Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
AUREN
She stands in the center of my room, arms wrapped around herself, and I don’t know what to do with my hands. Centuries of experience in war and politics and the delicate dance of dragon power, and I’m paralyzed by a woman in a borrowed shift.
“This isn’t—” She stops. Starts again. “I’m not here because I need comfort.
I’ve had enough of people trying to comfort me.
” Her chin lifts, and I see the princess beneath the grief.
The warrior beneath the sorrow. “I’m here because I need something real.
Something that has nothing to do with sisters or duty or ancient magic. ”
“What do you need?”
Her gaze holds mine. The rawness is still there, but something else is rising beneath it. Something that makes my blood heat despite the ice in my veins.
“You.” The word drops between us, and the air in the room changes. Charges. “I need you, Auren.”
I should ask if she’s sure. Should point out that she’s grieving, exhausted, not in a state to make decisions she might regret. Should do any of the sensible things that centuries of discipline have prepared me for.
Instead, I cross the space between us.
I don’t grab her. Don’t rush. I stop close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from her skin, close enough that her breath catches when she has to tilt her head back to meet my gaze. My hand rises slowly, giving her time to pull away, and cups her jaw.
Her skin is warm—so warm—against my perpetually cold palm. She gasps at the temperature difference, but she doesn’t pull away. If anything, she leans into my touch, her eyes fluttering half-closed.
“Are you certain?” My voice comes out rougher than intended. “Because once I start, I don’t know if I can stop.”
Her hand comes up to cover mine, pressing my palm harder against her cheek. “I don’t want you to stop.”
Something cracks in my chest. A wall I’ve maintained for decades, maybe longer. The ice that formed when Lyric died—I feel it fracturing, giving way to heat I’d forgotten I was capable of feeling.
I kiss her.
Soft at first. Testing. My lips brush against hers, and she makes a small sound in the back of her throat that sends fire racing down my spine. I pull back just enough to look at her—her eyes are closed, her lips parted, her face flushed with something that has nothing to do with grief.
“More,” she breathes.
I stop being gentle.
I kiss her with centuries of denied passion, of controlled hunger, of wanting things I told myself I didn’t deserve.
My hand slides from her jaw into her hair, tilting her head back as I deepen the kiss.
Her mouth opens under mine, and she tastes like fire and something sweeter—something that’s purely her.
Her hands find my bare chest, palms pressing against skin that hasn’t felt warm in longer than I can remember. But she’s warm. She’s burning. Her fingers trace the lines of muscle, exploring, mapping territory that no one has touched with any kind of tenderness in my entire existence.
“Cold,” she murmurs against my mouth. Not a complaint—an observation. Her hands keep moving, spreading across my chest, my shoulders, down my arms.
“Too cold?”
“No.” She pulls back just enough to meet my gaze, her amber eyes blazing with something that makes my breath catch. “It feels incredible.”
I kiss her again. Harder this time. My other hand finds the curve of her waist through the thin material, and I pull her flush against me. The heat of her body against my cold chest is almost overwhelming—sensation flooding systems that have been numb for so long, I forgot they existed.
She responds with equal intensity, her tongue sliding against mine, her nails scraping lightly down my back.
The small pain sends a jolt of electricity through me.
I growl against her mouth—actually growl, the dragon stirring beneath my skin—and she laughs.
A breathless, delighted sound that I want to hear again.
“The Ice Dragon growls,” she teases, her lips brushing mine with each word.
“The Ice Dragon is trying very hard not to lose control.”
Her hand slides down my chest, over my stomach, stops at the waistband of my trousers. “What if I want you to lose control?”
The last thread of my restraint snaps.
I lift her effortlessly, her legs wrapping around my waist as I carry her toward the bed. Her shift rides up, baring her thighs, and I grip them hard enough to leave marks. She gasps against my mouth—not in pain, in pleasure—and rolls her hips against me.
We fall onto the bed in a tangle of limbs.
I catch myself on my forearms, caging her beneath me, and for a moment, I just look at her.
Dark hair spread across my pillows. Chest heaving.
Lips swollen from my kisses. The shift has slipped off one shoulder, revealing the curve of her collarbone, the swell of her breast.
“Beautiful.” The word escapes before I can stop it.
