Chapter 11
Everly
The wolves were shuffling outside the door to Draven’s rooms.
I crossed the chamber to open it, ignoring the subtle sound of protest my husband made behind me. If I wasn’t allowed to wander the palace because of my so-called illness, then I wasn’t about to ignore the creatures who I had grown attached to in Draven’s many weeks off fighting monsters.
Astra was there first. Lumen crowded close on her heels, a low, anxious whine working its way from his chest as he pressed his head against my thigh.
Selas and Vega barreled in after Thalos, claws clicking against the marble floors, and then a sharp squeak cut through the room, followed by a flash of white and a small, furious ball of indignant frost.
“I know,” I murmured as Batty shot straight for my collarbone, her icy little body tucking beneath my chin as though I’d been gone for weeks instead of hours. “I didn’t mean to abandon you.”
Her presence only made the chill settle deeper into my bones, frost leaching through my skin instead of providing a conduit for my power. I shivered despite myself, fingers curling into the sleeve of my gown as I instinctively sought warmth.
Draven scoffed under his breath, even as he took a step closer, resting his hand on my arm as if to keep my mana at bay. Batty hissed back at him, pressing closer, her cold demeanor a pointed rebuke.
His exhaustion brushed against me through the bond, heavy and unguarded, tangled with a sharp frustration that echoed my own.
I wished it were the only kind of heat traveling from his body to mine, but even now, I was painfully aware of every point of contact of his hand on my arm, tiny bolts of lightning zapping from his skin to mine.
But then I looked at his face.
Draven’s expression was closed off, jaw locked tight, blue-green eyes burning with restrained ice. Still devastatingly beautiful. Still my husband. And yet, stripped bare of the warmth he’d worn so openly the night before.
Nevara.
The thought landed hard.
His best friend lay in the infirmary, broken and bleeding, her life balanced on a blade’s edge. His Visionary, and the last tenuous thread holding the Court upright. I hadn’t given myself space to process it yet, but he had been carrying it all since the moment she fell.
It didn’t change my reasons. Going to the Dragon had still been the right choice.
But I knew better than to expect him to hear that now.
I took several calming breaths before I spoke.
“I’m sorry about Nevara,” I said quietly.
His hand tensed around my arm, his jaw tightening as his gaze cut to mine, cold and irritated. “That’s what you’re sorry for?”
“Well, I’m sure as hells not sorry for doing what I could to stop this,” I shot back, lifting my chin. “If that’s what you’re asking.”
“And for traipsing off without a word?” His tone sharpened, disbelief edging every syllable.
“What would you have done if I had told you?” I demanded. “Sent me on my merry way and kept fighting the frostbeast?”
His jaw flexed. He dragged his free hand through his hair, breath leaving him in a harsh exhale, the remnants of battle still clinging to him like a second skin.
His hold on me was far gentler than his tone when he finally did speak. “Is it not enough for you that Nevara still might lose her life? Do you insist on throwing yours away as well?”
I lowered Batty to the silver tray of untouched food that Mirelda had no doubt left for us on the breakfast table, letting her scuttle toward a plump red berry before responding.
“What exactly is the alternative, Draven?” I asked, my fingers aching as my talons threatened to break free. “No one but you is allowed to fight? You can risk your life taking on an ancient unknown monster for your kingdom, but the rest of us should stay safe in our towers?”
Draven clenched his fists, frost already coating his pale blue wedding band. “This is not your fight, Morta Mea, and I will not have you dying for my mistakes.”
“You don’t get to tell me what I fight for, Draven.” I whispered it, stepping even closer, refusing to back down.
His gaze dropped to my lips before lifting to my eyes again, darker now. “You still belong to me, so yes, Wife, I do get to tell you. Especially when you’re prone to running off like a wayward child at the first chance to hurl yourself into danger.”
A shiver rippled up my spine. I told myself that I was not warmed by his words. That they did not stir inside me as much comfort as rebellion.
But even I wasn’t that good of a liar.
Still, I knew better than to show him a single ounce of caving, whatever he might feel through our bond.
So we stood locked in a short, silent stalemate, tension thicker than the coat of frost spreading across the marble floor.
His hand lifted, thumb brushing my cheek before he drew back, staring at the smear of blackened ash on his skin.
