Chapter 10: The Hot Spring

The hot spring lay a mile above Kettle Hall, at the end of a deer path that I had never known existed.

"Nobody comes up here," Garrick said, ducking a branch. "It's the king's."

"You have a private hot spring."

"My great-grandfather found it."

"That's the most unfair thing I've ever heard."

He took my hand, and the path went on, and the dark pines closed over us.

The Council would meet in two days.

I had told him I did not want to think about it tonight, and he hadn't said a word.

At the top of the rise the trees opened on a bowl of black rock.

Steam rose off a pool the size of a kitchen, and stars hung over it, thick and cold.

I stood at the edge and breathed in the warm sulfur smell.

"Will you take the Queen's Chair?" Garrick said behind me.

"No."

"Thank you for the answer."

"Tomorrow I might say it differently."

"I'd still thank you."

I turned and looked up at him.

His face in the starlight was serious and soft, and the gold in his eyes seemed to glow.

"Undress me," I said.

He took his time.

He undid the buttons of my flannel with his big careful fingers and slid it off my shoulders.

He pulled my undershirt over my head.

The cold air made me shiver, and his hands moved over the goose bumps.

He knelt in the snow-dusted gravel to unlace my boots.

He peeled off my socks.

He kissed the top of my foot.

"What was that for?" I said.

"It's a good foot."

I laughed.

He rose and undid my jeans and drew them down, and then there was nothing between me and the night but him.

I helped him out of his own clothes, and we stood naked at the edge of the steaming pool with our breath smoking.

"Come on," I said.

I stepped in.

The water was hot enough to sting and then to soothe, and I sank to my chin with a groan.

He followed.

He lowered his enormous body into the spring so carefully that hardly a wave moved.

He found a place along the rock where he could sit.

The water came up to his chest.

On me it came up to my neck.

"Come here."

I waded to him.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Lycans Voted Her Queen from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.