Her hand cups my face, her thumb tracing my cheekbone. “So are you.”
I lower my head to kiss her throat, feeling her pulse race beneath my lips.
She tilts her head back, giving me access, and I take full advantage.
I trace a path down her neck with my mouth, stopping to suck gently at the hollow where her shoulder meets her neck.
She moans, her back arching off the bed.
“Auren—”
I work the shift over her head slowly, baring her to my gaze, inch by inch. Athletic build, lean muscle earned through years of training. Skin flushed with desire, glowing faintly with the fire that lives beneath it. Her breasts are perfect—full, tipped with dusky peaks that harden under my gaze.
I lower my mouth to one, swirling my cold tongue around the sensitive flesh.
She cries out, her hands flying to my hair, holding me in place as I worship her with my mouth.
I give the other breast the same attention, alternating between them until she’s writhing beneath me, making sounds that drive me to the edge of sanity.
“Please.” The word comes out broken. “Auren, please—”
“Please what?” I trail my mouth lower, over her ribs, across her stomach. Her muscles twitch beneath my lips. “Tell me what you want.”
“Everything.” Her voice is wrecked, barely recognizable. “I want everything.”
I hook my fingers in the waistband of her undergarments and pull them down her legs.
She’s fully bare now, laid out on my bed like an offering, and I have to take a moment just to breathe.
To memorize every detail. The dip of her waist. The flare of her hips.
The dark curls between her thighs glistening with arousal.
“Is something wrong?” There’s vulnerability in her voice, despite the teasing tone.
“I’m admiring.” I press a kiss to her hip bone. “You’re the most exquisite thing I’ve ever seen.”
I kiss lower. Her thighs fall open for me, and I settle between them, my shoulders spreading her wide. The scent of her arousal makes my head spin. I press an open-mouthed kiss to her inner thigh, then the other, teasing.
“Auren.” My name becomes a plea. “Stop teasing.”
I drag my tongue through her folds in one long, slow stroke.
The sound she makes is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.
I do it again, savoring her taste—salt and honey and fire—before finding the bundle of nerves at the apex and circling it with my tongue.
Her hips buck off the bed. I pin them down with one arm and keep working, learning what makes her gasp, what makes her moan, what makes her scream.
She comes with my name on her lips, her thighs clamping around my head, her back arching off the bed. I work her through it, gentling my touch as she comes down, pressing soft kisses to her trembling thighs.
“That was—” She doesn’t finish. Can’t seem to find the words.
I crawl up her body, pressing kisses to her stomach, her breasts, her throat. When I reach her mouth, she kisses me deep, tasting herself on my lips.
“I need you inside me.” She reaches between us, her hand finding the hard length straining against my trousers. I hiss as she strokes me through the fabric. “Now, Auren.”
I strip off my trousers in seconds, kicking them somewhere behind me. Her hand wraps around my bare cock, and I groan—the heat of her palm against my cold flesh sending sparks through my nervous system. She strokes once, twice, her thumb brushing the sensitive head.
“You’re so hard.” Wonder in her voice. “So cold, but so hard.”
“That’s what you do to me.” I position myself at her entrance, the heat of her almost unbearable against my cold length. “Are you ready?”
She answers by lifting her hips, taking the first inch of me inside her.
We both freeze. The sensation is overwhelming—her heat surrounding my cold, her body stretching to accommodate me. She’s so wet, so tight, so impossibly warm. I feel myself sliding deeper, inch by inch, until I’m fully seated inside her.
“Oh god.” Her nails dig into my shoulders. “Auren—”
“I know.” I hold perfectly still, letting her adjust, feeling her pulse around me. “I know.”
Then she moves, and coherent thought becomes impossible.
We find a rhythm that’s ours alone—not gentle, but not brutal either.
Intense. Consuming. The kind of passion that’s been building since she arrived at my gate, carrying a Relic and a burden and nothing else.
Every thrust drives us higher. Her hips meet mine with equal force, taking everything I give her and demanding more.
“Harder,” she gasps. “I won’t break.”
I grip her hips and slam into her, and she screams—not in pain, in pleasure so intense, it sounds torn from her throat. Her nails rake down my back. I growl against her throat. She answers with a sound that’s half-moan, half-challenge, urging me faster, deeper, more.
