Chapter Ten #2
I move away from the door, pacing the small space like the caged beast I’ve become, unable to stay still while these truths claw their way out.
“Villages burned because I couldn’t contain the rage that came with my power.
Innocents died because I saw threats everywhere and responded with overwhelming force designed to eliminate problems before they could grow.
My fire didn’t stop when it should have, it didn’t distinguish between enemy and civilian, it didn’t care that the screams echoing through burning streets came from people who’d done nothing except exist in territory I claimed as mine. ”
The memories flood back with brutal clarity.
Flames consuming thatch roofs, children screaming, the acrid smell of burning flesh mixing with smoke thick enough to blot out the sun.
And through it all, the absolute certainty that I was justified, that power gave me the right to do whatever was necessary to maintain control.
“The witch came after I burned the fortieth village in a single season.” My voice drops to something between confession and condemnation, the weight of those deaths pressing down even centuries later.
“She didn’t ask questions. Didn’t offer chances to explain or justify.
Just looked at the destruction I’d caused and pronounced judgment with the kind of absolute authority that makes even dragons pause. ”
I stop pacing, meeting Roxy’s eyes across the small room, expecting to find horror or disgust or the moral condemnation humans usually offer when confronted with supernatural violence. Instead, I find something infinitely more dangerous.
Understanding.
Not acceptance, not forgiveness, but the kind of clear-eyed recognition that comes from seeing someone’s worst self and refusing to look away or pretend it didn’t exist.
“You were a monster.” Her words land with the force of absolute truth, no softening or mercy in the delivery. “Powerful, terrible, and utterly consumed by instincts you couldn’t control. But you know what’s worse than being a monster?”
“What?” The question scrapes out of me, genuine curiosity warring with the need to defend choices I stopped trying to justify centuries ago.
“Being miserable.” She stands, moving closer with movements that should trigger every predatory instinct I possess, but instead make something in my chest tighten without permission.
“The witch took your fire because you couldn’t handle it.
Fine… that’s punishment fitting the crime.
But she also gave you a chance at redemption, at finding contentment that would restore what you lost, and instead of pursuing that, you’ve spent centuries wallowing in ice and isolation like suffering is the only thing you deserve. ”
The observation cuts deeper than any blade, exposing truths I’ve avoided examining too closely because doing so might require admitting that the curse wasn’t just punishment but opportunity.
A chance to evolve beyond the rage that defined me, to find purpose in something besides domination and destruction.
“You think I haven’t fucking tried?” The words emerge sharp, defense mechanisms activating against vulnerability I’m not equipped to handle.
“The flame only burns when I find ‘true contentment.’ I’ve spent three hundred years searching for that, building this club into something that matters, creating family from beings society rejects, protecting territory that belongs to us through blood and sacrifice.
But the flame keeps dying because apparently nothing I do is enough!
” The last words come out in a roar I can barely control, particles in the air turning to ice and begin to fall around us like snow.
She doesn’t waver or react, merely looks at me with kind eyes as the snow clings to her long lashes.
“Maybe because you’re searching in the wrong places.
” She’s close now, close enough that I can smell the herbs Ivy used on her bandages, so close I see the frost burns marking her skin like brands of my failure to maintain control.
“Contentment isn’t achievement or power or having an empire that bows to your will.
It’s finding something that quiets the rage.
Something that matters more than the destruction. ”
Her hand lifts, hesitates in the space between us, then touches my chest right over where my heart beats with rhythms that haven’t felt fully alive in longer than I can remember.
No ice forms at the contact.
No cold rises to drive her away.
Just her hand on my chest and my entire being focused on the warmth bleeding through fabric and skin to touch something I’d forgotten could still feel.
“W-what are you doing?” The question comes out strangled, desperate, as chemistry surges between us with enough force to steal breath and reason in equal measure.
“Testing a theory.” Her eyes hold mine, steady and unflinching despite the danger radiating off me in waves. “About why your flame burns brighter when I’m near. About what it means that you can’t seem to stay away, even though keeping me alive violates every rule you’re supposed to follow.”
“Roxy—” Her name leaves my mouth like a confession I’m not ready to make, heavy with everything I haven’t said and don’t dare to.
Whatever warning or plea I meant to follow it with never has a chance to exist. She rises onto her toes and closes the distance herself, her mouth brushing mine first, soft and tentative, as if testing whether I’ll stop her.
I don’t.
The contact steals the breath straight from my lungs, a sharp, dizzying rush that knocks the world sideways.
Her lips move against mine again, firmer this time, and something inside me gives way all at once.
The air between us heats, my pulse slamming hard enough that I feel it in my throat as instinct overrides thought, and I kiss her back, deeper, slower, like my body recognizes her before my mind can catch up.
Her mouth is warm.
Real.
Alive.
I register it in fragments, the way her lower lip trembles before settling, the faint hitch in her breath when I answer her, and the way my own restraint frays another inch with every second I don’t pull away.
Control slips quietly at first, not shattering but loosening, something old and watchful stirring beneath my skin.
The animal inside me roars to be let free, but I contain him as a sound tears out of me before I can stop it.
Low and rough. A growl pressed against her mouth as instinct surges forward and takes the reins.
My fingers grip onto her shoulders, and I push her toward the wall, driving her back until her shoulders meet stone with a hard, surprised gasp.
