Page 9 of The Snow Queen

Anyone else, he could have shrugged off, but not her; the old lady would bug him until he talked.

“There’s… a woman.”

“Ah!” she smiled, delighted. “Perfect. Who is she? Is she fertile?”

He rolled his eyes, ignoring the second question.

“I don’t have her name. She’s rather mysterious. Quick to disappear… Fyn, she’s out there somewhere. In the mountains. Things have changed since she’s appeared.”

Fyn turned to him, looking deep into his eyes, making him feel like a child.

Then, she chuckled.

“Well, you’ve always been ambitious,” she muttered, so low he wasn’t sure he was supposed to hear that. Then, she got up, patting his back. “If there’s a woman living in this mess, she might need your help.”

Kai doubted it; while he didn’t say it out loud, Fyn shook her head, before telling him:

“Kailan Eldorian, the land is merciless around here, as you well know. Whoever she is, this is no place for a lady to be by herself, that’s for damn sure.”

The first couple of nights, she returned home, but this time, she’d fallen asleep in a shallow cave, curled up against Bear, sharing his warmth; it was supposed to be a short nap before heading back, however, it was morning when she woke. No surprise: it had been a thousand times more agreeable than any sleep she’d had on the hard bed of ice, in her frozen palace.

A noise woke her up; a rhythmic tap, too loud and obnoxious to be a woodpecker.

She opened her eyes and frowned.

What thehell.

No wonder the cave had been so comfortable; a fire was dying out next to her, and there was a thick fabric blocking the entrance, keeping the cold out.

Eira pushed past it, and her jaw hit the floor.

The unapproachable, expressionless elf she’d met a couple of times was outside, his coat tied to his waist, his jumper discarded; he was half naked, axe in hand, splitting logs of wood.

She told herself she was unable to talk because this vision didn’t actually make a bit of sense, but to be entirely truthful, her state of speechlessness was majorly due to the fact thatoh, all heavens and hells,he was a delectable sight.

The term ripped had probably been invented to convey exactly what her eyes were roaming over right now. He was as tall as Belle’s husband, and perhaps not as large, but every bits of his exposed flesh had definition. The beads of sweat running on his skin made it glisten in the sunlight.

Eira personally knew Narcis, Apollo, Adonis and they had nothing–nothing!– on that guy.

She might have whimpered, or made some equally embarrassing sound, because the elf turned her way.

Shit. The face really did match the rest of the picture; she’d thought he’d been quite pleasing to look at, before, but well, now she saw the whole package, he took it to a whole new level.

He wore his hair long, like Aiden Archer, but his wasn’t trimmed or tied; it did what it wanted to around his face, making him look like some kind of barbarian.

“What are you doing here?” she frowned, hoping to sound forbidding.

It came out as a breathless plea. Shit.

Aphrodite. Aphroditehadto have something to do with this mess. She turned around, half expecting to see her old friend hiding in the corners.

That bloody goddess had tried to force her to feel those powerful, uncontrollable waves of lust for centuries.

“You were shivering,” he shrugged, as though that explained everything.

And it probably did.

It explained who he was, despite the scowls: the kind of man who could not see a woman shivering in her sleep without building a shelter, making a fire, gathering and cutting enough dry wood for a fortnight.

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