I knew I must look half feral, the way my mother had in the vision I saw of her. For a rare change, he wasn’t much better. There were spatters of blood and something darker in his pale, disheveled locks and spattered on his flawless skin.
“We should get cleaned up.” The words left my mouth before I registered their implication.
Whatever haze we had existed in, wrapped in one another’s arms, was a far cry from the everyday intimacy of sharing a bath when we were both covered in grime.
But I wasn’t foolish enough to leave his side yet, when my mana was still wild.
Even if I had been able to, I wasn’t sure I could have brought myself to let him out of my sight when I had felt the physical weight of his defeat when he first beheld the monster, had felt the echoes of his impending death resonating in my soul.
Heat flooded his gaze, even as his jaw clenched, like the same conflicting thoughts were running through his mind. Finally, he nodded, guiding me to his bathing chamber.
Instead of the bathtub I had been expecting, Draven led me into what could only be described as a cathedral of frost and steam. The bathing chamber was enormous, hewn from midnight stones and lined with veins of silver that caught the torchlight and scattered it like broken stars.
A wide platform of chilled blue tile stretched out before an arched shower carved straight into the wall, where water fell in a shimmering curtain, warm enough to fog the air and bright enough to glow like melted auroras. It was excessive. It was beautiful. And it was very, very him.
We stepped closer together, the heat of the steam wrapping around us as we undressed, neither of us speaking. Tension settled in the air, thicker than the steam around us.
When we finally stepped beneath the falling water, the first rush of heat stole the breath from my lungs. Crimson swirled at our feet, spiraling toward the drain, the water managing to wash the blood from our bodies but doing absolutely nothing for the mess between us.
His bare skin was right there, inches from mine, every breath I took filled with juniper and snow. The nearness of him scraped something primal awake inside me. My mana flared to life, shadows unfurling along the frost-lit walls, as if they recognized him before I did.
He reached for my wrist with an agonizing slowness, his gaze never leaving mine. His fingers were slick with soap, searing with a heat that belied all the icy rage that still swelled from his mana. As soon as his skin touched mine, the bond surged white-hot through my chest.
Slowly, he called back the shadows threatening to emerge from my skin, his eyes remaining fixed on mine until every last one of them was gone.
The auroras flared to life around the endless expanse of his pupils, glacial light colliding with something feverish and raw inside me.
Then his mouth was on mine.
There was nothing gentle or careful about this kiss. Instead, it was breathless, and consuming, and desperate. And I loved it all the more for that.
His body slammed against mine, pinning me to the slick marble wall, his kiss all teeth and a savage sort of hunger. Steam billowed around us like a storm, heat and frost clashing everywhere my skin met his.
More. He needed more. And shards damn me, so did I.
Draven released my wrists, his hands trailing liquid fire down my body as his fingers gripped and squeezed my chest, my hips, my thighs. I clawed at his back, desperate to draw him even closer, to erase what little distance was still between us.
Every part of my body answered his as he ground his hips against me and buried his face in my neck.
A gasp hissed past my lips when he bit down hard enough that I was sure he’d broken skin, and still, it wasn’t enough. None of it was enough.
My fingers twisted in his hair, pulling him closer, and the low sound that tore from his chest vibrated straight through every brittle and exhausted part of me.
Somewhere between one breath and the next, the world narrowed to the frantic, aching need to feel something other than the crippling weight of uncertainty and fear.
All of it burned away beneath the scrape of teeth and panting breaths, and the way he growled my name, over and over again, like a curse. Like he was trying to exorcise it from his body and couldn’t.
Then he was lifting me, wrapping my legs around his waist. His forehead pressed to mine, our breaths colliding, the space between us dissolving into nothing but heat and desperation.
Time stretched and collapsed in on itself. Minutes, hours, maybe even days, blurred together as we lost ourselves in each other. In the pain and pleasure that we wrought from one another again and again.
It didn’t fix anything. It didn’t solve the monsters at our door or the wounds between us. It didn’t make us whole or stronger or magically bound in some new, unbreakable way.
But for a few stolen breaths, we drowned the world before it could drown us.
And shards help us, maybe that was the closest thing to salvation we had left.