Chapter Thirteen #3
The fights. The fear. The closet. The fire.
The way my father looked at my mother as the flames climbed the walls.
The smell of burning hair. The cold air outside when the firefighters pulled me through broken glass.
My mother’s silence. My father’s sentence.
The years with my best friend’s family, where gentleness felt foreign and kindness felt suspicious.
The pull north. The restless dreams of ice and dark water. The way Alaska called my name long before I ever heard of the Kings.
He doesn’t interrupt. Not once.
When I finally run out of words, my throat feels raw. Tears cling to my lashes. The room smells faintly of soap, old wood, and his cool ozone scent.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
The simple sincerity of it hits harder than any apology I’ve ever heard.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I manage.
His gaze rakes over my face, searching. “I’m still sorry. You deserved safety, warmth, people who protected you. Instead, you got fire and blood and a father who should have been dragged into the light centuries ago.”
A broken laugh escapes me. “You sound angry.”
“Of course I’m angry.” His fingers curl into fists. “I want to rip the past apart for touching you. I want to rip the future apart for threatening you. But all I can do is stand here and hope you let me stay close enough to help when it tries again.”
Something inside me yields.
The mark flares, not in pain this time, but in recognition of choice, of pull, of a path diverging and waiting for my footsteps.
“Vex...” I whisper.
He steps in, erasing the space between us.
Cold radiates from his chest. My heat rushes to meet it, skin prickling, lungs straining. His hand lifts, hesitates near my cheek, then finally settles there, palm cool, thumb brushing away a tear I didn’t realize had fallen.
“You terrify me,” he admits, voice barely above a breath. “Not because of what follows you, but because of what you make me want.”
“What do I make you want?” I ask, the question spilling out before pride can stop it.
His smile is sharp and broken. “Everything.”
His mouth finds mine.
The kiss isn’t careful. It’s not sweet. The emotion beneath it is too raw for that.
His lips claim, demanding and hungry, the chill of his skin searing against my heat.
My fingers fist in his shirt, dragging him closer, needing more contact, more of him, more of the cold that somehow makes me feel burning and alive.
He backs me toward the bed, steps sure, body solid against mine. Each move feels inevitable, a sequence set in motion long before either of us knew it.
When my legs hit the edge of the mattress, I grab his wrist and press his palm flat over my mark. The touch sends a jolt through both of us.
The skin there sears under his hand, a flare of frost and fire, light crawling beneath the surface. For a heartbeat, I swear I hear something distant and angry howl through the back of my skull.
“No,” I whisper against his mouth. “Not tonight. You don’t get to have this. I do.”
I’m not sure if I’m talking to the creature or my own fear. Maybe both.
Vex’s breath shudders. “Tessa—”
“I’m choosing this,” I cut in, fingers sliding up to grip the back of his neck. “I’m choosing you. Not because of some mark. Not because of whatever’s buried under the ice. Because I want you.”
His control snaps.
He kisses me harder, deeper, his mouth claiming mine with an urgency that steals the breath from my lungs.
One hand cups my jaw, thumb stroking the sensitive skin beneath my ear, while the other remains braced over my shoulder, fingers spanning the mark, holding me in place, anchoring us both to this moment, to each other, to the choice we’re making despite every reason not to.
I pull him down onto the mattress with me, and he comes willingly, his weight settling over me in a way that should feel confining but instead feels like safety.
The world narrows to the press of his body against mine, the catch of his breath, unnecessary but offered anyway and the dizzy rush of cold and heat colliding where our skin meets.
“Tessa,” he breathes against my lips, my name a prayer and a curse.
“Don’t stop,” I whisper back. “Please don’t stop.”
His response is a low growl I feel more than hear, vibrating through his chest into mine.
Clothes become obstacles we fumble to remove, my shirt pulled over my head, his following seconds later.
My hands map the planes of his chest, tracing the lines of muscle that shouldn’t exist on someone who doesn’t need to eat or exercise, yet feel so perfectly real beneath my palms.
His skin is cool everywhere I touch, but where the bond pulses between us, I swear I feel warmth. His hands roam over familiar lines made new by proximity, by permission, by the desperate need to memorize every inch of each other before the world intrudes again.
