Page 9 of Ice Bound

The arm around her waist lowered, drawing her hips against him. A hoarse sound rumbled from his throat, followed by a soft moan. It took her a moment to realize that the second sound had come from her.

Everything within her that had been thrust aside the last five years, everything that grief had forced into the dark, was blazing back to life. After so much time alone, pushingaside any and all feeling, this was simply too much for her. She flattened her palms against his shoulders and pushed with every bit of strength and willpower she could muster.

He straightened, his arms falling away. She stumbled slightly, catching herself against the wall. Fingers trembling, she touched her swollen, tender lips. Forced apart from his, they felt strangely bereft.

She couldn't read the expression on his face. His own lips were pale, his eyes reflecting the ever-shifting firelight.

"I...I should not have done that." Her voice was hoarse, barely louder than a whisper. She was appalled with herself. Yet...she longed to taste his lips again.

"Why?" he asked hoarsely. "You were full of life. Full of fire."

"I just...can't."

"You cannot continue to blame yourself. Is this how they would want you to live, consumed by guilt and sorrow?"

Anna folded her arms over her chest, wrenching her gaze from his. It hurt too much to look at him. He was so utterly beautiful, so vibrant. And she was afraid of him. Afraid of what he stirred within her, afraid of the way he slipped past her defenses.

Neledrim was a wanderer. He would leave, and she would be alone all over again.

"I need time."

"Take care," Once again his fingers touched her cheek, guiding her gaze upward, "or your life will have passed by before you open your eyes."

"Your meal is likely cold," she said.

He dropped his hand, her cheek tingling in its wake. There was an instant's hesitation before he turned and walked to the table, lifting the bowl of stew. "I'll take it to the barn. Allow you to rest."

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. There was a new kind of pain in her chest, so different from the one she'd come to know over the years, but just as strong.

Neledrim stopped with one hand on the latch, glancing over his shoulder. "Don't be," he replied, his voice gentle. "Rest well, Anna." Then he stepped out into the dark, his form already being swallowed by furious white before he closed the door fully.

Despite the howling wind and creaking walls, despite how softly he'd done it, the closing door thundered in her ears. She was sending him to sleep in the barn again, where he would be alone and cold. Exactly how she felt in that moment, even though the fire waswell-fed.

Her appetite having fled, she removed the stew pot from the fire and cleaned up.

That night, she tossed and turned in bed, vainly attempting to fight back the feelings that kept clawing their way to the surface. Trying to ignore the memories, both of her old life and of the words Neledrim had spoken to her.

Davis had been a childhood friend, the best of them. Their marriage had been one of mutual caring, of affection, but she'd never loved him like women loved their men in all the stories that minstrels always sang. She had been heartbroken losing him, but she mourned him as a friend. In time, she would have moved on. It was Lily's death that crushed her, leaving her shattered. And it was the winter that had done it. The weather it had brought and the hardships it had caused.

Take care, or your life will have passed by before you open your eyes.

She'd spent five years alone, mourning, wandering from task to task out of necessity and little more. Afraid to welcome anyone else into her life because the pain of loss was simply too great. Is that what Davis would have wanted, with his fiery hair and bright, boyish grin?

Neledrim awoke feelings that had been long dead inside of her, made her yearn for something she thought she’d never have. Could she chance losing that?

Anna rose from bed, wrapping one of the blankets around her shoulders. Before she could change her mind, she stepped into her boots and hurried to the door.

Outside, the wind swept beneath her night rail and penetrated the blanket. The cold bit at her face, chilling her to the bone. She trudged through the snow, toward the dark shape of the barn that loomed ahead.

Her fingers were numb by the time she reached it, making it difficult to open the large, weathered door. Once it was wide enough, she slipped through, and let the wind slam it shut.

“Anna?”

Neledrim lay on his side, a blanket spread on the straw beneath him, far from the animals that would have provided him warmth. There was a single lantern lit, hanging on a nearby beam. He set the book aside, concern tugging down the corners of his mouth.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She stood there, shivering as the wind howled and whistled through gaps in the barn’s planks.

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