Heart of Ice Read online

  Heart of Ice

  A Not Quite Wicked Tale

  By Brynn Paulin

  Resplendence Publishing, LLC

  http://www.resplendencepublishing.com

  Resplendence Publishing, LLC

  P.O. Box 992

  Edgewater, Florida, 32132

  Heart of Ice

  Copyright © 2010, Brynn Paulin

  Edited by Christine Allen-Riley

  Cover art by Les Byerly

  Electronic format ISBN: 978-1-60735-109-2

  Warning: All rights reserved. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Electronic release: January 2010

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and occurrences are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, places or occurrences, is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  About the Author

  I’m not bad. I’m just drawn that way~~Jessica Rabbit

  To all the misunderstood women out there!

  Prologue

  Once upon a time…

  In a land far, far away, there was a girl who lived in an ice palace high on a hill. Everyone in the land thought she was very bad. In fact, the stories say, one winter, she stole away a shop boy and took him away to her mountain fortress where he stayed until the girl he loved rescued him.

  That’s one story…

  Chapter One

  Kai glanced down at the claw-like hand grasping his forearm and fought the disgust that rolled over him. He was supposed to be escorting Gerda to this elaborate dinner at her parents’ home. He was supposed to be happy for this bit of allowed touching with the woman to whom he was betrothed. So why did it all feel so wrong? Why did being so close to her revolt him?

  To most, he allowed, her hand wouldn’t appear claw-like. People raved about how beautiful Gerda was. So lovely in face and figure. So attractive in her fashionable, well-tailored dresses. A catch for a lowly shop boy. “What a lucky man,” they whispered.

  Like hell. Gerda was a cage ready to close around him. He was, indeed, a lowly shop boy from a poor family. He had little choice but to marry for their sake. Unless he could come up with some way to wiggle out of the engagement without severe retribution to his kin. His father was beholden to Gerda’s father, Franz. It had been a somewhat ignored debt until Gerda had decided she liked the looks of a certain shop boy with black hair and blue eyes.

  “Kai, hurry up. We’re going to be late,” she whined, tugging at his arm. “Why are you being so difficult?”

  “Difficult? I’m coming to this party with you when I had other plans for my evening. I’m trying to keep you from slipping on the ice covering this walkway.”

  She snorted and tugged his arm harder to pull him along. They appeared to walk “side by side,” but in truth, she was slightly ahead of him. “That’s why you wore these…clothes instead of dressing up?”

  “These are my best rags,” he answered drily. The girl needed a spanking, but it wouldn’t do her any good. He enjoyed sliding his hand over a nicely rounded bottom before heating it with a few smacks. His partners had always taken pleasure in that, as well as his other sexual practices. He had a feeling Gerda would just screech and throw a fit. She wouldn’t enjoy any of it. She was a nasty harridan who didn’t possess a softer, submissive side.

  Perhaps he’d die young.

  “We’ll go to the tailor next week and have you fitted for a suit. I can’t be seen with a beggar.”

  Beggar? His clothes might not be the same top-notch quality as hers, but they were still good construction.

  “Whatever pleases you,” he replied, looking around. It was a perfect winter night, clear and crisp with glittering stars overhead. The streetlamps threw frozen beams up into the inky sky. On evenings like this, he liked to walk alone, listening to the crunch of snow beneath his boots and looking at the way frost painted the windows. Some nights, he skated on the lake or rode his father’s horse through the shadowy pines.

  Not anymore. He suspected Gerda would never allow such freedoms.

  Perhaps the ground could open and swallow him and end this all tonight. Better, an avalanche from the surrounding mountains could tumble around him, cocooning him in sweet Gerda-free peace and lulling him into an icy eternal sleep.

  As he looked around, he saw a woman across the street knocking on the door to the shop where he worked. Her waist-length white-blonde hair spilled from beneath a fur hat. It brushed the top of her shapely behind, and his interest stirred in a way it hadn’t in months. White fur matching the hat wrapped her shoulders. The dress, a shiny light blue, swept the walkway, hiding her legs from view. Though he’d yet to see her face, he knew he’d never met her. He’d remember this woman.

  Her tiny fist raised to knock again on the mercantile door.

  He pulled free of Gerda. “I need to go help her.”

  “But the dinner!”

  “Peter will never forgive me if I don’t attend a customer, after closing or not. I’ll be along shortly.”

  She made a perturbed moue and released a huffy sigh. “Fine. Thank goodness you’ll soon be working for my father.”

  Yes. Huzzah for that. May the sky fall on me.

  Kai made a noncommittal sound and started across the street. Behind him, he heard Gerda stomp off, but he paid her no mind as relief filled him. The woman turned as she heard him approach. He was startled to see she was young, perhaps eighteen. She carried herself as an older, more refined woman. What was such a youthful stranger doing out alone in an unfamiliar town?

  A faint smile lifted her pale lips as if she had heard his silent wondering. Even in the moonlight, her light blue eyes shone.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “You are the owner?” she asked with a raised brow.

