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 changeseverything. 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.
Andforbiddenby 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’sforbidden!” 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 withnothing except the knowledge that for one brief moment, I let myself believecontentmentwas 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.
Thatshe matters.
That touching her, kissing her,wantingher is the closest I’ve come tocontentmentin 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 becauseIsay 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. “Mostmonsters 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.