Nothim.
I’d have her whimpering, bringing her to the edge until her breaths grew ragged and she quivered in ecstasy. How incredible would it be to have her eyes locked with mine, her tight heat clenched around my knot.
I’d fill her over and over.
According to my mated siblings, there’s no better pleasure. No truer fit. And while I’ve been with others before, I’ve always wanted my mate to be the first and only to ever take my knot.
I get up from her bed, taking deep breaths, wrangling the discomfort of denying myself.
Stop letting your imagination go wild, Jax.
Snarling, I fist my hands at my sides, ignoring my tented trousers. The physical need to be with her is ever-present. And the worst part is that when solstice approaches at the end of winter, it will only intensify. It’s a time when immortals aredrawn to our mates. When our craving for them is insatiable. Unbearable. Mates spend a day, or three, as close as possible, filling each other with pleasure, devotion, and love.
It’s something I’ve looked forward to, seeing others pair off at the end of each winter—an inexplicable level of ecstasy I wish to share. With her.
Spending my first mate-blessed solstice alone is a very real possibility. I’ll be the first Frost it’s ever happened to, and I need to figure out how I will survive the pain of it. It’s lonely enough to wander this world each season, hours and weeks of delivering invisible tender care to the world that goes unnoticed. Unappreciated.
My soul is tied to someone who doesn’t know I exist. It’s torture. Even to just be seen by her, to be able to hold her through the night, to feel how it would be to have her skin pressed against mine…
I’d give anything, pay any price, for that.
Come spring, I’ll be tucked away in hibernation, unable to get to her. I don’t know if she senses our unsettled bond as a mortal.
Why did we have to be the exception?
After a few steadying breaths, I drift to the window and scan the room, double checking that everything is in its place. It’ll be as if I was never here. Because to her and the rest of the world, I’m not real. I’m a myth. A fanciful idea people joke about a few months out of the year.
Disappointment floods my veins. I couldn’t give a fuck about the rest of the world. But her? I’d give anything to be seen by her, if only for a moment.
What would she see?
I spend so much time alone, or in my beastly earthside form, it’s easy to forget what I look like. We don’t use mirrors in Nivea, only catching quick glances of our reflections in the ice.
I glide over to the bathroom and stare at myself. Fractured irises glitter back at me. It’s hard to believe I once was mortal. How different must I look now?
My form shimmers, pale blue and silver frost marks adorning my arms and chest, starting to skim my hip. Each winter I earn more of them, a badge of honor among the Frosts, each one a step closer to Lead Albidus.
I just need to focus on that. On doing my duty.
Don’t interfere, Jax.
Heading back to the desk, I stare down at the three lines that, based on the first entry’s instructions, are things she’s grateful for. They’re on every page, feeling just as forced as the prescription to do them. Maybe one day I’ll be able to show her how beautiful she is, and she’ll fill these pages with her joy—not scribble them half-heartedly at the end of a spiral of doubt and self-deprecation.
Over the next hour, I read every entry, piecing together the fragments of her like a puzzle I’m desperate to figure out. I need to understand how they fit. How she can possibly fitwithme. She fucking has to. Wading through the sadness that fills these pages is enough to drown me. I’m close to giving up on answers when the shards finally converge. I freeze at the four words scrawled large on a page.
Where did you go?
Eyes are sketched in the corner, mosaicked irises with stars littered within them. I flick through the pages again. There are different variations of them strewn throughout the journal. Each one makes heat creep up my spine.
I bolt to the bathroom, giving my reflection another glance. Two glittering irises peer back at me from the mirror. The truthis like a sharpened icicle to my lungs, puncturing my ability to breathe.
Those eyes she’s been sketching over and over?
They’re mine.
It’s the sliver of hope I’ve been begging for. One that has my hands shaking. My fingers reach up, and I wonder if I’m about to help Fate along or doom us both.
6
