Page 12 of Heart of Fire (Royal Ice Dragons #3)

DARE

I couldn’t believe she was here.

I lay on my side on the floor, ignoring her, even though I could feel her irritation before she relaxed into sleep. Once she was asleep, I sat up to look at her.

Her face was peaceful in the faint light from the fire. Her pink lips parted, igniting an unexpected fantasy of pressing the tip of my cock against those pillowy lips. She was so beautiful.

She shifted, and I lay back down, afraid she would realize I’d been staring at her.

But I kept picturing her face once I closed my eyes.

I hadn’t fallen asleep myself before she started to move restlessly in her sleep, her breathing picking up pace.

My hands curled into fists. Please , please , let the nightmares fade .

She sat up with a start, her breathing frantic and frightened.

“Why?” she whispered to herself, sounding broken, and her voice wormed straight into my heart. “Why won’t you let me?”

I couldn’t stand it. I sat up. “What’s wrong, Hanna?”

She blinked at me, slowly coming awake. Then she flashed me an unconvincing approximation of a smile. “Nothing. I’m just cold.”

She was shivering, her teeth chattering together.

“Not a bad dream?”

“I need your body heat,” she said, which wasn’t an answer.

I was freezing on the floor, but that was because I’d given our little sunshine princess almost all the blankets. “No. I have a lot of theories about what you need, but my body isn’t on the list.”

“Your body heat ,” she corrected. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“No.”

“Dare. You’re being silly. If you get into bed, we’ll both be comfortable.”

Given the way my cock had come to attention, I would not be comfortable in bed with her.

Her teeth chattered again. It was killing me.

Grumbling, I got up and rummaged through my clothes.

As I knelt on the bed beside her, she started to pull back the covers to welcome me in.

“No. Sit up.”

“What are you doing?”

“Would you just sit up?”

She did. I took her wrists in my hands and as I did, I felt the urge to do something else—to pin those hands above her head and kiss her.

But I didn’t. I raised her arms in the air, then picked up the sweater and began to pull it over her head.

“I don’t need you to dress me like I’m a child,” she said in exasperation.

“You’re cold.”

She let out a disbelieving little laugh and lay back down in bed.

It was unexpected to shock Hanna into silence. No matter how much I would’ve claimed that was always my goal, it felt wrong when the silence hung between us. I could still hear her breath hitching.

“Hanna?”

She rolled away from me.

“Are you crying?”

“No. And also, why would you care?”

Something hollow opened in my gut. “Are you crying because of me?”

She sat up, and even in the dim light, her flashing eyes projected her annoyance. “For gods’ sake. Edric is sending assassins after me, and I almost had to kill a kid the other day—or what looked like a kid—but yes, Dare, I’m crying over you .”

So an assassin had sparked a fresh bout of panic attacks. Frustration ripped through me. We had magic, for gods’ sake; why couldn’t we fix this for her?

But none of my frustration came through my voice. “If I can’t help, then I’m going back to sleep.”

As if I could sleep when she was within an arm’s reach. Or when I had to listen to the uneven pace of her breathing, the sound of her teeth grinding. She could never go back to sleep like that.

“Stay on your side.” I got up impatiently. “I can just tell you’ll hog the bed. And we aren’t going to snuggle.”

She moved the blankets aside for me again, without comment, before I had finished speaking—as if she had known I’d lie beside her.

I shouldn’t get this close to her.

Once I got Kaelan on that throne, I might never go back to being his servant, living in his castle, and that meant I couldn’t be close to her.

She would always be his.

And yet, she rolled over to my side of the bed as soon as she was asleep, her face nestling against my chest.

And I let my jaw rest lightly on the top of her head.

* * *

I woke up early in the morning because there was someone lurking just outside the door, tripping my magic’s alarms.

Protectiveness flared through me, so much so that I barely realized that Hanna was curled with her head on my shoulder and one leg thrown over my body until I was rolling out from underneath her. Then I wished I could hang onto the moment.

I shifted my face back as I crossed the room, and by the time I swung the door open, I was ready for a fight.

Berick, a burly miner whose aging was reflected in his weary face, had his hand raised to knock. “Hey.”

“What’s going on?” I tried to block him from seeing Hanna. He knew my true identity, but I didn’t want anyone, no matter how much I trusted them with my own life, to know hers.

“I wanted you to know, my Linia found something about the lord’s second armory.”

My chest tightened. I didn’t want Hanna to overhear about the armory. That tale I’d heard as a boy was the real reason I was here. There were a hundred different places I could be to help recruit Kaelan’s peasant army.

But all the stories about the daggers placed them as under Lord Kustav’s control.

“What did you find?”

“She saw the lord down in the mine. He left his servants behind.”

A dangerous choice for someone as unpopular as Lord Kustav. There had been more and more small accidents lately that the miners felt were evidence the mine conditions were worsening, and they were frustrated by how they were trapped here by Lord Kustav in poverty.

“She couldn’t follow him the entire way, but she saw him go into the west tunnel. She marked his path, as far as she could follow.” His voice was triumphant.

