Frost Bite

Chapter Two.

Blythe

I could smell blood, leather and metal when I regained consciousness, my head falling this way and that. I blinked my eyes open, giving them time to adjust to the light before I could take in my surroundings.                                                                 

I was leaned back against the base of a tree, wrapped in a thick fur coat that concealed my naked form, down to just above my knees. The man who had shot me down sat on a rock, sharpening his arrowheads, using a wet stone. I tried moving then realized that my wrists were tied with silver rope, making it impossible for me to escape.                                                                  

"So you finally came too" he said, without bothering to look in my direction. I took the time to study him, he had on a sleeveless shirt, finger less brown gloves, a pair of warn trousers and wolf skin boots. The coat he had been wearing was now concealing my nude form. A brown leather belt hung from his hips while his bow and arrows were sat in the snow by his feet.       He had scars all over his face, his short beard the only thing concealing most of them from the eyes of onlookers. One side of his head was shaven to look almost bald while the rest was covered in long brown strands, dangling in the opposite direction as the buzz cut.                                                                             

His eyes were dark, holding so much sadness and hardship in their depths which explained the madness that swirled deep within them. His arms were tone, muscular and tan despite the weather in the North with a long scar running down one of them, from his shoulder to his hand.                                                   

"Who are you?" I found myself asking, feeling the cool metal of the necklace still pressed against my skin and dangling around my neck.                                                                                    

He stilled his sharpening and turned his gaze to look at me, eyes roaming over my form and down to my legs which were bent on either side of me then up to my exposed cleavage.            

"The name's Aron, Prince Nixtoni's personal hunter" he introduced, setting the arrow he had been working on back in its holder.                                                                                                 

I watched him move, rising from the boulder and stretching out his stiff muscles, cracking his knuckles and neck on either side. This man was dangerous, very dangerous.                               

"I understand that you gave him quite the show" my eyes narrowed into a glare at the mention of the previous day's situation. I had no interest in where he had gotten that type of information from and instead remained silent as he moved closer to where I was.                                                                             

He knelt in front of me, locking his arms underneath my legs and pushing them back until my knees were level with my shoulders.                                                                                             

I cried out in both surprise and discomfort when he braced his hands in the snow and gazed down at my exposed lower half.                                                                                              

I tugged at my restraints, my legs struggling to get free and kick him in the jaw but my attempts were to no avail. He blew out a string of cool air which tickled me, causing my bud to tighten. I whimpered to which he chuckled and leaned forward so that our faces were mere inches apart.                                            

The front of his trousers rubbed up against my exposed core once, hard and agonizingly slow.                                          

"If his majesty had not ordered that you be brought to him unharmed, I would've taken you right here, right now" then he was gone, my legs falling limply at my sides as I gasped for air.       

He threw his head back laughing, looking at me with entertained eyes and a sly smirk plastered across his lips. I wanted to strangle him, to dig my claws into his chest but I was helpless, the feeling something I detested. I hated being restrained like a dog in a cage.                                                                                      

The front of his shirt was soaked in blood and bits were cut away where he had managed to stitch his own wound in a messy fashion.                                                                                

He looked to be around the same age as the Prince which meant that he was over ten years older than me.                       

Speaking of the Prince, if he got his hands on me I would more than likely be executed for my actions. I had to escape but how?  Aron took a seat on the boulder again and continued sharpening his arrows, lacing some with poison and scrapping teeth like groves into others to make them harder to remove.           

"Blythe" I said, forcing him to look up at me, his eyes boring into mine. I could see him pondering over what the single word meant and I sighed heavily, turning my head to look off in the direction of the shoreline.                                                       

"My name is Blythe" I repeated, wanting someone to know my name before I was to be sentenced to death.

Aron

This girl was beyond what I had been expecting. She managed to put up more of a fight than any of my prior prey, going so far as to wound me with one of my own arrows. In the end I had managed a satisfying victory over her, but it felt like a loss which was why I was busy sharpening my arrows and adding lethal additions to them.                                                                           

Blythe was humming a tune, rolling her head this way and that with little fear of her surroundings or of me. She wasn't afraid of me like most everyone I've encountered but instead found her situation very boring.                                                    

She groaned loudly after an hour or so of watching me work on my arrows. The sound caused my teeth to grit so I stood, stalked over to her and dragged her onto her feet.  "Careful!" she snapped in my face, her canines bared as a warning for me to see. The irritation faded away from me and was instantly replaced with excitement toward a challenge.    

