But she did catch hold of the hand pressed against her cheek. “I’ve survived much worse, and you know it.”

“Yes, and you and that bastard father of yours drugged me and tricked me into harming you further, then you hid your worsening illness from me until your wounds went septic and you nearly died.” He straightened up from the bed, pulling his hand from her grip. “I will not be manipulated into risking your health. Laci said six weeks of rest and healing, and six weeks it will be. Now close your eyes and go to sleep. If I find you wandering around at night again, I will be quite wroth, and you don’t want that.”

Thwarted, she flopped down on the bed and scowled at him in annoyance. Irritating man. He knew what she wanted. That infernal, supersensitive sniffer of his clearly hadn’t stopped working, so he had to know. Because all he had to do was enter the same room, and she could feel herself melting.

“Sleep,” he said again, sternly, as if she were a rebellious child protesting against bedtime.

Just for that, she made a show of squeezing her eyes shut. “There. I’m sleeping.”

“Good. Stay that way. And for once, wife, do as you’re told.”

She heard him blow out the candles by her bedside. The light shining through her closed eyelids went dark. She heard the tread of his feet as he exited the room and knew when he was gone by the empty ache that filled the places his presence made warm. With a frustrated groan, she rolled over on her belly and tried to resign herself to another lonely, achingly celibate night without him.

Wynter walked through the connecting rooms to his own chambers and sank down on the edge of his bed. He dropped his face into hands that shook. Wyrn help him. Khamsin had become like a drug to him.

Before her poisoning, the hours he’d spent in her room at night had grown longer and longer. He’d found himself counting down the hours until he could retire to her room, divest her of whatever frothy thing she’d chosen to sleep in, and sink into the seductive heat of her embrace. And even after the sex, when she lay sleeping, he would remain awake beside her for hours, just marveling at the strength of his feelings. Leaving her bed each morning had become an act of sheer will. He could happily have stayed there, his body wrapped around hers, ignoring his duty and the very real threats gathering against Wintercraig. He was tired of war. He wanted peace. He wanted her, Khamsin, his volatile, temperamental, utterly intoxicating wife.

Valik was right. She had too much power over him. If she knew how easily she could drive him to distraction with just a touch, a look, a flutter of those long, silken lashes, he would be undone.

She’d wanted him to stay tonight. If he hadn’t pulled his hand free and beat a path back to his own room, he would have joined her in that bed and to Hel with the consequences. And that could have been bad.

She thought she was so tough, so hard to break, so easily and rapidly mended. But he remembered the sight of blood-soaked skirts, the unnatural paleness of her skin as she’d nearly bled her life out before his eyes. He hadn’t felt anything close to that stab of terror since the day he’d heard the wolves’ mournful howl and known something had happened to Garrick. So no matter how fully healed Khamsin declared herself to be, Wynter wasn’t taking any chances.

He lay down on the bed. His body was hard as a rock, and had been from the moment he’d picked her up to carry her back to her room. Finding some other woman to relieve his need was out of the question. Even if he hadn’t sworn an oath of fidelity, Khamsin was the only one he wanted. The only one for whom his blood and what remained of his humanity not only warmed, but burned.

His hand still tingled from cupping her face, stroking the creamy softness of her dark skin. He lifted his palm to his nose and breathed in the intoxicating jasmine-scented aroma that still clung to him. He reached his other hand down, loosened the laces of his trousers, and curled his fingers around the long, heavy length of his sex. His eyes closed. In the darkness, her face emerged. Luminous silver eyes. Curls of lightning-shot black hair. The fragile, slight-boned beauty of her delicate frame. The full, perfect br**sts with their exotic, dark brown ni**les.

He remembered how she’d been in the tent after the lightning storm, when he’d claimed her for the first time since their wedding night. Free of wine and arras and whatever else had been in that wedding-cup. She’d been scared, nervous but too proud to show it. But she’d overcome that fear, met his passion head-on, and returned it in full with passion of her own. He remembered, also, their first night here in Gildenheim, when she’d seethed with jealousy over Reika’s conspicuous familiarity, and how that anger had led her to stake her claim upon him in no uncertain terms. Her eyes full of storms, her skin hot and electric, facing him without the tiniest hint of fear and demanding his fidelity and attentions. If he hadn’t been completely enchanted with her before, that night had done the trick.

He could recall with perfect clarity the feel of her body, so wet and hot, muscles clamping tight around him. The glorious heat, melting the ice that lived inside him, making him feel, really feel, like he had not felt for three long years. His hand moved with each remembered thrust, stroking, stroking, until his muscles clenched and his seed spurted across the sheets.

After that night, Wynter made himself even scarcer. He never came back to his room at night. He didn’t eat meals with the court anymore. Except for occasional glimpses of him as she and Krysti roamed the palace halls, Kham might have believed Wynter had left Gildenheim altogether.