Free Cursed by Ice by Jacquelyn Frank Page A

behavior. He could see it in her wary eyes.
    “So now you will take me to him?”
    “How do I know—”
    “You’ll just have to trust me again,” he said. “But you don’t do trust very easily, do you?”
    “Why should I?” she asked, closing her eyes, relaxing and sighing through her pain.
    “I suppose that’s a fair question from your perspective.” He pushed away from the wall and moved toward her. She heard the movement and opened her eyes. For a moment she caught her breath and simply watched him. She had never known a man like him before. A man of such strength and stature. His brother was bigger and taller than he was, but it was clear Garreth was the leaner and faster of the two. She had seen it in the way they had battled the outriders for her sisters. He moved definitively and with force. He was a man who always committed to what he was doing, to where he was going, at any given moment.
    As he drew closer, she felt his approach on a level that seemed to penetrate her skin. It was … it was almost like the feeling she got when Koro was approaching. Her heartbeat grew stronger in her chest, her breath more powerful. She felt everything about him, even at a distance.
    It unnerved her.
    “Please, don’t come any closer,” she said before she could help herself.
    “I thought we understood that I’m not going to hurt you.”
    “I-I know. I-I just … Please. I need some time to—”
    “You’re all out of time,” he said, pushing past her protests and sitting down on the edge of the bed. “I think you know that.”
    “Yes,” she admitted in a whisper. “I do. I’ll … I’ll take you to him. But only because … even if you do want to kill him, he’ll die anyway. I have to take the chance that you really do want to help him.”
    “I really do want to. We will bring our most talented mem with us and she will use her spiritual healing to cure the wyvern.” He paused. “What does ‘wrena’ mean exactly?”
    “Well, it just means that I’m one of the wyvern blessed.”
    “And how does one become wyvern blessed?” he asked, reaching to pull an errant strand of her hair free from the corner of her lips.
    “That’s … a long story,” she said, fidgeting to tuck her hair back behind her ear so he wouldn’t have a reason to touch it again. But touch it he did. He ran a fingertip along her hairline at the top of her forehead, almost as though he couldn’t seem to help himself. She felt his touch sliding against her, felt it echoing into the pulse of her blood.
    “I’ve never seen hair this color before, fira. It’s like your head is on fire. It’s beautiful, really.”
    “Thank you,” she said on a whisper.
    “You’re beautiful,” he said, his tone dropping deep as his eyes fell to her mouth. He kept doing that! Why? What was so fascinating to him about her lips?
    “I’m a slave. We aren’t beautiful.”
    “I’ve hardly seen a woman fairer than you are,” he said. And for some reason that pleased her to no end. She felt herself blushing and cursed the reaction. What kind of game was he playing now, she wondered. What was it that he wanted from her?
    And then she realized what it might be.
    “No!” she cried softly just before he leaned forward and touched his mouth to hers.
    She could have plucked him up and flattened him on the ground just as he had seen her do to the bennesah, but she did not. Her hands went to his shoulders, gripping him and pushing against him at the same time.
    But no sooner had he pressed against her mouth than he was pulling away and looking into her eyes.
    “No?” he asked.
    Then he moved in and caught her stunned lips against his again, this time deepening the kiss a little. She had every intention of shouting no at the top of her lungs … until she actually began to taste him, to draw the flavor of him onto her lips. But just when she was starting to get interested, he pulled back again.
    “No?” he asked once more. And this