Page 183 of Winter Gods & Serpents

Sweet hells, his mind shattering and stomach fluttering confessions. I shrugged surely. “I know nothing of you.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Are we not friends?” I knew he had read through my lie and there was no escaping it—the embarrassment.

He rose a brow in challenge. “Are we now? And the first woman I have bedded was the best conversation approach to this blooming friendship?”

“I asked him of many other things.”

He smirked with taunt. “Is that so? As what, first time I shaved?”

Smug bastard. I cleared my throat. “He said if I tickle you behind your ears you’d roll twice for me.” The second after I said it, I took off in a run as many other brave people did. He faded right behind me and wrapped an arm around my waist lifting me up, his head buried on my neck and shoulder. Sweet hells.

“Jealous?” he whispered on my ear, his lips lingering to brush the sensitive shell. My legs almost melted away, his warm breath on my neck prickling. “Now, now, Snow, it doesn’t suit you, darling.”

“Let me go, you giant piece of Adriatian flesh.” Translation to Snowlin tongue: don’t let me go.

As he spoke my language with perfection, he wrapped my hair around his hand, gently tugging my head back to him. “Now I know why I like the hair up.” He kissed my bared neck softly and I lost all perception. “And don’t worry, I like jealous you.”

“Are you two rabbits?” Mal called from behind, startling me. Kilian did not let me go, if not, he held me tighter. “Thank heavens they sent me to find you.”

“I am going to pierce you through and through, brother,” Kilian threatened all cold and darkness. That gravel in his voice vibrated all around me and I bucked my thighs closer together. Blessed be my dark heart that no one could read my shadows.

Mal flinched and uncrossed his arms. “What did I do now? And for sacred heavens let go of her,” he said, looking around as if someone finding out about us could incite a war.

Kilian planted a long kiss on my neck, my eyes drawing shut at the feel of his full lips, the heat, the touch, the strange caress. He let me go. Damned Mal.

Mal stared between the two of us. “How did this come to be?”

“What did?” Kilian asked all composed, while straightening himself.

The younger brother narrowed an examining glare on him. “This. The two of you.”

“I can’t possibly grasp what you are on about,” I said, fixing the tail of hair that Kilian had twisted around his hand a second ago.

Kilian planted a hand on his shoulder, grasping it tight enough to make Mal grimace. “Yes, what are you on about? Tell me, since you love telling a plenty.”

The younger brother moved away from an almost murderous Kilian and pointed at the two of us. “I liked you better when you fought.”

I shrugged. “We fight, don’t we darling?”

Kilian nodded blasé. “Yes, love, we do.”

The endearment made my toes curl.

“The two of you are mad and maddening,” the younger brother accused, shaking his head and signalled for us to follow him.

I waited for Kilian, but he motioned a hand for me to head first. “I enjoy the view from behind.”

The way he admitted to things, so blankly and unphased, really bothered me because here I was absolutely rattled. “You play a dangerous game.”

“It’s not as if I can lose. I don’t have what would hurt the most to lose.”

Ignoring the crawling paranoia to take those words more than what they probably were, I teased, “Sanity?”

He bit his lip, almost suppressing a smile. “That too.”

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