I forcefully maneuvered her so that her back was to me and she began to protest to which I breathed a breath of laughter.           

"Easy, sweetheart" I warned, untying one of her wrists then turned her to face me so that I could tie them back together in front of her. Once done, I moved to grab my bow and arrows, hoisting my bow onto my back and attaching the holder to my belt, I then dug a piece of rope out of my bag and tied it to the ropes wrapped around her wrists.                                                    

I gave it a hard tug, letting her stumble forward a few steps and nearly fall into the snow.                                                              

"Walk" I ordered then began walking, leading her like a dog on a leash further up the shoreline and to the Capital city of Vextin.                                                                                       

She followed a short distance behind me, silent and compliant until the sun began to set and darkness started to fall over the horizon.

Blythe

I have been silently contemplating my escape for the past few hours, eyes staring at the endless trail of white snow while we walked.                                                                                              

Aron was a sadistic man, one who enjoyed watching people suffer in pain, but he had restraint which was a plus to his personality. Even with all of these perks and disadvantages, he was still a man, still weak to a woman's touch.                                                

I threw my head back and closed my eyes when I realized what I was going to have to do.                                                       

A single fleck of snow landed on my cheek and I opened my eyes to the starry night sky, snow starting to fall all around us. The sight was beautiful enough to bring me to a sudden halt.     

It didn't take long for the hunter to notice and turn to glare back at me, only to marvel me as I watched the sky turn dark and the snow reflect the light until they appeared like small stars that were falling all around me.                                                 

"It's beautiful" I muttered under my breath, lowering my eyes to look at Aron. He was staring at me, an awed look in his gaze that quickly vanished and turned to annoyance when he turned to tug me along once more.                                                            

"We'll set up camp here" he announced, removing his rope from the one that was wrapped around my wrists then started gathering dried wood for a fire.                                                 

I huffed, my breath turning to white smoke while I slumped back against the base of a tree. He knew what he was doing and in no time a fire was blazing not that the cold bothered us but mainly to ward off any unwanted animals like wolves and brown bears.                                                                                         

He retrieved some meat that he’d most likely took from the moose earlier and started roasting it over the open fire, sitting on a composed pile of branches. I decided that it was as good a time as any and reached up with my hands to unbutton three of the coat's top buttons, exposing my torso down to just below my navel.                                                                           

I moved toward him, my feet dancing across the surface of the snow until I was stood in front of him.                                         

He was left handed, I noticed, feeling stupid for not having noticed it earlier when he had strung his arrows.                                    

He looked up at me when I blocked his view of the fire and furrowed his eyebrows when I sat down on his lap, my bound hands gripping at the material of his shirt when the fabric of his coat slipped down my shoulders and to my elbows, exposing my breasts to his eyes, my n*****s hard and erect from the cold.      

He leaned back, his eyes watching me, jaw tense and hands balled at his sides.                                                                               

He wasn't fooled so I had to get him to let his guard down. I bent my head and dragged my tongue along his exposed collar bone, up his throat and to his ear where I breathed out a strangled moan, moving my hips back and forth as my hands moved to caress his neck and shoulder.                                                 

His breathing began to quicken and his pupils dilated whenever I would nip at his earlobe.

Aron

I understood why Nixtoni had an interest in this woman. She moved her hips and I clenched my teeth, the friction was enough to drive any sane man insane.                                        

I looked away when her tongue roamed over my skin up to my ear. My eyes shut as an attempt to seem disgusted by her when a small moan escaped her lips, a sound that made my body pulse with a need for her.                                                                

An image of her on my lap, haloed by the light of the fire and nude from the waist up flickered past my closed lids. She suckled on my earlobe and dragged her claws lightly over my throat and shoulder. Her touch was toxic.                                             

I grunted and turned, one hand gripping her moving hips while the other wrapped around the back of her neck, bringing her close enough for me to kiss her lips hungrily.                                     

