His hand lands gently on my arm, thumb brushing a sliver of glass from my sleeve.
“I don’t understand how this happened,” he murmurs.
“I wonder if it was the person from the forest—the one who brought me here.”
“No, that’s not what I mean, Lumi. I warded your bed. Nothing should have been able to penetrate through myKael’sharûn.”
“What’s aKael’sharûn?”
“It’s an ancient act of protection. My antlers carry many things—breath, memory, magic. But they were never meant to stay whole.”
He gets off the bed and reaches beneath my headboard, grabbing a shard of bone.
I look up at his antlers and notice a few sections that are broken and bloody.
“You broke them off... to protect me? Won’t you run out of antlers if you keep doing that?”
“No. They arevair’haelin.” He opens my palm and lays it inside. “My body will make more. For you.Velorin ael’vairûn.” He smiles faintly, “The only ones that won’t grow back are the ones I break for war.”
I close my eyes, just for a moment, but I don't let go of his antler. My body is burning. Everything inside me feels too loud. I know how messed up this is, how wrong it is for me to want him like this after what happened—but I can’t stop my thoughts from racing back to everything that he was doing to me before the window exploded.
The heat between us hasn’t faded. It’s worse now. Sharper. My skin feels too tight, and my lungs can’t draw in enough air. I feel like I’m drowning in a sea full of flames.
I don’t know whether to cry or crawl into his arms and beg him not to let go.
“Andrik,” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer. He’s too busy staring at the window.
“I’m okay,” I say, softer now. “You were right there. You protected me.” That gets him. He finally meets my eyes.
“You’re not okay,” he says, voice frayed. “That was meant for you, Lumi. They could have killed you.”
“But they didn’t.”
“And what if I hadn’t gotten there in time?” his voice comes out panicked.
“I think you’ll always get there in time, Andrik.”
He stares at me for a long time. His hands curl and uncurl at his sides. His nostrils flare as his gaze drops to my lips. Theheat inside me flares higher. I ache for something I can’t even explain.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I ask.
“Because the bond is screaming,” His gaze falls over my body, “and you smell like need, Lumi. You’re practically glowing with it.”
My heart slams in my chest. My thighs press together instinctively,
“I can’t think straight when you’re like this,” he growls. “And I definitely can’t touch you again, not unless you want to be bonded to me forever.”
Do I? Do I want to be bonded to an ancient snow beast that I don’t even know?
Kinda.
That should terrify me, but it doesn’t. Something inside me is screaming to let him in, andmaybe that's just my vagina, but there are so many snowy pheromones in this room I can barely think straight.
“It’s the bond,” I whisper. “Right? That’s all this is?” He doesn’t answer. Which means it’s not.
His silence drips with tension. “Okay,” I say, because I’ve officially lost my mind. “Maybe the idea of being bonded to you isn’t so bad.”