Unease wormed through my stomach. I wanted those daggers so badly, but I didn’t need to put the life of an innocent girl in danger for them. “Thank you, Berick. I’ll take it from here. She needs to stop poking around.”

The memory of my parents rose in my mind. The last time I saw them alive was at a distance when the nooses snapped. They’d been reaching for each other, their hands extending, but they didn’t touch before they fell.

And even that horrible memory was better than the ones just before it.

“You can’t trust the nobles,” I said, my voice bitter. “Keep her safe, Berick.”

His face clouded. “Lord Dare, she wants to do this for you.”

“Don’t call me lord .” It had never been my real title anyway, just a way for Kaelan to show I was valued by him and should be treated with respect. But I had no lands, no home, nothing that was my own. Everything that appeared to be mine truly belonged to my worst enemy, Edric.

There was a faint stirring behind me. Hanna’s warm presence washed over me the second before her arm slid around my waist. She leaned into me, her long hair brushing my shoulder.

“Good morning,” Berick said to her.

“Good morning.” Her smile was warm, and Berick’s gaze softened in response.

“Thank you for letting us borrow your husband,” he said.

“You’re welcome to him,” she said, her tone light.

He chuckled. The words meant nothing to him but quick banter, but it rankled me to think she was fine with leaving me here and going about her life, never thinking of me again.

Though, I wanted that future. I wanted to be forgotten.

At least, I tried to want it.

“And good morning to you,” she said softly to me, and I could feel her looking up at me.

“Good morning, love,” I said, without looking at her. Berick was smiling at us rather stupidly, which made me uncomfortable.

When I looked down at her, she had that dangerously bright smile aimed my way. Even with her mask in place, even with different lips and teeth, it was the same smile: full-hearted and sharp all at the same time.

I slid my arm around her shoulders so we would look more natural together, and for a second, the fantasy rose up around me so solidly I could feel it: Hanna as my wife, leaning into my side, my arm looped over her shoulders as if I had the right to pull her close.

“I didn’t know you’d taken a wife secretly. A good choice, given Lord Kustav’s ways.”

“How’s that?”

“One of the ways he humiliates us.” His voice was dark. “He takes the unmarried girls of his choosing to his bed during the Tithe Festival. And it’s coming soon.”

Gods, that man needed to die. I remembered the Tithe Festival when I was a child, where the lords gave gifts to their people and required taxes in return. The festival could be brutal, depending on how the season had gone, but Kustav had apparently chosen to levy an entirely new “tax.”

After he had served Kaelan as his ally, I was coming again to visit. Kaelan could thank him for his help, then I’d murder him from his shadows.

“How is he going to know I’m married to Dare?” she asked.

“His personal magician checks for who is bonded and unbonded, and verifies the pairings. When he does the spell, visible magic will link the pair. He’s taken a widow once. And he’s made a widow once, of a runaway convict he tracked down by the bond.”

“Lovely,” Hanna said, and I knew she was thinking through the repercussions just as I was.

But it didn’t matter. The Tithe Festival was in a few days, but she wasn’t staying.

As soon as he had gone, it bothered me that I was fantasizing about keeping her, even though it meant betraying my own family, my own people.

I pulled away from her and turned, closing the door.

“What are we doing here exactly?” she asked.

“We aren’t doing anything. I’m going to work.”

“In the mines?”

“Mm.” I headed for the basin at the sink so I could wash.

“Why? To get them to fight on Kaelan’s side?” She frowned, clearly perplexed by the connection.

“Yes.”

“Won’t they do that anyway? On Lord Kustav’s command?” She tilted her head, studying me. “He sounds like a dick. Are we going to kill him?”

I was not about to tell her my real mission here.

“Unfortunately, right now Kaelan needs allies, so we’re all going to have to pack away our bloodthirsty impulses until we get him on the throne.” I glanced at the bonesteel fragments in the enchanted box on my dresser top; the enchantment would keep the toxins from poisoning Hanna, and once she was gone, I’d return to trying to extend that enchantment to all of these people.

I hated the thought of these people fighting to change what noble ass was seated on the throne while they were slowly being poisoned to death.

“I’m not spilling my plans to you, Princess. I have to go to work, and by the time I get back, I expect you’ll have taken wing back to Kaelan.”

She shook her head.

“You can’t stay,” I repeated. I grabbed her wrist, turning her palm up to face us. Unlike some of the Royals on her Isle, who trained and fought and wore their callouses across their knuckles and their scars as signs of pride, she had always portrayed herself as soft and weak.

Her hands reflected that weakness, though I knew her fingers were deft and nimble to steal or slip a spell on to someone. “You don’t blend in here. And you heard him; if you’re tested, they’ll know we aren’t bonded. They’ll see your bond is to someone else?—”

“We have time until that happens.”

“By the time I get back, I expect you to be gone.”

“Expect what you like, Dare.” Hanna’s voice was light as I headed for the door. “But don’t be surprised if all your wishes don’t come true. You’re a grown man, you should know to expect that no one’s going to grant you all your dreams.”

The truth was I wanted her to stay, and that made me burn.

“I don’t want you here.”

But as I went out the door, she was watching me as if she always saw right through me.