He braced a gloved hand beside my head. The frost beneath his palm fractured in a thin line that glowed faintly, white and silver. The crack widened as his breath ghosted over my cheek.
I could smell the faint scent of steel and pine on him, sharp and cold and clean. The scent of the storms he carried like second skin.
“Kaelith,” I said, and it came out softer than I meant.
That single sound—his name in my voice—was enough. His eyes darkened, something fierce and helpless flickering there, and I felt the air shift. The frostlight around us dimmed, the hallway narrowing until it felt like the entire world had stilled and was waiting.
He was so close I could see the pulse at his throat, the faint tremor in his gloved fingers. I’d thought him all ice and discipline, but now I could feel the warmth bleeding through the thin distance between us.
“Say my name again,” he murmured.
“Why?”
“So I’ll remember it when this ruins everything.”
I should have laughed. Instead, I whispered it again. “Kaelith.”
He closed his eyes. For a moment, I thought that would be the end of it—that he’d step back, rebuild the distance he needed like armor. But when his eyes opened again, that restraint was gone.
The silence between us shattered.
It didn’t matter who moved first this time—there was no line left to cross, no air between us to claim.
The first brush of his mouth was almost nothing, a ghost of contact that felt more like a question than an answer. Cold silk, held breath, the faint tremor of his hand against the pillar beside my head. Then the question broke.
The second kiss came deeper—heat slipping through the cracks in winter, steady and consuming. His fingers found the edge of my jaw, gloved at first, then bare as he tugged the leather loose. The moment his skin met mine, the frost under us hissed; drops of water rolled down the pillar, tracing our reflections in slow descent.
I clutched at the front of his tunic without meaning to. The fabric was cold, but he wasn’t. Every inhale tasted like snow and iron, every exhale like something I’d been starving for.
He kissed like a man afraid of what he wanted and helpless to stop wanting it. Each pause felt like him trying to remember who he was supposed to be, each return to my lips proof that he’d forgotten again. His breathshuddered against my cheek; I felt him whisper something that could have been my name or a curse.
His lips found mine again before the sound had even died in the air. This time there was no hesitation—only the press of wanting that had been caged too long. He angled my chin higher, mouth moving with a rough kind of reverence, like he was both relishing and warning.
Each kiss came slower, deeper, like he was trying to memorize the shape of my breath. The cold around us began to melt in earnest now, drops of water pattering softly at our feet. My hands slid higher against his chest, feeling the steady thrum of his heart beneath the layers of cloth and armor—fast, uneven, defiant.
He broke away only long enough to breathe against my skin, his nose brushing the hollow of my throat. “This is madness,” he murmured, voice low and raw.
“Then stop,” I whispered.
He didn’t.
His hand—still half-gloved, the other bare—found my waist, drawing me closer until there was no space left at all. His touch was careful and desperate all at once, the kind of control that trembles under its own weight. I could feel every line of restraint in him straining not to shatter.
When his mouth found mine again, the kiss deepened into something that didn’t feel like defiance anymore—it felt inevitable. His breath mingled with mine, uneven and warm. The cold between us gave way to something molten, something that hummed under my skin until I didn’t know where the frost ended and I began.
My hands slid up to the back of his neck, fingers brushing the base of his hair. He drew in a sharp breath, and for a fleeting heartbeat I felt him tremble—not from cold but from whatever war he was losing insidehimself. His gloved hand clenched against the pillar, cracking the ice beneath it.
“Kaelith,” I breathed.
He pulled back just enough to meet my eyes. His gaze flicked to my mouth again, and his thumb brushed over the edge of my lip, slow, reverent, doomed. “I can’t—” he started, but the words dissolved against my mouth before he could finish them.
And still, he kissed me again. Like a man fighting a battle he never meant to win.
When he finally broke away, our foreheads stayed touching. The frostlight flickered—slow, unsteady, as if the castle itself had forgotten its rhythm. My heartbeat filled the space between us, loud enough to hear.
He didn’t move. Just breathed. Then, low enough that the words scraped out of him, he said,“This shouldn’t have happened.”
My voice was barely a whisper. “Then maybe it was always going to.”
