Page 39 of A Bride for the Winter King
It’s barely below freezing. I can do this.
If I’m to kiss the Winter King in front of his whole court, I’m not going to let some spell shield me from his magic and him from mine. I’m going all in. Who knows, maybe my stripping session will garner a few votes.
I don’t have to be first, just high enough in the ranks to stay.
Sarafina scowls but motions me forward to the line of tape on the ground.
The quiet Spring girl in front of me, Flora, walks off the stage after a lackluster kiss. She presses a hand to her mouth to stifle a cry, and my eyes narrow.That fucker. He’s playing with us.
Cold air seeps inside my pores, but I rub the chill of my arms as the cameras adjust their lenses. I squint at the blindfold, but it looks legit, and Sarafina nods to give me the go-ahead. I tiptoe over to Elio, light as a feather without the heavy coat and boots. It makes me feel more like myself—a huntress.
Elio is awfully tall, his dark tattoos on full display. The skull-like shape I caught a glimpse of yesterday isn’t visible now, the luster of the black ink only revealing the shape of the Fae runes.
Many girls have copped a feel at this point, but I climb up the defined muscles of his stomach to his ribs with spider fingers, up and up until I reach his full lips. He frowns at that, like he’s suddenly very uncomfortable.
Taking this as my last chance to act, I throw all caution to the freezing wind blowing across the square and press my mouth to his.
Chapter 16
Love is Madness
ELIO
Kissing an endless string of beautiful girls is tedious. The kissing booth part of the carnival is broadcasted live, and the votes are tallied in real time. Theohh’s,eek’s, andyikes’ of the spectators drill through my skull, and the blindfold digs into my forehead.
Sara’s tight knot spells out exactly how cross she is with me after my lack-luster performance in the ferris wheel. I can’t go on with this charade without her support, and if I don’t want to come home to her resignation letter, I have to give the public a few swoon-worthy kisses. Nothing too hard to fake.
But I can’t take the chance not to eliminate Iris’s macabre twin, so I’ll just take all the Spring seeds out in one sweep. It was foolish to let them get this far to appease Freya. It’s not like we could ever get past our mutual hatred, not after the hell she put me through.
The kissing booth offers a rare opportunity for me to control the public vote. Spring brides are easy to spot. The overbearing aromas of roses, lilacs, or peonies make me cringe with disgustwhenever they draw near. Anything that resembles Iris’s smell is sure to trigger my damn brain.
But twenty kisses is a ridiculous number to keep track of. By the halfway point, I’ve only pecked two Spring brides on the lips and sent them on their way. There’s still three to go, and I’m losing patience.
A woman feathers closer, and I take a good sniff. The cherry blossom smell comes on quite strong as she slips her tongue inside my mouth. The taste of her is so potent and unexpected that I freeze, taking a second too long to pull away.
I flex my fists.I bet it was the evil twin. Damn her.
There’s still two Spring seeds left to eliminate.
A Winter seed approaches me next, and I linger inside the familiar scent of pine needles and snowflakes. I drag out the kiss to give myself a chance to regroup. A firefly presses her body into mine next, her breasts all but crushed into my naked chest.
“Ready to serve, my king,” she says in a sultry tone, and I let her feel me up to her heart’s content as she kisses the base of my ear.
Points for originality, that’s for sure.
The next woman is a Spring thing, and I hold myself away, counting down to ten. The strangled cry that escapes her fills me with a prickly sense of pride. Only one Spring seed to go.
The next bride inches closer, and her scent is both airy, fresh, and smokey—like rain falling over a funeral pyre. I inch closer and catch myself sighing, intrigued by the unfamiliar bite of her magic. An exceptional Winter seed, surely, and I smother the alarm bells going off in my brain. This woman can’t be a Spring seed, so I might as well kiss her back.
She grazes the ridges of my abs and skips up my chest one rib at a time with her fingers, unspooling a loose string inside me.
Her taste is even better—all cinders and snowdrops. Her kiss drags me into a mudslide of lips and rushed breaths. Beforelong, I’m drowning in her and stretch my neck to deepen the kiss, but she teases me by remaining slightly out of reach.
The silk tied around my wrists bites into my flesh as I try to reach for her.
Damn scarf…
Just as I’m about to destroy it with a flare of ice, the bothersome binding vanishes.Yes.
