Something flickers on his face, a memory from so long ago, when this moment, our love, felt as far away as the stars that hang in the sky.
“I am undone by my love for you,” he replies.
We’re getting close. We’re getting so close.
“Do you feel it, Kel?” I gasp. It’s getting stronger, as if all the magic of Winter is gathering around us, sensing the change within the High Prince of Winter.
Keldarion’s eyes blaze, and I feel his emotions as if they were my own. His wolf is wild, this beast caged inside. Or perhaps it has been caging him this whole time. It knows there is change. It claws at him, desperate to escape, to rule.
“You are not your beast,” I say, voice firm, and lean down to capture his lips. “You are the High Prince of Winter.”
His eyes flash—no,glow—and for a moment, I am staring into the eyes of the wolf, the wolf that I was terrified of but that also protected me. And I kiss him again—kiss the High Prince of Winter and his beast, both of whom I love beyond any logical measure. Love more than any story I’ve ever read could describe.
He rises, and I wrap my legs around his waist as he carries us to the wall. My back presses against the stone, and I shudder from the cold, but Keldarion keeps his hands on my hips, guiding himself in and out of me, pace increasing until I’m near dizzy with pleasure.
“It’s time,” he says.
I feel myself unraveling, euphoria coiling deep inside me. I grip his shoulders, hand sliding over his snowflake necklace and ending on his heart.Thump, thump, thump.
My own heart is frantic. The space that’s been so empty for so long feels like it’s caught fire.
Keldarion leans to kiss the column of my neck. I clutch at him as if he’s the only anchor in a storm I can’t escape. My eyes squeeze shut, and I’m not myself anymore—I’m something wild, something untamed. An aching need steals my breath. Frost seems to gather in my veins, sharp and biting, and I can’t speak, can’t even remember my own name.
But he does.
He does.
“Rosalina, Rosalina, Rosalina,” he whispers against my skin in time with his movements. A prayer, a plea, I’m not sure. My whole body is hovering on the edge of a cliff, a storm swirling beneath me. If I don’t jump soon, I’m certain I’m going to die.
Keldarion grips my hair tight, staring at me, frosted tears on his cheeks. This moment of radiance looms before us, a pleasure so immense, it may shatter me completely. But after that, I will be parted from him.
That ice consumes me again, a soul-deep grief.
What’s a little pleasure without pain?
Lilac eyes and a cunning smile, seasons of rebirth and sea salt and change. I do this for them. We bear this pain for them so we can have our forever.
I stare at Keldarion, stare at my husband, his white hair forming a wild halo around his face.
“Nothing will part us, Kel,” I gasp, barely able to form words. “Not magic or time or even the deepest depths of the Below itself.”
Kel’s voice is a low, unsteady whisper, his breath ghosting against my skin. “Not magic, not time, not even the stars falling from the sky, Rose. I’d defy them all for you.”
“I’ll come back to you, I promise,” I cry out. “I promise.”
His pace increases to a wild frenzy, hands tight on me, binding more than our bodies together, the deepest parts of our souls becoming one.
“I promise,” I cry out again, tears streaming down my cheeks, falling as frozen diamonds to the ground.
The moment crashes over me like a blizzard’s first gust, sharp and blinding, a searing frost that ignites and spreads through every part of me. It’s a storm of shimmering ice and wild heat, consuming me in waves that steal my breath and leave metrembling in its wake. My body releases in an endless ripple of pleasure.
Keldarion’s muscles tense, and he roars out to the sky, hands digging into my hips as his release spills into me.
The moment seems to pulse for eternity, a bone-deep magic simmering through us as our breaths slow. A strange half laugh, half sob chokes out of me. Keldarion brushes down my hair, kissing my temple, my cold cheeks, and finally my lips.
“I feel…something,” he whispers.
“Your curse, Kel.”
