Page 21 of Heart of Fire (Royal Ice Dragons #3)

DARE

The next day, Hanna and I went out with a group of the villagers to place traps in preparation for an attack on the village. With Balean mustering his troops and Kustav knowing how much unrest there was, we had to be prepared for the possibility the peasants would be routed.

We’d had a very quiet breakfast that morning. I’d slept on the floor the night before, or at least, I had tried to sleep. I’d been keenly aware of her breathing, of every time she stirred or tossed on the bed. All I’d wanted to do was climb into bed beside her and wrap her in my arms.

And I wished I could piece back together my fucked-up heart, so I’d have something worthy to offer her, but that was easier said than done.

“I don’t want you to go on your own,” I warned her as the two of us waded through the snow, leaving the village behind as we headed toward the little band who waited for us, already dividing into two groups.

“I know you don’t,” she said. “But you and I are the only two with magic to activate these wards, so…” She gave me a cheeky smile.

“I’d like you to remember the king is trying to kill you.”

“Don’t be afraid for me, Dare. I got you to confess your jealousy…there’s no way I’m going to die now. The world just grew so much more interesting.”

She gave me a smile before she turned away, full of teasing and joy. That smile would be in my thoughts all damn day long.

As Hanna’s group disappeared into the treeline, I turned to face my own team. Two burly miners stood with me, their faces weathered by years of hard work and harsh winters. The older of the two, Goran, had a thick gray beard and deep-set eyes. His companion, Fen, was younger, badly scarred and burning with quiet intensity.

I hefted the bag of ward stones. “Let’s get to work.”

We trudged through the snow, our boots crunching with each step. I focused on my mission, trying not to think about Hanna possibly being caught by guards as she set traps around the village.

“So, how exactly does this work?” Fen asked as I began to lay the first marker.

I knelt in the snow, digging into the snow with one gloved hand to conceal my trap. “If any of Kustav’s guards—or Baelur’s—crosses the ward with ill intent, they’ll trigger the spell.”

Goran grunted, his breath misting in the air. “And what’ll it do to them? Turn them into hares?”

He sounded vaguely sarcastic, as if he knew it were a childish imagination of magic, but I wasn’t convinced.

I smiled at the image. “I wish. They’ll burn with pain. Unbearable pain that will force them back. And we’ll be alerted to their presence.”

Fen watched with fascination, letting out a gasp as the stone began to glow. “I’ve never seen magic up close like this. Since it’s just for the Lords.”

I glanced up at him, wondering if he could be taught to access magic. The ward stone felt warm, even through my gloves.

“Sometimes I don’t know what I believe,” I admitted. “People think because I have magic, I must be noble-born. That’s been useful. But I think anyone can access magic…I think the nobles have just made up stories, or maybe blocked our powers…”

Goran shook his head. “Have you heard the stories that the nobles stole magic from the gods?”

“Folktales,” Fen said dismissively.

“Folktales have truth in them,” Goran retorted.

We moved on to the next location, the two miners falling into a rhythm of clearing the ground and keeping watch while I set the wards.

“My pa used to tell stories about the old days,” Goran said, his voice gruff but tinged with nostalgia. “Said there was a time when magic and mining went hand in hand. Dwarven enchantments to shore up tunnels, god sent spirits to guide us to rich veins.”

Fen snorted. “Sounds like more folk tales to me.”

“Maybe,” Goran conceded. “But sometimes I wonder if we haven’t lost something, turning our backs on the old ways.”

I thought about the complex relationship these people had with magic: fear and mistrust mixed with a longing for its protection. Didn’t everyone wish to have magic for their own, deep down? To have not only its power, but the sense of awe that came with controlling some fragment of something so immense and eternal.

As we continued our work, I found myself explaining the basics of wardcraft and how it connected to the natural energies of the land. As if one day, they could access it themselves.

By midday, the wards hummed with latent energy, invisible to the eye but a comforting presence to those who knew to look for it. As we paused for a brief rest, sharing some bread and dried meat, I caught Fen studying me.

“Do you think you’re really a noble? Or a peasant? Or something else?” he asked. “We don’t run into many nobles who’d be out here using magic to protect us.”

If they were going to fight alongside Kaelan, I was going to make sure their village was safe…to the best of my ability.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I think things could be different when Kaelan is king.”

“You think he gives two shits about us?” Fen sounded genuinely curious.

“I do.” I’d had my moments of doubt, but he cared about his people, deeply, in his own way.

