now lips were met with teeth scraping against tender flesh. Whimpers turned to groans, turned to “Oh fuck.” S?ren navigated us through the water to where a large rock rested, pressing me up against it and trailing the sharp edges of his teeth against the swells of my breasts.

“Are you wet for me?” he asked, his baritone voice hoarse. My legs were still wrapped around his waist, but his firm hand slid to the inside of my thigh, pushing it outward. “Open up for me, Princess. Let me feel.”

I had no choice but to oblige, leaning back so that my head rested against the cool surface of the rock as he ran his fingers softly through my lower lips. I groaned at the sensation, the ghost of friction so close to where I needed it, but not enough to relieve any of the pressure building within. “Oh,” he whispered reverently, like a worshiper at the altar of a god. “You’re soaked. Even in the water, I can tell.”

A thick finger breached my entrance and I gasped as he slid it in. My muscles clenched around him. “ S?ren. ”

“You feel so perfect around my finger,” he muttered, craning down to press sloppy wet kisses to my collarbones, my breasts. “Can’t imagine how good this will feel when I get inside you.”

An involuntary clench. “Please.”

“Please what?”

“Touch me.”

His thumb circled my clit. “I thought you’d never ask.”

His movements were excruciatingly slow and gentle as he learned my body. Another finger slid in beside the first, the soft stretch making me keen. The world was awash in throbs of pleasure, my legs trembling as he whispered in my ear, comforting me through it all.

“You’re so pretty when you let me touch you. So beautiful. After this, when we’re back in bed, I’m going to splay you out so I can taste you. First you’ll come on my hand, then my tongue, then my cock. Let me worship you until you can’t remember any name but mine. Do you feel that stretch?” Here he slid a third finger inside of me, and a wordless sound escaped my mouth. “Perfect, pretty girl. Letting me finger fuck you. Let me make you moan.”

Every word made me melt, and I was nothing more than a puddle in his hands, floating in the water. It could have been minutes or hours by the time my breaths began to shorten, my fingernails leaving crescent marks in the flesh of his shoulders as my hands tightened and the pleasure in my core began to spread through the rest of my body.

The pressure of his thumb, his filthy words, the steadily falling darkness—it all culminated in a release so overwhelming, I saw stars. My fingers scrabbled against his shoulders as I searched for purchase, and the sounds I made were ones I doubted I’d ever make again.

When I finally came down from the high, panting desperately, S?ren was cradling me in his arms, murmuring, “Please, can I come inside you? Please, Princess, I need it—”

Gods above, I wanted to make him beg me for it every day until I died. I found myself thankful we’d had the necessary discussions about contraception on the hike over. I reached between us, lining him up with my entrance while I nipped at his jawline. “Hush, honey,” I chided as he pleaded and I slowly came back to myself. “I’ll take care of you.”

He groaned, one palm slapping against the cool rock at my back as he slid in the first inch. Even that little bit stretched me despite the careful work of his fingers earlier, but my orgasm made me soft and pliable. With one fluid movement, he slid the rest of the way in, and we both panted as I adjusted and he tried not to move.

“I’m not hurting you?” He sounded concerned through his clenched jaw.

I shook my head, gripping his shoulders more tightly to support my weight. “No, I’m okay. I’m okay. Move, please? Please , S?ren.”

“Fuck. I love when you say my name.” He thrust his hips, and the motion of him inside me sent a shiver up my spine. “Like I’m a person. Not a monster.”

The words made me wish I could hold him so tightly, I never had to let go. Instead, I lost myself in the rhythm of his thrusting, caving to the carnal desire to run my tongue up the column of his throat. He groaned and cursed again, and my sated body was thrilled to know such a powerful man was shivering under my touch.

When he came, shuddering with every rush, head thrown back and eyes screwed shut, I pressed my mouth against his chest and held him through it. Spent, he inhaled deeply, then cradled my face in his hands and grinned before peppering me with a barrage of tiny kisses.

“S?ren!” I couldn’t stop laughing.

“You’re incredible. That was…” He ran a hand through his hair while I settled my now sore legs back on the bottom of the hot spring. “It’s never been like that before.”

We couldn’t keep our hands off each other. I didn’t mind in the slightest, running my thumbs over his hip bones. He shivered. “Not for me either,” I whispered, peering up at him shyly. “You liked it?”

“Liked it?” He looked so incredulous, I hid a smile behind my hand. “I more than liked it.”

“Enough that you’d like to continue when we’re back inside? If we’re out here for too long, it will start snowing again.”

S?ren grinned, and for a moment everything was peaceful beneath the stars. “Race you back.”

He bolted without a second thought, splashing hot water on me as if it would slow me down. I dressed faster than I ever had before, and as we sprinted back to the abandoned prison, I wondered if I might love a monster.