The Winter King (4 page)

Once she had it in hand,
she hastened outside and stopped just past the door to look up. The
winter night was clear and cold.
The stars
are always brightest when it’s cold
, she
thought. It was true, even inside the city, where light pollution
drowned out 99% of the light reaching Earth’s surface from the
outer reaches space.

She gazed at those outer reaches for a few
seconds more – then an odd feeling made her lower her head and turn
around. The door was shut and no one was there. She was alone on
the sidewalk, but she could have sworn she’d felt….

Am I imagining
things?
She was pretty tired. Migraines
will take it right out of a person. She felt a little like a zombie
with a gurgly stomach. But she honestly thought she’d felt
something like a breath on the side of her neck. A very cold
breath.

Poppy used her right hand
to push up her left sleeve, revealing the goose bumps that were
still there. She blew out a hard breath.
Get ahold of yourself. Go home. Put on an episode of Monk and
go the hell to sleep.

She nodded and crossed the street. After
she’d made it a few blocks, she slowed down and lifted her coffee
cup to her lips. Ice cold liquid slid past them to wash over her
tongue, far too creamy for the temperature. She made a terrible
face and turned her head to spit the liquid out.

“
What the –” Something just
as cold as the coffee suddenly settled in her gut. She stared down
at the cup, confused and unexpectedly, inexplicably,
frightened
.

But she was also
angry.
Really
angry. All she’d wanted – ALL DAY – had been a fucking cup of
hot coffee. Was that too much to ask? This was the last
straw.

Without thinking any further, Poppy spun.
With all the strength she could muster at that very moment in time,
she hurled the completely full paper cup against the brick wall of
the nearest building.

Chapter Four

She was staring at the mess she’d made –
torn coffee cup, lid halfway across the street from bouncing,
coffee strewn everywhere in the biggest splatter she’d ever seen –
when she heard the sound of a boot stepping up onto the sidewalk
behind her.

“
Let me guess,” he said,
and she slowly turned to stare up at him. “It’s been a rough
day?”

Poppy didn’t answer right away. She really
couldn’t. Too many things were chasing each other through her head.
For one thing, she was distinctly embarrassed that she’d lost her
temper the way she had. For another, the man in front of her looked
like a god. It wasn’t an overstatement or a generalization. It was
that he actually looked like Thor, the god of Thunder.

Poppy was wearing lace-up combat boots with
a good two and a half inch heel on them at the moment, and on her
own, she was five-foot-ten. But this guy was still a good five
inches taller than her, easy. He had a thick head of dark blond
hair that looked as though it might have been professionally cut
months ago, but had grown out since then and now brushed his
shoulders. As to those shoulders, broad would be an understatement.
She was betting if he wanted to, he could lift the Mercedes that
was parked a few feet away at the curb. Maybe with one hand.

His chin was strong, sporting a careless
five-o-clock shadow that she could tell would grow into a full-on
beard within a week if he let it. He was wearing a light blue
T-shirt that hugged extremely cut muscles, covered by a black
leather jacket that appeared to have been through a war, it was so
broken-in. Completing his mouth-watering ensemble were worn blue
jeans and black engineering boots, as if he’d just come off a
motorcycle. A very big motorcycle.

But it was his eyes most of
all that had her standing there completely mute. She could have
sworn they were nearly the exact same shade of blue as her own.
Except, they seemed to be almost…
glowing
.

It was like trying to peer through an
iceberg where someone was on the iceberg’s interior, shining a
lantern back out at you. They were lit from the inside, positively
radiant with a keen intelligence she could almost feel.

No, not almost. She could definitely feel
it.

“
Um… yeah,” she muttered
stupidly. “I guess you can say it has.”

