Page 123 of Fated to the Frost King

My heart skipped a beat, then stopped entirely.

It was a mistake to look at him. Reckless and careless and utterly unavoidable becauseshards, he was beautiful in a way that made my chest ache. Raw in a way that called to the darkness under my skin.

Mine.

“I’ll leave you to dress.” His words were far away, and entirely wrong.

Leave?

Every inch of me rebelled at the word. My breath seized in my chest, sharp enough to crack the bones.

He must have felt that same reluctance because he turned away slowly, like he was facing down a winter storm. Like it cost him everything to leave.

I didn’t think. I darted out my hand and clasped it around his arm. He froze, only his shoulders moving with the force of his ragged breath, so different from the even ones that had tethered me to the world minutes or hours or a lifetime ago.

“Morta Mea.” It was a warning. A demand. A plea.

“Yes.”

Yes, I want you to stay.

Yes, I will be the death of you.

I will be the death of us both.

Chapter 41

Everly

Iwasn’t sure who moved first.

One minute, we were frozen like the corpses on the battlefield that haunted us both, and the next, I was anchored in front of him.

He drank me in slowly, caressing my skin with his aurora-lit gaze. His breath ghosted across my lips as my towel slipped to the floor.

A sharp intake of breath sounded, and the obsidian in his eyes nearly consumed the green.

I swallowed, my gaze drifting from his long, dark lashes, down to the sharp line of his jaw, to his full, perfect lips. Lips I had been dying to taste again, lips that were both promise and punishment.

My bare skin was only a heartbeat away from his, and the space between us still felt like miles. Slowly, Draven brought one calloused hand to my waist, hovering just above my hip before his fingers skated along my skin.

Torment, he had said after his nightmare. That was exactly what this felt like.

He brought his other hand to my jaw, his thumb sliding over my bottom lip.

These were hands that had killed without mercy, that had traced my scars with vengeance and washed my hair with tenderness. Hands I wanted to worship and remember.

I leaned into his touch like a dying plant leans into the sun, like it was my last fragile hope of survival instead of the thing that would be my undoing.

One of his thumbs traced a path of fire from the bottom of my rib cage down to the bone of my hip as he gripped my chin firmly with the other. My breath caught in my lungs as he finally closed the distance between us.

Since the fight, his power had been restrained, either exhausted or chained into submission at his side. But now, it erupted, a wave of mana that started where his lips touched mine, crashing over us both and rippling the air around us.

He tasted the way he smelled, an intoxicating mix of crushed juniper and freshly fallen snow and raw, relentless power. He brushed his tongue against the seam of my lips, and I parted them to allow him entry. A growl rumbled up from his throat, the sound reverberating through my core, and I melted into him. A shiver raced up my spine, flames licking at my skin at each point of contact.

He was endlessly warm in a world that only ever seemed to be cold. I wrapped my arms around his neck, running them through the pale, tousled strands of his hair. Draven made another throaty sound that reverberated through me. He pulled me even closer, but it wasn’t enough.

Sliding my fingers from his hair, I ran them over his shoulders down to trace the ridges of his muscled chest, then lower still. He growled again, tugging my bottom lip between his teeth. Then, he slowly backed me toward the wall, reachingbehind me to sweep the combs and soap off the vanity, and lifting me there in its place.

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