  He shook his head. “No, but I work here.”

  Her smile widened a bit more. “You are Kai, then.”

  His brow furrowed. How… “Yes.”

  “You’re wondering how I know your name.” It was more of a statement than a question.

  Kai nodded even as she went on.

  “Anyone who loves winter as much as you do is well known to me.”

  “Kai!” he heard bellowed across the silent evening. Lord, would his whole life be spent at Gerda’s beckoning? His eyes closed at the humiliation as fury raced through him. A hand stroked along his arm and he looked up at the woman, startled at her touch.

  “You need not heed her,” she said in a calm, almost otherworldly tone that raised the hairs on his arms. A chill skated along his skin, inching down the back of his neck and into his collar. Cold, invisible fingers spread over the knots in his shoulders.

  His imagination. He shook his head, irritated at himself when he envisioned that the sensation came from the woman touching him, not from an errant breeze.

  “She is my…betrothed.” He choked out the last word. He needed to find a way to be free of Gerda. He couldn’t abide her much longer. Saints, he barely abided her now.

  “She is nothing,” the woman before him whispered. Sadness seemed to fill her eyes as she regarded him. It was as if she regretted something he’d yet to understand.

  Another wind caressed his back, and this time, he felt himself shoved forward. Kai was not a small man. A mere gust could not move him thus
. His eyes narrowed on the ethereal creature before him. Was she a witch of some sort? He fisted his fingers rather than cross himself.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “Your salvation.”

  Or his damnation, he suspected. “Your name?”

  She shrugged, the fur of her wrap brushing her snowy-white cheek. “You can call me Wyn.”

  Her impertinent blink, accompanied with another faint smile, stoked his desire for her. Here was a woman who could use a spanking and would appreciate it. Whoever she was, he knew he had to know her better, damn Gerda and the consequences for not getting to the party in a timely manner.

  “Did you need something from the store?”

  Her smile widened, and she leaned coquettishly against the door to the shop, her hands behind her. “You.”

  Him? He wished that could be true. He wished he could take her up on the silent offer posed by her stance. She wanted him. He had no doubt.

  “I’m already taken,” he sighed. His responsibilities to his family overshadowed any personal desire he might have.

  She shook her head and reached to touch his arm once more, but he stepped backward.

  “The girl does not have your heart,” she said.

  Kai fought back a chuckle. Girl? Wyn appeared to be Gerda’s age, perhaps even younger than his betrothed’s twenty.

  “But she has my promise,” he countered.

  “Not willingly.” She stepped away from the building and touched his arm. This time, he didn’t shy away. “I hear what you’ve whispered to the wind when you’ve walked through the pines beside the frozen lake. You do not want this, but for your family, you sacrifice yourself.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Who told you such things?”

  “You did, Kai. You’ve prayed for a way to escape this, and I’m here.”

  “Those words for meant for my God, not for a witch!” he protested, anger overriding the fear most men would experience. Anger that this vision before him was evil. Anger that his heart had briefly hoped salvation truly had arrived. Renewed anger that his family had thrust him into a position of having to rescue them.

  “Not a witch,” she replied. “Do not fear me, Kai.”

  “I’m not afraid,” he ground out, making his ire clear. Without another word, he spun around and headed toward the stupid party. He needed to escape to his refuge in the frozen woods, but it was impossible, barred by both Gerda and the mysterious Wyn.

  * * * *

  The party had been as dreadful as he’d suspected. Gerda had paraded him around like some prized pony while her father and his friends had regarded Kai with smarmy superiority. It was probably overdramatic, but he couldn’t help feeling as if he stood at the brink of hell, staring into the chasm, readying for the jump. The horde of demons waited to eat him alive.

  Unhappiness gnawed at his middle as he stared out his window now, his lip curled with distaste. At least the party was over and his duties as besotted suitor were done for another day.

  He yanked at the tie around his neck, tugging it free then tossing it onto a nearby straight-back chair. He flicked open the buttons of his shirt. Closing his eyes briefly, he let the air dance over his skin. It wasn’t cool enough. Desperate for the feel of the outdoors, he cracked open his window then sprawled onto his narrow bed. One leg bent upward while his arms crossed behind his head. He stared blindly into the darkness overhead.

  “There has to be a way,” he murmured.

  “There is.”

  He jerked upright, the springs on his ancient bed screeching. Wyn stood a few feet away.

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded, his voice urgent yet quiet so he didn’t wake his family.

  She laughed, the musical sound like crystals tinkling against each other. Her pale hand waved to the window. “You let me in.”

  For a moment, he thought to argue, then remembered she was a witch. Perhaps by opening the window, he had let her in.

  “What do you want of me?” he asked, resigned to learning his fate. Hopefully, it wasn’t as bad as a future with Gerda. He’d wished for death. Perhaps Wyn thought to grant it.

  To his surprise, Wyn knelt before him, her silky blue dress pooling around her as she went to her knees between his parted legs then sat back on her heels. Her palms rested on his thighs.

