EMBER
The trek to the Aurora Cave is a trial all of its own.
The farther north we press into Alaska, the less prey there is to catch. The colder it gets, the thinner the air and the harder it is to run. Alone, it might have broken me. But together, it’s miserable in an entirely different way, because there’s no privacy for mating, only stolen quick kisses.
Snow has fallen nonstop since we crossed into the borderlands, swallowing the world in white.
At last, cresting a frozen forest, I see it: a mountain that juts out like a fang above the cliffside, one peak angled out over the ocean.
Thorn flashes me a one-sided grin, sharp enough to show teeth. We’re here.
I should feel relief, but my body is too numb, too cold.
At this rate, I don’t think I’ll ever be warm again.
Still, his white wolf runs steady beside me, guiding us across the plain until the dark mouth of the cave looms ahead.
The ocean spreads endlessly below, blue and restless.
Waves crashing against the hard ice. I’ve never seen so much water.
“Wow,” I breathe.
Thorn presses against me from behind, his warmth soaking into my frozen skin. “You should see it at sunset,” he murmurs, kissing my throat.
A moment later, Roman bounds up, and Thorn ruffles his hair in that effortless, brotherly way that makes my heart ache. Watching them together, my soul unclenches. A sense of comfort fills me that I haven’t felt in a long time.
Then Thorn cups my face, brows pinched. “Ember, you’re ice cold. Are you okay?”
The exhaustion I’ve been holding at bay sweeps over me like a wave. My knees weaken, my vision hazy.
“She’s paler than usual,” Roman says worriedly.
“Let’s go.” Thorn’s arms band tight around me, hauling me into the cave.
Inside, the corridor opens into a vast ice cavern lit by fire. Dozens of wolves turn to look, some surprised, some curious, some openly staring at me in Thorn’s arms. He doesn’t care. He carries me deeper, protective, Roman trailing behind.
Tala and her mate, Bane, step forward. Tala smiles. “Thorn…did someone get a mate?”
“Yes,” Thorn says simply, pulling me tighter against his chest. “You remember, Ember. And this—” his eyes cut to Roman, “is her brother. He’s family now. Make him welcome. The journey was rougher than we expected, I’m going to get Ember into the Springs.”
“Wait, Roman’s–” I mumble.
“He’ll be perfectly fine. Tala will take good care of him and show him to his cave.”
“His cave?” I repeat, but of course, I’m mated now, we won’t be sleeping in the same cave any longer. I belong to Thorn. I’ll be in Thorn’s cave.
Warmth floods me from his bare chest even as I struggle to breathe. We trek down a corridor to the left toward the back. Into a large room walled in ice like frosted glass. He sets me down on wobbly feet, wrapping furs around me before he places a slab of ice in the corridor. A door.
The cave is long and tall, cavernous. Icicles hang down from the center ceiling like a giant chandelier.
In the left corner sits a slab of raised ice with tons of furs on it.
A bed. To the left there’s a sunk-in spring with steam spiraling up into the air.
It makes the whole room warmer. I find myself walking toward the warmth.
“Careful,” Thorn’s deep voice is behind me, taking the furs off my shoulder. “Going from extreme cold to heat is going to hurt.”
“I don’t care.”
He huffs a low laugh. “Of course you don’t.”
I hiss. The water bites like teeth as I sink in, but soon the warmth soothes my sore muscles from the long trek. Thorn sits on the ledge beside me, his eyes watching, wolf-patient but hungry beneath the surface.
“What’s that look mean?” I ask, peeking up at him.
“Oh, nothing. Just the fates being cruel to me.”
I sink lower until only my head is above water, resting it on the ledge.
“Comfortable?” he asks, wading in.
“Mmm,” I groan. “How does the cold not bother you?”
“It wasn’t always like this. I came from another pack as well many moons ago.”
“Really?” My eyes snap open. There’s no way. Thorn looks as though he were born to be here. His coloring, his ruggedness, his cold, hard eyes that only soften when they see someone they care about.
“Maine, if you can believe it. We lived in a treetop pack there. When my parents died, it was just me. The forest I’d grown up in felt too quiet, too hollow.
I couldn’t stay in the trees when all I heard were ghosts.
My first Mating Trial was the first time I met the Aurora pack.
Scar was Alpha then — cruel and careless with his pack.
I thought I could endure him. But after nine months, I couldn’t, so I tore him down and assumed Alpha. ”
“Did you always want to be Alpha?”
“I did,” he admits. “Until my love life became a topic for conversation.”
“Why didn’t you just take a mate?”
“I didn’t just want any mate. I wanted the mate. I don’t want to sire pups with any whore. I wanted an equal. Someone to share this cold, lonely, isolating life with.” He gestures around.
“Oh well, when you put it like that. Glad to join you in your misery.”
He smiles, swimming closer. “I thought that fire in you might be able to warm this cold place. An Ember amongst ice.”
“Then that must make you a Thorn in my paw.”
“I can put my Thorn somewhere else if you’d like.” He glides between my legs.
“Oh really?”
“Only if you’re feeling better…let’s see if you have feeling back in your limbs yet.”
He lifts my leg above the water before sucking a toe into his mouth.
A shiver of pleasure ripples through me. “Mmm, yup, definitely feel that.”
He trails kisses up my ankle to my calf. “And this?”
