“You’re safe. He’s been checking on you every half hour. He brought enough wood from the island to keep us warm in here for ten years.”
“He hasn’t come inside?” I wasn’t sure if he would fit. The last thing he’d become hadn’t seemed small enough… or particularly human.
“Ah, the fire seems to be a sticking point.”
“Is he a snowman? Will he melt if he comes inside?”
He pressed his lips together to keep from laughing. I couldn’t resist a small chuckle. When he laughed back, his golden beads swinging around his face, something inside me shifted. I wanted to make him laugh, to see that smile again and again.
Whatwasthis? The mate bond?
I beckoned him closer and whispered, “What did he turn into, after the carp?”
“A sheep man, or something like it. Very furry. I could make you a lovely sweater, if he’d let me shave him.”
The shadow moved again, and the ice god snarled. “I’m hungry.” His voice shook the ice walls.
“Come in and eat then,” Lachlan called back. “Or I can bring you some out.”
“Out.”
“Is he still injured? He sounds pissy.” Lachlan nodded, and I sighed, digging into my cloak. “I’ve got a good remedy for inflamed wounds and injuries.”
As my fingers found nothing, I remembered. All of the pockets on that side of my cloak were empty, along with some of the others. Most of the seams for the hidden pockets, where I kept my most dangerous poisons, had been neatly slit.
“Fuck that walking iceberg. I’m gonna kill him, not heal him.” I went through every pocket, getting more and morepissed as I realized just how much was gone. “He took my damned garrote! You said he didn’t come inside. When would he have had the time to steal all my supplies?”
“Ah, uh…” Lachlan sounded about as intelligent as most Alphas. But he was an Omega. I expected more.
“This is an assassin’s cloak,” I said as calmly as I could, shaking it at him. “I couldn’t kill a fucking snapping turtle with what he left me.”
“Good,” a deep voice replied from the door. “You’re my prisoner, not my assassin. I will do any necessary killing. Possibly beginning with you, if your answers do not satisfy. Do you understand, little enemy?”
I froze in place as the ice god crawled into the dome, and for once, it wasn’t because I was cold. In fact, the room was suddenly so hot, I wasn’t sure if the ice was melting. Something inside me definitely was.
The male who entered had hair the silver-white of pure snow that fell past his shoulders, and features that were as hard as any ice carving I’d ever seen, but far more perfect. With angular cheekbones and jawline and a proud, strong nose, his lips were the only part of his face that seemed like they might be soft. I wanted to touch them. I had a hand half-lifted to do that exact, foolish thing, when his eyes met mine.
“Your eyes,” I gasped. There was no way to mistake this being for a human, not with those. The pupils weren’t just black; they were the darkness of the longest night, starless skies, and silence. The irises were a blue so vivid, it made me wonder if I was imagining the shade, and the whites of his eyes were the color of freshly fallen snow.
Then the ice god straightened, showing off his whole form. He had to be close to eleven feet tall, and proportional in every way. His skin was every shade of winter, from the light grays to the icy blues to the silver sparkles when winter sunlightstretched over the landscape.Those might be scales, I thought as he rolled his shoulders back, silently preening.
He had a lot to preen about. His muscles were long, lean, defined even at rest, with not a strand of hair growing below his collarbone. His entire body was an uninterrupted study in muscular perfection, with only one flaw. His cock was… well, it was the right size for the massive frame, and I may have clenched my thighs together from equal parts lust and trepidation at the thought of going near anything that immense.
But there was something at the base. I squinted to see it better.
“What is wrong?” the ice god demanded.
I just shook my head. “It’s got an extra…”
“Two knots,” Lachlan supplied helpfully. “I thought that was a dragon thing.”
“I should not have this?” For some reason, the ice god—no, Skadi—seemed nervous. His perfect, muscled feet shuffled on the icy floor of the room. “I can change it.”
“No!” I shouted, shuffling forward on my own. When I was up on my knees, his cock was still above my head, and I looked up at it, wishing I had permission to touch. “No, no, don’t get rid of them. They’re perfect. They’re lovely…” As I cooed at his cock, the two smooth lumps at the base began to expand slightly. The balls underneath it all, hidden in shadow, drew up as well, as the length of him began to shift, like an enormous ice snake.
“Do not touch it,” Lachlan hissed, and I blinked. My hand had risen on its own.
“Touch it? Of course not,” I breathed as it continued to grow. Slowly, but inexorably, pushing toward me. Like a glacier. “Skadi is not a sheep, Lachlan,” I whispered, getting control of my curiosity and dampening my absolutely inappropriate flare of lust. “But I can see how you made the mistake. That thing is the size of a lamb all on its own.”