He smiled, flashing
perfectly white, perfectly straight teeth. The man was an
impossibility. He took another two steps toward her, moving with a
distinctly non-threatening casualness, and suddenly Poppy had never
felt so threatened in her life. But not by him. She felt threatened
by
herself
because she knew that any chances she could have with a guy
like this would be ruined by all of her own awkwardness and honest
bluntness and the straight-forward no-nonsense personality that
people had told her time and again were unladylike.

The stranger turned his ice-blue gaze from
her to look at the store front beside them. She followed his gaze
to the sign. It was a coffee shop, obviously much smaller than
Starbucks, but one that appeared to be older too, and more
established. There were plenty of people inside; she could see them
through the foggy glass, conversing and laughing.

“
I hear you can’t get a
better cup of coffee in Seattle,” the man said, turning back to
her. “Can I buy you a fresh one?”

Poppy felt the heat of a blush infuse her
cheeks, knowing that the evidence of her last cup of coffee was
splayed across the sidewalk.

“
That honestly sounds
really nice,” she admitted. The throbbing at the base of her skull
was ever-present, low-grade but there, aching for its continuing
caffeine fix. “Let me just clean up my mess really
quick.”

The man didn’t even hesitate. He strode to
the middle of the street, picked up her lid, then made it back to
the sidewalk to pick up her paper cup before she could. He tossed
them both into a nearby bin, then opened the front glass door of
the coffee shop, gesturing for her to enter first. “After you.” He
smiled.

He’s beautiful and he’s a
gentleman and he wants to buy me coffee,
she mused as she entered the shop and the scent of fresh, hot
coffee assaulted her desperate senses. It smelled even better in
here than it did in the roastery.

“
Thank you,” she
murmured.

He entered behind her and moved them toward
an open table against the window. The atmosphere in here was
different than it had been in Starbucks. The people weren’t here to
study. No one was on their cell phone or computer. They sat across
from each other and made eye contact. Somehow, despite the lack of
expensive fire places and huge, copper-piped roastery, the
atmosphere was warmer.

Almost immediately after sitting down, the
two were approached by an employee of the establishment. “What can
I get you two?” she asked, and Poppy was very impressed at her
professionalism. Mainly, in the fact that she wasn’t out-and-out
staring at the man across from Poppy. He was so handsome, it was
hard for her to imagine people not staring at him. She was trying
very hard not to do so herself.

“
Just something hot,” Poppy
replied honestly. And nervously. “Just hot coffee.”

The stranger chuckled.
“We’ll take two
cappuccino’s
,” he said gently. Then
he leaned forward and said, just loud enough for the waitress to
hear as well, “It’s the
cappuccino’s
they’re famous
for.”

Poppy grinned. “That sounds
wonderful.” And it did. It
really
did.

The waitress smiled and left, and the
stranger turned his attention fully on Poppy. She felt herself
shrinking beneath that gaze. It was too intense.

“
You want to talk about
it?” he asked softly, lacing his fingers together on the
table.

She blinked. “About what?”

“
The bad day you have so
obviously had.”

She smiled self-consciously. “You really
aren’t interested in that. And besides, I don’t even know you.”

He watched her closely for a moment, and the
gods only knew what he was thinking. And then he said, “My name is
Kristopher.” He paused, tilting his head just a little to the side
as if to study her even more closely. “What is yours?”

She swallowed hard. Her throat suddenly felt
tight. “Poppy,” she said. “Actually, that’s not exactly true. It’s
Persephone. But everyone calls me Poppy.”

Something glinted in the depths of his
bottomless pools-for-eyes, and he said, “Persephone, the young
goddess of spring who is abducted by the cold and hard god of the
dead and taken into a world where there is no sun, thereby
releasing winter upon the world in her absence….” He smiled a
mysterious smile.

“
Yeah, everyone knows the
story. I’m not sure what my parents were thinking. They’re not even
Greek.”

But that mysterious smile only deepened. “I
think it’s very fitting.”

Chapter Five

Poppy frowned. “Fitting? How’s that?”

