Page 76 of Fated to the Frost King

It was a small, unexpected comfort as I pulled them on, fingers still shaking slightly.

And that’s when the door opened.

My stomach lurched as Draven stepped into the room, already closing the door behind him. There was no knock, no announcement.

Of course not. He was the king, and these were his rooms, and courtesy was not a skill he had ever been given cause to acquire.

He froze in his tracks when he caught sight of me. I might have taken a moment to relish in the rare display of shock on his features if this had been any other day, somewhere far away from a temple inhabited by the cruelest fae I knew.

I spun to reach for the robe draped over the chair to cover myself just as he cleared his throat to speak.

“I assumed you would be—” his voice cut off abruptly, right in the middle of what had almost sounded close to an apology, coming from him.

For a blissful fraction of a second, I thought that was why he had stopped himself, that his pride had taken over. Then I remembered.

In my haste to conceal my very naked breasts, I had put my back on display instead.

Shards. Hadn’t I been laid bare enough today, in every imaginable way?

He was across the room before I could move.

I stayed frozen, feeling a lot like my skathryn the first day she had flown into my rooms. Like if I didn’t face him, he wasn’t really here. He couldn’t see me and the map of vulnerability I had unwittingly revealed.

He was close enough to feel his unfathomable warmth searing against my skin, but he didn’t speak, didn’t move. Even his mana was eerily still, like it, too, was frozen in shock.

The air shifted, and I felt his hands draw closer to my back. They hovered just above the skin, as if even he wasn’t sure he had the right to close the distance.

I wasn’t sure either, but neither could I force myself to move.

Slowly, one calloused palm settled on my shoulder, his thumb resting on a lash mark. Heat seeped through the old wound, more soothing than it had any right to be. The other hand followed the line of one of the deeper scars, tracing its curve with movements that were gentle, but nowhere close to soft.

Restrained, like the charge in the air just before lightning strikes.

I reminded myself that these were the same hands that had taken more lives than I could count, but I stayed rooted to thespot, drinking in his unexpected touch like it was the only air in the room.

He drew a ragged breath, his exhale ghosting along my damp skin.

The scars were old, but not faint. Some were thin and surgical, etched by steady hands. Others were messier, rushed cuts that hadn't been meant to heal cleanly or puckered burn marks.

One long mark curved down the right side of my spine, disappearing just beneath the waistband of my underwear. Most of them, I couldn’t place anymore. They all blurred together in my memory like brushstrokes in the same bloody painting.

“Who did this to you?” he asked, voice low and hoarse.

I didn’t answer, not right away.

Because part of me still didn’t know what the hells I was feeling. Not all of the heat coiled in my stomach was shame. His mana pressed in around me, fierce and protective and disorientinglygentle.

But he was also a liar in his own right. He had to know what the mages were doing.

I scoffed, the sound bitter and sad all at once. “You accuse me of being a liar and then pretend not to know where these scars might have come from?”

I stepped away from him before he could respond, shoving my arms into the robe. Even after I wrapped the fabric around myself like armor, I still couldn’t turn to face him.

His gaze was heavier than the charge in the air, his footsteps unnaturally loud as he moved to stand in front of me. I stared at the floor like I could avoid him, the burning in my cheeks an indiscernible concoction of shame and fury and something else I couldn’t—didn’t want to—identify.

With sure, steady fingers, he lifted my chin.

“I am many things,Morta Mea.” Each word fell like the first flakes of snow in an avalanche. “But I have never lied to you. Now, tell me who. Put those marks. On your back.”

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