Page 58 of The Frost Witch (The Covenants of Velora #1)

The bath was cold, but at least the room was warm.

I washed myself, then my clothing. After weeks of traveling between the gates and little more than frigid handcloth baths with melted snow, it felt absolutely decadent to be naked.

Even in the temples, there wasn’t time for much more than the essentials.

A quick rinse of body and undergarments, and then out through another gate.

I told myself it was practical to count the hours that Garrick was away.

It indicated how much coal he was collecting for Isanara.

It allowed me to estimate if enough time remained for my clothing to dry or if I ought to use a spell to draw out the water.

It made me start to worry.

The thick flakes that had shepherded us into the tavern turned to hailstones as I stepped out of my bath. The wind picked up, hurling the balls of ice against the window as I finished rubbing the stains out of my leather vest.

“His fae blood will insulate him from the cold,” Isanara said, barely lifting her head from where she lounged before the hearth, while I crossed to the window for the fifth time in as many minutes.

“And how do you know so much about the fae?” I shot back, prying open one of the shutters. I’d closed them earlier, afraid the driving ice would shatter the glass. But now I opened them again, standing on tiptoe to peer out. All I could see was a miasma of dark night and swirling white snow.

The cacophony of sound—howling wind, ice crashing against glass—woke my power.

I slammed the shutters closed.

I yanked my linen shift over my head, unable to appreciate the hint of smokiness that had seeped into the fibers as it dried before the fire. The knot in my stomach was too intense.

My wool overdress was still damp to the touch.

“ From every corner, nook, and space, draw forth the water, leave no trace.”

The water between the fibers evaporated instantly, leaving the garment dry, but the air around me humid. I ignored the sheen of sweat forming on my skin as I searched for the armholes.

A sharp knock reverberated through the room, shaking the spindly chairs at the table and snapping Isanara to attention.

I dropped the gown, my curved blade suddenly in my hand instead.

I had not even consciously reached for it.

Garrick’s lessons were having more impact than I’d realized.

I’d known where the blade was instinctively.

I was more aware of my surroundings. Somehow, I knew that only one set of boots had climbed the stairs. One person waited outside my door.

I certainly wasn’t foolish enough to open it.

But I’d been about to leave. Whoever waited on the landing stood between me and finding Garrick.

“Identify yourself,” I called through the door, forcing every bit of imperiousness I could muster into my voice.

I tried to summon a memory of Maura, thinking of the tone of veiled disappointment and condescension she wielded so effortlessly.

But instead, it was Alize’s haughty visage that came to my mind.

Isanara growled at my side, though I doubted the sound permeated the door. The volume of the tavern’s dining room two floors down had increased steadily over the past few hours.

A loud thump vibrated through the door, the sound of a fist landing against the wood and then staying.

“You know exactly who I am, Koryn.”

My breath caught in my throat.

Isanara huffed with disappointment and returned to the fire while I unlocked the line of metal stalwarts that sealed the door.

I steeled myself. He’d been out in the storm for hours. He would be wet and irritated and every bit of Garrick the Red. That was good, actually. It was easier to keep my distance when he was snarling than when he smirked.

But I was completely unprepared for the man staring back at me from the other side of the door.

His silver blond hair was unbound, the wet ends curling as they skimmed his shoulders.

His bandolier was missing. So were his leather tunic and the wool layers he usually wore.

He stood before me in nothing but tight leather breeches and an unbuttoned gray linen shirt that hung loosely over his chest. A sculpted, glistening chest still damp and smelling vaguely of cinnamon.

“You bathed,” I rasped, my voice suddenly a hundred times scratchier than before. His skin was not pale and cold from the storm but flushed from scrubbing.

Like mine.

For the first time in our acquaintance, we were not separated by the layers of leather and wool that Velora demanded.

Just two paper-thin layers of linen remained between us.

I could feel the heat of him from the other side of the threshold.

My skin pebbled, my nipples tightening against the linen of my shift.

The firelight over my shoulder reflected in Garrick’s eyes, illuminating the ring of green and setting the turquoise aglow.

“So did you.” The timbre of Garrick’s voice matched my own.

Dangerous. So dangerous.

“I thought you were out in the storm.” My pride—what remained of it—kept me from saying more. From admitting the feelings that had so inconveniently crowded my empty chest.

“I was.” He nudged something with his foot.

Our packs, both stuffed with coal. In his other hand, he loosely held the bow and quiver that were usually strapped to his back. Isanara appeared between our feet, muttering something indecipherable as she shoved her head inside the nearest pack.

Garrick’s mouth curved in an affectionate smirk as he lifted the bags and moved them into the room. Isanara moved with him, far too busy stuffing herself with ore to bother removing her head or offering a word of gratitude.

“Thank you,” I said as I closed and relocked the door behind him.

I had not asked him to venture off into a storm to find food for my familiar.

I hadn’t needed to ask, because Garrick just did .

Even when I should have been the one to do it.

Even when Isanara, by her own admission, could go weeks without eating.

Despite her insistence, she was a child, she was my responsibility, and she needed to eat. So Garrick fed her.

He bent down, spilling several large chunks of coal across the wooden floor. Isanara lunged for them.

“Don’t bite the hand that feeds you,” he admonished, but I heard the amusement in his voice.

