Free The Winter King by C. L. Wilson Page B

Kham meant business, and she kept her hands to herself. “Get on downstairs now,” she snapped. “We’re going to see your father.”
    Khamsin briefly contemplated the idea of running for it and leaving Newt empty-handed, but gave up the idea almost immediately. Newt didn’t need Kham in tow. She had witnesses. Half a dozen of them. Even if the White King kept silent, Pansy and Leila wouldn’t. They’d seen her distinctive hair, and their livelihoods depended on keeping in Newt’s good graces.
    Her father was going to be in such a rage when he realized she’d openly defied him and entered the tower. Worse, that she’d been caught there by the White King.
    Newt herded her down the tower stairs and through several levels of the palace towards the king’s private office. As they walked, Khamsin puzzled over the strange, unseemly twist her foray into the bower had taken. What had come over her? He’d touched her, and it was like electric flame—like the lightning she could summon—shooting sparks through her veins. She’d all but melted, boneless, at his feet. He was the Winter King, her enemy, a man feared for his killing coldness, yet when he’d touched her, she had not frozen. She’d burned.
    Her face flamed just thinking about it. About him. His eyes, so pale, so foreign, piercing as if he could see into her very soul. His hands, commanding, callused from years spent holding sword and reins, capable of violence, yet also capable of rousing such . . . incredible sensations.
    She shivered and felt the clenching in her loins that left her weak at the knees. Best she stay away from him from here on out.
    Far, far away.
    “What in Frost’s name that was all about?” Valik demanded as soon as the two skittish maids finished fumbling their way through their duties and departed.
    Wynter stood beside the broken window, staring out at the storm-tossed sky. The maids had cleared away the broken glass, but the carpenters and glassmakers hadn’t yet arrived to replace the window. “I don’t know what happened, Valik. I can’t explain it.”
    “I’ve known you since we were both infants, but I’ve never seen you act that way before.”
    “I’ve never felt that way before.”
    “What way?”
    Wynter glanced down at the cap in his hands, surprised to find his fingers gently caressing the fabric as they’d wanted so desperately to caress the maid’s soft skin. He clenched his hands, crushing the cap, twisting the fabric in his hands.
    “Driven,” he admitted. “Possessive. Enchanted, almost. I touched her and it was like . . . like fire in my soul.” He looked out into the roiling clouds. He could still see her in his mind, her flashing eyes and fierce temper, her hair like a night sky streaked with lightning. He could still smell the captivating, enthralling scents of her, the soft aroma of her skin, the heady perfume of her undeniable sexual response that even now made his body grow painfully hard just remembering it. He threw the cap on a nearby table and turned away from the window to pace the gleaming hardwood floor.
    “I don’t like the sound of it, Wyn,” Valik declared, frowning as he watched his king pace. “You dined with the Seasons earlier. Think they spiked your food with arras leaf?” Summerlanders were infamous for their hedonistic ways, and arras leaf was one of their most powerful and renowned aphrodisiacs.
    “To what purpose? So I’d plow a chambermaid? Or be off my guard for an attack that never came?” Wynter shook his head. “I’m not drugged, Valik. I didn’t leap on those little fawns Pansy and Leila.” He hadn’t felt so much as a passing interest in either of them even though he’d still been rock hard and aching from his all-too-brief interlude with the storm-eyed maid. “No, it was her. Something about her.”
    He paced the length of the room again and paused beside the jeweled vanity set and the worn leather gardener’s journal Valik had removed from her