Winter's Kiss (20 page)

They both frowned at him, clearly understanding that a vampire attending to injuries meant that he was going to clean them with his tongue and seal them with his saliva. Their evident disgust at the thought was another good reason for him to leave Nika. The vampires had laws against such a coupling. The werewolves didn’t. They often hunted and slew mixed species couples. He had expected the werewolves here to be
more
tolerant because of their mistress, but they clearly still harboured feelings of hatred towards vampires and any who dared love them.

Placing his hand against Nika’s back, he guided her into the room without a backward glance at the two women.

It didn’t matter to him what they thought but it would matter to Nika. She was the one who had to live here with these people. He didn’t think that he could leave her here if they continued to react to her this way. Perhaps it would have been better to send her here alone by car rather than accompany her. The thought had crossed his mind, but his desire to protect her had overruled it. While Willem was alive, he wouldn’t leave her side.

He closed the door behind her while she investigated the room. It was larger than his one back at the Validus mansion and grandly furnished. A massive four-poster bed with mahogany coloured hangings stood against the wall to his right. Beside it was an ornate dressing table with mirror. To his back were two wardrobes and to his left was a door, presumably to a bathroom or perhaps an adjoining room. In front of him on the opposite wall were four tall arched windows. He started to walk over to them but stopped when Nika approached the large oval mirror on the dark wooden dressing table.

Her fingers brushed the mottled bruising on her throat and tears filled her eyes. Fear mixed with the scent of her blood and her heart rate picked up. He walked over to her and came to stand behind her, staring at her reflection in the mirror and the lack of his own. When he lightly placed his hands on her shoulders, she jumped and gasped.

“Sorry,” he whispered, apologising for frightening her.

“Vampires really don’t have reflections then,” she whispered at the mirror and he closed his eyes when she leaned her back against his front. His fingers closed around her shoulders, the ache in his arm forgotten at the feeling of her body against his.

“Is your throat any better?” he said and looked down at it. He drew the tresses of her wavy blonde hair away from it and ran his fingers over the bruises. She closed her eyes and sighed, leaning her head back into his shoulder. Her lips parted at the same time as his. His teeth extended and his eyes switched. One of his claws caught her throat, nicking it. He stilled his hand and stared intently at the drop of blood that beaded on her skin.

“Do it,” she whispered and jolted him back to the world. Her hand reached over behind her and she stroked his neck. “Do it, Winter. Bite me.”

A check of her vitals confirmed that all her fear had become arousal. He placed a chaste kiss on her throat and stepped away.

“It would only make things worse,” he said and crossed the room to the windows. Outside them, the night stretched into infinity. He stared at the garden, watching the guards patrolling it while other werewolves cleared up the rubble. There had been a battle here, just as Mikael had said. On the grass near a fountain was a pile of bodies. Zombies or werewolves. He wasn’t sure which they were.

“You mean harder for you to leave.” Nika’s tone was harsh. Her voice sounded a little better though.

He sighed. “No.”

It was already verging on impossible for him to leave. Nothing he did now could make it any more difficult for him to break ties with her and return to his family. If he didn’t, she would be in danger all of her life. He had to free her, to protect her, and that meant leaving her until he could find a safe way to be with her.

“Then what?” she said and appeared beside him, her gaze boring into his face. “Why would you biting me make things worse? I don’t understand.”

“I need the people here to look after you.”

She glared at him and walked away to sit on the bed. “Like they looked after me in the woods? And what was that back there in the
hall?”

His jaw tensed and he frowned. How could he explain it without making him sound as though he was the weak fool he truly was for her?

“A message,” he said and turned away again. His arm ached and he placed his hand over it, squeezing the wound. Blood eased through his fingers.

Silenced filled the room. Nika continued to stare at him.

His vision blurred and he closed his eyes. Where was that blood? He looked down at his hand and moved it slightly so he could see the wound. It was bleeding badly and it wasn’t the only one. He didn’t look at Nika as he walked across the room to the door he had noticed. He opened it and was relieved to see it was the bathroom as he had suspected. Stripping off his armour and shirt, he carefully assessed his wounds and the damage done to his body. The cleanness of the cuts meant they would be slow to heal. Flesh knitted together quicker when the cuts were ragged. He looked around the bathroom for something he could use to bandage the wounds and help them bind. There was nothing but towels. Even the cabinet above the sink was bare.

He washed his face first, conscious of the blood and cuts on it. They would heal quickly enough. He cleaned his arms next, scrubbing them with water so he could have a better look at the wounds that littered them. His armour had protected his torso and his legs were untouched. He needed his arms though. He needed to be ready to fight in case Willem showed up at the castle.

Patting his skin with one of the white fluffy towels, he worked methodically to dry himself and tried not to disturb his wounds too much. The towel was damp and stained red when he had finished. He dropped it to the floor and a gasp sounded behind him.

Nika.

“Winter, let me help,” she said and came forwards. She hesitated when she went to touch his arm and he could sense her trepidation about helping him. Blood trickled down his arm when he lowered it and dripped from his fingertips to the floor.

“Leave,” he said and raised his other arm to his mouth. He licked the cuts on his forearm to seal them.

“I
want
to help.”

“Leave,” he repeated and continued to clean and seal each cut. When he had finished one arm, he moved to his other, licking the trail of blood off it. Nika hadn’t moved. “I do not require your help.”

