Page 17 of Ice Cold Christmas

“How the?—”

“Fuck did I get the second scar?” she broke in, knowing those were the exact words he’d intended to utter.

Victor nodded.

Her lips pressed together. She had no answer for him. Wasn’t that the entire reason she’d come to this monstrosity of a home? Back to the people she instinctively feared? Because she did not know how she’d gotten the seven-inch-long slash across her stomach. Because she didn’t even know how she’d gotten the two-inch slash near her shoulder.

Because she didn’t know hardly anything at all when she thought of her past.

“Someone hurt you.” Victor’s voice had gone low and lethal.

A chill skated down her spine.

“Give me a name,” he continued in that same tone. The one that promised hell. Lots of carnage and pain. “And I’ll put him in the ground for you.”

She felt her eyes widen. Knew they had to be huge. But Victor Alexander had just casually offered to kill for her, and she was sure that was not the way things were normally done. Or, maybe, in this new, twisted world she’d entered, they were.

“Why so shocked?” His hand left hers. But only so it could rise. Cup her cheek. “You think because you walked out, left me insane for a year, that I’d ever let anyone hurt you?”

She’d left him insane?

“No one hurts you.” Flat. His thumb brushed over her lower lip. “Whether you’re mine or not, I’ll still annihilate anyone who dares to hurt you. And when someone makes you bleed? When someone puts a mark on your skin? The sonofabitch is going in the ground.”

Okay. That was utterly chilling. She should be terrified. She was, for the record. But she was also leaning toward him. Her lips had parted, and she might have just licked his thumb.

Why, oh, why had she just done that?

But she had.

And he’d stilled. And the darkness of his eyes seemed even more powerful. As if the obsidian would absolutely swallow her alive.

“Are you playing with me?” Victor asked her. Still in that lethal tone.

She had come to the Mage Mansion in order to play a very dangerous game with him—and with the others downstairs.

“That would be a dangerous game,” he warned her.

She knew it. Was fully aware of the risks. What she hadn’t been fully aware of, not until Victor touched her, was the way he made her feel. Need and desire surged through her. A heady, dangerous mix. She should not trust him. She should not trust anyone in the house. And yet…

The tip of her tongue touched his thumb once more.

He hissed out a breath. She thought he’d surge toward her. Kiss her. And then she could kiss him back this time. Fully. See what it felt like and if the desire would surge even hotter inside of her.

But he stepped back. Lots of steps back. He whirled, turning away from her, and she rose slowly to her feet. Uncertainty filled her. Quickly now, she finished undoing the mismatched buttoning job. She put the small buttons in the correct holes. His shirt fell past her thighs. Swallowed her. But somehow, the shirt felt good. His masculine scent clung to the fabric and seemed to envelop her.

He didn’t speak. The silence stretched too far. She looked toward the window. The curtains were parted, and she could just make out the heavy fall of the snow beyond the window panes. By morning, everything would be covered in a mound of white softness.

She’d woken in snow once. Only it hadn’t been white. It had been red. Soaked by her blood.

“I will gladly take a DNA test,” she told Victor. Mostly because she had to say something to break the terrible silence that filled the room. And because she wanted the test. She’d like her own definitive proof. “But I am Melody Mage.”

Her gaze darted over his back. His bare back. She was highly conscious of his body. Powerful shoulders. Rippling muscles. He turned toward her.

She swallowed.

The man did not spend all of his time behind a desk. Oh, most assuredly, he did not. He had a big, broad chest. Sculpted muscles. Abs on top of abs. She should probably not be gaping. And, honestly, she’d done a stellar job of not gaping, until now.

But now…