Page 17 of Winter's Scorching Kisses
“When should I expect to be leaving?” Mathar asked, wanting to know what the timetables were.
“As soon as you are ready,” Dryden informed him. “The wedding is coming up, and we need to have Adorra here.”
“Then I will leave tonight.” He said with a firm nod of his head. He would have to get himself ready with plenty of supplies packed for the journey down there and back up. There would be plenty of dangers between this castle and the manor he once visited a long time ago. A manor he hadn’t thought he’d return to ever again.
Mathar watched his breath fan out in front of him in white puffy clouds as he came out of the castle. Night was beginning to fall, and after a quick hot meal, he was ready to get down to human territory. The sooner this mission was over the better.
The cold air of the mountains wrapped around him. One of these days he’d have to move to one of the lower valleys where it was warmer and where their farmers grew crops for the rest of the ice giant nation.
This biting cold up here in the mountains could get old after a time. It didn’t bother him since he was an ice giant, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t want to live somewhere a little warmer. He was ready for a better climate, but he wasn’t willing to leave his mountains. There was safety here, safety from the humans who were wiping through this land like a plague, but at least the rock giants were trying to do something about that. There was no fondness in his heart for any of those humans.
He patted the velvety soft nose of his stallion before walking around the horse, inspecting the packs and double checking he had everything he needed for the journey. Then he checked the front cinch of the saddle, making sure it was good and tight.
“Be safe,” Jasmine said as she walked over to him, bundled up under a million furs.
This was the exact reason humans didn’t come up here. They weren’t built for this type of chill. Their mountain cold went bone deep and froze people from the inside out.
“Wouldn’t another horse help you?” Dryden strode up beside his queen wrapping a protective arm around her shoulders.
Mathar took a few seconds to take them in. They were so different. Dryden towered over his queen. While he looked mythical with his silver hair and black eyes, she looked so dull and stubby especially with all those furs bundled around her.
“If I take another horse, it will only slow me down, and it will give her sister a chance to escape if she doesn’t believe my story about us having Jasmine.” He wasn’t going to risk Adorra stealing a horse, and he knew his steed wouldn’t obey a random rider.
“That’s true.” Jasmine nodded her head in agreement. “Adorra is a strong woman, and she wouldn’t be afraid to bolt. But,” Jasmine looked Mathar in the eyes, “if you need her to behave, I know mentioning my name will get her interest and don’t forget to bring some of her dresses up here.”
“I will keep that in mind.” He mounted up and then couldn’t resist, “Let’s hope she’s smart enough not to dunk herself in the cold river.”
Jasmine and Dryden scowled at him as he kicked his heels into the side of his horse and left them behind with a clatter of hooves against the cobbled courtyard. They could glare all they wanted. It only gave him more pleasure. He was glad Jasmine had brought Dryden happiness, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t tease her about falling in the river when they’d all first met.
His horse left the castle courtyard and entered the town that surrounded them. People were busy running around seeing to their lives and the daily tasks they needed to finish. Then he finally broke out into the wilderness.
And his heart soared.
What he needed was to build himself a cabin out here in the woods and live a life in solitude. He’d never been one for socializing. The peace and quiet of the woods were what he needed.
As he drove his warhorse further into the snowy forest, his thoughts turned to Adorra. The last time he’d seen her, he’d murdered her husband at her sister’s request. On Adorra’s wedding night. And now they were sending him to retrieve her. He doubted Adorra would know who he was, but he still wondered if she would sense that he was her husband’s killer.
Mathar just wasn’t sure he could hide it. It wasn’t like there were many, if any, men who were the same size as himself.
He remembered her shock that night though. He’d had the moonlight to his back, so his face wasn’t lit up, but her’s had been. The moment he’d plunged the sword into her husband’s back, her eyes had grown to the size of dinner plates as her brain had rushed to understand what was happening.
Adorra had glanced up with those wide eyes of hers to see him, but all she would’ve seen was a menacing shadow lurking over her husband as he choked on his own blood.
Mathar had made sure she saw nothing. Dryden hadn’t wanted there to be any evidence that an ice giant had killed a human. There was no need to see how determined the humans would be to march into the treacherous mountains to exact their revenge.
They’d all most likely parish up here before reaching the ice giant castle or any villages, but Dryden hadn’t wanted to test that theory because if they reached any ice giants there would be bloodshed. And though Dryden loved his queen he had to think about his people.
The thought of Adorra’s face shaped by horror still haunted him. Her face when she realized her husband would die… it’d been the most horrifying sight he’d seen. Which also pissed him off. He shouldn’t feel anything when it came to a human woman, but he knew the horror of seeing a loved one die. His father had gone insane and slaughtered his own mother, and Mathar had escaped by the skin on his back, literally.
Mathar shook his head. He couldn’t get distracted. People who got distracted got killed. He needed to keep his wits about him. This mission wasn’t going to be as easy as killing someone. He had to get Adorra out of her manor alive without alerting anyone.
Mathar arrived close to the edge of a forest on human territory and stopped. It’d taken him a while to get here, but he remembered the way. It wasn’t like he could forget that night. He was used to killing men, but he’d never killed a woman’s husband right in front of her face, and on a night that was supposed to be so special.
He swung a leg over the back of his saddle as he dismounted. Landing on the ground, he marveled at the fact that it could be deep winter high up in the ice giant mountains, while there was not a hint of snow down here where the humans lived.
Taking his horse’s reins in his hand, he wrapped the reins around a tree branch. There was no need to bring the beast any closer lest it alert someone at the manor to his presence. It was a good horse, but one snort and he could have a troop of humans hot on his heels.
With a pat to his horse’s shoulder, he left it. It was time to get to the edge of the forest and study the movements of the humans.
