Page 79 of Burning Ice
The haze hit fast. Mirel’s pupils widened. He blinked, gaze tracing Kylix’s lips for the next breath. Kylix kissed him again,teeth catching his lower lip, a faint sound escaping before he spoke against Mirel’s mouth.
“Tell me what it was like for you.”
Mirel gave a small, uncertain laugh. “What…being fucked against glass?”
“Yes, that too,” Kylix said with a faint smile. He took another pull and caught Mirel’s chin, tilting it as he pleased. “But also the rest of it. Having witnessed an Aureate from above. To feel your Dariux being unleashed. Tell me how it felt.”
“It felt good.” Mirel’s mouth opened when Kylix’s grip tightened, filling him once more with a trace of smoke. The kiss that followed was sweet and intoxicating.
“Good,” Kylix said.
But the memory of the arena clung to Mirel. The heat, the roar, the helpless thrill that had rolled through his veins when Daven struck.
He hated that it had felt good.
Some part of him had wanted it. The blood, the dominance, the clean precision of power released. The Dariux inside him had leaned toward it like a starving thing, hungry for the rhythm of pain and control.
His mind recoiled. His pulse didn’t.
He could still feel the echo of it, the pull to burn or freeze, to own. Shame chased it like shadow after light.
Kylix was watching him. That knowing look, the faint curve of his mouth, said he saw it, the battle inside him, the thrill Mirel wished he could unlearn.
“Daven… he killed his prey.”
“Hm.” Kylix exhaled another curl of smoke. “It was beautiful.”
“But I’ve seen… others… keep their prey alive before.”
“Others?” His mouth curved, amused.
“You,” Mirel blurted. Colour climbed his cheeks. “I’ve seen you before. Fighting. Not killing. Why?”
“Depends on the prey. Sometimes I fuck them. Sometimes I kill them. Sometimes I make them soldiers. What would you do?”
“What?” Mirel stared, startled.
“Yeah. There will come a day when you stand in the heart of the arena. The crowd will sing your name. What will you do?”
“I don’t—” He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“If I gave you a criminal, handsome and trembling, would you kill him, little darae? Or would you watch him break?”
“Kylix…” Mirel’s voice cracked. His lips trembled as he leaned forward and pressed his mouth to him in a messy, hungry way. Kylix caught a fistful of his hair and pulled him closer, tasting the corners of those lush lips. He dipped in again, savouring Mirel’s flavour.
For a heartbeat, Mirel saw what the arena must have looked like through his eyes, the roar of thousands, the heat, the hunger, and how small this silence was by comparison. Yet it was this, the trembling quiet between two breaths, that fed him more than victory.
“I know. But you were built for this.”Kiss. “Build.”Kiss. “For.”Kiss. “This.”
Mirel looked up at him. His gaze was wide and his mouth not quite bruised enough. “Still, that’s not the same as wanting it.”
Kylix brushed a hand through the pale strands and tapped his temple. “You’re overthinking. Is it cruel? Maybe. But we’re at the top of the chain. And I don’t know about you, but I like it there.”
Mirel turned aside, shoulders shrinking. “I’ve always been at the bottom, Kylix. My life…”
He didn’t finish.
“Your life?”
