5. Jax
5
JAX
I trace my fingertip over the letters, savoring the dip where pen met paper. Two words pierce my chest with a weight I don’t fully understand.
I’m alive.
I’ve served over fifty winters outside hibernation. Waited decades. And by some horrible stroke of luck, I’ve been bewitched by a mortal.
Jolie Wilder.
She’s everything to me and she doesn’t even know it. Someone I can’t have for a multitude of reasons. Not that it stops me from zipping here every chance I get. I don’t think I’ve had a more productive winter to date.
I know better than to interfere, but every time I return, I try to learn as much as I can about her. Every fragment of information I glean shoots a boost of serotonin through my veins. She’s a compulsion I can’t shake. An addiction I’m desperate to feed. A high I never want to come down from. The farther I am from her, the worse I feel. That usually comforting flutter, like two fairies pulsating within my sternum, amplifies to the beat of dragon wings.
She’s inescapable.
My hand trails over her journal. She’s left it out today, something she normally doesn’t do. I shouldn’t read what’s within its pages. We study mortal customs in our lessons to better understand the world before we are sent into it. Diary reading is frowned upon. But this may be the closest I ever get to her…
With a quick flick of my wrist, I flip through the pages one at a time. Maybe there’s something in here that can help me find out how to reach her. It’s a hollow hope I shouldn’t push, but the urge to show her I exist, that I’m here—hers—is too strong to ignore.
I wish it wasn’t. Things would be much easier for the both of us.
No matter how far I go, though, I always end up back here. And I will keep coming back, satiating my need for her, undetected. As long as I keep doing my job and don’t break our only rule, I should be fine.
Scattered across the pages are a mix of memories, musings, and quick sketches. Most have a numbered list at the bottom.
I glide through her room one more time, scoffing at the discarded penile cover in the corner trash can. Frustration coils in my chest, making my fists clench. I slipped in despite knowing better. I should have left when she brought that lowlife back to her room. I normally do… Well, maybe there were times that I watched in agony from the windowsill. But he hadn’t been back in a few weeks so I was hoping they were through. Then he showed up last night, and like some sort of masochist, I remained in her bedroom.
My body responds despite the pain of knowing she was with someone else. Her prince , as he’s referred to in her journal. In reality, he’s some jerk who doesn’t even deserve her attention, much less her devotion. While I desperately hate him and would love to slip some ice wherever he’s walking, harming him would only bring me temporary joy and would get me swiftly benched another winter. I can’t afford that after missing the last one, placed on extended hibernation. I still have no clue what I did to be benched, but I’m grateful to be here now. And I refuse to fuck this up.
I sigh, staring up at the ceiling, and lie on the bed, one spot over from where I was last night. Entranced by the way she moved. Every curve of her body. The way her nipples hardened, begging for me to tease them with my hands. My tongue. To taste every inch of her. To cover her body with my own, painting her skin in my frost.
How I wish it had been me beneath her.
Not him .
I’d have her whimpering, bringing her to the edge until her breaths grew ragged and she quivered in ecstasy. How incredible would it be to have her eyes locked with mine, her tight heat clenched around my knot.
I’d fill her over and over.
According to my mated siblings, there’s no better pleasure. No truer fit. And while I’ve been with others before, I’ve always wanted my mate to be the first and only to ever take my knot.
I get up from her bed, taking deep breaths, wrangling the discomfort of denying myself.
Stop letting your imagination go wild, Jax.
Snarling, I fist my hands at my sides, ignoring my tented trousers. The physical need to be with her is ever-present. And the worst part is that when solstice approaches at the end of winter, it will only intensify. It’s a time when immortals are drawn to our mates. When our craving for them is insatiable. Unbearable. Mates spend a day, or three, as close as possible, filling each other with pleasure, devotion, and love.
It’s something I’ve looked forward to, seeing others pair off at the end of each winter—an inexplicable level of ecstasy I wish to share. With her.
Spending my first mate-blessed solstice alone is a very real possibility. I’ll be the first Frost it’s ever happened to, and I need to figure out how I will survive the pain of it. It’s lonely enough to wander this world each season, hours and weeks of delivering invisible tender care to the world that goes unnoticed. Unappreciated.
My soul is tied to someone who doesn’t know I exist. It’s torture. Even to just be seen by her, to be able to hold her through the night, to feel how it would be to have her skin pressed against mine…
I’d give anything, pay any price, for that.
Come spring, I’ll be tucked away in hibernation, unable to get to her. I don’t know if she senses our unsettled bond as a mortal.
Why did we have to be the exception?
After a few steadying breaths, I drift to the window and scan the room, double checking that everything is in its place. It’ll be as if I was never here. Because to her and the rest of the world, I’m not real. I’m a myth. A fanciful idea people joke about a few months out of the year.
Disappointment floods my veins. I couldn’t give a fuck about the rest of the world. But her? I’d give anything to be seen by her, if only for a moment.
What would she see?
I spend so much time alone, or in my beastly earthside form, it’s easy to forget what I look like. We don’t use mirrors in Nivea, only catching quick glances of our reflections in the ice.
I glide over to the bathroom and stare at myself. Fractured irises glitter back at me. It’s hard to believe I once was mortal. How different must I look now?
My form shimmers, pale blue and silver frost marks adorning my arms and chest, starting to skim my hip. Each winter I earn more of them, a badge of honor among the Frosts, each one a step closer to Lead Albidus.
I just need to focus on that. On doing my duty.
Don’t interfere, Jax.
Heading back to the desk, I stare down at the three lines that, based on the first entry’s instructions, are things she’s grateful for. They’re on every page, feeling just as forced as the prescription to do them. Maybe one day I’ll be able to show her how beautiful she is, and she’ll fill these pages with her joy—not scribble them half-heartedly at the end of a spiral of doubt and self-deprecation.
Over the next hour, I read every entry, piecing together the fragments of her like a puzzle I’m desperate to figure out. I need to understand how they fit. How she can possibly fit with me. She fucking has to. Wading through the sadness that fills these pages is enough to drown me. I’m close to giving up on answers when the shards finally converge. I freeze at the four words scrawled large on a page.
Where did you go?
Eyes are sketched in the corner, mosaicked irises with stars littered within them. I flick through the pages again. There are different variations of them strewn throughout the journal. Each one makes heat creep up my spine.
I bolt to the bathroom, giving my reflection another glance. Two glittering irises peer back at me from the mirror. The truth is like a sharpened icicle to my lungs, puncturing my ability to breathe.
Those eyes she’s been sketching over and over?
They’re mine.
It’s the sliver of hope I’ve been begging for. One that has my hands shaking. My fingers reach up, and I wonder if I’m about to help Fate along or doom us both.