Page 37 of Burning Ice
“Sleep now. And dream of me.”
Kylix eased the blankets over Mirel, his gaze tracing the bruises he’d left, purple, tender marks that seemed to bloom under the light. Beautiful, he thought, this proof of what he’d claimed. He left him aching, untouched, exactly where he wanted him.
Mirel’s lashes trembled once before stilling. Kylix watched the pattern of his breathing, slow, uneven, finding its rhythm again.
He opened a glass door and lit up a red-cinder cigarette. He stood there a long while, looking down at Mirel’s half-sleepingform, tucked and still, then turned away before that thought could root deeper.
He reached for his multi-slate again.
Kylix: Still awake? Need a drink.
The chime of the sent message cut through the hush like a pulse. Then the night swallowed it whole.
11
The first thing Mirel felt was cold. It clung to his ribs, pooled at his wrists, spread like water gone wrong. Frost veined over the headboard, thin lines crawling across polished wood. The room had not made it.Hehad.
For a heartbeat he thought he was back under the graveyard dirt. Ice pressed through his back. Outside, the air was filled with night, stars and planets.
Breath scraped his throat. Heat pulsed beside him. Kylix lay half-turned toward Mirel, the dark coat he had worn last night cast aside, shirt open at the throat, a flash of bronze skin catching the light. One sleeve hung loose, cuff unbuttoned, the fabric falling away from the line of his shoulder. The sight made the air change, hot meeting cold, metal meeting breath.
Mirel’s pulse stumbled. The warmth rolling from that body met the chill of his own and turned to ache. He felt it in his stomach first, a tight pull that climbed higher, stealing his breath until he could taste heat on his tongue. The frost on the bedspread hissed faintly where their temperatures met.
Had Kylix done this to the room? Had he drawn the air hotter on purpose, or was the burn only in Mirel’s blood? He couldn’ttell. His skin felt too alive, too aware of the few inches between them.
Somewhere in the house, a soft chime rose and died, one of the perimeter sensors cycling its hourly sweep. Kylix had set them before sleep, but the sound still threaded through the quiet like a heartbeat. Beyond the walls, engines passed in the night, low and restless. Helion was never still, it breathed in code and fire. Even here, in the heart of his private wing, the world refused to let them forget it waited.
Kylix’s breathing deepened, slow and measured, but every exhale seemed to reach for him. Mirel stayed perfectly still, caught between the cold he’d made and the heat that waited to claim it.
He wondered if the alarms would sound again, those red pulses Yure had shown them on the screen. Seventeen seconds between each spike. It had been almost a full day since the last report, and still the memory pressed behind his eyelids like static. Something was out there, working in the dark, drawing closer even as he lay beside the one man who could stop it.
The thought should have chilled him. Instead, it sent a pulse through his body, sharp and electric. The air thickened. Every sound in the room sharpened, the faint tick of cooling metal, the low burn of the hearth, the slow drag of Kylix’s breath. His skin prickled, torn between fear and want. Heat gathered low in his stomach, spreading outward until even the cold he’d made couldn’t hold it back.
He turned his head slightly. The distance between them felt unbearable. The fire from Kylix’s body reached him, brushing his own frost until it hissed away. The ache built higher, reckless, disobedient.
The word he had promised never to give slipped out raw.
“Please.”
The word hung between them. For a moment nothing moved. Kylix’s breathing changed, slower and heavier, as if that single word had been the answer he had been waiting for.
His eyes opened. Heat lived there. His mouth curved slow.
“There it is,” he said, voice low and rough. “I told you, you would beg.”
Mirel turned his face away, but the frost betrayed him, feathering down the bedpost in delicate lines. His body wanted warmth. It wanted the fire beside him. It wanted what it should not.
Mirel’s lips parted, breath uneven. “You… make room hot? You…do this?”
Kylix’s gaze flicked to the frost veining the headboard, then back to him. His grin came slow, sharp at the corner. “You think I changed the air for you?” he asked. He leaned in until the warmth of his voice touched Mirel’s mouth. “You’re that desperate, little one?”
Mirel shook his head.
Kylix sat up and reached for his wrists. “Look at me.”
Mirel refused. He kept his eyes on the frost, ashamed of it.
Kylix caught his jaw and turned it with a pressure that allowed no argument.
