Chapter Twelve

I awoke in the cave, alone, the next morning. The few connections we had to the outside world were now coated in a layer of snow, casting an eerie, soft blue glow that seemed to dance with the chill in the air. My breath hung in the frigid atmosphere, misty puffs mingling with the strange illumination.

The cold was unbearable, gnawing at me like a relentless hunger. My trembling hands fumbled with the electric lighters we had, their feeble flames flickering and sputtering out almost as soon as they ignited. Frustration surged within me, a desperate need for warmth, for something to combat the pervasive cold that had seeped into my bones.

I cursed, my voice lost in the cavernous expanse around me. The wind howled outside, finding its way through every crack and crevice, piercing through any shred of warmth. I cast aside the useless lighters, defeated, knowing that I needed him, needed his knowledge and strength to stave off this biting wind.

Hours crawled by, each minute feeling like an eternity as anxiety wrapped its icy fingers around my heart. The cave that had once been a sanctuary now felt like a prison of isolation, each creak and rustle of the wind echoing through the hollow space like a taunting reminder of my vulnerability.

By the time he returned, I was a mess of emotions. Tears streaked my cheeks, and I huddled beneath the blankets, my body quivering from both cold and fear. Then, the cave entrance stirred, and Kaimari stepped in, snowflakes clinging to his armor like diamonds.

Everything was changing. The world as we knew it was over. Long ago, we had fallen into a fate from which neither of us would ever recover. Why did sin then taste like home?

He stalked towards me, his movements a lethal ballet of elegance and power. His every motion exuded an enigmatic allure, drawing me into his orbit. The firewood was cast aside, and then, to my surprise, he settled before me.

“You’re going to die,” his voice held the power to both seduce and destroy.

I wished to yield the former. “Save me, then.”

Without a word, the Kaimari Warrior fell to his knees before me. The sound of his armor hitting the ground reverberated throughout the cave. My breath hitched as his gloved hands began the meticulous process of removing the plates of iridium.

I watched in awe as he shed his armor, piece by piece, until he was before me, vulnerable and exposed. His strength was apparent, not in the metal that protected him, but in the courage to be exposed and unguarded before me. Then, he reached out, his arms encircling me, and pulled me close against his bare chest.

His voice, when he spoke, was like a prayer only the two of us could translate. "I swam the lake of fire," he said, his words echoing like a dream. "Crossed all frozen seas just to be here by your side." He tossed aside all that we believed and instead gripped the bare flesh of my thighs. He was possessive, and grounding. My neck fit so perfectly in the space between his collar and jaw. “I’ve got you, you won’t freeze. You are an angel to me.”

Our true colors shone in this sacred darkness and secrecy. Every danger, every red flag in the vastness between us was washed out. Filled by this blinding white chromed light between us of starlight and snow dust. He shone on me, and I shone on him. The masks we wore in the outside world had fallen away, revealing our true selves, stripped of pretense or artifice.

He held me, his embrace unwavering, his body like a sentinel against the cold. I shivered still, but this time it was from a different kind of ache. A mixture of relief, longing, and something else, something primal and deep.

His lips brushed my forehead, a feather-light touch that sent a rush of heat through me. “Beloved,” he murmured against my bare skin. “Beloved angel stuck to me.”

We were like two beings at the end of time confessing to our every sin. We both were independent and okay with being on our own. This wasn’t a need for desire or intimacy, but only of the unknown. Of what could be. Of what it means to be alive and to know.

He called me angel once more and my heart leapt from me. There was no use in trying to catch it, for he had set it free, and he could do anything he wanted.

"Do you know I could break under the weight of all your goodness?" His confession reverberated through me, a tremor coursing from my heart to my fingertips. A tear slipped free from the corner of my eye, and he kissed it away, his lips tender against my skin. I felt a strong, broad hand cup my face and capture my jaw. “You are everything good to me, everything pure,” he whispered, his voice a caress that sent shivers down my spine. And then, his lips met mine.

There was a sweet injury to finally knowing him. Of tasting him. Of pressing my lips into his glamor and kissing a face I had never seen with my eyes, yet known with my soul.

He tasted of woodsmoke and starlight. Mythic and pure. Everything I had ever desired and the burgeoning instruction on what to ask for more. He was light I could fit my mouth, and I was nectared youth mingling with the taste of first love. Consume me whole, I wished to convey, bite every piece of virgin from me.

His lips were the sun and the edges burned. He kissed me with an intensity that warmed my cheeks and pulled my hair with a strength that warmed my thighs. He aroused me because he was born of arousal itself. I wanted every heartbeat of my future, past and present, to belong to him.

We tumbled onto the blankets, his arms wrapped around me as we sought solace in each other's warmth. His lips found mine again, and as the storm raged outside, I felt a warmth kindling within me that had nothing to do with the fire. It was a flame of connection, of trust, of something untamed and wild, something that made the world outside the cave seem distant and inconsequential.

My fingers found their way to his throat, my touch a silent declaration of my need for him. I explored his chest, his body, driven by a desire that matched the intensity of his kisses. But as our passion grew, I sensed a change in him, a shift in his demeanor. The fire waned, and he pulled back slightly, his gaze meeting mine.

I met his gaze with a grin that brimmed with flirtatious mirth, my own fierce youth undeterred by the gravity of our circumstances. My shirt had slipped off, my hair was wild, and in that moment, I felt untamed and alive. His silence spoke volumes, and I dared to challenge it. “Are you going to lecture me now?” I teased, my smile daring and unapologetic.

He was silent, and I could sense the struggle within him. “We can leave tomorrow,” he said.

My heart dropped to the planet’s molten core. “w-what?”

He was standing now, his posture tense, his armor lending an authoritative air to his figure. But he knew, just as I did, that this was not a matter of blame. Our connection, our intimacy, was born of something beyond ourselves, beyond the confines of time and circumstance. He knew this was not my fault. As I knew neither was it his, this was no one’s fault except the crafter of our timelines.

“You are too young,” his words carried an air of sternness, his helmeted gaze unwavering.

Anticipating his objection, I moved to stop him from rising fully, my hand grasping his retreating shoulder. “But you said I had reached womanhood,” I countered, we both knew I was going to say this. “Let tonight be tonight,” I murmured, my voice laced with a seduction beyond my years. “Let tomorrow be tomorrow.”

He stood before me, his internal struggle palpable in every line of his tense body. His desires clashed with his sense of duty, his conflicting emotions a storm that mirrored the chaos outside. Yet, as we exchanged a gaze laden with unspoken understanding, we both recognized the futility of our internal battles. This was a war neither of us could emerge victorious from, a fate we couldn't rewrite no matter how desperately we yearned for it.

“You are too young,” he repeated, his voice a mixture of surrender and restraint. A sudden dampness clung to my face. His words hung in the air between us, the weight of his responsibilities and his feelings intertwining in a complex web that left us both trapped.

I held his gaze, my determination unwavering. “I don’t even know how old you are,” I retorted, pushing back against the constraint he was imposing on us. How could he use age as a barrier when time itself had twisted and turned around us?

“Older,” was his only response. He could have been ten thousand, I felt younger than him in that moment. Small. I knew right then and there that I was losing him forever.

“Let tonight be tonight,” he echoed my words back to me, his voice softening, his resolve weakening. And as he gathered me into his arms once more, I nestled against his bare chest, his heartbeat a steady rhythm that reassured me. “Tomorrow, I will take you home.”

But home, I realized, was no longer Astraeus, nor a physical place. Not this island, nor its strange gifts to me of childhood and womanhood all in one place. Home was iridium armor. And home, in this final moment, felt safe.