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And still she couldn’t sleep.
Ice weighed heavily on her mind. She’d written in the book nearly twenty-four hours ago—and nothing had happened yet. Certainly saving Ice was her heart’s desire. Granted, Sydney said that the fulfillment of her wish would take time … but she sensed it was time Ice didn’t have.
Sabelle bit her lip to hold in her cry. Yes, an entire night without sleep after a day fraught with danger was not helping her keep her composure or her emotions in check, but the thought of losing Ice had the power to destroy her. How could she possibly do without him when she had just realized how very dear he was to her?
Punching her limp pillow, she rolled to her side—and encountered something massive and hard. No, someone. A person very cold and still.
With a gasp, she sat up and whirled around, pressing a hand to her chest. And she stared through the dark, hardly able to see more than the outline of a man. A man in her bed. A large man, unmoving except his ragged breathing. And she smelled blood.
Heart drumming as she searched the shadows, Sabelle quickly flicked her wrist. Soft golden lights flooded the room, and she shrieked as her gaze returned to the man beside her.
Ice!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“YOU’RE HERE! YOU’RE SAFE!” Sabelle flung herself at Ice, and he groaned.
At the pained sound, Sabelle pulled back and studied him. The joy tripping through her heart quickly gave way to horror. Both his eyes were swollen shut, his cheekbones and jaw bruised blue-black. He lay shirtless on his stomach, and the sight of his back had her recoiling. Someone had whipped him viciously. Repeatedly. The flesh was in shreds, still oozing blood and swelling angrily. Fresh blood wreathed his head, as dried rivulets looked frozen on his face.
Sabelle had no doubt that, had Ice remained with Mathias even another few hours, he would have died.
She backed away and took his hand. “Can you hear me?”
He struggled to draw in a rasping breath. His chest rattled with the effort. “Princess. ”
Tears stung her eyes. “You’re safe now. I’ll care for you. ”
Vaulting off the bed, she ran to the en suite bathroom and grabbed washcloths and towels. She wet one, then carried the lot back to the bed. The limp set of his shoulders and slightly slack mouth told her he had fallen asleep. Likely better for what she had to do.
Swallowing hard, fearing she would hurt him, she first mopped the blood from his head, face, and neck. He barely moved until she encountered an open gash at his nape. She rinsed the washcloth in the sink, then returned to tend the shreds of his back.
Gently, she patted the wet cloth over his destroyed flesh. God, the pain he must have endured. To protect her. How cruel Mathias must have been, and yet she knew Ice would never tell Mathias who had the diary or where to find her.
How had she ever thought this man less than worthy? How had anyone ever thought him mad? Her brother had shown him nothing but contempt and disdain, and yet Ice had opened his heart and used his body to protect her.
He humbled her.
Once she’d cleaned Ice as best she could, she removed his pants. They were filthy and torn—and she saw fresh lashes under the ragged garment. He oozed blood from his hip, his thigh, and Sabelle tended him here, as well, wishing she could curl up against him and somehow heal him, make his pain end.
Instead, she withdrew her wand from her pack. She wasn’t magickind’s best healer, but she’d healed Bram through more than a few scrapes. Ice’s road to wellness might take a bit longer and a bit more energy, but she vowed with everything in her soul that he would be well.
With a wave of her wand, she focused on stopping the blood, mending the skin, closing the wounds. She would provide vitality and energy as soon as he awoke.
After discarding the soiled towels, she rested beside him, cuddling as close as she dared. She grabbed his hand and closed her eyes, thanking God that he was here beside her and would live. Had it been a miracle? The Doomsday Diary’s magic? She didn’t know, and at the moment, she didn’t care.
He was with her.
“Where am I?” he muttered sleepily.
“Sterling MacTavish’s estate. We’ve stopped here temporarily. ”
“The others?”
