“Do you enjoy this?” he asked softly. “Testing the limits?”
“Do you?”
The corner of his mouth twitched—not quite a smile but close. “I used to think I did.”
Iswallowed. “And now?”
“Now I’m not sure what I think.”
He looked down, briefly, as though the floor might offer a simpler answer. When he looked back up, his expression was stripped bare—tired, unguarded, more man than prince.
“I shouldn’t have brought you here,” he said. “I shouldn’t have let this begin.”
“You keep saying that,” I whispered, “but you don’t stop.”
He laughed once under his breath, sharp and bitter. “Because I can’t.”
The frostlight flickered, as if reacting to the admission. His control slipped, visible now in the way his shoulders tensed, the way the air around us grew heavy, warmer.
I could feel him fighting himself—the small tremors in his breath, the slight quiver of his hand when he reached out and stopped an inch from my arm. His gloved fingertips hovered there, trembling.
“Why do you do that?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
“Do what?”
“Look like you want to touch me but never do.”
He inhaled a long, ragged breath. “Because if I do, I won’t stop.”
Something fragile broke inside me at the honesty in his voice.
His gaze fell to my lips. His jaw flexed again. The frostlight caught on his breath as it mingled with mine, a faint halo between us.
Fenrir made a low, warning sound from somewhere behind me. Kaelith’s eyes flicked toward him then back to me. “He’s smarter than both of us,” he said.
“Probably,” I murmured.
Our reflections shimmered in the mirrored wall beside us—his tall and dark, mine pale and too still. In the reflection, he looked like he was already touching me.
He whispered, almost to himself, “You shouldn’t make me care this much.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“I know.”
His hand hovered there for one more heartbeat, shaking with restraint—and then he dropped it to his side, stepping back like a man forcing himself out of fire.
The frostlight dimmed. The air cooled again. The spell, if that’s what it was, had cracked—but not broken.
A drop of melted frost fell from the ceiling and landed between us with a soft hiss. The sound broke something open.
I moved first. Or maybe he did. I couldn’t tell. One breath, we were staring; the next, he’d crossed the space in a stride. My back hit the frost pillar behind me, cold biting through the silk at my shoulders. The shock of it drew a small gasp from me, and his eyes caught on the sound like a man too long starving catching the scent of food.
“Don’t,” he whispered. It wasn’t a command. It was a plea.
“Then stop looking at me like that,” I whispered back.
His jaw flexed. “I can’t.”
