“Zane Stark.”
Zane Stark was the general who led Rymar’s armies. He was the boogeyman Legacian parents used to threaten their children when they misbehaved. He was not a young, virile, half-naked man in a snow-filled woods.
The man from my visions was Rymar’s most celebrated general? The one who’d outmaneuvered Legacian forces time and again, not through brutality but through sheer strategic genius? Even Legacian military academies studied his campaigns. In the pool, I’d seen him, not his name, not his title.
His impressive title.
Zane Stark was not someone who had the time to wait three days for a Legacian shield.
Are you sure about that? Maybe he’s been waiting for Destiny’s champion.I scowled. Having Gladys’s voice in my head sucked. “General Zane Stark?”
“You’ve heard of me?” He rubbed the back of his neck, almost as if I’d embarrassed him. I found the gesture endearing.
“I lived in Grimswood, not under a rock.” Perfect, Haven. Tell the large man with the axe that you’re the enemy.
His slow blink let me know I’d said too much. “Where’s Grimswood?”
“It’s just a neighborhood.” I glanced at a stack of logs that reached nearly seven feet tall. “What’s the wood for?”
He followed my gaze, then looked back at me with that slow smile. “Wouldn’t want you to get cold.”
I narrowed my eyes at his naked chest, pointedly ignoring how the firelight played across his skin. “Aren’t you freezing?”
“Am I distracting you?” He leaned against the axe handle, clearly enjoying my discomfort.
Yes. Badly. “That’s a lot of wood.”
“You haven’t seen anything yet.”
My cheeks combusted, and I desperately cast about for something else to say. “Are we staying here?” We? Had the cold frozen every brain cell I possessed? Or maybe it was the terrible innuendo that had rendered me stupid.
“No. I split the wood because I got bored. We’ll leave when Remy gets back. He’s hunting.”
“So you said.”
He ducked his head. “What’s your name?”
“Haven Ford.”
“Ford?” His brows drew together, and the weight of his dark gaze made me shiver. “You’re from Legacia?”
The enemy. “Yes.”
“Welcome to Rymar.”
That was it? “Welcome to Rymar?” I knew my luck. It wasn’t this good. “That’s it?”
His lips quirked. “You were expecting a welcome party? I didn’t have time to arrange one.”
“You had three days.” Where the fuck did that come from? I needed to seal my lips. Permanently.
“Maybe I didn’t want to share you.”
Again, my cheeks heated, hot enough to melt the snow. Damn Gladys and her pool filled with naughty visions.
I’d tried to dismiss them as fantasy, but here he was, exactly as I’d seen him—powerful, magnetic, and looking at me like he’d been waiting not three days but his whole life.
I pressed my palms to my cheeks, needing the cold bite of my fingertips.