When he’d come so near death, he worried about the other warriors and their mates? Ice humbled her all over again. “Fine. Everyone is unscathed. ”
“You escaped MacKinnett’s. ” He smiled. “Good girl. ”
She would have never done it without him. “Don’t ever sacrifice yourself for me like that again. ”
He pried open swollen lids that were already recovering, thanks to her touch and her magic. “I would do it a thousand times over to keep you safe. ”
Sabelle’s heart bumped and rattled in her chest. Ice had already proven his worth, yet he kept ensnaring her heart with his protection and caring. Binding to him and becoming his mate would be the greatest privilege.
But would following that impulse lose her the only family she’d ever known? That question was for another moment.
She pressed a soft kiss to his forehead. “I missed you. ”
Ice lifted that oh-so-green gaze of his and caressed her face. “Are you well?”
“Better now that you’re here. ” She smiled, then faced reality again. “How did you escape?”
“I don’t recall. One minute I was on the ground hearing Mathias’s footsteps walk away, certain I was about to pass into my nextlife. The next, I opened my eyes to Shock’s boots beside me. ”
Sabelle gasped. Had the wizard actually helped? “And?”
Ice frowned, clearly trying to piece it together. “He came with food and unshackled me. I spit it at him. ”
With a grimace, Sabelle felt certain that, even if Shock had come to help Ice, after that stunt, Shock would have been only too happy to show Ice to his doom.
“We traded insults. Oddly enough, he didn’t hit me, just yelled. I did all I could to prolong the argument. His fury was giving me energy, and I’d used it all up fighting off Mathias’s mental invasion. ”
“He was determined to know where the diary was and which female carried it?” Sabelle asked, but she already knew the answer.
Ice nodded. “Shock stomped out in a huff, either blind or stupid. He left me uncuffed and the door unlocked. I remember wandering into the hall, searching for the stairs, since I was dizzy and bleeding, believing myself too weak to teleport. Yet here I am. ”
Yes, and whether Shock had aided his escape or the Doomsday Diary had snatched him from evil and delivered him to safety, she didn’t care. Ice was back with her, safe now.
“Nothing pleases me more. ” She took his hand in hers.
He squeezed her hand. “Sabelle, I know I have no right to ask this of you, but I need . . . ”
Need what? She scanned him from head to toe. The black eyes and beaten jaw were faintly marred with yellowish bruises now. The wounds on his back were closing up, scabbing over, the blood and the pus and the ragged flesh no more. The wound on his hip and thigh was all but healed.
Then Ice rolled to his side and revealed his need in the turgid length of his erection.
She jerked her stare back up to his face and melted. He needed to touch her, know in the most tangible way possible that she was safe, to reconnect with life. He needed to share himself with her, bond with her as much as she would allow. He needed to know, at least in this shadowed, predawn moment, she was his.
Sabelle needed that too.
Caressing his cheek, she fought back emotion as she pressed her mouth to his. He waited, his body trembling with the effort to hold back. But for her, he did, remaining nearly still while she swept into his mouth with a slow kiss of worship that left her panting when she lifted her head.
“I worried about you. So much,” she whispered.
With a gentle nudge, he rolled her to her back, then half covered her body with his own, his ma
ssive shoulders blocking out the rest of the room. He was hot now, an inferno blast that flowed inside her, bringing golden light to the places inside her that had grown dark in his absence.
He covered her lips with his own, soft but urgent, lingering but demanding. With his kiss alone, he reached deep inside her and found her heart, her need, and he embraced them. She sighed against him, desire and more rising. She could no more keep her hands from roaming his face, neck, and shoulders than she could resist taking her next breath.
“That’s it, princess. Touch me,” he invited.
She didn’t need to be told twice. With reverent fingers, she skimmed his back gently, gratified to feel his wounds nearly healed. Her palm glided down his arms, her thumb brushed over his mouth. He repaid her with a kiss that started like gossamer and ended like a hammer. Soft, then, deeper, harder, burning, until she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think—and didn’t want to.
