“Depends on which side of the teeth you’re on.”
He turned his hand, holding it palm-up toward me. Steam rose faintly from his skin where the ice had melted. “Go on. Feel it.”
I hesitated. “You’re trying to prove something.”
“Only that warmth isn’t always dangerous.”
Against my better judgment, I placed my hand in his. His skin was almost hot. The contrast made me gasp. He chuckled quietly but didn’t move away.
“See?” he murmured. “Not all things that burn are meant to hurt you.”
I pulled my hand back too quickly, the warmth lingering. “You sound like you’ve said that before.”
“Maybe I have.”
For a heartbeat, neither of us moved. The distance between us was barely the width of a breath, the kind of space that felt dangerous to cross yet impossible to ignore.
Kael’s gaze dipped to my mouth, then back to my eyes. I could feel the faint hum of his magic beneath his skin—steady, alive, utterly unlike the silence that followed Kaelith wherever he went.
He lifted a hand, slow, careful, and brushed his thumb along my jaw, just below my ear. The touch was light enough to question whether it had really happened, but my pulse answered for me.
“You’re not meant for cold,” he murmured. “I can feel you fighting it.”
“I’ve survived worse,” I whispered back, though my voice trembled.
“Maybe,” he said, his breath ghosting against my cheek. “But you don’t have to.”
We stood there for a moment, the air between us thinner than before, the silence threaded with something electric. Then Fenrir let out a sharp bark, breaking the spell.
Kael grinned. “He really hates me.”
“He has good instincts.”
He bent slightly, giving the hound a mock bow. “And I have patience.”
When he straightened, his gaze found mine again, softer this time. “Don’t let the cold make you forget what warmth feels like, Katria.”
He said my name like it mattered.
And before I could decide whether to answer, he turned and left, the air cooling in his absence.
Fenrir padded to my side and sighed—a sound that could have been reproach.
“I know,” I whispered, pressing my fingers to my palm where the heat still lingered. “I know.”
The next morning, I needed light.
Skadar Hold never truly saw the sun, only the filtered glow that crept through crystal walls. But in the east gallery, the frost had thinned enough that daylight spilled through the carvings in soft ribbons. It felt like standing inside a breath of gold.
I was tracing the edge of a mural—a direstag locked mid-leap—when a familiar voice broke the quiet.
“So that’s where you hide when you’re avoiding half the Court.”
I turned. Kael leaned in the archway, a study in contradictions: leather sparring jacket, snow-dusted hair, smile too easy for this place.
“Who says I’m hiding?” I asked.
He gestured lazily toward the window. “No one comes up here unless they’re hiding … or thinking too loudly.”