The sun was low on the horizon by the time we finished setting the last ward. As we made our way back to the village, I could sense the change in the very air around us. The land itself seemed more alert, more alive with the magic we had woven into it.

“Do you think it’ll be enough?” Fen asked as the first houses came into view.

“I don’t know,” I admitted, with a sudden vision of how terrifying it would be to be trapped in this village with Baelur and Kustav’s troops held back by the wards, but circling endlessly, trampling a ring of hoofprints into the snow. “I hope we never have to test the wards. I hope Baelur and Kustav can be stopped some other way.”

We’d planned to meet back at the pub, as if we’d just happened to run into each other. My heart lifted as we walked in the door, hoping I’d see Hanna.

But the place was empty. Filled with a few dozen other people, of course, but empty for me when she wasn’t there.

“I’ll see you later,” I told Goran and Fen, clapping their shoulders and thanking them for their help before I trekked out to intercept the path of Hanna’s team.

They gave me knowing looks, as if anyone could see how mad I was for the girl and how much I needed to know she was safe.

I followed the trail up from the village until I heard the sound of hooves pounding against the trampled-down snow. Horses were always a bad sign.

I stepped into the forest and watched as Kustav and his men rode by in a furious flash.

With a sense of foreboding following me, I went down after them. I found myself running through the trees, which flashed past me as I was desperate to keep up.

But the horses abruptly came to a stop.

They had been flagged down.

I couldn’t see the figure beyond them clearly, the one with the raised arm.

“What do you want?”

I moved through the trees to get a better angle.

Brown curls. Blue cloak.

It was Greia.

My heart dropped.

“I’ve got new information about the girl in the village you’ve been interested in,” she said coolly.

Rage flooded me. They acted as if they were picking up a conversation they’d had before. She had talked to them before.

“What is it?”

“She isn’t married to any of the men in the village,” she said, which was technically true.

Fear tightened around my chest like a squeezing fist. It even overwhelmed the stab of betrayal.

Kustav was going to come for Hanna.

I raced through the trees to find Hanna. The white trunks were a blur, the ground slick underfoot as I traced a frantic path.

When they tested the marriage bond, they would see she was married…but they tested everyone in pairs. They would know I wasn’t the one who had claimed her.

And Greia knew who Hanna really was…

Kustav might side with Kaelan now, but if he knew Hanna was in his grasp…he’d have such a powerful bargaining chip to play against either Kaelan or Edric. I wasn’t sure which way he would sway.

The entire kingdom thought Kaelan might well fail. Kustav might bet against him knowing Edric would give him whatever he wanted for Hanna.

Ahead of me, there was a small knot of people moving toward the village, awkward in the snow. One was more awkward than the others, but laughing about it as she slid down the bank, and I knew even before her hood slipped back.

My heart hammered in my chest, no less frantic now that I could see Hanna alive.

“Dare,” she called, her face brightening when she saw me. She moved ahead of her companions, who called goodbyes to her as she came to my side.

Her reaction would’ve made my heart lift if I hadn’t been so terrified.

“Come with me,” I told her, grabbing her hand.

She looked confused, but when I dragged her, she ran with me. I led her straight to the temple of the gods she didn’t worship.

I pulled her up the steps of the temple, then spun to face her, still holding her hand. “I know these aren’t your gods, your family isn’t here, it isn’t what it should be like—but marry me, Hanna.”

“What?” she stared at me, shocked.

“Kustav is coming to find you. He’ll test your bond?—”

“And he’ll see that I’m married! That he can’t claim me.”

“No.” I shook my head. “He’ll be able to see the bond is stretched distant. I’ll be by your side when he tests you…he’ll know it’s not me. He will find out who you really are, Hanna.”

I’d never seen her shocked into silence before.

“He’ll take you as a hostage. He could bargain with Edric,” I told her.

“But if you and I marry?—”

“The bond will be obvious between us. There will be no reason to doubt that we’re just two villagers.”

She didn’t answer. Gods, I was going to jump out of my skin, terrified he would ride down on us, and I wouldn’t have convinced her to just do the thing that could save her.

I thought bitterly that she wouldn’t have hesitated with Thorne.

But then the weight of everything I’d ever done or said to her crashed down on me. Of course she would hesitate to marry me.

I had hurt her and insulted her over and over. She had no reason to believe in me.

“Hanna, I am begging you.” The words were raw, as if they were being ripped from my throat. I hated to say them. “I am—sorry. For my part in the bride trials, for trying to humiliate you, for every insult…I have pushed you away at every turn because I didn’t dare to love a Royal.”

