Page 1 of Kiss of Ice

One

“I love you, Nat. I need you with me.”

“No, you don’t.” She shakes her head, her pink curls falling about her face. “Not really.”

“Don’t tell me how I feel. What we shared was special. How can you deny that?”

“Yes, it was special,” she says gently. “But I don’t love you. And I don’t think you love me.”

She turns away and he sees the scars on her back. Scars from a lifetime of danger. Some of those scars had come from saving him.

“Come home with me,” he begs. But she’s already lost to him.

Kamran woke with a jolt, disorientated. He always surfaced at the same point in the dream, with the memory of her scent still lingering. Cherry blossom and ocean breeze.

He gritted his teeth and waited for the inevitable tsunami of grief and regret to roll over him, powerless to stop it. It was routine now but that hadn’t dulled its impact. It still left him hollow.

Every. Damn. Morning.

The shape under the sheets next to him stirred. A dainty hand reached out and stroked his arm.

“Your Majesty?” The voice was still half-asleep and he struggled to recall who it belonged to. The brunette with the blue eyes? Or was it the redhead with the freckles? The sheet was drawn back and he saw a flash of auburn hair. “If you’re awake, sire, we could…”

“Leave me,” he said harshly. Her eyes jerked open.

“Your Majesty?”

“Go. Get out.”

She scampered from his bedchamber, clutching her clothes to her.

He slipped from the silken sheets and stood for a moment, allowing the sweat to dry from his naked body. It was still early, the first opalescent rays of light glimmering through the open window. He ran his fingers through his tousled hair, trying to clear his head of the dream.

She had saved him. And rejected him. And that was that.

He wanted to throw his head back and roar his rage. He wanted to rip everything in the room apart with his bare hands. He wanted to kill something and feast on its blood.

But that wasn’t him, was it? That was his other, darker side. The side she’d chosen.

Gods damn it to the seven hells. Enough of this fucking torture.

Air. That’s what he needed.

He strode to the window, summoning his power to clothe himself. He generally preferred real garments to manifested ones but right now he just needed to cover his nakedness. White smoke gathered and morphed into simple white trousers, moulded flawlessly to his taut body.

The window spanned the wall from floor to ceiling and he pushed it open, pausing a moment to gather more power. Clouds poured from his shoulders. They swirled and thickened, creating the semblance of bone and feather, and finally formed two pearly white wings. He stepped through the opening and threw himself into the skies.

Those first few moments as he defied gravity never failed to exhilarate him. He hurtled upwards, allowing the dawn air to cool his body and flush the unwanted dream from his mind. His wings glittered as they beat rhythmically, reflecting the early morning sunlight as if they were covered in a thousand brilliant diamonds.

He revelled in his power. He glided on a current, then folded his wings around himself and dropped like a stone before unfurling them again to catch another updraft. He soared towards the horizon, travelling so fast the landscape was just a green-and-brown blur beneath him.

He flew until his muscles strained and his heart hammered. Until the exertion drove the last vestiges of the useless, debilitating emotions from his mind.

Finally, when the ache in his shoulders became too much, he hovered, his wings moving gently as they held him aloft. He gazed down on his territory.

Nush’aldaam. His empire by blood and by ancient right. Every soul that lived within answered to him. But such power came with a price. And the price was thatitcame first.

Before everything. Before love, and need, and want. Nush’aldaam was his to rule but he was also its servant. He trailed his eyes over it.

---