Chapter Forty-Six
I HAD NO IDEA WHAT I WAS doing but I couldn’t let her break.
I’d almost done that back in the cave.
I’d almost died as the power overwhelmed me.
I would’ve died if she hadn’t tried to die first, using the bond to rip me free.
And now...I repaid the favour.
Smashing my lips over hers, I kissed her. Hard.
Frost continued erupting from her, sending the valley into an unplanned ice-age. She continued rewriting the seasons, heralding winter like it was a weapon, not responding to my kiss whatsoever.
I’d hoped touching her would interrupt her spiral, but the air temperature plummeted so cold it gnawed at my skin.
The river continued freezing, thicker and thicker, entombing the fish beneath.
The small pool I’d dragged her into was icy and I made a conscious effort—the first real instruction—for the flames in my blood to obey and do something about it.
The water suddenly boiled, lapping around our waists as I imprisoned her against the rock.
She fought me.
She tried to bite me.
But I just angled her head a little higher and plunged my tongue into her mouth.
Tears streamed down her cheeks, freezing before they could fall.
I kissed her deeper, pouring every warmth and tenderness I could down her throat. Heat poured out of me—through my mouth, hands, and heart. Cold soaked out of her—through her skin, hair, and soul.
She tried to pull back again, but I just fisted one hand in her hair and wound my other arm around her, bending her into me, kissing her so damn deep.
With a cry of surrender, she kissed me back.
A sudden bolt of her power slammed into me.
The eternal fire around my heart replied with glee, detonating outward with delicious relief to finally be called up and unleashed.
For one suspended second, fire and frost collided—
And then they combined in the most catastrophic, perfect way possible.
We went rigid as rapturous pleasure arrowed through us, stealing all thoughts and turning us into nothing more than two elements that’d been separated for far too long.
It happened too fast to question.
I went from kissing her to help break her spell, to kissing her because I was driven by something so much bigger than myself.
I felt her inside me—snatches of her thoughts, waves of her feelings.
And that tether that’d been slowly knotting my soul to hers solidified with a rush of indescribable ecstasy.
Her eyes flew open, locking onto mine as if she’d felt the same fundamental shifting.
Her frosty fingers landed on my neck, making me shiver as our forces balanced and harmonised, urgency settling deep between my legs.
We fell back into a kiss. Hungry and insistent.
I needed her.
Fuck, I needed her.
While my mouth ravaged hers, I fumbled with the fastenings of my trousers. With a fierce moan, she shoved my hands out of the way, unbuttoning and unzipping me.
I snarled as she wrapped her tight fist around me.
She cried out as I cupped her possessively.
Hoisting her higher up the rock, I shoved up the skirt she’d fashioned as a dress and stepped into her. Her legs spread and locked over my hips; we both groaned as I pressed my hot erection against her cool entrance.
Our eyes locked and the blizzard hitched.
The heavy snowfall turned lighter—a dusting instead of a drowning—forming a soft snow globe where we were the only two creatures alive.
“I can’t wait.” I kissed her again, knocking her hand off my cock so I could concentrate enough to slip two fingers inside her.
“Oh God.” She arched into my arms, her thighs quivering. “Do you...” She tried again, swallowing hard and tipping her face to the falling snow. “Do you plan on fucking me each time I try to freeze the scenery?”
“Now there’s an idea.” I stroked her inner walls, ensuring she had no pain, no obstruction.
The first time I’d taken her, I’d been afraid.
This time...I was free.
Withdrawing my touch, I slotted myself where I desperately wanted to be and captured her mouth. My tongue hunted hers, slippery and hot.
She melted—figuratively and literally.
Frost thawed on her skin, vanishing like dissolving diamonds. The storm that’d transformed the valley into a frozen tomb melted. The trees shook off their blankets of snow. The ground reappeared.
I pulled back just enough to look at her.
The bond pulsed. Warm and unbreakable.
And she cried out as I thrust inside her.