Gods, I sounded like a coward. But I would confess to anything, even the worst part of all: why I was such a coward when it came to her. “I thought caring for you would cost me my place among my people?—”

“I don’t want you to lose anything for me.” She broke in.

She was so maddening. She was still being so gentle when her hesitation to use me, to hurt me, put her own life in danger. I couldn’t force her to say the vows. How the hell did I get her to marry me?

“None of it matters if I lose you! I was a coward. I clung so tightly to the past, I even lied to myself about what I wanted for the future…but it’s you, Hanna.”

She was shaking her head. Maybe every stupid thing I’d ever said in the past was so loud in her ears she couldn’t hear the truth now.

Suddenly, I didn’t feel so scornful about Thorne’s murder-puppy persona. At least Hanna never doubted that he loved her.

I dropped to my knees, still holding her hand. Let her see me desperate and begging as long as she heard the truth. “I want you alive and safe and married to me .”

I had only meant to convince her to marry me for purely pragmatic reasons.

The words that boiled out of me surprised us both.

“I’ll marry you,” she said, resting her fingers in my hair. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, as if her breathing had come to match mine during my panicked confession. “Of course, I’ll marry you.”

Then she was bending to kiss me, and her lips were on mine in wild kisses.

I was kissing her back with an aching need as I rose, my arm slipping around her waist to guide her with me toward the altar.

Its ancient surface was weathered and etched with symbols of power. The air around us seemed to thicken with the gathering electric charge of magic that accompanied vows.

In her eyes, blue as a summer sky, I saw a mixture of determination and vulnerability that made my heart ache. Taking a deep breath, I began the incantation, my voice low and steady.

“In times of plenty and in times of want, in joy and in sorrow, I pledge my heart to you. I bind myself to you, Hanna.”

Magic stirred around us, ancient and primal.

Hanna raised her clear, fearless voice, and it seemed to vibrate through the stones under my feet. “In times of plenty and in times of want, in joy and in sorrow, I pledge my heart to you. I bind myself to you, Dare.”

Light glowed from within our palms and encircled our joined hands. The warmth of that light, that connection, swept through me, binding us together in ways that transcended the physical. Though the physical would come soon too——it was a requirement of the magic.

“With this vow, I offer you not just my present, but all my futures,” I said. “Whatever paths lie before us, I choose to walk them by your side.”

Hanna smiled as she repeated the words, but tears glistened in her eyes, too, and my heart melted.

For a moment, I felt as if I could see our futures stretching out before us: sometimes filled with joy, others with hardship, but all of them shared.

None of them were the future I had planned for myself since I was ten years old. But I let those dreams go, trying to focus on the dream in front of me.

As the light faded, we stood there, breathless and changed. Hanna’s eyes met mine, a smile playing at the corners of her lips.

“Well, I guess we’re stuck with each other now.”

“I have been stuck with you for a long time,” I told her, touching her face tenderly. “I’m not sure when it became so clear to me that you would be forever on my mind and…” I hesitated over the words, but then I saw the flash of a question in her eyes, and I managed to go on. “Forever in my heart.”

Her lips quirked in a smile that warmed me, right before she wrapped her arm around my shoulders and kissed me hard.

* * *

HANNA

The magic had sealed us together.

But that wasn’t enough.

“We have to consummate the marriage for the bond to take hold fully.” Dare’s gaze was a question.

“Good,” I said, and my swift answer obviously delighted him, because he smiled.

“We don’t have time.” Dare glanced over his shoulder, obviously haunted by the knowledge they would be hunting for me. “It’s not supposed to be like this, but?—”

In one swift move, Dare hoisted me onto the cold, stone edge of the altar, his lips crashing against mine. This wasn’t just about sealing vows; it was raw need.

His hands were unyielding as they gripped my hips.

“Quickly,” I gasped against his mouth.

He yanked at my pants, the fabric bunching awkwardly before I lifted my ass so he could roll them down my thighs. I stripped off my tunic, eager for him to see all of me, and he answered me with a groan of need as he stared hungrily at my body.

The cool air of the temple tightened my nipples, heightening my senses, and the marble altar pressed against my bare skin.

Then it was my turn to pull frantically at his belt buckle. When I finally drew him out, he was hard and huge and warm in my hand, his piercings pressing against my palm. He groaned at my touch, then kissed me again, his lips urgent and claiming; he began to lick into my mouth, and I opened for him urgently, my thighs and lips both parting to welcome him.

