Ivy
My skates look comically small in Wraith's hands.
Everything looks small in his hands, honestly.
He kneels in front of me on the wool blanket he pulled out of the duffel bag—the duffel bag, the very same one he brought supplies in when he found me sick in the tunnels months ago—and holds out his palm, and I push my boot off with my other boot and slip my socked foot into the skate.
His whole hand wraps around my foot.
Ankle, heel, toes, all of it, swallowed easily inside one scarred palm.
"How did you even get my size?" I ask.
P-L-A-G-U-E.
"Of course. He knows everything."
He huffs and starts lacing. I watch the top of his head, the choppy dark hair, the scar cutting through his eyebrow.
I have his coat, so he doesn't have his hood.
The lantern light shines on his exposed teeth and muscle, and there's even more light from the rippling green and blue northern lights dancing and crackling above us, illuminating his warm, steady breath streaming out through his teeth on either side.
And he just… lets me look.
He used to shy away when I looked.
Or worse.
Now he glances up mid-lace and catches me staring, and his eyes crinkle, and he goes back to lacing up my skates.
"You really are a beautiful alpha," I murmur.
His hands stop, the laces going slack in his fingers. He looks up at me through the dark hair falling across his forehead, and there's that old wariness, the instinct to argue, to deflect, to tell me I don't have to say things like that.
"Don't," I warn him, pointing at him. "Don't you dare fight me on this. Omega rules. Remember?"
His jaw shifts. The muscles pull and his eyes narrow with half-hearted suspicion.
Think you just like scary things. I saw how you looked at the fog.
"I like you. Love you, in fact." I reach down and run my fingers through his hair, and he leans into it, eyes falling half-shut. "Scary is just a bonus."
He finishes the laces in silence, but his ears have gone red, and I count that as a total victory over his still all-the-way-deep-in-the-core-of-the-earth self-esteem. At least where his appearance is concerned.
He's probably always going to feel that way, too. At least sometimes.
But he's finally starting to believe he's perfect to me, even if he thinks I'm crazy, and a win's a win.
He finishes my skates and laces his own in a matter of seconds, not bothering to be careful at all, then he stands and steps out onto the ice.
My mouth falls open.
I've seen him skate, obviously. But Wraith skating during a game and skating for the love of it aren't the same. Even playing, he's aloof and guarded.
On the ice, when it's just us, all of that disappears.
He glides backward away from me, effortless, his weight rolling through his hips, his arms loose at his sides.
The aurora lights the lake in bluer shades now, illuminating my mate from above as he carves a long lazy curve across the ice, and for the first time I understand what Thane meant when he said hockey is Wraith's therapy.
This is where he was made.
Not in the basement.
Here, on the ice in the dark mountains.
"You're showing off," I call, grinning.
He stops on a spray of ice shavings, dead center of the lake, framed by black mountains and a sky on fire with blue light, and holds both hands out to me.
Come here.
"I'm going to die."
Come here, he signs again.
I can hear his huffing from here.
He's laughing at me.
I stand. My ankles immediately roll in opposite directions and I windmill my arms and very nearly sit right back down on the rock.
"Oh my gods. Oh my gods—"
He's there in a flash, somehow, already steadying me, and I grab fistfuls of his shirt and hold on for dear life.
"Does being the mate of a pack of hockey alphas come with really good insurance that covers total ankle replacement?" I croak.
He scoops me up.
Easily.
One arm under my knees and one behind my back, and I shriek and then laugh so hard I can't breathe, clinging to his neck as he skates out onto the lake with me clutched to his chest.
"Put me down! No, wait, don't. Don't put me down. I take it back."
He sets me down in the middle of the lake anyway, right in the heart of the aurora's reflection, but he keeps his hands on my waist. His hands are so big they nearly meet around me.
Skates parallel, he signs quickly, then puts his hands back. Bend your knees. Little bit. I'll hold you.
"Don't let go."
Never.
We move.
It's slow. So slow. He skates backward in front of me, holding my waist the entire time, and I shuffle my feet forward in tiny terrified increments. Every time I wobble, his grip tightens and I'm caught before I can move out of alignment more than an inch.
He lifts one hand again to fingerspell so he only needs the one.
P-E-R-F-E-C-T.
"Yeah, right," I snort, stumbling against him.
Somehow I end up dipped backward over his arm, my hair trailing toward the ice, staring up at the blue ribbons swirling across the whole sky.
