He backs away like I’ve burned him instead of the reverse. One step, then another, putting distance between us while something dangerous crosses his expression. Not rage this time. Something worse. Something that looks uncomfortably close to hunger mixed with confusion mixed with the desperate need to understand what the fuck just happened between us.
“Raze,” he says, taking another step back, like he doesn’t trust what he’s saying. “My name is Raze.”
The admission lands softer than expected, almost tentative, like he’s offering something fragile instead of basic information.
Swallowing heavily, I relax my tense and sore shoulders and take a small step toward him. “Roxy.” I match his tone despite the trembling in my hands, despite the burn of frost marks on my skin. “Since we’re apparently doing introductions after a month of you treating me like property instead of a person.”
He moves before I can track the motion, closing the distance between us in two long strides that bring him close enough that I feel the cold radiating off him, his chest rising and falling with breaths that appear harder than they should be for someone who seems more myth than man.
His hand lifts, hesitates in the space between us, then touches my shoulder where frost burned through fabric to skin beneath.
No ice forms.
No heat either.
Just his hand on my shoulder, skin-to-skin contact that sends electricity arcing through my nervous system in ways that have nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with proximity, with the sudden awareness that he’s close. Close enough that I could reach up and touch the scar running from his scalp to his eyebrow, close enough that the space between us has become dangerous for entirely different reasons.
There is chemistry—raw and undeniable.
Absolutely fucking terrifying in its intensity.
His pupils dilate further as he stares at me, dragon and man warring behind eyes that can’t seem to decide if they want to freeze me solid or pull me closer. His breathing roughens, matching mine, and I watch his gaze drop to my mouth for a fraction of a second before snapping back up.
“This is…” He doesn’t finish the sentence, but I hear what he’s not saying in the way his hand tightens slightly on my shoulder.Impossible… complicated… risky.
All words that should make me step back, put distance between us, remember that he’s my captor, I’m his prisoner, andnothingabout this situation allows for whatever is crackling in the air between us.
But I don’t step back.
I lift my chin, holding his gaze, and something in my chest tightens at the recognition that he’s fighting this just as hard as I am. That whatever is happening isn’t one-sided, isn’t just me being attracted to my own personal monster. It’s mutual, terrifying, and neither of us knows what to do with it.
“You should go.” My voice comes out rougher than intended, scraped raw from cold or from the effort of not reaching up totouch his face. “Before one of us tries to kill the other. I don’t have ice magic, but I do have a mean right hook.”
He stares at me for another long moment, hand still on my shoulder, body close enough that I can count his heartbeats in the pulse visible at his throat. Then he pulls away abruptly, backing toward the door as though I’ve suddenly become more dangerous than anything he’s faced in centuries.
“The flame.” The words emerge strangled, desperate. “When you touched it… when you’re near me… it burns brighter.”
“I know.”
“I don’t understand why.”
“Neither do I.”
The admission hangs between us, honest, raw, and utterly insufficient to explain what just happened, what’s still happening, and what will probably keep happening until someone decides where this goes.
He reaches the door, hand on the handle, and pauses without looking back. “Ivy will be up to treat those frost burns. Donotrefuse her help. Do you understand me?”
I roll my eyes, letting out a snort. “Anyone ever tell you you’re super bossy?”
“Do. You. Understand. Me?”
A small smirk crosses my lips, knowing I get under that slightly scaly skin of his. “Yes, sir!” I mock, giving him a two-fingered salute.
A low growl reverbs from his chest, sounding more monster than man, then he’s gone, door slamming shut with enough force to rattle the frame, lock engaging with sounds that remind me I’m still trapped here despite the chemistry that just exploded between us like a bomb nobody saw coming.
Huffing, I sink onto the bed, my legs giving out as adrenaline crashes and everything that just happened hits me in one overwhelming wave. My shoulders ache where I hit the wall. Myskin burns where frost touched it, and beneath all of it, my body still hums with the memory of his hand on my shoulder, the heat in his eyes, the way the space between us felt charged with something neither of us wanted to name.
Deadly
