Page 24 of The Midnight Blizzard
Jack peeked over the boulder’s top. “It’s the king,” he breathed. “Don’t move.”
“Why are we hiding?” I whispered.
Jack grimaced. “Um, I missed an important meeting earlier this morning when we went to get Kodiak.”
I grinned wickedly. “So you mean to say that you are already onthin icewith him?”
He chuckled. “No, I was just on thin ice with you, remember?”
“Good thing we fixed that.”
King Wenceslas passed, calling out to someone. After several moments, there was another crunch of snow, and the servant we’d seen gathering firewood before replied to the king. After a short conversation, their footsteps faded away. Jack and I waited for several more minutes until theywere gone. It was difficult to remain quiet; each time Jack and I caught the other’s eye, we had to clap our hands up to our mouths to stifle our laughter. Everything seemed funnier with him around. Once we hadn’t seen or heard them for a while, Jack touched my back. “Want to try that lift again?”
“Yes, I do.”
For an hour, we worked on lifts and holds. Each attempt sent exhilarating bursts of energy through me when Jack touched me, and it became increasingly difficult to disguise my attraction to him as simple ice skating instruction.
Eventually, the temperature dropped so much that even with my increased core temperature from skating, shivers rolled over my body and my teeth began chattering. I stripped off my gloves to examine my hands. The full moon’s light illuminated my fingertips, which were slowly turning blue. I blew onto my hands and rubbed them together, trying to warm them up.
“Here,” Jack offered, taking my cold hands into his own warm ones. “My skin never gets cold. Ironic, I know.”
It was true. His palms radiated so much heat that I wanted to hold on to him forever. My numb fingers tingled as they regained feeling.
“Better?” he asked.
“Not yet.” How long would I be able to get away with having him hold my hands?
Jack scrubbed his hands over mine, enfolding them in warmth. His rubbing slowed until we were just holding our hands up, trapped between our chests. If I looked at him, I would be tempted to flirt again, so I continued to stare at our hands.
“Jack?” My voice was so quiet that it was barely audible over the whistling of the wind. “May I ask you something?”
“Mmhmm.”
“What happened to your parents?”
Other than a slight stiffening to his fingers, Jack didn’t react at all. “Why do you ask?”
“You never talk about them. You said you were raised at the castle, but you’ve never said anything about them or even what your last name is. Even when you were announced that first night, they just called you Jack.”
Jack deflated slightly. “I don’t have a surname. My mother passed away in childbirth, and I never knew my father. Apparently, once he saw that his son was a mage, he blamed me for his wife’s death and wanted nothing to do with me.”
My heart broke into a thousand tiny pieces.
“The king and queen have been very kind,” Jack went on, his thumb tracing along the back of my hand. “They tell everyone I’m almost like an adopted son. My mother was the queen’s personal handmaiden, so once my mother passed away and my father left, the royal family made special exceptions for me. It’s done a lot of good for the mages; we’ve been granted many more freedoms in the last years.”
“Then, you know…” A lump swelled in my throat. “You know what it’s like to be an orphan too.”
Jack tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “Noelle…”
“Do you…” I attempted to swallow the lump in my throat. “Do you ever feel lonely?”
His warm fingers flexed around my cold ones. “More often than you know.”
Heat built behind my eyes. Jack knew how I felt. I had refused to talk about my father’s death ever since it had happened simply because I had no one to talk to. Jack hadnot only known my father, but he had lost his parents as well.
“I really miss my dad,” I whispered, chin trembling.
“I know,” he said, and folded me into a hug. I closed my eyes and burrowed against his side, sighing as I drew comfort from his body heat and shared life experiences. Jack understood me better than anyone. If only he weren’t a mage.