  “It’s what I want for you,” she murmured.

  Suddenly, inexplicably, his heart shifted. All his ill feelings about Gerda and worries for his family shifted aside and hope filled him. Hope and…something else. His cock stirred as he regarded Wyn on her knees. She’d seemed so in command of herself earlier, so sure of everything, including him. A façade. He’d seen many women do the same. They acted dominantly in most situations yet submissively in intimate male-female relations. A vision swam through his mind—Wyn kneeling naked before him, her arms bound behind her, her nipples peaking to hard nubs in the cold, her whole being enjoying submission to him.

  “Lift your skirt,” he ordered softly.

  Her head tilted, her lips parting.

  “Do it,” he reiterated before she could speak. His lips compressed, and he watched her, waiting, testing her response.

  Slowly, her eyes met his briefly before they lowered, and her fingers bunched the fabric of her skirt. The fine linen inched upward. Bit by bit, it moved until she’d exposed her knees.

  “Stop,” he said. “That’s well enough.”

  “You…do not want more?”

  “Of course, I want more. But not now. Not when you’re not ready—and you’re not,” he asserted, cutting her off when she would have protested.

  She leaned forward and kissed the inside of his thigh, and he groaned at the sensation of her lips. They were cold, even through the fabric of his pants.

  “Come away with me,” she urged.

  He could not.

  Wyn seemed to understand his unspoken words. Gliding to her feet, she headed to the window, then turned to frozen mist before his eyes and disappeared through the inch-wide opening of the window.

  Saints, what had beset him now?

  Chapter Two

  Wyn wandered the dark halls of her fortress, agitation her companion as she thought of Kai. She’d never knelt before a man—or anyone for that matter. She was the Snow Queen, after all, ruler from the first bitter wind that chased away the autumn to the last gasp of cold before the crocuses forced their way through the soil. Winter, the season named for her, Wynter.

  She bowed to no one, even the rulers of those lesser seasons. Yet she’d gone easily to her knees before Kai and willingly followed his orders. Submitting to him had touched a part of her she hadn’t known existed. Her disappointment when he’d stopped her from following his directive had shocked her. So had the warm, melty feeling when he looked at her and spoke in his deep, commanding voice. Of course, if he’d touched her folds, she wouldn’t have felt so warm and melty to him. To Kai, her cream would feel like ice water. Touching her skin would cause him pain from the intense cold.

  That wouldn’t stop her from taking him away from the shire where he lived. She’d do everything she could to convince him not to marry that harridan who’d dug her claws in him.

  Wyn sighed. She’d watched Kai for a long time. His love of winter surrounded her as surely as if he loved her. That Gerda wench would stomp it out of him little by little until he loved nothing. It would leave him bereft; it would leave Wyn the same.

  Angrily, she slapped the wall beside her, rattling the ice crystals that decorated the passageway. This was such pitiful, self-indulgent wallowing. Why did she care so much for a human? Disgusted with the direction of her thoughts, she stalked towards the highest turret of the fortress. Once standing on the precipice, she flung out her arm and sent a blizzard over the Southern climes of Europe, then smiled to herself as she returned inside. A little snow would do them good.

  No, it wouldn’t. Turning, she returned to her perch high above the rest of the world and pulled back most of the storm’s fury, le
aving only a chilly wind and flurries to cool the people.

  “You are a sad being,” she whispered to herself as she made her way through the fortress to her rooms. Inside, a cheery blaze burned in the fireplace, the only part of the fortress constructed of stone and mortar. The rest was pure ice.

  The fire was for ambiance. She couldn’t feel its heat. Kai would be able to…if he were here.

  Her breath trembled from her as she envisioned him. He’d lay indolently across the bed, watching her as she disrobed. She closed her eyes so she could see him more clearly in her mind. She saw him smiling at her, a feral possessiveness in his gaze.

  She loosened her dress and the bodice fell away, revealing her pure white silk corset. As she sank further into her fantasy, Kai’s eyes flared with lust. He sat up as he had back in his bedroom and swung his legs around so he was on the edge of the bed. His knees parted, the front of his pants straining over his hard cock.

  “Take the dress off the rest of the way.”

  With a nod, she shoved it over her hips, leaving herself in just the corset, her stockings and shoes. She kicked off the shoes, very aware of her bare pussy. Her feet sank into the thick fur rug beside her bed.

  He stood, coming toward her. She started to shy away, then remembered, in her fantasy, he could touch her. She wanted him to touch her. She needed it. Her hands slid up her silk-encased torso, and she struggled to drop back into her daydream and make believe these were Kai’s hands.

  His fingers closed over her breasts where they rested above the garment. He pinched her tight nipples, and her pussy convulsed, sending a flood into her needy folds.

  “You like that?” he growled.

  She nodded.

  “Say it aloud,” he demanded against her ear. “Say ‘Yes, Master’.”

  Another pinch sent streams of pleasure through her. “Yes, Master,” she moaned. “Yes…more.”