There was no waiting, no long, drawn-out pleasure. Only driving need and hunger. He lifted his head, eyes gleaming in the dim light.

His mouth closed over her, claiming her lips with the same rapacious hunger as he’d just claimed her breast. His hips surged forward with blind, mindless force. Virgin flesh resisted for a brief instant, then sundered. Tight muscle yielded.

His hands clutched hers, fingers twining tight. Icy Snow Wolf covered burning Summerlea Rose as her body sheathed his in blazing heat.

Lightning seared the sky. Thunder shook the earth with a tremendous, booming crash. Just as it had at the wedding, a wild, storming rush of air swept through the open windows, snuffing every candle and plunging the room into darkness.

CHAPTER 6

The White King’s Bride

In the dark of night, while Wynter slumbered heavily beside her, soft hands woke Khamsin. “Come sister,” a quiet whisper urged. “It’s past three. Time to go while you still can.”

She opened her eyes to the faint glow of a shuttered candle. The familiar shadowy shapes of her three sisters huddled beside the bed. They carefully lifted the weighty anchor of Wynter’s arm and helped Khamsin slide free and sit up on the edge of the bed.

Satin, cool and slick, spilled over Kham’s shoulders, drawing an involuntary hiss from her throat as the fabric brushed across the torn and sensitive skin of her back. She tugged the robe into place and accepted the hands that helped her stand up. Her knees wobbled, and her legs started to buckle. She would have fallen, but Spring and Autumn quickly slipped their shoulders under her arms and took her weight upon themselves.

“Careful,” Summer shushed with soft urgency. “You’ll wake him. This way. Hurry.” The pale, golden glow of Summer’s shuttered candle cast a faint illumination across the far wall, lighting the gaping darkness of the open dressing-room doorway.

They had all agreed last night that it would not do for Wynter to wake and find his bride unveiled in the stark, revealing light of day. He was not a man to take deception lightly, and the longer they could hold off the revelation of Khamsin’s identity, they’d decided, the better. And to ensure that he would sleep through her depature, one of the incenses that had burned in the chamber last night included a powerful sedative.

Khamsin cast a glance back over her shoulder. In the faint reflective glow of Summer’s lamp, she could see the shadow of the Winter King, large and magnificently naked, sprawled facedown across the bed. A sharp bite of warmth drew her womb tight at the dimly illuminated sight of rounded, curving bu**ocks, broad, heavily muscled shoulders, and powerful limbs. Summer Sun! If not for the silky spill of winter white hair, she might think Roland himself lay there in her marriage bed.

For all that he was fearsome, for all that he could freeze a body with a single look, she suspected there were worse fates for a woman than to be tied in marriage to such a man.

Despite his reputed coldness, despite even her own painful wounds, when he’d touched her, he’d turned her body to living flame. And no matter how much she might wish otherwise, she knew that wasn’t just the arras leaf. It frightened her, that power he seemed to have over her. Frightened her . . . and intoxicated her. Even now, she could feel the hunger growing again, the pull drawing her towards him. She tamped it down and resolutely turned away.

Leaving Wynter to his drugged slumber, her torn back aching fiercely, Khamsin crept from the bridal bower and exited through the servants’ corridors to avoid the detection of the guards posted at the bedroom door. Summer hurried before them, holding her lamp. Autumn and Spring kept supporting arms around Khamsin. Together, the four of them climbed the narrow, lamplit servants’ stairs and made their way to the remote wing that housed Kham’s rooms.

Thankfully, Tildy was not there. The nurse had vacated her post and left behind healing cream, a collection of growing lamps, and a pot of herbs on an unlit burner with instructions to simmer the contents for their healing vapors. Khamsin’s sisters helped her to her bed, rubbed the cream gently on her torn back, and started the herb pot simmering. To her surprise, they insisted on staying with her.

“We’ll each take turns watching over you,” Autumn said.

“There’s no need,” Khamsin objected. “You should go, before anyone finds you here.”

“It’s the least we can do, Storm,” Summer said. She smiled so sadly, Kham wanted to weep. “Don’t fight us on this, sister. In your current condition, you know you can’t win.”

“I’ll take first watch,” Spring said. “There’s a bed in the next room. You two go get some sleep. I’ll wake you in a few hours.” When the others were gone, she bent over and brushed a spiral of dark, white-streaked hair from Khamsin’s forehead. “Poor little Storm,” she murmured. “Don’t fight so hard against everything. You’ll batter yourself to death.”

Khamsin turned her head away. When she heard Spring sigh and move to the corner of the room to take Tildy’s chair, Kham let the tears gathered in her eyes spill silently into her pillow.

Wynter woke alone.

He knew it before he opened his eyes. Knew it the moment he smelled the scent of his bride, not warm and womanly soft but cooled by the hours that had passed since her departure. She’d left him. In the middle of the night, while he slept in a drugged and exhausted stupor, she’d fled.

Damn her.

He opened his eyes and jackknifed up into a sitting position on the bed. He would not tolerate arrogance, he would not tolerate defiance, and he would definitely not tolerate rejection from his bride. She would come when he called and stay until he bid her go. That was a lesson he would see to it she learned as soon as he tracked her down.