Page 91 of Tarnished Crown
Dmitriy ladled more water onto the stones, sending a fresh wave of steam through the room concealing us all a little more.
My gaze drifted to Evander, who was watching me through the dark, hazy room. His gray eyes locked onto mine, a grin still on his full lips from the last story Mila and Luca told.
Something crackled in the air between us. The lighter atmosphere became far heavier with the weight of his stare, the same way an unexpected storm shifted the pressure in the air on a summer’s day.
I took a long sip of my ale, and in spite of every better sense I possessed, I couldn’t look away.Or wouldn’t.
One of those things was infinitely worse than the other...but which?
CHAPTER58
The next few days passed in much the same manner. The negotiations seemed to be leaning more in favor of Mila marrying Taras than against it.
Without fail, we spent our evenings spent in the sauna.
It was our final night at the cabin, and we were on our fourth round of the sauna/lake cycle when Dmitriy’s voice beckoned a few of the others outside. I had a sneaking suspicion I knew what was coming, so I grabbed Mila’s hand and sprinted out, too.
We paused long enough to grab our robes, then followed Dmitriy.
“Wait!” I whisper-shouted. “We want in this time!”
Dmitriy let out a booming laugh, gesturing gallantly to a fresh pile of snow before he and the others turned around.
Giggling like I was closer to the twins’ age, I placed my robe in the snow then held my hands out to Mila. “Brace me.”
To her credit, she didn’t ask why, just gave me her hands. I eased myself down into the snow until I had what I was certain was a perfect butt-print. Perhaps I was turning into a true Socairan, because I didn’t even flinch when the freezing ice made contact with my skin.
I stood up to examine my work, declaring it passable, or at least, a very obvious outline of a rather round arse.
“Your turn,” I told her when I was finished.
Letting out a rich, throaty laugh, she changed places with me, doing the same until she had a slightly narrower imprint right next to mine.
“Okay, we’re finished!” she called, merrily dancing toward the lake without bothering to put her robe back on.
Maybe I would work my way up to that level of boldness one day. We took our turns jumping in the frigid lake, and by the time we were finished, there were eleven imprints in all.
“Oh, no,” I said with mock dismay. “But who will judge if we all participated?” I scanned the group to see who probably hadn’t contributed. “Evander!”
He snorted. “I’m afraid I can’t help you this time, Lemmikki. Mine’s the fourth one in, and it’s clearly the superior arse.”
“You’re clearly a superior arse,” I murmured back at him.
He threw his head back and laughed, maybe louder than I’d ever heard him before, and for once, didn’t bother to shoot something back.
It was Lord Luca who valiantly stepped in to assist, eventually naming Kirill’s sizable buttock print the actual superior arse.
Though I definitely caught Mila stealing glances of the real thing on Taras to compare it to the imprint more than once.
After alternating between the sauna and the frozen lake one more time, we eventually decided to go inside for the remainder of the evening. We sipped medovukha and the refined vodka that Luca had brought from Lynx.
Tonight, we seemed to exist in a bubble of our own making, laughing and drinking like there wasn’t a war on the horizon, like none of us were prisoners in some fashion or another.
I took another long drink of my vodka, content with the way it warmed me nearly as well as the flames from the hearth. For a rare change, there wasn’t anywhere I would rather be.
I didn’t allow the thought to sober me. Rather, I leaned into it, embracing it for as long as it would last.
“Princess!” Kirill called from the dining table, and I walked over on slightly unsteady legs.