The pinch between my eyebrows remains, and he arches his eyebrows at me.
“Did you think I would demand subservience?”
“You speak of cruelty. You insist you’re heartless?—”
“Both can be true,” he says, which only confuses me until he continues. “I could declare you a queen, give you complete freedom, and still deliver upon you intense cruelty. Rank and title will not save you in my kingdom.”
With that, he lowers us farther into the water.
The warmth covers my calves and laps at the back of my thighs, searing across my skin.
Despite my determination not to flinch, the anticipation, thefearof more pain is too much.
Mindless instinct takes over, and I attempt to wriggle upward.
It’s only as my lower legs lift around his backside that I realize how much more life there is in them. A very good thing.
But at the same time, my sudden thrashing and attempts to lift my legs cause me to lean back slightly. Not a problem if his arm were to stay firmly in place, but he eases its pressure, a cold light in his eyes.
Suddenly, I find myself arching away from his chest and tilting back toward the water.
He controls the movement, his right hand slipping from my head to between my shoulder blades, supporting my descent but allowing me to drop far closer to the heat than I wanted.
The opposite of what I was trying to achieve.
Gasping a quick breath, I try to cut through the mire of conflicting sensations I’m now experiencing.
Steam spreads hot across my back, a sharp pain.
My hair remains wrapped on my head, but gravity pulls a few wayward strands off my shoulders and into the water, where the swirling liquid tugs gently on them.
The moisture in the air slides between my lips, a hydration I sorely need.
My thighs press against Stellen’s hips, and my pelvis pushes against his body, an aching pleasure triggering the need I experienced on our race through the snowstorm.
His pale-as-snow eyes graze down my body, an assessment that feels anything but cold.
The moment stretches.
The longer it extends, the more I relax, leaning in to his firm hold and accepting the warmth rising up around me.
The tension around his eyes eases, as does the hard press ofhis lips. He tilts his head a little, and the corners of his mouth tug upward, a soft smile.
I’m not sure what caused it.
Steam continues to curl around my chest and up across my face, touching my lips, more droplets of moisture gathering. Finally, enough for me to collect with my tongue and swallow them down.
With a quiet hum in the back of his throat, Stellen pulls me back to his chest, his arms once again like steel around me.
“You need fluids,” he says, his voice flat and emotionless now despite the continuing curve of his lips.
The waterfall cascades close to my left, flowing so smoothly down the rock that there’s barely any spray. The silver flowers my Lethian armor formed float beneath it, bobbing back and forth.
Slowly, Stellen sinks into a sitting position and, at first, I have a flash of fear that he’ll submerge me deeper than I’m ready for, but he chooses one of the higher ledges, deftly sweeping my legs behind him so that they’re hooked around his waist and sitting along the ledge, the water lapping no higher than my lower hips.
Which were warmed and prepared by the steam already.
As if that might have been his intention.