Her eyes widen as she stares at me, but instead of recoiling, her fingers slide up into my hair, gripping tight, and she slams her lips to me again, her teeth biting down on my bottom lip as she moans into my mouth.
Fuck!
She arches her body into mine, my cock beginning to harden as she whimpers.
The reaction is immediate and unfiltered, her breath breaking as her body shivers with nothing to do with fear. Her fingers clutch at my shoulders, nails biting just enough to ground me, and that only feeds the animal snapping awake inside my chest.
It isn’t magic.
It isn’t force.
It’s inevitability.
Her mouth opens against mine, tentative courage giving way to need as the kiss deepens, no longer asking so much as inviting.
I don’t freeze her, I don’t pull back, I take the offering she’s making and answer it with the kind of hunger that comes from three centuries of denial, kissing her like my body knows something my mind is still trying to outrun.
Heat floods through me, real heat, not memory.
Not an echo of what fire used to be. Warmth surges where ice has ruled for centuries, racing through my veins, igniting something fierce and alive inside my chest. My hands flex at her waist as if they’ve always belonged there, holding her closer even as every rational thought screams that this is a mistake, that she’s human, a prisoner, a complication the witch would never tolerate, no matter what the flame seems to think.
Roxy’s fingers grip my hair again, anchoring herself to me, tugging just enough to send another pulse of satisfaction through that awakened beast. Her body fits against mine like it was shaped for this, for me, and the reasons to stop blur and dissolve under the weight of how right it feels.
For the first time since the curse took hold, I feel something other than ice, rage, and the slow, hollow ache of a power starving to death.
I feel whole.
The moment stretches, suspended in heat and desire, threaded through with the terrible, breathtaking certainty that this changes everything.
That whatever comes next, there’s no way back to who I was before her mouth found mine.
That every future choice will be measured against this single, perfect instant, this impossible moment where contentment felt close enough to touch instead of like a cruel myth whispered just out of reach.
Then sanity crashes back in.
I tear myself away, forcing space between us even as my body revolts against the loss, every nerve screaming protest. Cold rushes back in to claim the ground that Roxy’s warmth abandoned, filling me up where she had been.
My breath comes ragged, chest heaving as I claw for control, for the discipline that slipped so completely I almost forgot what she is.
Human.
Mortal.
And forbidden by laws older than civilization itself.
“This can’t happen.” The words taste like lies even as I force them out. “You’re human. The witch’s laws are absolute. Being with you would be—”
“Pointless?” she finishes, something breaking behind her eyes even as she holds her ground. “Because I’ll either die or forget? Because you’d rather suffer alone than risk feeling something real?”
“Because it’s forbidden!” The roar escapes before I can stop it, ice exploding from my hands, coating the walls, and climbing toward the ceiling with desperate speed.
“Because the witch will come, and she’ll erase your memory or worse, and I’ll be left with nothing except the knowledge that for one brief moment, I let myself believe contentment was possible. ”
Silence crashes down between us, heavy with everything we’re not saying, with the chemistry still crackling in the air despite my attempts to shut it down, with the flame down the club room burning brighter than it has in decades because apparently, my dragon knows something my brain refuses to accept.
That she matters.
That touching her, kissing her, wanting her is the closest I’ve come to contentment in three hundred years of searching, and that terrifies me more than any enemy I’ve ever faced.
“Get some rest.” I force the words out through a throat that feels like it’s closing. “Church meets tonight. You’re coming with me. The brothers need to see that you’re under my protection, that harming you has consequences regardless of what species you are.”
“Chained to your side like a pet?” Bitterness edges back into Roxy’s voice, defense mechanisms activating against whatever she saw in my eyes during that kiss.
“As my guest.” The correction comes out softer than intended.
“There will be questions. Probably arguments about why you’re still breathing.
But you’ll be safe because I say you are, and in this club, my word is law.
” I turn toward the door before I change my mind, before the temptation to cross back to her and finish what that kiss started overwhelms the control I’m barely maintaining.
“Raze?” Her voice stops me at the threshold, quiet and carrying undertones I can’t quite identify.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. For telling me about the villages. About who you were before the curse.” A pause, weighted with meaning. “Most monsters don’t admit what they’ve done. They keep destroying and call it justified.”
The observation lands with uncomfortable accuracy, reminding me that she sees more than I want her to and understands things about me I’ve spent centuries hiding from everyone, including myself.
“Get some rest,” I repeat, then escape into the hallway before I do something catastrophically stupid like going back for another kiss that would only make tonight’s complications exponentially worse.
The flame in the dome burns gold when I pass it, colors shifting through patterns that pulse like a heartbeat, matching my own.
Contentment.
True contentment.
The witch’s curse can only be broken when I find it.
And apparently that requires a stubborn photographer who refuses to break, who looks at my worst self and calls me miserable instead of monstrous, who kisses me like she doesn’t care that I’m ice and death wrapped in barely controlled rage.
This is going to end in disaster.
I feel it right down to my ice core.
But as I head toward my quarters with the taste of her still on my lips and heat still bleeding through the cold that usually defines me, I catch myself hoping that maybe, just maybe, disaster might be worth it if it means feeling alive again.
Even if only for a moment.