Dare’s hand slipped between my thighs, his fingers urgently circling my heat. A soft moan escaped my lips, betraying how ready my body was for his. No matter how rushed this moment had become, it was one that had felt as if it were building between us for a long time.

His breath was hot against my neck, each exhale sending shivers down my spine. We were so close now, the rest of the world faded away, leaving only the heat, the need.

“Are you ready?” he murmured, his voice rough with lust, yet tinged with concern. “This isn’t what it should be like…”

“I don’t care,” I whispered back. “I just want you. All of you, always.”

I gripped his cock and pulled him gently but firmly toward my opening. His muscular body leaned over mine as he positioned himself at my entrance. His mouth captured mine in a long, intense kiss as the tip of his cock teased against my opening.

The sensation of him pressing into me, inch by deliberate inch, stretched and filled me until I couldn’t distinguish where I ended and he began. Our gazes locked, and his eyes were full of tenderness as he gazed down at me.

Dare moved within me, each thrust more insistent than the last. My fingers dug into his shoulders, nails etching crescents into his flesh as if trying to pull him even deeper.

“Look at me,” he commanded softly, his voice a deep rumble that vibrated through my entire being.

I obeyed, watching the stormy intensity in his eyes, feeling the power in the muscles that drove into me with purposeful force. The tension spiraled within me, coiling tighter with every stroke, and his lips parted as he came closer and closer to his own climax.

“Stay with me, Hanna,” he murmured against my throat.

“Always,” I whispered back.

His forehead pressed against mine again, our breaths mingling as he rocked in and out of me.

Together, we tumbled over the edge. The waves of pleasure crashed over us relentlessly, each pulse of his body against mine sending another shockwave of ecstasy coursing through my veins. As his movements slowed, he kissed me again.

The scent of incense in the temple mingled with the scent of our cum as he pulled out.

It was done. We were married—fully. We had done what the magic required, what good sense required.

“Fuck me again, Dare,” I whispered.

This time, it wasn’t for duty.

Dare’s fingers traced the line of my jaw before he moved to kiss the curve of my shoulder. I tugged at his shirt, the fabric parting to reveal the hard planes of his chest. As each button slipped free, his breath hitched against my lips.

His shirt fell away, and I let my fingertips dance across his lean muscle, marred here and there with scars.

“You are perfect,” I whispered, my voice catching as my eyes roved over the contours of his body. He was all sinew and raw power, but when he held me so tenderly, I knew there was more to Dare.

“You know better than most that is a lie,” he murmured, unable to hide his smile before his lips met mine again.

I swept the altar free of the flowers and candles that flickered on the marble. The flames extinguished as the candles rolled across the slick floor. The scent of roses released as Dare crushed them underfoot, moving to kiss me once again. His hand slid up my throat to cup the base of my jaw, tilting my face so his lips could tease against mine, slowly now.

“I want you on the altar,” I whispered, slipping off the marble myself. He caught me against the hard planes of his chest and pulled me to him, kissing me, even as I pushed the two of us around.

I pushed him down on the altar, and he let me.

“Come here,” he said, voice laced with a commanding tenderness that coaxed me forward.

I straddled him, the cool air of the temple contrasting with the heat of our bodies.

His hands settled on my hips with purpose as I lowered myself onto him, joining us together in a bond that went far beyond the magic.

As I guided myself down onto him, the world narrowed down to the sensation of him filling me, stretching me.

I soon found a rhythm, my hips rolling in a slow, deliberate cadence as he stared up at me, eyes bright with need. His hands gripped my waist, fingers pressing hard enough to leave bruises on my ass. In return, I leaned forward, my nipples rubbing against his chest, so I could suck a bruise onto his throat. I wanted to mark him and be marked in turn.

I rose and fell, worshiping him with every undulation of my body, his hands tightening on my waist.

He reached up, fingers tracing my neck before splaying around my throat, grounding me.

As tension coiled within me, Dare began to take the lead, his hands guiding me up and down his cock urgently, relentlessly. His breaths were coming shorter. Then, we were both gasping together, our orgasm rolling over us.

In the aftermath, I collapsed against him, spent, our hearts thundering together.

He looked at me as if he wanted to say something, but the words seemed to die on his lips.

I nestled my head against his shoulder. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Just…be close to me. For another minute before we have to face the world.”

His hand twined in my hair, and he kissed me again and again.

The world would have to wait more than another minute.