I reached for his corded forearm, digging my fingers into it, my breath turning into gasping pants. When the now more familiar sensation built this time, it shot so far as my toes, making them curl. I was so close—right there, and Jack, with a devilish smile,stopped.
“What are you doing?” I breathed out, my chest heaving, and I fought the urge tostranglehim.
“Not yet, my little arctic fox,” he crooned, spreading me wide and settling between my thighs.
Lying back to enjoy the view, I scraped my nails down his stomach. “You’re not the boss of me.”
“Don’t act as if you don’tlikeit,” Jack snarled, pushing into me to the hilt again. He hitched one knee by his side and rolled his hips—and winter’s blessing, thefriction, the ever-tightening tension building in my core, had me groaning. “In fact, I think you’ve liked my commandeering attitude from the beginning. Haven’t you?”
Jack asked a question, I heard him, but this felt too fucking good to miss even one delicious moment of it. Moaning, digging my nails into his chest, I replied with a breathy, “Yes.”
“And my creature,” Jack continued, lowering his head to suck on my neck. “You like him too, don’t you?”
Fucking goddesses, I did. His creature was all-powerful, monstrous, protective, and allmine.
“Yes, Jakzair,” I moaned, moving my hands to his muscular, plump ass and squeezing it. “Yes.”
Jack let out a relieved sigh into my hair. “You’re perfect, Sylvie. Fucking. Perfect.”
Tears filled my eyes at that. Having lived so many years being told I was anything but perfect and more of a liability and a threat, Jack didn’t know how much those words meant to me.
“Use your magic.” Jack grazed his canines over my nape, and I stilled, wondering if he was going to bite me there. Was I ready to be claimed? To fully see this through that fast? “You can’t hurt anyone or anything in these woods.Useit.”
The last words weren’t a question, they were a fucking command. One, I was more than willing to follow. I’d never let loose with my powers, never explored what they could do for fear of destroying everything.
When Jack flicked his thumb against my clit in tandem with his ferocious thrusts, I came completely undone. Screaming through my release, my magic responded with me, ice spires plunging from the earth around us and rising so high they pierced through the tree branches. Jack pumped three more times, his cock suddenly thickening inside me,sealingus together. I never thought I could feel thisfull. When Jack spilled himself, his back arched, head tilting back to let out his creature’s roar.
The sight of it made my magic flutter over my skin, patterning glowing ice chips down the length of my body. Additional patches formed on my cheeks, neck, and forehead, chilling my skin and soothing me.
When he came down from his high, Jack peered at me with those ethereal, icy eyes. His brow bobbed at my magic had done—the deadly spires, the new skin. Jack gripped my chin with one hand and bent to kiss me, pooling his own wintry magic into me and adding to my icy patterns, blue snowflakes, and silver dust.
“Icursemyself for ever questioning you as my mate, Sylvaria.” Jack searched my face as if he feared I’d despise him for that.
Pinching my knees against his ribs, I pulled him closer, the water from the hot spring sloshing and steaming. “You have a long time to make it up to me.”
Jack nodded, his hand gliding down my neck until it rested on the crook, his finger lazily tracing over my skin, mesmerized by it. “And I see no reason why we should wait on meclaimingyou.”
Sudden panic tore the euphoria from me like a snapping twig. “Wait, what?”
Jack arched a brow and frowned before slowly pulling out of me. He said nothing and grimaced at the heat wafting from the pool.
Slipping into the hot spring and resting a hand on his shoulder, I gulped. “Jack, we just got together. We just got over this hurdle of accepting we’re mates. Why do you want to rush this?”
Jack still kept silent, his hands wringing together, icy barbs forming over his knuckles.
“What aren’t you telling me? And I want thetruth, Jakzair.”
There weretwo sides to me: the confident, righteous King Jakzair, and then there was Jack, the village idiot. Why hadn’t I picked a better moment to say something to her? Directly after we fucked for the first time,wasn’tit. I didn’t want to tell her like this, but honestly, how else should I have seen this playing out? If I had rushed into saying I had limited time in this realm, she’d have questioned my motives. Then again, keeping it from her was bound to have consequences.Fuck.
After inhaling a deep, calming breath, I rubbed my knuckles, willing the ice to melt from them. Sylvie kept a hand on my arm so that we could stay in the hot spring, naked and satiated. Lifting my eyes to hers, I raised my chin and bit the bullet. “Every winter solstice, I’m granted time away from my kingdom to search for my mate. The portal that opens is always to somewhere fatedly chosen at random.”
“This time—it brought you to the Cove? You hadn’t been here before that?” Sylvie’s wings fanned slowly, mimicking her gradual understanding.
“That’s right.” Inching closer, I cupped her face with both hands, urging her to keep looking at me, to understand. “But I can’t stay away from my kingdom for long. There’s always atimelimit.”
The skin between Sylvie’s eyes wrinkled, her bottom lip quivering as if she tried to find the right words to respond to this. “What are you trying to say?”
“I only have two more days, Sylvie.” It was like an ice spike driving through my insides from the heart down. Rushing her had never been my intention, and I loathed myself for the perplexed, hurt look on her face now.
