offended him when she refused his offer? Obviously that was the opposite of her intentions.
Before she could ruminate on the problem further, he was putting her through a grueling session of defensive maneuvers, each one requiring every ounce of her focus. Normally they trained inside the temple to escape the cold mountain winds, but not tonight.
As if he wanted the environment to match his emotions. Or perhaps he simply wanted to punish her because he was a bastard with sadistic tendencies and a black soul.
After a grueling hour of meeting his relentless onslaught of attacks, she almost moaned in relief when he stopped for a break. She found a spot between two snow-crusted boulders to conjure a fire, and this time she did moan as warmth worked its way back into her fingers.
“Next time wear gloves,” he remarked behind her. She was startled by his closeness. Then again, she’d take anything that blocked the icy winds, even if it came in the form of a grumpy Shade Lord.
“I don’t like gloves,” she explained, thrusting her fingers darn near inside the flames. “They make my hands clumsy.”
“Better clumsy than frozen off.”
“Okay, well I assumed we’d be inside the temple again. You know, that place where my limbs don’t fall off after a few minutes of exposure?”
“Assumptions are lazy,” he growled.
Assumptions are lazy, she silently mimicked, grateful he couldn’t see her face. She would have argued aloud, damn his reaction, but his boots crunched the snow-packed ground as he abruptly prowled in the opposite direction.
With a dramatic sigh, she left the warmth of the fire to catch up to him. “Are we done?”
Admittedly, she wanted to continue training. She just preferred somewhere . . . warmer.
He peered down at her for a stretched out second, and she found her heart doing strange little twists beneath that unreadable gaze.
“Since you’re obviously struggling with the elements, we can end early for the evening. Or we can work on bonding with your familiar. It’s up to you.”
A lump lodged squarely at the base of her throat. In the days that had followed her familiar’s appearance, she’d nearly succeeded in forgetting its monstrous appearance. Now that hideous image of sinewy black flesh and horns painted itself inside her mind with perfect clarity.
Forcing back a shudder, she said, “If I’m going to have this thing inside me, I have to learn to control it.”
Too late, she realized he might have offered to continue training out of duty. That spending his entire evening fixing her issues probably wasn’t his idea of fun. But when she dared meet his eyes, she caught approval flickering over his dark expression, there and gone.
“But,” she added, rubbing her numb fingers together, “can we at least do it somewhere warm?”
“Is the Goddess-Born afraid of a little cold?”
“Yes—yes she is,” Haven ground out between clacking teeth. “Because she’s still mortal, remember?”
For some inexplicable reason, he flinched a little at that. Or did he? The tremor was so subtle she could have imagined it.
The first day they had returned, she explained the paintings and her suspicions about their purpose. He had gone quiet—so quiet, in fact, that she was now starting to suspect that her possible immortality was somehow contributed to his foul mood.
Which made zero sense, but sometimes Stolas was a complete enigma. Actually, most of the time Stolas was a complete enigma.
He was a Seraphian male in the prime of his life, and yet Eros had said Stolas hardly even glanced at the women in the brothel. All of his free time was spent with Haven, yet it was obvious his interest in her was fueled by duty alone and—
A gasp of surprise burst from her half-frozen lips as he slipped behind her, wrapped his arm around her waist, and took to the sky.
“A little warning next time,” she hissed as his wings sent snow flying around them.
“Warning?” he drawled, that cold voice edged with amusement. “Perhaps if you weren’t daydreaming then my intentions wouldn’t have caught you off guard. What was running through that curious head of yours, Beastie?”
“A hot bath,” she lied, knowing he probably sensed the lie and not caring. Let him wonder what she was really thinking about.
Some ridiculous instinct had her leaning back against him. Her flesh hummed where his hands pressed, flat palms radiating a teasing heat.
Warmth. Her eyes became slits as his magick poured into her. She’d forgotten he could do that. Warm her with his powers. He’d done it once before after the Woodwitch left