“Mhmm.” I bite my bottom lip, resisting the moan in my throat.
Higher and higher his kisses trail up my leg to my thigh, heat sparking everywhere his mouth touches. When he finally reaches the place I want him most, he slides upward, catching a nipple between his lips instead, making me gasp.
I tug him closer. He groans above me, letting me guide his hardness inside me, slow and sweet. His eyes meet mine, full of hunger. Gripping his sides, I guide him in and out of me, water sloshing against the ledge. His mouth is gaping open as he watches me pump until I can take most of him.
“Good girl,” he rasps. Eyes taking me in below him. “Take what you want.”
I’m pumping against him, but I can’t seem to get him deep enough on my own. “Please, Thorn,” I beg.
He growls, hands digging into my hips as he lifts me higher.
I gasp as he thrusts deeper inside me. My mouth makes noises I didn’t know I possessed as he props me up on the side of the spring for leverage.
His thrusts build, faster, hungrier, until I’m clinging to him, nails raking down his back.
His knot swells, locking us together as he roars my name.
His knot grows thicker, giving me glorious pressure until I, too, am falling over that edge and my scream echoes off the icy walls.
Catching our breath as we’re locked together, the room erupts into a twinkling kaleidoscope of pinks and oranges. It shimmers off the stalactites of the ice and the water and back again.
“That’s magical,” I mumble, still boneless.
“That’s nothing. I want to show you something.” Thorn wraps his arms around me, picking me up with my legs still wrapped around him. His knot is still swollen inside me. I don’t mind.
He carries us to a spot in the ice wall that’s thinner than the rest, so thin it’s see-through — a window — showcasing the sun setting across the vast ocean before us.
The knot loosens and I slip to my feet. Turning around to face the setting sun. Thorn’s warmth is behind me, kissing down my neck.
“I thought you would like this. It’s my favorite time of day.”
“Mmm.” It’s hard to reply when his lips are on me. I groan, leaning into him. His lips turn to nibbling as his hands trail down my body. “I think it’s my favorite time of day too,” I tease.
His fingers wrap around my thigh, spreading my legs wider before trailing between them.
A calloused finger slips inside me.
“I can see.” His deep voice tickles my neck. I moan, leaning my head back against his chest, my arms bracing themselves on the ice wall. “You like that?”
“I love everything you do.”
He groans, his other hand cupping my breast as I arch into him, desperate for his touch everywhere. I grind against the hardness at my back.
“Thorn…” I whisper pleadingly.
“What do you want?” he demands.
“You,” I beg, leaning forward, legs wide, hands braced on the wall.
“Good girl,” he murmurs against my spine as he nudges inside me.
I moan as his girth enters me. “Gods.”
“No, not a god — just your mate.”
My mate thrusts softly in and out of me as we watch the sun set across the ocean before us. Once the darkness greets us, I slip off of him and spin around.
The big bad Alpha has the nerve to stick out his lower lip in a pout. With one hand, I push him backward. His lip twists up in a smirk as I push him onto the ice bed covered in furs. Desperate for more friction, I climb on top of him.
“Gods, Ember.” He moans as I straddle myself on top of him and pull his cock inside me. “I didn’t think it would be like this.”
He fills me like never before. My head falls back at the fullness of him.
“Me neither.” I gasp, riding him. I’ve imagined this a million times over the past year, but never in my wildest fantasies did I think it would compare to this.
His claws extend, digging into my hips as he thrusts deeper inside me.
My moans mingle with his in the darkness until we’re both panting and coming together.
Utterly exhausted and boneless, I fall onto his chest as his knot locks us in place once again. Thorn swings us to the side so we are lying locked together, face to face.
“I love the way your brow scrunches when you come.” He taps my brow.
I blush before saying, “Oh well, I love that you’re bigger and badder and your cock expands when you come.”
He barks a laugh before kissing me deeply, leaving a trail of kisses as he relaxes.
When the world finally stills, my hand fumbles in the furs, searching for a pillow —instead, I pull out a strip of black satin.
A black blindfold.
We returned with nothing this trek, so this must be from the last season.
“Is this—?”
“It’s the only thing I had,” he admits, his voice softer than I’ve ever heard before. “It still smelled like you.”
The breath leaves me in a rush. He missed me. For a year, he slept with my blindfold, holding onto me, onto hope like I held on to him too.
I slip my fingers into his white hair, tucking strands of it behind his ear. “I’m so sorry I didn’t choose you. I was worried about my brother. It’s unreasonable to make these life-altering decisions at eighteen. Plus, I’d just killed a wolf with an ancient bone, I just…I wasn’t ready.”
“I know.” He places a kiss to my nose. “I had ten seasons to prepare for you. I figured I could give you one. I’m glad you chose me this season.”
“Every season.”
He smiles. “I’ve waited so long for you, Ember.”
“Sorry for all the trouble.”
“You can make it up to me, but it’ll take you a while …”
It’s my turn to laugh. “We’ve got all the time in the world.” I pull his lips to mine and kiss him. The kiss grows long, deep, full of promise. His cock stirs inside me again, hardening, and a shiver of anticipation races down my spine.
Gods, a girl could get used to this.
He tucks me into his side, his warmth and scent enveloping me. Despite the cave’s cold and foreignness, here with my mate, I finally feel like I’m home again.
The End