The bed creaks beneath us. Ice spreads across the sheets where my hands grip the fabric. Where her fire touches, the frost melts into steam. We’re creating our own weather system, heat and cold colliding, neither canceling the other out—amplifying instead.
I feel her building again—her inner walls tightening around me, her breathing going ragged, her fire flaring beneath her skin until she glows. I reach between us, find that bundle of nerves, circle it with my cold thumb.
She shatters.
Her fire erupts in a cascade of white light that fills the room.
Her body clamps around me, pulling me over the edge with her.
I bury myself to the hilt and let go—my release tearing through me with an intensity that borders on violent.
Ice spreads across the headboard, the walls, the ceiling.
Her fire meets it, and the room fills with warm fog that smells of winter and woodsmoke.
For a long moment, neither of us moves. We lie tangled in sheets that are half-frozen and half-scorched, breathing hard, trying to remember how bodies work.
Then she laughs.
It’s a soft sound, surprised and delighted and somehow lighter than anything I’ve heard from her since Valdoria fell. She turns her head to look at me, amber eyes bright with something that makes my chest tight.
“We destroyed your sheets. And possibly your walls.”
I look at the damage. She’s right—the fabric is a patchwork of ice crystals and scorch marks, beyond salvaging. The headboard has frost ferns crawling across it. There are soot marks on the ceiling.
“Worth it.”
Her laugh deepens, and something in my chest loosens. The grief is still there—I can see it in the shadows beneath her eyes—but for this moment, she’s not drowning in it. For this moment, she’s here. Present. Alive in ways that have nothing to do with survival.
I pull her against my chest, frost patterns spreading across her skin where we touch. She shivers—but presses closer instead of pulling away, seeking the cold that should be uncomfortable and somehow isn’t.
“Stay,” I hear myself say. “Tonight—stay with me.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Her hand finds mine, fire twining with frost. “Not tonight.”
She falls asleep in my arms.
Her fire dims to a gentle glow, warming my chambers in ways they’ve never been warm. Her breath evens out, deep and steady, the rhythm of someone who feels safe enough to be vulnerable. Her body relaxes against mine, trusting me to hold her while she sleeps.
I don’t sleep. Can’t sleep. I’m too busy cataloging every detail of this moment, burning it into memory where it can never be lost.
The way her hair spreads across my chest, copper threads catching what little light remains.
The sound of her breathing, soft and slow.
The warmth of her skin against my perpetual cold—not uncomfortable, not intrusive, just there.
Present. Changing the temperature of a room that hasn’t felt anything but ice in longer than I care to remember.
She murmurs something in her sleep. My name, maybe. Or something else—something I can’t quite catch. Her hand tightens on mine, and even unconscious, she holds on.
This witch princess. This Fire-Bringer who burns brighter than any I’ve ever known. This woman who killed her own sister to protect the world and came to my chambers anyway, trusting me with her vulnerability in a way no one ever has.
I don’t know what to call what I’m feeling.
Don’t have the vocabulary for emotions this vast, this complicated, this terrifying.
She’s become essential to me in ways I can’t quantify, can’t predict, can’t control.
The realization should send me running—should trigger every self-preservation instinct I’ve honed over the centuries.
Instead, I pull her closer.
Tomorrow will bring new challenges. Ulrik will learn of Morrigan’s death and respond with fury. The Shadow Clan will strike back. The war we thought we were winning will escalate in ways none of us can predict.
But tonight—tonight she’s here. In my arms. In my bed. Taking up space in my chest that’s been empty since Lyric died.
I press my lips to her hair. She sighs in her sleep, nestling closer.
I’m not ready to name what this is. Not ready to examine the feelings that are growing faster than I can contain them. But I know one thing with absolute certainty:
I’m not letting her go.
Whatever that means, however dangerous it is, however much it terrifies me—I’m not letting her go.
The fire in my chambers burns low as the night deepens. But the warmth in my chest only grows—fed by her presence, by her trust, by the impossible fact that she chose me. Of all the dragons in this fortress, of all the beings in the world, she knocked on my door.
I watch the shadows change as the hours pass. Watch her breathe. Watch the subtle glow of her fire pulse in rhythm with her heartbeat.
And somewhere beneath the ice, buried so deep I’d almost forgotten it existed, something warm continues to burn.