Page 63 of Blood Beneath the Snow

Except my traitorous thoughts immediately began reminding me exactly what that chest looked like unclothed. My cheeks heated and my brain stuttered. For a half second too long I was incapable of human speech, my mind far too invested in the thought of him stepping forward into my space, forcing me to look up at him as he ran a gloved finger down the column of my throat and—

“Are we going to stand here all evening, Princess?”

There was a wry note of humor in his voice and I jumped, shaking my head. I cleared my throat, hoping my thoughts weren’t clear as day on my face. “Then we link arms and skip in a circle.”

His aggravated sigh lifted my spirits, and I couldn’t hold in a snort of amusement. “What? Is the fierce Hellbringer too afraid to spin like he means it?”

He chuckled. “Never.”

Teaching him the rest was fairly easy. He threw himself into it and I managed to keep my imagination away from thoughts of his torso for a while. It was refreshing to be the expert for once, even if it was only for a short time. For the first time since the night of my failed engagement party, my mind was unoccupied.

I relished it.

When we reached the second half of the dance, the complicated footwork started. I wasn’t surprised when the Hellbringer hadtrouble mastering it—I’d practically been born doing traditional Bhorglid dances, and even I hadn’t perfected this one until my later teenage years.

“Why would anyone think this is fun,” he muttered under his breath.

I suppressed a smile. “Do you need me to go over it again?”

“Yes.” His hands rested at his sides, but his fingers were curled into tight fists.

“It’s a step-ball-change and then a series of twisting steps,” I began, turning to face away from him so he could watch and mimic. “So you start by stepping out with your left foot—yes, good, just like that—and then while that foot is planted, you’ll step directly behind it with only the ball of your right foot touching the ground.” I continued to observe him, craning my neck to watch over my shoulder. “Oh, I see. You’re trying to do it more like a box step, so your right foot is going too far past your left when you step back. Freeze just like that.”

Obediently, he stopped moving and I jogged behind him, dropping down to my knees next to him. Only when I landed there did tension drop a heavy hand over me, a reminder of everything floating between us.

I swallowed. No, I wasn’t going to think harder than necessary about being on my knees before the Hellbringer. There were so many ways that could go wrong. So many ways I could imagine this going under any other circumstance.

Was I imagining tenseness overtaking his whole body in a way I’d never seen before? Was his breathing heavy because we’d been dancing for almost an hour, or did it have something to do with my proximity to him?

I inhaled and forced myself back to the present. I was the only one feeling the tension stretched taut in the room; that was certain.This was hands-on learning, nothing more. I rested a hand on his right ankle and pushed gently, forcing his foot back toward his center of gravity. “When your feet are aligned, it’s a lot easier to balance.”

If the gods were watching, they had a cruel sense of humor. Keeping my hands light proved to be a challenge with the massive snow boots the Hellbringer had failed to remove when he arrived back at the prison, and just a little too much force ruined the very balance I’d been trying to help him achieve.

He lost his footing and tumbled.

I sucked in a gasp, flailing my hands automatically to try and catch him. But the Hellbringer was not a twig. Our sparring sessions had proven he was built of pure muscle, and this only confirmed it as his shoulder caught mine, pushing me to my back.

He managed to catch himself before his entire weight slammed into my body, an arm pressed into the floor next to my head. My left arm was outstretched, the right clutched to my chest and now pinned between myself and the Hellbringer. I was keenly aware of every inch of our bodies that was touching, from our stomachs to our thighs.

He smelled like pine and fresh snow. The scent filled my lungs the way the warmth of him filled the rest of me. Cautiously, I flicked my gaze to the mask.

The Hellbringer was staring at me. Or at least it looked like he was. The eye sockets of the mask were focused directly on me. How did he see out of it? Was there magic involved?

For the first time I noticed the subtle imperfections of the wooden features. It was a strikingly accurate wolf’s skull, but there were occasional nicks on the surface, evidence it had been made by human hands.

The connection was instant: the carvings on the bedposts, theway the Hellbringer had so expertly fashioned me a hilt for Aloisa from nothing but a block of wood. “You carved your helmet.”

The visage tilted slightly. “Yes.”

For an endless moment we were both unnaturally still, incapable or unwilling to move as we caught our breaths. As I relished the weight and warmth of him atop me.

My free arm moved and I reached slowly, slowly, for the helmet. He didn’t stop me, but I felt him tense. I licked my lips, nerves thrumming beneath my skin.

I brushed two gentle fingertips against the wood. It was smooth and soft—sanded and polished to perfection. How old was he when he carved this? A boy on the cusp of manhood, perhaps?

Abruptly, my thoughts scattered as he rolled off me, pushing to stand and leaving me behind, the chill air rushing in to fill the void left by his heat.

“Sorry.” The word escaped me like a curse. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to push you off-balance.”

---