Heat.
She was still hammering out her theory of magic and body temperatures—complicated by infinite unknown variables—but both times she had enthralled the prince, heat was a constant. As a Huntress, she’d come at it from the opposite angle, studying the symptoms of an enthrall. Elevated pulse, sweaty palms, dilated pupils: these were the signs of physical attraction. They were also the body’s natural response to warmth.
What if the only reason she hadn’t inadvertently enthralled Quin in the forest was because they were too cold?
And if that were the case, what would happen in a thermal spring?
Not unrelatedly, was he still wearing undergarments, or had he stripped those off, too? On a scale of one to ten, how naked was the prince under all those bubbles?
“I thought I was too dangerous,” she said. To her surprise, it came out sounding rather coy.
His eyebrows had a fine arch, especially when he raised one. “I’ve never been afraid of a girl in undergarments. Though I must admit I’ve had limited experience.”
In the game of being coy, Quin was winning.
He grew suddenly serious. “We’re teetering on the edge of frostbite, Mia. This could save your life.”
She sat on the edge. The snow crunched beneath her as she tugged the boots off her swollen feet. Cautiously she dipped one toe in the water. Paradise.
“If you stay on your side,” Quin reasoned, “we’ll manage just fine.”
Her toes felt delectable. Quin was right, she could control herself. If rage, love, and terror triggered magic, then she would make sure she didn’t feel rage, love, or terror. Easy enough. And in the event that she began feeling the sensations of an enthrall, she would simply climb out. Most important, she would not touch him, no matter how much she might want to.
Mia slipped the smock over her head, slithered out of her trousers, and eased herself over the ledge with barely a splash.
The water didn’t just feel good. It felt like cinnamon and chocolate, like someone had thrust a hand into her heart and made it beat again. She sank deeper, the warm water swirling in around her neck and shoulders, caressing her wind-roughed skin. Everything that had been frozen inside her was thawing, every dead part shivering back to life.
Quin let out a long, contented sigh. “Perfection, isn’t it?”
She submerged her head lower until only her eyes peeked above water.
“Careful of the meniscus,” he said. “There’s some kind of sulfyric film.”
She lifted her mouth. “The ‘meniscus of assent,’ was it?”
His face went blank for a moment. Had she offended him? Then his eyes sparked with the memory.
“Ah. That. I suppose I can be a bit pretentious.”
“A bit. But passably intelligent.”
“Passably.” A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
She dunked her whole head underwater and ran her fingers over her hair. The grime came off in clumps. She’d had no idea how dirty she was. The water felt inhumanly delicious as it licked off layers of filth. How had she ever been suspicious of heat? It was glorious.
She heard Quin’s garbled voice and bobbed back up.
“. . . cold is that I haven’t smelled my own sweat.” He took a whiff and grimaced. “Until now.”
“Hard to tell with all the sulfyr.”
“You can come a little closer,” he said. “If you want.”
“I’m just fine over here, thanks.”
She went under again and rubbed furiously at her face, wondering how much dirt was ground into her skin. The unease she’d felt over supper melted into the foam. The only unease she felt now was how good she felt, bubbly warm down to her core.
Bubbly was not good. Warm was not good, either.
The prince was speaking again. She only caught the end of it.
“. . . married?”
She sputtered. “What?”
“Are we married? In your humble opinion.”
“No,” she said.
“We said the sacred vows.”
“I didn’t. Not the last one.”
“You’re right. I promised-you-O-promised-you I would be yours. But you did not O-promise you would be mine.” He tilted his head, thoughtful. “And Tristan did not pronounce us man and wife.”
She burbled water. “I’ve always hated that part of the vows. Just once I’d like to hear ‘woman and husband.’”
“You probably won’t hear it from dear cousin Tristan. He’s rather old-fashioned that way. Just like my father.”
“Old-fashioned is one word for it.”
“You’d prefer odious?”
“I’m quite partial to vile.”
They shared a smile. Then Quin cleared his throat. “You should know I meant what I said about having limited experience with girls in undergarments. My father fills the Kaer with beautiful women, but it never felt right to—”
“You don’t have to say it,” she said hastily.
“You once told me my power had never been in dispute. You were right. Even if I had honest intentions, there was always an imbalance of power. I saw my father abuse that power daily . . . and I swore I would never be like him.”
Mia felt unreasonably happy. She had assumed the prince treated women the way his father did, but she’d been wrong.
“That’s quite lovely, Quin. And wise.”
“Haven’t you heard? I’m passably intelligent.”
Mia slid two clicks closer. Not close enough to touch—just to hear him better. She was in complete control, fully in command of her faculties. She was a Gwyrach, yes, but she was stronger now, smarter. Magic was not the reason she felt so tantalizingly warm. She was completely . . . almost . . . mostly certain.
“The water in a hot spring percolates through a reservoir of magma and rises through the Earth’s crust,” she said, because she didn’t know what else to say.
“Is it a requirement for Huntresses to know an insufferable amount about everything?”
“You underestimate me. I know everything about an insufferable number of things.”
He flourished a bow. “The lady wins.”
She edged closer, still mostly submerged, combing through her ringlets underwater. She could feel her locks floating on the surface of the water, vermilion silk. Quin was still smiling.
Mia was only a few inches away now. Close enough to see the blond scruff on his face, just a hint around the mouth. To note the silver starlight caught in his curls.
He was gorgeous. Even after a harrowing week in the woods. Even after nearly dying. Mia’s body hummed with sensation. The perfection of Quin’s face pulped her internal organs.
He looked at her looking, and he looked back.
Mia’s fingers ached to touch him. His eyes shone greener than ever, maybe from the spring, maybe because they burned with feeling. Was she inventing fictions or deducing truth? His breathing was different, that was a fact. Frankly, so was hers.
This was dangerous. She knew she should climb out of the hot spring immediately. What if her magic was exerting a subtle influence, stirring his blood and subverting his desire? Impossible. She hadn’t touched him. Of course, if Quin were looking at her because he truly wanted her . . . that was something else entirely.
She stood, her gaze meeting his. The water dripped off her curves, her undergarments clinging to her warm, wet skin. Quin parted his lips ever so slightly. Her eyes swept over them, down the perfect curve of his jaw, the sharp ridges of his collarbone, and then snagged on a torn piece of red skin above his heart. She stared at the angry, jagged mark, inflamed and oozing black pus.
The breath jammed in her throat.
The arrow.
Chapter 26
A Magical Honeymoon
QUIN DUNKED HIMSELF BENEATH the water. Only his face resurfaced, now drenched and dewed.
“Don’t look at me like that. It’s nothing.”
It was most definitely something. She’d seen the lesion, the sinister purple tendrils around the fishbone scar, and most damning: the sliver of red arrowhead protruding from the skin.