The voice at the back of his mind called him a bastard again. She only wanted to help him. Was he so afraid of the Law Keepers that he was going to push her away mere hours after taking her virginity? What kind of cold-hearted fiend was he? He was already done for. If the Law Keepers discovered that he had even touched the girl then he was dead. They would haul him into court and he wouldn’t be able to lie. He would confess it all. He fell in love with an angel, a heart so warm that he wanted it to be his, and when it was taken from him, he protected her, took her heart and left.

No, that wasn’t how it was. Nika had asked him to give her that moment, but it had only hurt them both in the end. He had watched her closely enough to know that the pain he felt was reflected in her heart. Their moment together had only made things harder. He needed to leave, needed her to understand that he was doing this all for her sake—to protect her. He had to make amends for what had happened to her because it was all his fault. His failure to protect her, his constant delay in asking his lord for permission to turn her, had resulted in her becoming a werewolf. He couldn’t change what had happened to her, but he could and would protect her.

He didn’t want to hurt her but it was necessary—a small amount of pain to save her from a terrible fate at the hands of the Law Keepers, or a future spent hiding her feelings and meeting in secret. Both would be the end of her. If they were to be together, he wanted the relationship to be as open
and
normal as possible. She needed that. Skulking around would only end up hurting her and would destroy their love.

His fists clenched. No matter how long it took, he would find a way to be with her, in the way that she deserved.

“Winter?” she whispered and touched his
arm,
her hands closing shakily around his wrist. “Please let me help.”

There was a knock at the bedroom door.

“Answer it,” he said with a nod towards it, hoping it was blood.

He needed that more than anything. If it didn’t come soon, he would cave and take what Nika had offered him. He was worried that he wouldn’t be able to stop. He needed blood, was so weak that he would kill to get it. Nika wasn’t safe until he had quenched his thirst and bound his wounds.

Even then, he didn’t know whether he could stop himself from biting her.

It was sweet temptation, a blissful fantasy that he longed to indulge in. The one moment with her had opened the floodgates and the battle against his feelings had become a war.

One that he could lose at any second.

Nika reappeared, holding a tray with a flask, two glasses, some red wine and some bandages on it.

“They think of everything,” she said and then her stomach growled. She frowned down at it. “Almost everything.”

Winter stormed to the door and opened it. The woman who had brought the tray was only halfway down the corridor.

“You,” he said and she stopped and turned with a scowl. “Nika needs food. She has not eaten in days.”

The woman regarded him coldly and then walked away. He probably should have addressed her in a kinder manner. He rolled his shoulders and they ached, his bones cracking. He sighed when he felt the blood trickling down his arm, raised it, and began licking the blood off it again. It was hard to be civil while pain shortened his temper and hungered gnawed at his gut.

Closing the bedroom door, he turned and found Nika sitting on the edge of the bed, the tray beside her. She pulled a face at the canister she held, the lid in her other hand.

“I think this is yours,” she said and held it out to him.

Winter crossed the room and snatched it on his way to the window. Staring out into the night, he took a deep breath and his stomach ached at the sweet smell of the blood. Closing his eyes, he gulped down the contents of the flask. It was gone in seconds, leaving him tempted to lick at the top of the canister or put the lid on and set it upside down somewhere for a few minutes so he could drink every last drop.

“You really are hungry,” Nika said behind him.

He wasn’t surprised to find her there, standing close by, watching. She reached up and swept her thumb across his lower lip. It came away stained red.

His gaze shifted to her throat and the tempting pulse that flickered there. His mouth opened. His teeth sharp and ready. Instinct said to take it. He needed blood. She was offering it.

He turned away, getting control of himself, and stared down at the garden.

“I see.” Nika took the canister from him and screwed the lid back on. “It’s like that. I understand. You don’t want to bite me. I’m tainted, right? I didn’t hear you complaining back at the barn.”

“It is not that, Nika—” “Save it,” she said and walked away. She snatched the bandages from the tray and haphazardly wound one around her cut hand.

He sighed when she pinned it in place and then she sat down on the bed. The bandage around her hand was a mass of white, inches thick and loose. It wouldn’t do her wound any good.

Winter moved across the room and knelt in front of her. His arm ached when he took hold of her hand and carefully undid the bandage. He frowned at the cut. It was a clean
slice
across her hand.

“Who did this?” he said and looked up at her. She stared at her hand.

“Me. I was riding to get back to you and had drawn my dagger. I cut myself by accident.” Her gaze shifted to meet his.

She thought he didn’t want to bite her because her blood was tainted. He wished it were so. Her blood called to him, luring him with a siren song so sweet that he was almost a slave to it. He would prove her theory about his resistance to biting her wrong. Her blood wasn’t tainted.

Lowering his head, he closed his eyes and breathed in deep when his mouth neared her hand, wanting to
imprint
the
delicate
scent of her blood on his mind. He would never find any sweeter and more precious to him.

She tensed when he licked the back of her hand.

“What are you doing?” she said and tried to pull her hand free.

“Healing you,” he whispered, head turning fuzzy as the taste of her blood on his tongue intoxicated him and urged him to take more. “Just as I healed you before.”

“You healed me? When you licked my wound, that healed it?”

“It sealed the cut and helped it heal,” he said and licked the wound again, savouring the taste of her and groaning inside as his body responded, arousal spiralling through him. He reined it in, desperate to keep control. Just this taste of blood. That was all he was taking tonight.

He released her hand
and
sat back on his heels, blinking to clear his mind. His stomach cramped and his teeth itched for more.

“You’re bleeding again,” she said and picked up the bandage. “And I’m really no good at this.”