Page 122 of Fallen Gods

I’m buzzed but not drunk, at least not on alcohol. Which sounds stupid even in my own head, but Rey is sitting on my lap. Pressing into me. I can’t get her close enough.

“Room. Now,” she says.

“The alcohol—” I start but she shushes me with a finger to my lips.

“I’m completely sober,” she assures me. “Reeve did pretty much all of the drinking.”

I hear the soft roar of music, people laughing, a new game of beer pong as I lead her down the hall and up the stairs to the back of the house.

“This is your room?” she asks when we get there.

I frown and glance around. “What gave it away?”

“The massive bed and the fact that there’s literally nothing in here at all? No decorations, no pictures. Almost like you’re afraid to settle down.”

I swallow the lump in my throat. “It’s not that I don’t want to settle down.” Slowly, I walk her into my room, shutting the door behind me. “It’s that I destroy everything I touch, or for a while, it seemed like that. From the lightning and storms, to the frost, to…my parents. Everything around me eventually dies. Isn’t that what ice does? The bitter cold? Takes life?”

She shrugs and wanders closer to the bed, pulling me along by the hand. “Some might say it actually gives life. Doctors use extreme cold all the time to slow people’s hearts in order for them to heal. They quite literally put them on ice to slow down death. So maybe you’re giving life, not taking it.”

I nod. “So what doyoubelieve, daughter of Odin?”

“I believe in life. Believe in you.” She stands on her tiptoes and, in the blanket of darkness and a sliver of moonlight, my enemy kisses me softly.

With one touch, I don’t feel like a monster ready to be unleashed. I feel like a man. Likemyself. I wrap my arms around her and deepen the kiss. No going back.

And I don’t want to.

Her hands slide beneath my shirt, tugging it up and over my head. Our eyes lock, hers blazing, mine—Gods, mine are surely already too far gone. I scoop her up into my arms, walking us back until her bare skin presses against the wood of my bedframe.

She slides down my body, tugging at my jeans. My head drops back as her heat sears into me. My hands are everywhere—her hair, her throat, gripping her ass like I’ll never let go.

This is right.

Us.

Together.

My heart slams in a hungry cadence for more. The world itself vibrates in tune with it—like the storm gathering outside is echoing me.

Her hands tangle in my hair, tugging hard enough to hurt, and I groan.

“You did say it was for pulling,” she mumbles against my lips.

Her head tips back, laughter spilling out like sunlight, and I kiss down her throat, drinking it in, memorizing the sound.

My lips leave behind a sheen of frost everywhere they touch, like my body’s marking her—claiming her—not with chains or force but with everything I am. With the monster she swears can give her life.

With the choice I never thought I had.

I don’t choose death.

I don’t even choose life.

I chooseher.

She shudders against me, eyelashes fluttering as ice crystals spark and drift through the air, caught between our breaths. Thunder growls in the distance. I know it’s me—my emotions splitting the sky—but I don’t care. Let the world hear it. Let it know.

Our mouths crash together, frantic, desperate, a battle neither of us wants to win. She flips me onto my back, her body straddling mine like she’s waited lifetimes for this. Her bra goes flying.