“Get your hands off me!” she demanded. “Let me go!”

Behind him, Valik cleared his throat in disapproval, but Wynter ignored him. He was toying with the girl—in part, just because he could, but also because every cell in his body was stinging with life and heat for the first time in three long years.

Nor could she hide her answering attraction from him, even though she obviously wanted to. One of the gifts of the Snow Wolf clan was a heightened sense of smell, and though it had been three long years since he’d shared the warmth of female companionship, there was no mistaking the scent of sweet, warm musk emanating from her.

If she were even the least bit as willing as her body so obviously was, he would get rid of Valik and coax her into something a little more mutually satisfying than fisticuffs.

His thumb stroked her peaked nipple through the thin wool fabric. The static sparked again, and she gave a helpless moan. The sound burrowed oddly deep inside him, rousing a response like none he’d ever felt before. Possessive, dominant, compelling.

The little maid felt it, too. And it obviously terrified her. She began to struggle in earnest, slapping his hand away and pulling at the other hand still circling her throat. Her eyes had changed color, going from their original storm-cloud gray to a bright, strangely shifting silver, as unique as her white-streaked hair. Outside, the wind whistled, picking up enough speed to rattle the windowpanes.

Valik cleared his throat again. “Enough, Wyn,” he chided. “Let the girl go.”

Wynter felt his nostrils flare with an instant stab of aggression, and his upper lip curled back to bare his teeth. He even growled, low in his throat, like a snow wolf warning another male away from his female.

His response shocked him. Rationally, Wynter knew Valik was right. He was many things, most of them unpleasant, but one thing he’d never been was ra**st. He had to let the girl go. But another, far more primitive and fierce, part of him refused. He had to touch her. Just this once at least. He couldn’t explain the compulsion, but he couldn’t deny it either.

He caught her hands and pinned them over her head, against the wall. He lowered his head towards her soft, parted lips. His lips claimed hers, his tongue plunging deep to conquer the sweet cavern of her mouth, while his free hand swiftly released the top few buttons at the front of her bodice. Her skin felt hot to the touch, as if fire burned just below the flesh. He started to slide a hand inside her loosened bodice, but she tore her mouth from his with a cry.

The window at his back exploded with a deafening crash.

Wynter cursed himself roundly and released her. He staggered back two steps and shook his head until the strange, almost hypnotic sexual compulsion faded, and his normal, cold clarity returned.

Fool! Idiot! She wasn’t the assassin. She was the diversion sent to lower his guard!

He spun around, reaching for his power. It leapt at his command with crackling, lethal force. To his right, Valik’s sword flashed free of its scabbard with a familiar, deadly hiss.

Khamsin dove for the bower doors. It wouldn’t take either Winterman long to realize there were no attackers, that there was only a broken tree branch, lying on the floor amidst a sea of scattered glass shards, flung into the room by a fierce gust of wind.

Outside, it was storming for the second time that day, the sky dark with clouds. The wild strength of the tempest matched her own mad, riotous feelings. Anger, fear, and—Halla help her—lust roiled in a fierce tumult in her belly. The skies echoed her emotions as they always did when temper or other strong feelings made her lose her grip on the powers of her giftname, Storm. Lightning flashed, and the first, deafening booms of thunder rattled the windows in their panes. Wind howled through the shattered window, and gusts of still-snowy air whirled inside.

The bower doors burst open before Kham reached them. The crash of the window had brought the guards running. She ducked to one side as the guards rushed in, then slipped out behind them and ran for the tower steps.

Time to leave, before she landed in even bigger trouble than she already was.

Halfway to the stairs, she stopped dead in her tracks. Too late.

The large imposing figure of Maude Newt, Mistress of Servants, blocked the only path of escape. She stood at the top of the stairs, flanked by two young maids who’d obviously come to tend the very tasks Khamsin had used as her excuse to get past the guards.

Kham instinctively reached up to pull her cap tighter over her telltale hair, only to plunge her fingers into bare curls. Her cap!

Newt’s beady eyes narrowed, and her face pruned tight with triumph and naked loathing. “You!” she exclaimed. Her hand shot out to clamp around Khamsin’s upper arm, the meaty fingers almost as strong and viselike as the Winter King’s earlier grip. “I knew I’d seen you skulking around here earlier. What are you about? You have no business up here.”

Her hard gaze swept over Khamsin, missing no detail of her disheveled appearance, not the loose, wild tangle of hair, not the flushed face, and definitely not the bodice unbuttoned low enough to bare the cleft between her br**sts. A sneering, speculative look entered her eyes. “Or did you? Aren’t you the sly one. Come to do a little negotiating of your own, eh?”

“You know this girl?” The White King approached, straightening the cuffs of his silk shirt. He’d obviously realized there were no assassins lurking outside in the storm, and he’d leashed his terrible power. His steward Valik followed close behind, rubbing his jaw where it had met the hard edge of Kham’s shoe.