Page 43 of Ash and Burn

It was intimate. Secluded. Perfect for the conversation they both knew was coming. And despite everything—the mate bond, the contaminated flameroot, the growing certainty that someone was targeting Ashvorn—Arvid felt ready to finally stop running.

SIXTEEN

CALIX

The Vess Springs had always been Calix's sanctuary. For centuries, the Silvanus line had retreated to this hidden valley where volcanic heat met underground aquifers, creating a landscape of startling contradiction. The red-black rock of Ashvorn softened here, giving way to lush, steam-fed vegetation in deep emerald and jade. Crystal pools steamed gently in the afternoon light, and water-worn stone formed natural basins and privacy screens around them.

He had come here as a boy with his father. He had come here as a young king, raw with grief, to scream his rage at the silent rocks. It was the one place where the crown felt like an object he could set aside.

Today, he saw none of its beauty.

He stood on the familiar mossy bank, the heat from the nearest spring radiating through the soles of his boots, and every ounce of his focus was on the woman standing ten feet away. Arvid's arms were crossed, a defensive gesture he knew well, but her dark eyes were fixed on him. Not running. Just waiting. That alone sent a surge of desperate hope through him that was nearly as terrifying as the thought of her rejection.

She opened her mouth to speak, but he moved first, closing the distance between them in two long strides. He didn't touch her. Not yet. That required permission he wasn't sure he still had.

"I need to make myself clear." His voice came out rough, stripped of its usual kingly polish. "I know I didn't phrase it right this morning. Telling you you're my fated mate and then asking for forever in the same breath… it was a tactical error."

She furrowed her eyebrows. "Tactical error?"

"I should have led with the whole truth." He forced his hands to stay at his sides when every instinct screamed to reach for her. "That I'm just as terrified as you are. For fifteen years, I haven't allowed myself to want anything beyond my duty. Because wanting something means you can lose it. Loving someone means they can leave. And everyone I have ever loved has left."

He saw the impact of his words in the subtle parting of her lips and the flicker in her eyes. But he pressed on, the confession feeling like dragging splintered wood from his chest.

"My father. My brother. Even the… arrangement I thought could become something. They all left. By death, by fate, by choice. I built a life where that couldn't happen again by making sure there was nothing left to take." He finally let his gaze drop from hers, staring at the steaming water beside them. "So if you can't choose me, if forever is too much, I will understand. I will have to accept it. But you need to know why I asked and how much that really meant to me."

The silence that followed was filled with the soft trickle of water. But Arvid soon broke it, her voice quiet but steady.

"I shouldn't have run. I should have talked to you." She uncrossed her arms and took a single step forward, closing the remaining space until the heat from her body mingled with his. "It wasn't that I didn't choose you, Calix. I panicked about the 'forever' part. Because every time I've ever allowed myself to believe in something lasting, it was broken. Every time I got close, trusted, loved… I was eventually discarded. The pattern is too consistent to ignore."

His control snapped. He reached out and captured her hands in his, his grip firm. "Arvid, I would never discard you. You are not something to be used and set aside. You are a prize. A partner. My equal."

A tear escaped her eye but she didn't pull away. "You want to know what happened in the Army? Why the dishonorable discharge?" Her voice gained a hard, brittle edge. "They ordered a full retreat from a contaminated hot zone under siege. A zone they decided to carpet bomb to contain the outbreak and the unrest. There were seventeen wounded soldiers who couldn't move on their own in that hot zone. My commanding officer gave the order to pull back and let the bombs clean it up."

Calix's blood went cold. "So what happened?"

"I told him to go to hell," she said, a savage pride cutting through the pain in her words. "I told him if he dropped those bombs with my people still in there, I'd walk out and tell every news outlet on the planet what he'd done. Then I dragged every single one of those seventeen soldiers out. And thankfully, they all lived." She took a shaky breath. "But then I was court-martialed for insubordination. Dishonorably discharged. They buried what he tried to do, and I was the inconvenient truth they threw away."

"They were fools," Calix growled, his thumb stroking over the scar on her palm. "Worse than fools. They were cowards who tried to murder their own."

"Fools or not, they won. So I packed my bags and built a small, quiet life where no one could tell me to leave people behind ever again."

He released her hands only to cup her face. "Arvid, you are the strongest, most compassionate, most infuriatingly brilliant woman I have ever known. I am sorry the world mishandled you. I am sorry you were made to feel you had to make yourself smaller to survive it." He leaned closer, his forehead nearly touching hers, pouring every ounce of his certainty into his words. "But hear me now. I will never abandon you. I choose you today. I will choose you tomorrow. I will choose you every day after that until forever—if you just let me."

Something in her expression shattered. A dam broke behind her eyes, and a sob tore from her throat. Then she collapsed into him, her arms wrapping around his waist and her face burying against his chest. The tears came then, not delicate but wrenching, heavy with years of grief and isolation and betrayal. He held her tight, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other splayed across her spine, holding her together as she fell apart.

Through their mate bond, her pain flooded into him—a raw, scraping agony of abandonment that was so profound it stole his breath. It was not just the Army. It was a lifetime of being too much, too difficult, too something for people to stick around for. His own eyes burned, and his dragon roared in helpless fury, wanting to hunt down every person who had ever made her feel less than extraordinary.

He vowed then, with the steam of the Vess Springs rising around them, that no one would ever hurt her again. Not while he drew breath. Not while his flame still burned.

Her sobs gradually quieted and she pulled back, her eyes red-rimmed but clearer than he'd ever seen them. "Calix," she said, her voice hoarse but sure. "I choose forever with you. Not because I'm not scared because I am. But because I can't imagine my life without you in it now. You've become… the person I want to share everything with. The good, the bad, the boring mornings, the passionate nights. All of it. Because with you, for the first time, it all just makes sense."

A wave of pure, undiluted triumph crashed through him, so potent it was almost pain. He framed her face again, his thumbs brushing away the last traces of tears. "That's all I ever wanted," he murmured, his voice thick. "Just the chance to love you. The rest we can build together."

Then he kissed her.

It was not like their first kiss, born of hunger and discovery. It was not like the kisses they'd shared in the heat of passion. This was a vow. He poured into it every shattered piece of hope he'd locked away, every dream of a future that wasn't solitary, every promise of protection and partnership. He tasted the salt of her tears and the sweet strength of her surrender.

She kissed him back with equal intensity, her hands fisting in the fabric of his shirt, pulling him closer. Her response was an answer, an acceptance, and a promise of her own. She gave him her fear and her trust, tangled together, and he took them both, binding them to his soul.