There was something unsettling about having a woman just watching as he undressed, without a word or movement. As if she was studying him objectively and not looking at him as a seminaked man.
As swiftly as he could without slipping and cracking his head open on the icy floor, Darien lowered himself into the scalding hot water. Instantly he relaxed. The heat from the pool massaged and caressed his sore, tired muscles. When he entered he made sure he was on the opposite end as she was. He didn’t want to scare her away. Now that they were here together, he wanted to talk to her, wanted to hear her voice. He wanted to know what was going on.
He wasn’t usually one to crave human interaction. He could go months out in the bush with no company but nature itself and the few critters that usually found their way into his tent. But he craved it now.
As he sank down into the healing liquid, he found a ledge to sit on. He kept his gaze on her. Only when he was fully submerged did she seem to relax, unfurling her arms and sinking back into the water. She kept his gaze the entire time.
He felt both unnerved and aroused as she watched him. Her actions dictated that he stay away, but at the same time, he got the strong sensation that she wanted him to breech the space between them. She was definitely the most confusing woman he’d ever been around. He supposed considering the circumstances of his situation that probably wasn’t saying too much.
“You know, this is all very strange. I’m in a palace made of ice with a woman who I believe is named Koori-Onna.”
She flinched a little at her name. He wondered how long it’d been since she heard it spoken out loud by someone. He had a feeling that she didn’t have too many visitors in her frozen home.
“You are Koori-Onna, aren’t you?”
She nodded.
“Am I dead? Did you freeze my insides like the stories say?”
“Do you feel frozen?”
The sultry sound of her accented voice startled him. Despite the heat from the water, gooseflesh rose on his skin. The sensation tightened all the muscles in his thighs and other lower regions.
“No,” he finally answered after the shock of hearing her speak wore off.
“Then you are not.”
He took the start of their conversation as an opening to move closer to her. He could’ve been completely off base, but he knew if she truly didn’t want to be around him, she would’ve gotten out of the water the moment he entered the pool.
“Why am I here? Why didn’t you kill me as the legend says?”
She stared at him for a few seconds, under the hood of her long black eyelashes, then shook her head. “I don’t know.”
She looked sad as she spoke and Darien had the sudden urge to cross the pool in one swift motion and gather her in his arms. For the first time since he’d seen her, vulnerability shone through her stoic exterior. He imagined it was something she usually didn’t reveal to anyone.
Why him? What was the reason he was here and not lying dead in some snowstorm?
He shook his head, the truth or nontruth of the situation was making his head spin. “I just can’t believe this. How can this be real? How can you be real?”
“You are a scientist, yes?”
He nodded.
“Then can you not see and touch what is around you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you doubt your own observations?”
She was right. He did doubt. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because this can’t possibly be real. It’s a myth. You are a myth, a story passed down from generation to generation over a thousand years.”
“I am real, Darien. As real as you are.”
“How do you know who I am?”
Her lips curled up then, in a shy smile. “I don’t know exactly. Just as you have heard stories of me, maybe I have heard stories of you.”
He smiled in return, his gaze not leaving her face. She was spectacular to watch. So dainty and elegant, like a porcelain doll.
“Your English is very good.”
“I’ve had a long time to learn.”
He wondered what her skin would feel like if he touched her. Would she be cold to the touch? Or would he feel the warmth inside her?
Her smile faded as if she were privy to his thoughts. Maybe she could read his mind. Maybe that was how she knew who he was. He really hoped that wasn’t the case, especially with the way he’d been imaging her. Naked, wrapped around his body, kissing his face and other parts of him.
She shifted in the water and Darien knew she was getting ready to escape.
Before she could get out of the water, Darien crossed the pool. “Please don’t go.” He reached out and grasped her arm. Despite the heat from the water, her flesh was still icy cold, but he didn’t let go.
She looked down at his hand on her arm then back up to his face. He saw confusion there, but also longing. God, she was desirable. He’d never wanted a woman as much as he wanted her right now. Every part of his body ached for her.
When her lips parted, Darien leaned into her, eager to have her mouth. Her eyes widened as he moved in, but she made no attempt to pull away. She stayed very still, stiff under his touch, as his lips brushed hers.
It was then that the room shook.
Chapter 6
T he whole room moved as if something had picked it up and rattled it. Panicked, Koori tried to scramble out of the pool, but the motion of the ground slapped her firmly into Darien’s lap. He wrapped his arms around her as the walls in the room started to crack.
