Page 79 of Blood Beneath the Snow

“Torturing her? No. Holding her captive? Also no. Sonja probably thinks I’m dead, truth be told. I have no idea where she is, only that she’s safe and healthy enough. But the queen knows. And she will have Sonja killed the instant I step out of line.”

My heart sank. This was the knifepoint he’d hinted at when I confronted him at the forge. A sister. One who clearly meant a lot to the Hellbringer.

The question of his parents flitted across my mind. They werearistocrats, surely—to date Volkan, the Hellbringer would have been running in upper circles. Was the Queen of Kryllian threatening the daughter of her staunchest supporters? Or was there more to the general’s history I wasn’t picking up on from the basics he chose to share?

It struck me then that the Hellbringer and I were far more alike than I’d ever wanted to believe. Two pawns of our respective monarchs, the lives of our siblings strangely tied to our freedom.

“Death is a strange concept in my family,” I offered quietly. “My brothers were raised knowing it followed their every footstep. Each year the Trials grew closer and their fates more certain, especially as our parents began to show favoritism toward the more powerful of them. When I planned to involve myself in the Trials, I knew it would mean killing some of them. And yet, I still can’t imagine it.”

The soulless gaze of the mask was fixed unwaveringly on me. I wondered what expression he wore beneath it—whether the conversation was as raw for him. I continued. “If someone was holding Frode captive, I would do the exact same thing as you.”

“Become a monster? I doubt that.”

“You’re more human than you think.” I kept my voice soft. The feeling that he would shut down if I pushed him too far was instinctual, innate.

Something had changed between us, but I didn’t mind. The Hellbringer was gentler, more careful with me. And now the secrets between us thinned with every passing minute as he bared pieces of his soul. Told me of his sister and the atrocities he committed in her name.

The trust he placed in me felt like the most tender of gifts. And while maybe once I’d believed him to be a monster, I wasn’t sure he truly was—not anymore.

I wanted to see his face. To lean over and pull the mask off, tolook into his eyes and memorize the sadness there. To do everything in my power to make sure he never felt like that again.

Instead, I stood from the table and held out a hand, palm open. “Dance with me, Hellbringer.”

I watched his throat work for a moment before he tentatively reached out and took my hand. Tugging him from his seat reminded me of the last time, when I’d only been his prisoner for a week and a half. For a man who moved like a shadow in battle, he had two left feet on the dance floor. It hadn’t taken long for him to become the frustrated one.

This time he was marginally better. I called out the steps to the line dance in a rhythm. The Hellbringer was consistently half a beat behind, needing to watch my every move before he made his own. And when he tripped and fell on his ass trying to do the step-ball-change, I cackled, tears streaming down my face from laughter.

Grumbling, he pushed to his feet. “We’re doing this my way now.”

The next thing I knew, we were so close our heaving breaths brought our chests mere centimeters apart. One of the Hellbringer’s hands was wrapped tight around my waist and the other grasped my own, lifting our joined palms up in the air. My free hand found his shoulder, resting there lightly.

The laughter faded into silence. The only sound was the crackle of the fire, which cast shadows over the mask.

It was terrifying. But I was not afraid.

“This is a far different kind of dance.” My voice was hoarse, my throat full of something I couldn’t name.

The fingers on my waist tightened briefly, then relaxed as he replied, “This is the only kind of dancing I’m familiar with.”

He stepped backward and I followed, his movement so certain, I didn’t fear missing a step. The Hellbringer would guide me.

“You were raised an aristocrat, then?”

Why was my voice so breathy? Why was my heart pounding so loudly? Why was I so acutely aware of every inch of skin touching the fabric of his borrowed clothing?

Why did I wish I knew what his lips looked like?

“Yes and no.” His response was the only warning he gave before he spun me, sending me away from his warmth for a brief second before pulling me back in.

When our bodies reconnected, touching all the way down, my breath left me in a whoosh. This, nothing more than the barest connection, was even more electric than my dream of him had been. I wanted to kiss him or bite him; I wasn’t sure which. Neither felt adequate to express what was happening inside me right now, the way I wanted to meld myself with him. We understood each other so precisely, so intrinsically. Surely there was a way to commemorate it, to force the knowledge on the world, ensure no one forgot.

My next inhale was filled with him. The pine and snow scent he carried everywhere, the faint trace of smoke from our living quarters. Did his skin smell like this, too? If I ran my tongue over the planes of his stomach, would my mouth taste of the northern wastes?

Slowly, ever so slowly, he leaned forward until the forehead of the mask was pressed to mine. I couldn’t hold in the sound that escaped me.

“Something true.” My voice trembled under the magnitude of what I couldn’t hold back any longer. “I want to see your face. I want to take off your mask.”

“I know,” he murmured, a hand coming up to caress my cheek. “I know. But we can’t.”

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