Somerset wanted more. He wanted Dylan—annoying, pretty, brave, human liar that he was.
And he couldn’tfuckinghave him.
He broke the kiss and rested his forehead against Dylan’s. The heat lingered, the dizzy delusion of it being something more than another fuck too. He’d not expected that.
“Don’t go,” Dylan said. “We can think of something else.”
Somerset swallowed hard and leaned back a little. He cupped Dylan’s chin, stubble rough against his fingers.
“I already have,” he said and dropped Winter’s kiss on Dylan’s soft, slightly parted lips. The cold slid in with Somerset’s tongue. It caught the breath in the back of Dylan’s throat and soaked into his bones. His eyes went heavy, and he sagged into Somerset’s arms, trying to cling to him with numb fingers.
“You… bastard,” he got out.
Then he was gone.
Somerset scooped him up in his arms and laid him out on the witch’s table.
“It’s horrible, isn’t it,” the witch said sympathetically. “Like they cracked your heart open, and it was all soft meat instead of stone.”
Somerset swallowed the lump wedged in his throat. He smoothed Dylan’s hair back from his face.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m not a fan.”
The witch cocked her head to the side.
“Do you have a plan?” She put one hand on Dylan’s foot and gave him a light shake. “I don’t think he can drive your truck in this condition.”
Somerset scratched his nose. “I didn’t think of that,” he admitted.
“You could throw a blanket over him,” the Witch suggested.
“He’s not a parrot,” Somerset said. He turned as he heard someone try the door. Two long strides crossed the room, and he bit his thumb open so he could slap his bloody hand to the door to seal it. “And my brothers aren’t stupid.”
There was a thud of muscle against wood and then a grunt of pain.
“Notthatstupid,” Somerset amended.
The Witch sucked her teeth and then turned to point at her pot. “The old ways are still the best sometimes,” she said, the tilt of her head turning it into a question.
Somerset chuckled. Let Dylan try and say he’d no sense of humor after this.
“That’ll work,” he said. “Do it. I’ll buy you some time.”
She stuck the cleaver into the waistband of her skirt and grabbed the pot. Her skin sizzled as she gripped the hot metal and tossed the remains of the stew into the fire. The grease spat furiously on the coals, the smoke black and greasy, and the cat hissed in annoyance as it vacated its perch.
While she got to work, Somerset shifted his attention back to the door.
The rhythmic thud of Stúfur’s boot against the wood echoed inside the cabin. Somerset rested his hand jamb and waited for a break in the pattern.
“Brother,” Stúfur said, his voice ragged and breathless. “You’re going to make this worse on yours—”
Somersetcouldhave broken the seal by simply scratching the blood off with his nail. Instead, he shoved his power into it. The silent command toopenshouldered up against its own magic, and the result smashed the door into matchsticks. Stúfur was right in front of it when it went.
He was blown off his feet by the explosion and tossed back into the fence around the reindeer paddock. It propped him up as blood dripped out of him and onto the snow under his feet. A thousand splinters studded his face and hands, holes torn in his shirt and trousers where the wood had punched through.
One had gone into his eye. It jiggled nauseatingly as he tried to blink.
Stúfur reached up to pull the splinter out. His first try had him grabbing his nose, and the next missed his face entirely. He finally gripped the charred end of the spike between his thumb and forefinger. It made a wet, sticky sound as he pulled it out. Blood and water dripped down his face. He squinted at the offending bit of stick with his good eye before flicking it into the snow.
