Page 85 of The Pakhan’s Hidden Heir

It’s over. I never have to deal with him threatening me again.

Bastian killed his own most-trusted soldier because of me. For me.

If he’ll do that for me, and for our son, there’s no one else on this planet who ever stands a chance against him. And if that’s the case, then Felix and I have never been safer in our lives. This is where we belong.

I just don’t know if I can stomach the violence—and how cold Bastian is. I want warmth and tenderness. And staying here means I may have to settle for less than I desire.

35

BASTIAN

A snowball catches me square in the ear and Felix starts giggling, running away from me as fast as he can go in this deep powder.

“Coward!” I shout after him, launching my own snowball in his direction. After what happened with Akim, I couldn’t bear the idea of having either Raina or Felix go back into that room again. We’re away for a few weeks now, off to the ice castle for a holiday while it’s cold enough. Demid and the men are completely remodeling the west wing, preparing for our return.

“You’re too slow!” Felix dives behind the snowbank he’s spent the last ten minutes fortifying—a wall as tall as he is—and pops up over the top of it with another one cocked back over his shoulder. It sails past my head and hits a guard by the archway, but the man doesn’t so much as flinch.

“Sorry!” Felix yells at him but I laugh, already moving.

I come around the side of his wall and he shrieks and abandons his position, sprinting into open ground with his arms flailing.

I hit him between the shoulder blades with a handful of powder so loose it bursts before it strikes, but he goes down like he’s been shot—face first, arms out, one boot twitching.

“Get up and fight like a man,” I say playfully, but Felix lies dead as a doornail, still like he’s frozen to the ground. “Felix.”

There’s still no movement, but I hear him giggling into the snow bank.

I walk toward him and stand above him, and the instant my shadow falls across his back he rolls over, both hands full of snow, and throws snow straight into my face.

I hear Raina laughing at us as I wipe the melting snow from my face and Felix clambers off the ground. She’s under the heat lamps with Ingrid, cocoa in both hands, laughing so hard she has to set the cup down. She’s beautiful when she’s happy like this. I want to keep her this way forever.

“He got you!” she calls. “He got you so bad!”

“He cheated.”

“Mama, I killed him!” Felix chants and pumps his arms up in the air, but I’m not amused. That snow is bitterly cold.

“We don’t say that, baby.”

Then Felix is wrapped around my leg before I finish wiping my face, both arms hugging my thigh, trying to bring me down with his body weight.

He’s too weak to overpower me, but I let him pull me down on purpose and I fall backward into the drift.

He rides me all the way, landing on my chest and planting both fists in the air over his head. He cheers in cackling triumph.

“Undefeated!” he screams.

“Undefeated,” I agree, flat on my back as snow seeps into my collar. We’ve been at this for hours and I’m exhausted. When I wave the white flag, which is really just one of my woolen mittens, Ingrid straggles out, ready to collect Felix and usher him back inside the castle for hot cocoa.

“Thank you,” I mouth as she takes him by the hand and leads him away with promises to do a snowman in the morning.

The sun is setting quickly, though it’s still early.

But Raina and I deserve a night alone. It’s been a long haul to get to this place after everything we both went through.

I want tonight to be special for her.

I push to my feet and shove my mittens in the pockets of my heavy down-filled parka, then join her on the patio where she rises, ready to retire inside too.