Her drooping eyes widened when I forced my tongue into her mouth where it tangled with hers.                                            

A small cry came from her when my fingers dug into her flesh, likely to leave bruises. I prayed to the gods that they would heal before morning when she would appear before the King. She was a wolf, a commoner, nothing special much like I was so surely there would be no wrong in taking her there in the snow, beneath the stars.                                                                               

She deepened the kiss, suffocating herself in me, pressing her chest up against mine so that I could feel her tight n*****s through the fabric of my shirt.                                                         

Breaking the kiss, she tilted her head back and exposed her throat to me which was a sign of submission in wolf terms.   

I moved my hand from the back of her neck to grip it, tightening my fingers around the exposed, vulnerable flesh in a show of dominance. She met my eyes, her chest rising and falling rapidly when she dragged her hips forward then back.                

"f**k" I groaned, needing her, wanting her. It was the first time I had ever wanted a woman so badly in over a decade and here she was demanding me to need her, forcing me to bend to her will.                                                                                     

Just as I was about to stand, lift and bury her in the snow, she pushed me back, causing me to fall into the bedding of white frost with her on top of me, straddling me.                                     

It took me a moment to realize that one of my arrowheads were being pressed against my exposed neck, my hand still wrapped around hers.                                                       

She wasn't moving, only staring down at me with emotionless eyes, at least for a few seconds before she burst out laughing, a sound that bounced off the world around us and danced in the light of the fire.                                                    

"f**k? Did you honestly just hear yourself?" she mocked me. My hand loosened around her throat, dropping away completely when she bent over in laughter, eyes squeezed shut and shoulders shaking.                                                                   

What is going on with me? Why does this woman both excite and intrigue me so?                                                                                     

After she stopped laughing, she tossed the arrow aside and raised her bound wrists.                                                                 

"Do you mind?" she could've just killed me, slit my throat without giving it a second thought but instead she threw away her only chance at escaping to politely ask me to untie her wrists.    

Who would do such a thing but more importantly why would she do such a thing?                                                                             

I reached up to untie the ropes, allowing them to be discarded in the snow when she stood and rubbed at them, eventually buttoning her jacket back up to conceal her nudity. I sat up and watched her, arms resting on propped knees, ready to strike if she so much as made an attempt to run, but instead she headed for the fire.                                                     

"I'm starving" she announced, taking a seat in the snow to stare into the flames.

Prince Nixtoni

I stepped out onto the platform, the dim light of day casting an almost unnoticeable shadow over my features.                                  

A large crowd had gathered, made up of the Capital city's citizens to whiteness my coronation. They cheered upon my arrival, welcoming me while the head Priest stood waiting, a woman by his side, carrying the King's crown on a pillow of black silk.                                                                                                        

The Priest had crowned many King's in his lifetime including my father and his father before him. He was an elderly man, dressed in a white robe, embroidered with gold.                   

He raised his hand and the crowd died down so that he could speak. I stood beside him, my hands wrapped neatly behind my back, coat and cape fluttering in the breeze. The sundial reached midday when the Priest began his speech.                              

"Citizens of Vextin! We are gathered here today to crown a new and younger King" despite his frail figure, his voice boomed over the thousands of people, gaining yet another cheer from their lips.                                                                                             

"As King Theon before him and King Valor before him, we pray that the goddess Athena may bestow her wisdom upon him and lead us toward greatness" the Priest motioned to me, his eyes flickering over my stature, taller, stronger than his with tone muscle concealed beneath fancy fabrics.                                            

"May he rule with a stern but just hand and always place the people of the Capital above all else" the woman stepped forward, going down on both knees beside the Priest with the pillow extended out toward him in offering.                                            

The crown was made of silver, white gold and sapphires, the colors of the North and had many twists and turns incorporated into its design.                                                              

As he continued speaking, I thought back to years before when I had first laid eyes on the crown. I had seen it a thousand times and each time it felt like it had become farther and farther out of my reach, yet here it was, about to be placed upon my head for me to done, no longer the first Prince but a King.                

"May the gods grant him a long and prosperous life" the Priest took the crown in gloved white hands and started making his way to me. I had seen this ceremony twice prior to mine and knelt on one knee before my people.                                       

The Priest took a stand behind me, careful to not step on my cape as he did so and placed the crown upon my head, the cool metal digging through my ebony hair and down to my scalp.         

"You have knelt as a Prince, now you may rise as a King" when I rose, a roar enveloped me like that of a lion. The people cheered, called out to their King and threw their coats as well as their hats into the air both in joy and celebration.                         

