Chapter 34 - On the Edge of Ice
Callan
I kissed her like she was air and I was drowning.
Frantic, lost in a moment I should never have and might never have again.
She opened her mouth to me, and I devoured her.
I hadn’t wanted anyone in eight years—not like I’d wanted her.
Not the way I required her to live. Every piece of her.
Not just a need, but an ache—a vicious desire clawing its way from the depths of my soul.
And I set it free, letting it roam through my mind, dark and destructive on its journey to my heart.
All the complicated emotions rushed through me at once.
What if this was a ruse? What if she’d been placed in this exact position by Magdala to break me?
To melt the walls I’d built around my heart.
To make me vulnerable, breakable, like the way this moment felt.
Wrapped in a tenuous euphoria that could shatter at any moment.
But I pushed the thoughts away, because she was here.
She’d come back.
I’d given her freedom, but she’d come back...for me.
I pulled away, out of breath, but she immediately dove into the crook of my neck, nibbling along the column of my throat. She smelled like sunshine and lavender and...life. So human and perfect.
“Fuck—”
She silenced me with her lips, hungry hands yanking me back into her.
I wanted more. I wanted her skin against mine. I slipped my fingers up her arms and under her sleeves. So soft. Her skin was so much softer than I remembered a woman’s skin could be. I dragged my fingers down the length of her arms, following the seams down her sides.
My only thought was more skin. I grabbed at the skirt of her dress, wishing I could rip it from her, but instead I pulled it up so I could trace my fingertips along the length of her bare thigh.
So. Fucking. Soft. Her fingers tucked beneath my shirt, the heat of her hands searing into the lines of my muscles as she traced them.
I pressed my hips against her, the evidence of my arousal impossible to hide as my cock strained against the inside of my pants.
“Wrenora.”
Her fingers on my bare stomach were all I could focus on.
Our breath mingled between us as she explored my chest, sending gooseflesh over my skin.
Her gaze followed her hands down, her eyes continuing over the bulge in my pants.
I’d never felt so incredibly vulnerable.
Stripped so completely bare when I was still fully clothed.
I’d kept myself locked away for so long, to have a woman see the result of my longing was almost too much.
I flinched as she tucked her thumbs into the waist of my pants.
“Eight years.” Her voice was soft, smoothing over my consciousness. “You haven’t been touched by anyone?”
“Even if I could’ve, I hadn’t wanted to be. I hadn’t...” I tightened as she pulled the laces of my pants loose.
“And now?”
My words were trapped in my throat. I couldn’t break them free to tell her how badly I wanted her. Wanted all of her. I didn’t just want her. I needed her. Needed to possess every facet of her being. Needed her skin against mine. Needed her breath, her life, her fingers in my hair.
When I’d first seen her, I had not truly understood. She was warmth and light and everything I wasn’t. Thinking of that now was terrifying. This creature was my complement in every way. Where I was cold, she was warm. Where I was ice, she was fire. My complement and my undoing.
And yet...no matter how much I wanted her, the fear I could freeze her to death crept in, cold and unyielding. I could kill her like I’d killed my betrothed. It would be far too easy for me to snuff out her gentle, perfect life in a split second if my magic could not be controlled.
I forced myself to take an impossible step back, my hands slipping from her.
I couldn’t take the risk. Not with her.
“Are you okay?” she asked, her eyes glittering in the fading light.
“I...I can’t do this.” I squeezed my eyes closed, unable to clearly articulate the fears slicing through my veins where desire had once burned.
Each breath ripped itself from my lungs in a hurried frenzy as I tried to calm the panic that threatened to completely incapacitate me. “I’m afraid I’ll... If we...”
She took my face in her hands, but I refused to look at her. Not until I was able to speak proper sentences.
“Callan. Look at me.”
Time stilled as I took two more deep breaths, letting the terror slowly melt away.
When I opened my eyes, I found the fierce human with bottomless brown eyes who I’d first seen in the hall of my fortress.
The last thing I could have imagined in that moment weeks ago was that I’d be standing in a cavern with her hands on my face.
“I’m not afraid of you.” Her voice yanked at the thread that seemed to tie us together, weaving it even tighter around my ribs.
“You should be.”
“I refuse to be.” She tipped her chin up in defiance. “I was once. I was terrified of you and your magic. And I was angry for what you did to my people and the shackles and...” She squeezed her eyes closed and shook her head. “And I believed all the rumors.”
I smirked. “So many rumors.”
“But that’s not who you are.” She traced her thumb across my lips, the touch sending a shiver through me.
“Sometimes I wonder if you actually know who you are, or if you’ve been swallowed up by the vitriol and anger and need someone to help you find your way out.
Someone to melt the armor around your heart. ”
Her words resonated in my soul. The truth was, I didn’t know anymore.
The day my powers fully manifested had changed everything.
The man I’d been growing up to be died that day.
The last pieces of that man were frozen solid like my betrothed.
I turned into the bitter killer my father had always wanted me to be, because it hurt too much to be anything else.
I swallowed hard as her fingers traced along the line of my jaw and over my throat, leaving a trail of heat in their wake.
“Wrenora.” My voice was ragged.
She followed a path down the center of my chest to my navel then lower, smoothing over the fabric of my pants. I tightened as her fingers danced over my cock, our eyes never leaving each other.
“Tell me you hate me, Callan.”
I shuddered, squeezing my eyes closed and leaning my head back as she slid her hands under my shirt, over my stomach to my chest and back down to the waistband of my pants.
“I...”
“Tell me to stop.”
I drew in a sharp breath across my teeth as she pushed my pants down far enough to pull me free. The feather-soft touch of breath across sensitive skin sent a shiver through my entire body.
“Wren.”
“Your Royal Broodiness.”
I glanced down, not ready for the sight of her kneeling in front of me as if she prostrated herself before a god. She wrapped a hand around my cock, her perfect lips a fraction of an inch away. Golden brown eyes peered up as she leaned forward, licking from base to tip.
And I yanked myself away as I came.
Fucking Nine Hells.
I curled in on myself, the orgasm pulsing through me, a whimper ripping from my throat. I splayed a hand across the wall, holding me up so I didn’t fall over. I pressed my lips together to keep from crying out again as the euphoria lingered far longer than anything I’d ever given myself.
This was not how I’d wanted this to go. But after fucking my fist for eight years, my dick clearly had other plans for its first time in a woman’s hands.
My self-control crumbled in an instant, because beneath the burning ecstasy, there was still a desire to have her shattered beneath me.
To learn exactly who I was by learning everything I could about her.
I yanked her to her feet and pushed her against the wall, her eyes wide.
I pulled up the folds of her skirt, finding her bare legs and following her delicious skin with my fingertips before I fell to my knees.