“His cave?” I repeat, but of course, I’m mated now, we won’t be sleeping in the same cave any longer. I belong to Thorn. I’ll be in Thorn’s cave.
Warmth floods me from his bare chest even as I struggle to breathe. We trek down a corridor to the left toward the back. Into a large room walled in ice like frosted glass. He sets medown on wobbly feet, wrapping furs around me before he places a slab of ice in the corridor. A door.
The cave is long and tall, cavernous. Icicles hang down from the center ceiling like a giant chandelier. In the left corner sits a slab of raised ice with tons of furs on it. A bed. To the left there’s a sunk-in spring with steam spiraling up into the air. It makes the whole room warmer. I find myself walking toward the warmth.
“Careful,” Thorn’s deep voice is behind me, taking the furs off my shoulder. “Going from extreme cold to heat is going to hurt.”
“I don’t care.”
He huffs a low laugh. “Of course you don’t.”
I hiss. The water bites like teeth as I sink in, but soon the warmth soothes my sore muscles from the long trek. Thorn sits on the ledge beside me, his eyes watching, wolf-patient but hungry beneath the surface.
“What’s that look mean?” I ask, peeking up at him.
“Oh, nothing. Just the fates being cruel to me.”
I sink lower until only my head is above water, resting it on the ledge.
“Comfortable?” he asks, wading in.
“Mmm,” I groan. “How does the cold not bother you?”
“It wasn’t always like this. I came from another pack as well many moons ago.”
“Really?” My eyes snap open. There’s no way. Thorn looks as though he were born to be here. His coloring, his ruggedness, his cold, hard eyes that only soften when they see someone they care about.
“Maine, if you can believe it. We lived in a treetop pack there. When my parents died, it was just me. The forest I’d grown up in felt too quiet, too hollow. I couldn’t stay in the trees when all I heard were ghosts. My first Mating Trial was the first time I met the Aurora pack. Scar wasAlpha then — cruel and careless with his pack. I thought I could endure him. But after nine months, I couldn’t, so I tore him down and assumed Alpha.”
“Did you always want to be Alpha?”
“I did,” he admits. “Until my love life became a topic for conversation.”
“Why didn’t you just take a mate?”
“I didn’t just want any mate. I wantedthemate. I don’t want to sire pups with any whore. I wanted an equal. Someone to share this cold, lonely, isolating life with.” He gestures around.
“Oh well, when you put it like that. Glad to join you in your misery.”
He smiles, swimming closer. “I thought that fire in you might be able to warm this cold place. An Ember amongst ice.”
“Then that must make you a Thorn in my paw.”
“I can put my Thorn somewhere else if you’d like.” He glides between my legs.
“Oh really?”
“Only if you’re feeling better…let’s see if you have feeling back in your limbs yet.”
He lifts my leg above the water before sucking a toe into his mouth.
A shiver of pleasure ripples through me. “Mmm, yup, definitely feel that.”
He trails kisses up my ankle to my calf. “And this?”
“Mhmm.” I bite my bottom lip, resisting the moan in my throat.
Higher and higher his kisses trail up my leg to my thigh, heat sparking everywhere his mouth touches. When he finally reaches the place I want him most, he slides upward, catching a nipple between his lips instead, making me gasp.
