Page 91 of Blood Beneath the Snow

The sound he made sent a thrill down my spine. Because, yes, I wanted to come at his hands. But I also wanted to show him what I felt, to try and explain the depth of my emotion with this act.

In one swift motion, he turned me around so my back was pressed to his front, then guided my arms up and around his neck. “What were you dreaming about?” he asked, voice husky. “That night, when I put my cloak over you?”

His teeth grazed the edge of my ear and I had a brief flash of thought: Was he the kind to be gentle with a lover, or rough? Would he stretch out my pleasure, keeping me on the edge until I had no choice but to tip over? Or would he force me to come again and again until I was overspent?

My thoughts were cloudy with the possibilities, and I didn’t comprehend his words. “Wh-what?”

His hands cupped my breasts, lifting and toying with them, and I rubbed my backside against him. “Think hard, Princess. When I laid my cloak over you that night? You were having a dream. At first I thought it was a nightmare—you whimpered, and I thought about waking you up. Until I realized you were rubbing your legs together beneath my blankets. In my bed.”

“Oh, gods. I was?” Slightly mortified, my arms fell to grasp his wrists and still his hands.

When I looked over my shoulder, his pupils were so dilated, I could barely see the grays of his irises anymore. “Tell me I wasn’t wrong, even back then. What were you dreaming about, Revna? Was it that boy you left behind, or…” I didn’t miss the way he spat the word, as though referring to Arne as a boy were the gravest ofinsults. He traced the curves of my breast with one hand, fingertips landing just above where I wanted him most.

“It was you.” The words spilled from me unbidden. “I was dreaming of this. Of your mouth on mine. Of your fingers inside me.”

The noise he made then was feral, and it sent heat blooming between my thighs. “Good.Good.Even then I wanted you—wanted this. I’ve craved you from the moment you first pointed your sword at me.”

He leaned in again, but I twisted fully in his arms to face him and pushed his shoulders back. “You were a complete ass back then!”

Søren dragged his hands up my sides beneath the water and pulled me to him. This time I submitted, every inch of me hyperaware of all the places we touched. “I had to be. The last thing I should have been doing was imagining my beautiful captive naked.” His grin was sharp around the edges.

I traced the scar I’d noticed when I first saw him shirtless in the forge. It wrapped from his upper back over his right shoulder, ending just beneath his collarbone. “How did you get this?”

“My first battle,” he said softly. “I was so nervous that day—only fourteen. The only people I’d killed before had been accidents. I didn’t want to be there and I let someone get too close. This was before I knew how to use a sword.”

His sorrow radiated, and I wanted to take the question back. I pressed a kiss to his chest, nestling into him with my head just below his chin. Søren wrapped his arms around me and for a long moment we embraced in the silence.

“Come back with me,” I whispered. “Leave Kryllian behind. I’ll protect you once I’m queen.”

His next exhale was a sigh. “And leave my sister at my own queen’s mercy? No. I can’t.” He tilted my chin up until our eyes met.The fire was gone, replaced only by certainty. “You can’t save everyone, Revna. And if I end up a casualty in this fight, so be it.”

I wanted to protest, wanted to dig my heels in and hold on to my desperation. Because wanting Søren went far beyond a single night of pleasure, beyond a few weeks of forced proximity. Somehow, without me noticing, he’d carved himself into my soul. Forged a notch for himself that no one else could fill.

I knew intrinsically that I would feel the emptiness there for the rest of my days.

But I also had a war to end. Brothers to kill. A crown to seize. Priests to destroy. And as much as I wanted to reassure him that there would be no casualties, that everyone would emerge on the other side unscathed…I knew it wasn’t the truth.

So instead I demanded, “Kiss me, then. Make me forget it all.”

Determination set his jaw, and he obliged.

Gone were the soft, searching presses we’d exchanged earlier. Now lips were met with teeth scraping against tender flesh. Whimpers turned to groans, turned to “Oh fuck.” Søren navigated us through the water to where a large rock rested, pressing me up against it and trailing the sharp edges of his teeth against the swells of my breasts.

“Are you wet for me?” he asked, his baritone voice hoarse. My legs were still wrapped around his waist, but his firm hand slid to the inside of my thigh, pushing it outward. “Open up for me, Princess. Let me feel.”

I had no choice but to oblige, leaning back so that my head rested against the cool surface of the rock as he ran his fingers softly through my lower lips. I groaned at the sensation, the ghost of friction so close to where I needed it, but not enough to relieve any of the pressure building within. “Oh,” he whispered reverently, like a worshiper at the altar of a god. “You’re soaked. Even in the water, I can tell.”

A thick finger breached my entrance and I gasped as he slid it in. My muscles clenched around him. “Søren.”

“You feel so perfect around my finger,” he muttered, craning down to press sloppy wet kisses to my collarbones, my breasts. “Can’t imagine how good this will feel when I get inside you.”

An involuntary clench. “Please.”

“Please what?”

“Touch me.”

His thumb circled my clit. “I thought you’d never ask.”

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