The breaking sound filled the room. It was so loud she wanted to put her hands over her ears and squeeze her eyes shut. She’d never heard such a noise before, especially not in her home.
She didn’t know what was happening, but it almost felt like an earthquake. It was improbable, but not impossible. She remembered the last two powerful quakes to hit Japan. One in 1923 and the last in 1995, but both had occurred on the main island and hadn’t affected Hokkaido all that much. Maybe it was just the northern island’s turn to be blasted.
Koori clutched Darien as pieces of ice fell from the walls, shattering into tiny shards on the hard floor. She couldn’t believe the walls were breaking. She didn’t think it would ever be possible.
She should know; she’d tried breaking them apart herself on many occasions.
During her first year imprisoned in the ice palace, she’d lifted every piece of furniture she could and beat against the walls. All that ever came of it was broken furniture, which was magically reconstructed the next day. Every five years or so after that, she tried again, but to no avail. Everything she had tried to use to break the ice had failed.
Until now. But this was not of her making.
Then she glanced at Darien who was hugging her close and eyeing the shaking room, and she wondered. Could this be the reason she was compelled to bring him here? Could he be the catalyst to the changes happening right now?
Finally the room stopped vibrating. One last piece of ice dropped from the far wall onto the ground and slid across the floor to fall into the hot pool. Steam hissed the second it hit the water. Slowly it dissolved into nothing.
They both watched it in silence.
Suddenly conscious of Darien’s arms around her and the heat from his body, Koori pushed out of his embrace and scrambled out of the pool.
“Wait!” he called.
She couldn’t. It was all too much for her to handle. She grabbed her kimono from the floor, slid it on and raced from the room before Darien could get out of the water and touch her again.
She sprinted down the hallway toward the east wing and her private chambers. She passed two of her servants standing to attention along the way, but they paid her no mind. Their only purpose was to see to her physical needs. Her mental needs were her own.
When she reached the double doors to her rooms, she pushed them open without pause and shut them firmly behind her. In her mind she summoned two guards to stand at her doors. She didn’t want Darien to stumble upon her if he haphazardly searched the castle for her. She needed time alone to gather her thoughts, which seemed ironic to her since she’d been alone for so long. She’d wished countless times for someone to talk to, someone that she could touch and be touched by, and all her wishing had brought Darien to her.
Yet here she was squirreled away in her room, knees trembling, too afraid to let him get close to her. Or was it the fear of what might happen if she did that made her shudder?
Koori walked into her sitting room and poured herself a cup of warm sake that was waiting for her on the small table. She drank it quickly, and then poured another. She sat, then, pretending there was a roaring fire in the frozen hearth.
For a thousand years she’d been cursed to live in this ice palace. The only times she’d been allowed out were to bring death to those stranded in snowstorms. It was her penance for a crime she committed over a hundred lifetimes ago.
During the first decade, Koori spent it grieving for the man who she had lost—her lover, Shiro Tagawa, and for the man whom she’d wronged—her husband, Kyoshi Iwasaki. Her affair had doomed them all and had sent her to this hell to spend an eternity.
Her husband had died in a snowstorm after discovering her and Shiro together. In his anger and dismay, he ventured into a blizzard no man could survive. She often wondered if he had done it deliberately to kill himself. She hadn’t ever thought that Kyoshi loved her enough to do such a thing. Love had never been part of their marriage.
Arranged when she was just fourteen, Koori had married the powerful daimyo of the land she was born to. He had not been a kind or gentle man. She lost her virginity violently the night of her wedding and every coupling with Kyoshi after that night had been steeped in brutality.
It wasn’t until she’d met a young foolhardy artist named Shiro did she finally understand the meaning of making love. She knew it was wrong, but she’d gone on so long without kindness and gentleness that Shiro’s alluring face and laugh couldn’t sway her from her desires.
They both had paid for it with their lives.
After Kyoshi’s body was found frozen a mere mile from the house, his brother, Junzo, a man rumored to possess powerful magic, came to find Koori and Shiro. Shiro was brutally executed in front of her. Even after so long, she could still see the macabre scene in her dreams. With Koori, he wanted her to suffer. He had called her an ice-hearted whore and murderess. Instead of killing her outright, he put a curse on her.