Ice, as he did most things, dominated the kiss. The rhythm, cadence, and fury of it. The pleasure drowned Sabelle, setting her adrift. Thoughts? Gone. The outside world? Not important. Only now. This man, this moment, this promise of devotion. She opened to him and gave all.
With greedy strokes of his mouth, he took again and again, as if he couldn’t get enough. And that suited her; she couldn’t either.
When they’d first made love at MacKinnett’s, Ice’s touch had been a blend of possession, insistence, and mastery. He’d pushed her far and hard, well beyond any former lover. She’d gloried in his ability to please her without a word, and Sa-belle yearned to please him as much in return.
Now, reverence, joy, fascination tinged his embrace, as though the beautiful man had cheated death and wanted to share his soul with her.
Slowly, he lifted his lips from hers, his gaze fastened on her face. “You’re beautiful, princess. Not because you’re part siren. Because you care. ”
“You’re beautiful as well. ”
“If it’s because I care, too, then I must be bloody gorgeous. ” He smiled, then it faded to something solemn. “I haven’t cared about anything, anyone, in nearly two hundred years. ”
The grief that crossed his face was an endless dark chasm, and Sabelle ached for him. “Why?”
He shook his head. “Now isn’t the time. At the moment, I need to love you. ”
Sabelle hesitated, then nodded. Unless she spoke the Binding to him, she had no right to demand the truth. His expression told her that he meant to make this moment special, not cloud it with the past.
“I’m here for you, Isdernus. ”
Without a word, he removed her nightgown and laid her out over the white sheets, spreading kisses all over her body. He laved the side of her breast, palmed her hip, nipped at her navel, stroked her thighs.
Mere touches, and her body burned. Ice had that effect on her. From the moment they first met, when Bram refused to allow them to shake hands, Ice called to her in a way no wizard had.
But for the first time, she was nervous. She didn’t want to lie on her back and wait passively for him to touch her. Their first time together, he’d given her no opportunity to explore his muscled, heavily veined body. No time to learn textures, experiment with his taste, discover ways to please him. She yearned to … but would he welcome a more intimate touch?
“How is your back?” she whispered.
He lifted his mouth from the flat plane of her stomach. “Better. Every moment I’m with you heals me more. ”
Perfect. She anchored her hands on his shoulders and gave him a gentle shove. A question loomed on his face, but he followed her lead and rolled to his back. She raised herself over him and whispered, “Let me. ”
Ice stilled for a moment, then spread his arms wide, his body still. A mischievous smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “Anything you want, princess. ”
Just what she wanted to hear. Catching his gaze, snared by the desire burning in his eyes, she placed a kiss below his collarbones, on the swell of his pectorals. She brushed his small male nipple with her thumb, and he hissed. The little bud turned hard. Gently, she scraped her fingernail over the other. It, too, stood erect.
At the smallest touch, he responded. The reality was so heady she tested her reaction to him again, this time smoothing her fingers down the ridges of his abdominal muscles. They bunched, tightened, rippled. She sighed. Amazing. Every part of him so gorgeous, his body so attuned to her—she’d never known her smallest touch to make such an impact.
Her gaze drifted down to the hard stalk of flesh rising in an angry jut from between heavy thighs. Ice followed her stare.
“Sabelle . . . ” His voice was a warning: don’t toy with him unless she meant it. He wouldn’t be responsible for the consequences.
It was a warning she couldn’t heed, not when she needed to touch him, take him in her hand, feel the power, stoke his desire.
She lowered her palm just above his knee. His body jolted. When she caressed her way up his thigh, he closed his eyes and groaned. “Yes. God, yes. ”
Closer she crept to his erection and the heavy sacs beneath. Would he feel smooth and hot and strong? Sabelle ran her fingertips up his hip, swirled around his navel, and slowly began to follow the line of hair back down, working up the courage to answer her question.