Winter's Bride - Candace Wondrak Page 0,42

else. I kept it tied tightly around my waist, breathing heavily, as if I’d really been with both Abner and Ishan at once.

Ooh, that was certainly a thought that would follow me to my grave. An impure thought through and through, but it wasn’t like I could help it. I supposed losing my virginity to that traveling merchant’s son a few years ago was also impure, since we hadn’t been married, but I never saw myself with any of the boys in my village.

Boys. That’s all they’d been. Abner? Ishan? They were gods, handsome in every way, on their own level when it came to their masculinity. They were the kind of men most women could only dream of, and me? I was actually here, caught between them.

Perhaps it was due to that dream, or perhaps it was due to something else, but I had a thought right then, a thought that would surely petrify my family if they ever heard it: what if I gave myself to them? What if I had them both in the most carnal way possible? It would surely be the most exciting time of my life, memories I would not soon forget, and maybe it would help make my decision clearer, easier.

Or maybe that was wishful thinking, and having sex with them would only serve to complicate things further.

Folding my arms over my chest, I slipped out of my room, moving into the quiet, dim hallway. I glanced down it both ways, knowing I was alone and yet still feeling as if I was being watched. Ishan could be nearby; he very well might not have left me after I told him I needed time, sticking to his invisibility to keep an eye on me.

Well, that would be an invasion of privacy, definitely, and if he was doing it, he and I would have to have a little talk about it. But not right now.

Right now, I… well, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted right now, what I was doing or where I was going. All I knew was that there was no possible way I’d ever fall back asleep after that particularly lucid and sensual dream, not when my body was still aching for a release, for touch. For something, anything.

Don’t ask me why, but I ended up in the throne room. Clouds covered the moon in the sky, and yet slivers of moonlight still somehow found their way to the half-circle of windows behind the throne. Abner was not here, thankfully, allowing me to walk right up to the throne.

Its wood was gilded and ancient, the cushion on its seat looking as if it never saw much use, a light blue color, though shadows danced across it. My bare feet stood just before it. No other throne sat in the room; there was just the one, just his.

If I chose Abner, would I get my own throne? It wasn’t as if he entertained anyone here, not like he threw balls or dealt with the people living in the kingdom this castle oversaw. This room, this entire castle, for that matter, was simply for show. None of it meant anything.

I looked around the room, breathing in the air that was somewhat stale. The darkness of the long room only seemed to make it feel like a crossroads, a strange place for a girl to be, a place where no one should be, in fact. Before me sat a throne, the throne my husband would sit in, if I chose to remain here and wed Abner.

Even though I had never seen Ishan’s castle, I knew his was probably much like this one, only his throne room was probably decked in gold and warmer colors, not a single cloud in the sky. Ishan was Summer, warmth and life.

Abner… he was Winter, cold and death.

My eyebrows creased, and I reached out toward the throne, running a hand along its arm, feeling the smooth wood beneath my fingertips. If I was seen as death, I supposed I would not want to try, either. Why bother leaving this castle when everyone hated your presence? When your name was cursed because your winter storms had caused caravans to freeze to death?

Abner was stuck here, alone, hating who he was, what he was, and I felt for him. I did. How could I not? Still, feeling bad for him, having empathy, did not mean I could overlook what he’d done to those other girls, what he would’ve done to