He set the bow and quiver on the table and then turned to face me, the muscles of his calves and thighs bunching beneath the tight leather that covered them.

His eyes snagged on the dark blue wool gown I’d dropped on the floor.

He swiped it up, weighing the fabric in his hand, then slowly lifted his gaze to me, as if realizing what I wasn’t wearing.

His throat slid beneath his fresh shave.

“It is already dry,” he said. He made no move to hand me the dress.

I raked my teeth over my lower lip. “A drying spell.”

His mouth settled into a line. Not firm, not tense. But not smirking or smiling either. “Convenient. I had to leave most of mine to hang in the other room.”

My brows shot up my forehead. “Other room?”

That did earn me a smirk. “I thought you might enjoy some privacy for bathing, so I secured a second room to take care of my own needs. But make no mistake—we will both be sleeping in that bed.”

That bed, just to my left, with four spindly posts and a springy mattress I’d refused to let myself lie on until after bathing.

Everything about the third-floor room spoke to lost luxury.

Once, this tavern had been busy. This room would have been reserved for the wealthiest travelers—government officials, merchants, an occasional fae wanderer.

Humans like my father. Now it was dusty and decayed from disuse.

Still, it was infinitely better than a freezing forest floor or temple barrack.

But with Garrick’s eyes caught on mine, the inner circle of clover glowing within the bed of cerulean, any horizontal surface would have done for me. I’d never found satisfaction against a vertical one, but something about the way Garrick’s fingers curved told me he’d know how to coax it from me.

I exhaled slowly, trying to steady myself. For once, it was not ice flooding my veins but warmth. I’d taken lovers over the centuries and blown through them like wildfire in the years before my death. But none had ever kindled this sort of longing within me.

We stood close enough that a heavy breath might bring our chests together.

How had that happened? I did not recall moving toward him.

But that was how it had always been with Garrick.

I was drawn to him by a magnetic force that defied logic.

Maybe it was the Lifebind at work. I’d fought it for so long, but the energy and desire to continue were quickly running out.

I took that breath. Long, deep, my chest rising, my breasts lifting until my taut nipples skimmed across the hard planes of his chest. The scrape of the linen between us was exquisite. I had no words for what I imagined it would feel like without it.

Garrick dragged in a breath of his own, the friction pulling an involuntary whimper from my lips.

He cursed under his breath in a language I did not recognize.

Maybe it was his home tongue, the one he’d known before coming to Velora.

Thinking about his tongue was a mistake, because all I wanted was him inside my mouth.

I rose onto my tiptoes, leaning into him more fully.

I waited for him to pull back. I was not going to be the one to throttle us, not tonight.

But Garrick did not retreat. He reached down with those impossibly large, infinitely capable hands.

One curved around my hip, the fingertips digging into the soft excess of flesh to steady me.

He cupped my face with the other, his knuckles tracing the line of my jaw before the rough, calloused pads of his fingers stroked the delicate underside of my chin.

We were close enough to share breath, his wine and cinnamon scent dulled by his bath, but replaced by something else that was just Garrick. My insides churned, a molten, needy mess. I’d take everything he would give me.

He leaned in a fraction of an inch that felt longer than the entire distance we’d crossed since the Mercy Gate.

“Are you certain this is what you want?” Garrick said, his lips so close to mine I felt the words as much as heard them.

There was only one answer. I’d never lied to him, and I would not start now. But I did not need words to give it. My entire body ignited as I closed the distance?—

“In front of me? Really?”

I jerked backward, grabbing one of the spindly bedposts just in time to keep from falling on my ass.

That, and Garrick’s hand on my backside.

I saw the rejection in his eyes a second before he masked it, but he still did not release me.

His hand lingered, his thumb swiping a caress over my plump, rounded curves, as if he could not quite bring himself to let go.

If I’d let him go on a second longer, I would have melted into a puddle right on top of the ancient rug that covered the wooden floors.

“Isanara,” I croaked in explanation.

The look he shot at my familiar could have cowed a dozen warriors. But my little dragon, now fully sated from her feast, merely cocked her head to the side and whipped her spiked tail.

If I stayed with him in this room, I might irreparably damage my relationship with my familiar. There was no way I would be able to keep my hands to myself. I did not want to.

I forced myself to look away from Garrick, knowing the danger if he caught me in that intense stare again. My wool gown was on the ground between us, dropped and forgotten. I slid out of his touch and crouched down to retrieve it.

Garrick growled low in his throat but he let me go.

“I am starving,” I said. “Let’s go find something to eat in the common room.”

I savored the emotions that played across Garrick’s face.

Once, I’d thought him unreadable. To others, maybe.

But not to me, not anymore. I did not know the name of his homeland or even his reason for attempting the Seven Gates.

But I knew this man in all the ways that mattered.

That might prove even more dangerous than the Seven Gates.

Worry caused the divot between his pale, silvery blond brows. Desire was the brush of his tongue over his lower lip, stubbornness that flicker in his jaw.

“As you wish, witch. I would not want you to lose an ounce off of that delectable body of yours,” he said.

Isanara groaned in disgust, but I was too busy physically turning my body away from Garrick so I could not watch him watch me dress.

It was going to be an impossibly long night.