Pressing my forehead to hers, I planted my feet on the river bottom, preparing to ride her hard. “I’m going to fuck you now.”
Her eyes flew wide, locking onto mine.
Then she cried out as I sank my teeth into her neck and took her.
Hard and fast and feral.
I lost myself to her.
I turned off all thoughts and fell completely into the bond.
And the valley detonated with light.
Not fire this time.
Frostlight.
I gasped as it poured out of her in shimmering waves. “Fuck, you’re beautiful.”
Her eyes rolled back as she flung her arms around my neck and held on.
Every time I drove into her, that unexplainable light flared brighter, painting the sky with silver auroras.
If this had happened during the day.
If anyone had seen—
An orgasm brewed between my legs, growing fiery and sharp the harder I claimed her. “And you were worried...” I thrust deep. “Just because I set a few trees on fire.”
She didn’t answer me, too drunk on pleasure. Her radiance turned blinding as silver shimmered across her breasts and throat.
Wrapping my arms around her, I pinned her against the boulder and unleashed everything.
Great gusts of black smoke erupted from my back, smoke twisting into wings, outstretched and hiding us from everything.
My hips slammed into hers, combining a furnace and blizzard into one.
“Look at what you do to me.” My smoke consumed her light like a solar eclipse. “Look at what you make me become.”
“Oh God...oh God.” She tightened around me. Her light flickered. The snow snuffed out and with a short, sharp scream...she came.
My matching orgasm tore through me like lightning, sending a shockwave of fire across the flowing river and shooting up the waterfall.
I could die from this.
I could happily die from how good she felt. How good we felt together.
“Rook. Fuck.” My body jerked in ecstasy. A guttural groan tore from my throat as my release wrung me dry.
I sagged against her, breathless and shaking.
We stayed like that for a while, breathing hard and slowly coming back to life.
Her light extinguished and the fire that always stalked inside me was snuffed out as easily as if she’d reached inside my heart and pinched out the candle wick that lived there.
The valley went still.
The waterfall continued to crash.
I slowly lifted my head, and my mouth fell open at the impossibility.
The valley was no longer frozen or burnt.
It didn’t drip with melted snow or choke on clouds of ash.
Everywhere I looked, new life sprouted in the moonlight. Tiny buds on the bushes and branches, unfurling with bright green.
Rook squeaked in my arms. “I...have no explanation for any of this.”
Even the rotting leaves on the riverbank were eased aside by new shoots, swiftly turning the barren river edge into a thick meadow.
The air came alive with the scent of newly bloomed wildflowers. Burnt bark peeled away from tree trunks in curling ribbons, revealing living wood beneath.
Something brushed my calf.
I looked down, peering through the dark water to find a school of zippy fish.
Pushing me off her, Rook waded to the edge and climbed out. A cluster of white flowers bloomed at her feet.
I went to join her, unnerved and questioning everything.
Turning to face me, she dripped with river water. Her voice dropped to a whisper as if she was petrified of someone overhearing us. “You burned it and I froze it...”
“Yet together...” I trailed off.
She turned to look down the serpentine valley.
Further up the river, trees that’d been utterly consumed by flames were now fully whole with branches overladen with leaves. Flowers released a cloud of pollen so thick, it covered everything in yellow dust.
We’d both destroyed this valley, so how?
Somewhere in the distance, an owl called. Followed by the cicadas singing.
Rook hugged herself in awe as well as fear. “So...we destroy life when we’re apart but—”
“—together. We seem to give it.”
Our eyes locked.
A shiver ran down my spine.
Rook inhaled deeply and I sensed her falling into grief again. Grief that she’d never been told what they’d done to her. Grief that her own parents were probably the ones who did it.
Wrapping my arms protectively around her, I scanned the moonlit horizon.
Thank God this had happened here and not somewhere public.
Thank God we had no witnesses. No cameras. No drones.
Only we would ever know what we’d done.
And we’d take it to the grave before we told anyone.