Page 23 of Heart of Winter
“Fuck,” he cursed, hotly, and shoved both hands back through his sweat-damp, tangled hair. The move offered a glimpse of his throat, strong and lean, sweat sliding down it in glistening ribbons. A few curls of dark chest hair peeked from the gapped laces at the neck of his tunic, and the fabric clung to the strong, lean muscles of his shoulders, arms, back, and chest.
“Go on and get it,” Leif said, graciously, and Tessa jerked her gaze back to him.
Leif was the one who’d been showing her around all morning.
Leif was the elder, the heir.
It was Leif’s hand in marriage King Erik had offered her.
And he cut a splendid figure, with his heavy arms, and broad shoulders. When he lifted the tail of his tunic to wipe at his face, he flashed them a bit of solid, toned, lightly-furred stomach.
But Rune swore again as he picked up his sword, and flicked snow off his fingertips, and Tessa’s gaze fixed on the unhappy curl of his mouth; her fingers twitched when she saw the way his braids were coming unraveled, wild and in need of redoing.
Belatedly, she realized Oliver had been speaking.
“Tessa?”
“Sorry, what?” She cast her gaze around the practice yard, face even more heated, feeling caught out. She searched for something, anything on which to pin her attention so that she wouldn’t have to admit to anything.
“Who are you–”
“Look,” she said, as a distraction appeared at the gap in the wall, arms folded, heavy fur-trimmed cloak flapping in the breeze. “The king.”
8
If not for last night’s eavesdropping, Oliver would have been even more worried by what he’d just glimpsed. He liked to think that he could read his cousin fairly well, and despite King Erik’s assertion that she could have Leif for husband, Tessa’s attention most definitely kept straying toward Rune. The cold could be blamed for the pink in her cheeks, and the rapture in her gaze – but Oliver was well aware that people got a certain look about them when they spotted someone who stirred the fire inside them.
He couldn’t say that he blamed her. Rune was pretty in a masculine way; he was effervescent and eager and all the things young maidens might find attractive. In a few years, once he’d matured, he would be a sight to behold.
Now, though, he didn’t have any of his uncle’s…
“Look,” Tessa said, sitting up straighter, “the king.”
Oliver chose to label the sensation that ripped through him and left him jerking upright asfear, though he knew that wasn’t right at all. His palms tingled and prickled, and he shoved his hands into his armpits and schooled his features with the force of long habit. It was a shame no one ever invited him to play cards, because he was anexcellentbluffer.
Flanked by two mail-clad, helmeted king’s guards, Erik stood with arms folded, weight shifted negligently to one foot, gaze trained on his sparring nephews. He wore crimson today, a richly embroidered tunic cinched around his trim waist with a wide, jewel-studded belt, over dark leggings, and his heavy, fur-topped boots. A knee-length leather coat swirled around his calves, along with the dark cloak whose fur padded out his shoulders.
His face Oliver looked at last, the clean, harsh set of jaw, and brows, the proud nose, the eyes clear and cold as the frozen landscape around them. The wind caught at his hair, set strands waving across his face, and he tossed it back with a quick, mindless flick of his head.
And then his gaze shifted and met Oliver’s.
That sensation rippled again – flashed, a bolt of heated, fractious, unwanted thoughts and emotions that speared right through him, and left him fighting to keep his expression neutral.
It was over in a moment, Erik looking back toward his nephews. “Rune,” he called, “shore up your grip.”
Tessa made a small, amused sound beside him.
“What was that?”
“Sorry, I had a tickle in my throat,” she said, sweetly, and a glance proved she had fingertips pressed to her neck, expression one of gentle concern.
Oliver snorted.
When he looked back toward the action, Erik was shrugging off his cloak, handing it to one of his guards, and taking Rune’s sword for himself. “Now, watch,” he told his nephew, as he circled Leif, twirling the sword, shifting it effortlessly from hand to hand as he warmed up. He didn’t merely walk, butstalked.Leif looked ready, but no longer so confident. “It’s good to be eager,” Erik continued, “but you move too much. You give yourself away.” He settled into a ready stance, utterly still, not so much as a tremor in the sword. “You make it too easy for your opponent to–”
He cut off mid-sentence, and struck.
Leif got his sword up in time, and the blades struck with a sound like the harsh crack of a bell in winter. Leif and Rune had crashed together much the same way, and Rune had pushed back when Leif sought to press his strength advantage.