But their drinks arrived just then, and
Kristopher turned to the waitress, taking both cups from her
outstretched hands. He thanked her and turned back to Poppy,
holding one of them out for her.

She stared at it, at the foam expertly
decorated on top in the shape of a snowflake, at the steam rising
from it promisingly. Almost afraid at this point, she gingerly
hooked her finger through the loop of the handle and lifted it out
of his grasp. “Thank you.”

“
My pleasure,” he said. He
raised his in a toast. “To a better night.”

Their eyes met. A chill went through
Poppy.

Then she took a sip.

Poppy closed her eyes, barely suppressing a
moan. Hot, creamy, perfectly delicious liquid washed over her
tongue and down her throat, warming her from the inside out. She
swallowed, and said, “It’s hot. Gods, it’s actually hot.”

Kristopher lowered his cup. “You’re
surprised.”

Poppy opened her eyes and laughed a little.
“It’s just that this is something like the fifth cup of coffee I’ve
tried for today, and the first that’s actually been hot. I don’t
know what the deal is; it’s truly bizarre.” She gently shook her
head just once. “And I really needed it today, because I’ve had
this headache that just….” She made a face and splayed her hands
like something exploding.

He nodded. “Let me guess, it’s sitting
somewhere right about… here?” He reached across the table and she
went stiff as he brushed his fingers through her hair until he was
touching the base of her skull on the right side.

Instant cold went through that spot,
freezing the pain out of her head. The next throb was softer than
the last, and the one after that was even softer. Over the course
of just a few quick seconds, the headache ebbed to nonexistence,
and she was staring into very blue eyes in both relief and
shock.

Slowly, Kristopher removed his hand.

“
How….” She had been about
to ask how he’d done that. But she had a feeling she already knew.
It made perfect sense. He was too beautiful to be human. Clearly,
he possessed some sort of magic. So the real question she should be
asking was….

“
Who are you?”

“
I already told
you.”

“
Okay,” she countered, and
though she was more grateful than she could really say for the hot
coffee and the end to her migraine, her defensive alarms were
screeching. “Then
what
are you?”

He took a deep breath and
reclined in his chair, never taking his eyes off her. “What would
you say if someone asked such a question of
you
, Persephone?”

Poppy blinked.

“
What would you tell them?”
he continued. Another pause. “Would you say, ‘I’m human, of
course,” and leave it at that? Or would you say, ‘I’m Persephone
Glacia Nix,’ or ‘I’m of Nordic descent,’ or even… ‘I’m a
warlock,’?”

A ringing began in Poppy’s ears. The world
around her was narrowing, as if she were entering some sort of
tunnel. There was only her… and the man sitting across from
her.

“
You see, questions can be
complicated,” he went on. “And their answers, even more
so.”

Silence filled the shop. Or, at least it
seemed to from Poppy’s perspective. Everything was quiet but for
the ringing in her ears. It was persistent, growing louder. And
then it was quiet. And then it was loud again.

Wait….

“
Your phone is ringing,
Poppy.”

Her eyes widened, and she
looked down at her purse. A spear of aggressive irritation spiked
through her. “I
know
.” She shoved her hand into her handbag and pulled out her
phone. “And
thank
you for calling me
Poppy
.”

She put the phone to her ear. “What?” she
asked none too gently.

“
Poppy? You
okay?”

It was Violet. Poppy sat up straighter and
looked across the table at the blue-eyed stranger who hadn’t
stopped staring at her. She would give just about anything just
then to have a nice long talk with her best friend. She’d had one
heck of a day, and now she was having coffee with someone who was
clearly of a supernatural ilk, and who knew exactly who and what
she was.

He could be dangerous.

Oh, he’s definitely dangerous.

“
Um….”

“
Poppy, what’s going on?”
Violet asked, clearly able to hear her hesitation. If Poppy wasn’t
careful, the new Shadow Queen would be here in a few short hops,
skips and jumps through the portals of the shadows.