The aurora fills my entire vision, breathing and wild, like the sky is filled with dragons, and my beautiful feral mate is the one that came down to the ice to hold me.
I forget about my ankles entirely.
"Oh," I breathe.
He turns his head and follows my gaze up, and we stay there, me draped over his arm, both of us gazing up at the sky. I keep staring long after his gaze slides back down to me, searching my face, even though he can look at me whenever he likes.
Worth it? he signs, one-handed, still holding me up with the other arm.
Show-off.
"So fucking worth it."
He pulls me upright and we keep going, and slowly, slowly, my feet start to understand. He lets go of one hand and just holds my fingers. Then he lets go of that and skates beside me, close enough to catch me, and I make it ten whole feet on my own, arms out, wobbling, cackling.
"I'm doing it! Look, I'm—"
I go down.
He catches me.
He's laughing again before we hit the ice. His whole chest shakes, that broken gravelly huff-huff-huff pouring out of him, and he pulls me into his lap, wrapping his arms around me.
I grab his face and kiss his teeth.
"You're laughing at me!"
Yes.
I shove at his chest, laughing myself. "You're supposed to deny it!"
Why? You fell.
"Because YOU let go!"
Ten feet. On your own. You did it.
I stop mid-shove, my hands flat against his chest. Under my palms, his heart pounds heavy and hard enough I feel it through his shirt.
"I did, didn't I?"
He nods.
The laughter drains out of me, because he's right.
I fucking skated.
And I'm suddenly very aware of exactly where I am. Sitting in his lap, my thighs spread over his, his hands spanning my hips, the whole sky burning blue and green above us.
"I want you to mark me right here," I whisper. "On the ice."
His hand comes up and brushes the hair off my face, scarred knuckles grazing my cheek. He radiates heat even without a coat, or maybe especially because of it. My own personal furnace. I lean into his palm and watch the wariness in his eyes flicker against want.
He touches his forehead to mine.
Are you afraid?
"Of you?" I laugh softly. "Never."
His hands move, slowly, making sure I don't miss a single word.
If it's too much, squeeze twice. He takes my hand and wraps my fingers around his forearm. Or tell me. I'll stop. No matter what. Even in the middle. Even if—
"Hey." I press my palm to his jaw, and the muscle shifts under my hand. "I promise. And I trust you. Completely."
He exhales, long and shuddering, and sits back on the ice, dragging me with him. I yelp and grab his shoulders. "Wait, should we get a blanket?"
He shakes his head, stripping off his shirt, leaving his entire torso bare. He lays it down on the ice for us and moves back on it, adjusting us, his muscles flexing beneath my palms.
"You're going to freeze," I protest.
Don't care.
He works at the button of my jeans and I lift up enough for him to drag them down with my panties, everything bunching at my knees above the skates. I start giggling and can't stop.
"We can't do this with skates on. Not alive."
He blinks down at my skates, then repositions me easily and unlaces them in quick movements, already setting them aside. My socks stick to the ice and I start giggling again, burying my face in his neck and trying to keep my body off the frozen lake.
It's easy, considering the sheer size of this alpha.
He gets his own pants open and then his hands are back on me, sliding under the coat, up the backs of my thighs, and the giggles die in my throat. His fingers find me already wet, and he rumbles low in his chest, pleased, teasing me.
He curls them inside me and my whole body jerks, my thighs clamping around his wrist. He does it again, slower, dragging against that spot that makes my vision blur, and a broken sound falls out of me that I couldn't hold back if I tried.
"More," I gasp. "Please—"
He adds a third finger and I choke on air. The stretch burns and I grab his wrist with both hands, then my hands fly back to his shoulders, and he pauses instantly, checking my face.
I nod, breathless, and he keeps going.
His fingers work me slowly, deliberately, and I forget about everything except him. The stretch of his hand, the purring rumble I've missed so much building in his chest, his breath fogging against my throat every time I whimper.
His tongue drags along my collarbone and my whole body arches off his lap as he works me with his fingers, preparing me for him.
"F-fuck—" I choke out.
He licks a path down my chest, stopping only at the collar of my sweater. And then his hands are pushing it up, and his mouth finds my breast through the cold air, his sharp teeth gently poking against my flesh.
I'm sure every living thing in these mountains can hear the cry that tears out of me as that long tongue curls and flicks against my nipple.
"Wraith," I breathe, and his eyes slide up, half-lidded and glowing faint blue in the dark, even bluer in the aurora overhead. "Misha. Now. Please…"