Winterblaze Read Online Free PDF Page A

the truth. If the truth proves difficult for you, that is no fault of mine.”
    A ribbon of ice crackled along the railing. Win glanced at it, and speculation crept over his features but, when he turned back to her, his expression was once again implacable and righteous.
    With effort, she reeled in the need to freeze over the entire deck. “It shall be no difficulty. Indeed, I relish the opportunity to face the truth, not turn from it and hide away.”
    Oh, but that got him. His chin lifted so that the light fell directly on the ruined side of his face. Had she thought he was hiding behind his over-long hair? She’d been wrong on that count. His blue-grey eyes, so like deep ice on a winter lake, held hers. He was waiting. Waiting for her to remark upon his scars. And so she studied them ruthlessly.
    He did not flinch, nor look away, but a slight tightening of his mouth betrayed his unease. Poppy ignored that mouth. She had to or she would want to touch it with her own. She had always admired Win’s lips, the neat line ofthem and how they could be at one moment so very hard and unyielding, and in the next, utterly soft and beguiling. Instead, she looked at the scars.
    The middle scar was slightly puffy, puckering his cheek, while the innermost one bisected his left eyebrow and the corner of his lip before ending at his chin. How it must have hurt. Her heart turned over at the memory of him ripped open and bloody. She had feared she would lose him then, never realizing that she already had.
    The moment stretched. When his eyes narrowed in irritation, she shook herself out of maudlin thoughts and spoke. “You’ve healed well.”
    The scars pulled as his brow knotted. “Yes.”
    “Are you pained?” She didn’t know what else to say.
    Again came the slight twitch in his jaw and the tensing around the corners of his eyes as if he were perplexed. “At times. It is more discomfort than anything.”
    “I would expect as much.” Gathering her parasol—ridiculous accessory as it was neither sunny nor raining—she moved to go.
    “That is all?” His scowl was growing.
    Poppy stopped. “What were you expecting? Pity? Scorn? Tears?”
    He made a sound. “I never expect tears from you.”
    How wrong you are on that count.
    “Nor do I want your pity.”
    “Good. Because you don’t have it,” she said.
    The scars on his face whitened, and though she loathed admitting it to herself, this new Win, slightly wild and angry, stirred her blood. Her voice was not as steady as she would have liked when she spoke again. “Your face is ruined. And what of it? Those who judge you for it are fools. You are alive, which is more than most of the otherswho met your attacker can say. Why then should I have cause to pity?”
    His expression closed down, giving her nothing of what he might be feeling. “Right, then,” he said. “Enough about me. Have you come to do the pretty?”
    “Do the pretty?” she repeated, aghast.
    Win ignored the warning in her tone and smiled at her blandly. “Apologize? Grovel?” His smile grew, but it did not reach his eyes. No, they were full of anger. “Whatever you want to call it makes no difference to me. As long as you do what needs to be done.”
    That bloody, smug
… Her blood began to boil as she glared at him. “If, for one moment, you believe that I am going to
grovel
, then you—”
    “Belong in Bedlam?” he offered with a sharp bite in his voice.
    Damn it, but the man always had a knack for finishing her sentences, and it was bloody annoying.
    Cold humor was reflected in his expression, as if he knew he’d irritated her. “Believe me, sweeting, there are days when I wish it were that simple. But madness would be the easy way out, would it not?”
    When she simply glared, he launched off the railing and stood before her. “And what is it that you wish for, Poppy? Deep down in that hidden heart of yours?”
    He tapped the space between her breasts with one long finger. The gesture was