The scrape of his teeth along my throat sends sparks down my spine, and I arch into him with a gasp.
He’s careful, so careful, fangs retracted even as his mouth worships the column of my neck.
His lips trail lower, across my collarbone, down to the edge of the mark visible above the neckline of my bra.
He pauses there, breath ghosting over the frost-touched skin, reverent and dangerous all at once.
“Does it hurt?” His voice is rough, strained.
“No,” I breathe. “It burns, but not... not bad. Touch it. Please.”
He does, lips pressing against the mark through the thin fabric of my bra, and the sensation is electric. Every brush of his mouth feeds the tether between us, not the one to the creature, but the one we’re building with touch and choice and stubborn, defiant desire.
I move against him, hips rolling up to meet his, seeking friction, seeking relief, seeking him.
He groans, the sound raw and desperate, and grinds down against me in response.
The hard length of him presses against my pussy through our remaining clothes, and I’m suddenly furious that there are any barriers left between us.
“Off,” I pant, tugging at his belt. “Everything off. Now.”
He pulls back just enough to help, shedding his jeans with vampire speed while I wrestle with mine. Then there’s nothing between us but intention and want and the bond singing with shared need.
His hand slides under me, palm splayed across the small of my back, and he pulls me flush against him. Skin to skin. Cold to hot. Vampire to warden. His other hand traces the edge of the mark again, fingers gentle, avoiding the worst of the burn while acknowledging it, claiming it, claiming me.
“Tell me if I hurt you,” he says, eyes searching mine.
“You won’t.” I cup his face, thumb stroking his cheekbone. “I trust you.”
Something breaks in his expression and then he’s kissing me again, deeper this time, tongue sweeping into my mouth as his hand slides between us. His fingers find me slick and ready, and when he circles my clit with deliberate pressure, I cry out against his lips.
“There,” I gasp. “Right there, don’t stop—”
He doesn’t. He works me with patient, devastating precision, reading every hitch in my breath, every roll of my hips, learning what makes me moan and what makes me beg.
Through the bond, I feel his own pleasure building, not physical yet, but emotional, the pure satisfaction of giving me this, of hearing his name fall from my lips like a benediction.
“Vex, please—” I don’t even know what I’m asking for. More. Everything. Him.
He shifts, positioning himself at my entrance, and pauses. “Last chance,” he says, voice strained. “Last chance to change your mind.”
“I’m not changing my mind.” I wrap my legs around his hips, pulling him closer. “I want this. I want you.”
He enters me slowly, achingly slowly, giving me time to adjust to the stretch and the cold of him. It should be uncomfortable, is uncomfortable for a moment, but then my body yields, accepting him, and the sensation shifts to something else entirely.
Fullness. Completion. Right.
“Fuck,” he breathes against my neck. “You feel—I can’t—”
“Move,” I urge, nails digging into his shoulders. “Please move.”
He does, pulling almost all the way out before sliding back in, setting a rhythm that’s somehow both gentle and urgent.
Each thrust drives the breath from my lungs, each withdrawal leaves me aching for his return.
We find our tempo together, bodies learning each other’s language, and soon we’re moving as one, his hips rolling forward as mine tilt up to meet him, a dance older than words.
His hand slides back to the mark, fingers pressing against it as he drives deeper, and the dual sensation of pressure inside and outside, cold and burning, pain and pleasure, makes stars explode behind my eyelids.
“There,” I gasp. “Yes, right there, don’t stop—”
“Never,” he growls, and the promise in his voice undoes me.
Pleasure builds in waves, each one higher than the last, until I’m drowning in sensation. His mouth finds mine again, swallowing my moans, and I taste winter and darkness and him. The bond flares between us, emotions bleeding back and forth in a feedback loop that amplifies everything.
I feel his pleasure as he feels mine. Feel his desperate love and bone-deep fear of losing me. Feel the moment he surrenders completely to what we are, what we’re becoming.
“I love you,” he says against my lips, the words torn from him. “God help me, I love you.”
“I love you too,” I gasp back, and the confession shatters something between us.
He moves faster, harder, each thrust hitting deeper, and I meet him stroke for stroke, chasing the pleasure that’s building to impossible heights. His thumb finds my clit again, circling with perfect pressure, and that’s all it takes.