Page 57 of Kiss of Frost

“I don’t know where to go from here,” he said. “I don’t know what to do next.”

I leaned forward and rested my hand on his knee. “Then we’ll do what’s easy. We’ll go to bed, and we’ll start new in the morning.”

He stared at my hand for a moment. Then he placed his on top of it. “Is it really that easy?” he asked, more than a hint of hope in his voice.

My heart swelled, and I turned my hand so I could rub my thumb over his knuckles. “It can be. If we’re willing to work for it.”

His pale eyes held mine. I’d thought them cold, but now I realized I was wrong. They weren’t cold.

They were pure.

“I am,” he whispered.

“Then that’s what we’ll do.” As the three of us rose and started for the door, I stopped. “There’s just one problem.”

Georgie frowned. “What is it?”

“We need a bigger bed.” When she blushed furiously, Graeme laughed—and the rusty sound was so delightful, I immediately amended my mental checklist, adding make Graeme Abernathy laugh at the top.

“Don’t worry, lass,” Graeme said, “I think there’s a bed in here somewhere. The lad and I can take it apart and haul it upstairs.”

“Calling me lad again,” I murmured, but my rebuke was probably ineffective with a smile still pulling at my mouth.

A few minutes later, we found the bed. As Graeme knelt to begin dismantling it, I caught Georgie’s eye and winked.

“What was that for?” she asked, suspicion and curiosity warring for dominance in her purple eyes.

I tipped my head toward the hearth. “You see that fur rug over there?”

She followed the direction I’d indicated. The blush in her cheeks deepened. “Is that…?”

“Aye,” I said. “We’re taking that upstairs too.”

Chapter Nineteen

GRAEME

I stood at the window in the North Tower and realized that Callum was right: Things seemed a bit easier in the morning.

The night hadn’t brought any big revelations. Georgie, Callum, and I hadn’t fixed anything. After Callum and I reassembled the bed, the three of us had simply…slept. I’d been certain I would spend every moment tossing and turning. Maybe rise in the middle of the night and return to my tower and everything that was familiar. I’d spent so long searching, I wasn’t sure I could lie still and let my mind drift instead of thinking about the next book or another spell or something I might have missed.

I hadn’t expected the warm press of Georgie’s body to feel so perfect…or for Callum’s soft snores to weight my eyelids until I drifted into the most restful slumber I’d experienced in…

Well, a long time.

I certainly hadn’t expected to wake with Callum’s lips brushing my cheek and his sleep-roughened voice whispering, “Be right back. I need to make my bladder gladder.” Half of what came out of Callum’s mouth was gibberish to me, but I’d understood that one. The smile in my heart needed no translation.

Through the window, the Oracle gleamed blue on the horizon. My heart thumped steadily in my chest, each beat a reminder that I was an oath-breaker. As far as I knew, the Brotherhood had no protocol for dealing with dragons who betrayed their vows. Even if such a protocol existed, there was no one left to punish me. The Grand Master had died fighting in the War of the Firstborn. Dozens of other ice dragons had perished the same way. The order had dwindled, and now we sped toward becoming a footnote in history.

But my vow to the Brotherhood wasn’t the only one I’d broken. The horizon blurred as Hamish’s voice flowed through my head.

I have to go, Graeme. You found what you were looking for.

Guilt tugged at my heart like an anchor. My selfishness had kept him here, a prisoner on a plane he could no longer touch or feel. Had he suffered? Or had the icicle that took his life stopped him from mourning our love? From longing for a future that was as cold and broken as his body at the bottom of the tower? How could he ever forgive me? Was he even in a position to forgive me?

These questions whirled through my mind. They would spin into something beyond my control if I let them. Like King Cormac, I risked retreating into fire—or ice.

But I had something else in common with Cormac. My guilt was heavy, but it had a counterweight in the form of a sweetly curved witch and an impertinent incubus. The mere thought of them being hurt—or hungry—had loosened the ice around my heart. Then I’d watched Callum fall, and the ice had crumbled. Seeing Georgie on the roof of the tower had blasted the last of it away.

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