Though she’d been away from home for days, somehow she still smelled like Frostveil. Or perhaps that was my imagination producing a distraction to the shame welling up inside me. I was her older brother, the protector of the family, and at the time when my sister had needed me most, I hadn’t been there. Hadn’t considered what danger she might face.
“I’m sorry too.” Saga pulled back and brushed away tears with the back of her hand. “It pissed me off and broke my heart. If I could spare you those emotions, I wouldn’t have told you, but it also clearly shows that he’s changed, Vale. Obviously, that’s been happening for a while, but I don’t think there’s anything left of the brother we grew up with.”
“I’ve feared that for a long time,” I admitted. “He tried to harm Neve.”
To kiss her too.The memory of the day he’d whispered my mate, and how I’d nearly beat Rhistel to death afterwards made me both furious and upset.
“We’re all in danger from Rhistel,” Saga swallowed, “but her and Thyra, maybe more so than anyone else.”
It shattered my heart to hear her words, true as they were. If Rhistel was willing to harm Saga, there was no line my twin would not cross to keep the Crown of Winter’s Realm.
Chapter 4
NEVE
Iperched on the bed, my nape still damp from my quick bath.
Vale had been speaking with Saga for longer than I’d expected, and despite having braided my long tresses to avoid them dripping everywhere, a chill was setting in. I was debating pulling a fur over me when the door opened.
My mate appeared, and though just seconds before I’d had every intention of losing myself in his body, my shoulders stiffened. His face was pale. Bloodless.
“What did Saga say?” I crossed the room and took his roughened hands in my own.
“The reason she’s here.”
Which I thought we’d already covered. Apparently not. “Which was?”
“Rhistel threatened her life, so she fled.”
My chest stilled. I despised Vale’s twin, and yet, when I looked up at my mate’s face, pain cut through me. Vale and Rhistel were brothers. Twins. I knew as well as anyone who had a twin how unique that relationship could be, how intensely you felt towards one another, and I hadn’t grown up with Thyra. Stars, she hadn’t even liked me just a few weeks back. Still, fromthe moment I’d learned who she was, how we’d come into this world together and survived when the rest of our family did not, I’d had the urge to win her over. To be true sisters.
Vale, on the other hand, had grown up with Rhistel, but the passing turns had only torn them apart.
“I’m sorry, my love.” I hugged him, and my hands began to rub his back comfortingly. He returned the gesture, embracing me as if I was the only thing holding him together at that moment. “That must have been difficult to hear.”
“I don’t deny that Rhistel has murder in his heart, but Saga . . .”
“I know.”
We stayed that way until Vale heaved a long sigh and pulled back.
“I thought you might already be sleeping when I came in.”
Heat filled my cheeks. “Not quite.”
Vale arched his eyebrows as his thumb absentmindedly rubbed the top of my hand, right below the snowflakes lining my index finger. “What did I say?”
“Well, I was planning to seduce you, so I was waiting up.”
The sadness left his face to be taken over by surprise. Then he chuckled. “Seduce me? We’ve been awake for two days, Force.”
“I nearly lost you.” I savored the pet name he’d given me, one that showed respect and love for my power, and pressed my right hand to his chest. A soft exhale parted my lips. He was still so solid, his breath coming and going, steady, just like my mate so often was.
The image of Vale inside a cocoon of spider silk, lined up against a craggy cavern wall with my friends, would never cease to haunt me. Had the dwarves and the other rebels not discovered where we were in time, Vale could have become spider food. Or worse, he might have suffocated inside the silks like poor Ulfiel.
If our journey to the village of Eygin had taught me anything, it was that time was not a given. Vale and I might live many centuries together. Or one of us might die tomorrow. The latter thought sent a visceral stab of pain through me, and my fingers pressed harder against the fabric covering his heart.
“Impending death brings out the most primal of urges.” He lifted my other palm, kissed my hand. “And I won’t say no to loving my mate, but first I should wash. I’m covered in filth and can still feel that silk on my skin.”