The Priest clasped his large hand onto my shoulder and gave it a hard squeeze.                                                                

"Your people have high hopes for you, my King" was all he said before he parted from me to raise his arms on either side of him.                                                                                                   

"Now, let the celebrations begin!" the people laughed and cried out in agreement. I stood still, watching the old Priest make his way down the stage steps and along a cleared path, heading for the Temple of the gods where he lived and served as one of their messengers.                                                                                                 

He was never one for celebration but the citizens were and soon they were feasting, laughing and drinking in the Courtyard as tents were erected, a large white oak chair was brought for me to sit upon. Smaller ones were placed at my sides for my younger siblings.                                                                 

Zane took a seat to my right, his hands gripping the arms of his chair while he watched the people, dancing among torch light with the sun having long since set.                                  

"Congratulations, brother" he said, halfheartedly, not bothering to look at me when he spoke. I turned my attention from Navil on my left and glanced at the second born of our father.                                                                                                    

He had our father's blonde hair, neatly swept to one side with some strands dangling in front of his blue eyes, the eyes of our mother. Apart from our build and facial structure we looked nothing alike; despite being brothers.                                                            

"Now you must lead as our father had before you" he announced, eyes scanning the crowd and flickering over a dancing women, dressed in very little clothing for the crowd's pleasure then over the women serving everyone, sending flirty smiles in their customer's directions and playfully touching the arms of drunken men.                                                                                     

"I hear you sent for the wolf" this time he locked gazes with me, his eyes filled with amusement while he twirled a glass of white wine between his fingertips. I inhaled deeply, raising my chin high and breaking our exchanged gaze.                                       

Beside me, Navil was conversing with our youngest brother, Zachary about the matters of the Court while beside Zane, the fourth born Prince, Nazaiha nurtured a common woman on his lap.                                                                           

"She stole our mother's necklace" I simply said, hoping that it would be enough for him to drop the subject but knowing him, he wouldn't and he didn't, continuing to pry in a very straight forward manor.                                                                                 

"But why order that she be brought to the Capital?" he wondered out loud, turning back to the crowd and swirling the wine in his glass, allowing the clear liquid to catch the orange light of the celebrations.                                                                           

He then took a slow sip as if mustering up the courage to speak his next words,                                                      

"Unless you have taken a liking to her" my back muscles stiffened at the words but it was the image of her face flickering past my eyes that had my breath struggling to soundlessly escape my lips. Zane grinned at my reaction, his fear for the woman had somehow turned to desire and I could tell from the rest of the conversation that he himself wanted her.                                                

"It is a shame though" I turned to glance at him, the light illuminating only half of his face while he watched me, a glint of playfulness hidden behind his blue eyes, a much lighter blue than the wolf’s.                                                                                           

"You will be forced to marry soon" the realization struck that the people would expect me to marry and provide an heir to the throne. The satisfaction in his eyes shone before he turned back to the crowd.                                                                         

"Of course she must be of noble blood" there was a small pause when he listened to the music playing in the background, drums beating in time with my racing heartbeat.                                   

"A King cannot have relations with a common woman" his eyes found a woman in the crowd, half dressed and dancing with fire, breathing the flames as she moved her body in a way that had men gawking at her from all sides. Her eyes met with Zane's and he shot her a lustful smirk.                                                                 

"I, however, can have whomever I desire" my hands tightened on the arms of my seat at his words. He was not referring to the dancer or simply a common woman, he was referring to her, the wolf I so desperately wanted to get my hands on.                                                                                                   

He downed the rest of his wine and slammed the glass onto the table in front of us that was littered with all kinds of meat and dishes.                                                                         

He rose from his seat to leave but my words stopped him dead in his tracks.                                                                                    

"Do not forget that I am your King, brother" I reminded him. His eyes stared off into the distance, a man of thirty years looking almost amused by my words which caused my blood to start boiling.                                                                                             

"She is mine" he turned to look down at me, his hands now stuffed into the pockets of his black dress pants. His lips parted and words came from them, followed by a sadistic smirk that could rival that of Aron's.                                                             

He turned and walked off, most likely to busy himself with the dancer he had been eyeing. I sat in silence, his words repeating in the back of my mind a few times over.                            

"But will the people accept that she is yours?"