I pulled him from the vault, leaving his secrets behind in the dark, and led him down a different corridor, one I’d only explored once on my own. The side tunnel twisted sharply, descending through a narrow passage slick with frost. The stone grew colder underfoot. I knew where it ended.

A narrow steel door stood at the end.

I pulled it open.

The dusk of a mid-Fall night rushed in like a wave. Cold, clean, wide.

This was our season, mine and Orivian’s. As Fall Fae, we thrived in these temperatures, oscillating between Summer’s waning heat and Winter’s cold breath. We belonged to the cusp of things: the shift between warmth and frigid, between solitude and connection. Tonight, we stood at another threshold.

We stepped out onto the narrow strip of frozen earth that bordered the academy’s outer wall. Wintermere Lake stretched before us, a silent expanse of black ice, a mirror of the sky’s bruised violet. A biting wind whipped across the open space, but it felt like breath to me. Like being fully alive with so many possibilities.

Orivian looked around, his breath misting in the air, a flicker of awe in his eyes. “I never knew this was here.”

“I’m good at finding ways out,” I said, a smirk playing on my lips. I turned to face him, the memory of our first encounter on this very shore a vivid, electric presence between us. “This is where we first kissed. The shores of Wintermere.”

His gaze softened, a slow, appreciative smile curving his mouth. “I remember. You were trying to steal something from me then, too.”

“And I got it, didn’t I?” I said, stepping closer, my hands finding the front of his robes.

“You always do,” he murmured, his voice going rough. He leaned in, and this time, the kiss wasn’t a battle or a demand. It was a promise. Deep, slow, and full of all the things his secrets kept him from saying.

I pulled him with me, pressing my back against the cold, rough stone of the academy walls. I wanted the pressure of him, the solid, unyielding weight of him against me. The risk of being seen from the countless windows above was a heady, dangerous thrill. My fingers, numb with cold and anticipation, fumbled with the ties of his trousers.

“Garnexis, you’re insane,” he breathed against my neck, his lips tracing a hot path down to my collarbone.

“And you’re still here.”

He lifted his head to look down at me, heat smoldering in his eyes, a smirk on his beautiful lips.

I kissed him like I’d been starving for it. Like my mouth had been waiting weeks just to remember the shape of him.

He pressed me harder into the stone wall, one hand braced beside my head, the other sliding down to grip my hip. His mouth was fire and copper, hungry and sure, and I drank him in with a desperation I hadn’t meant to reveal.

I reached into his trousers, palming him with a slow, deliberate stroke. He groaned, low and filthy, and tilted his head back as I bit at the column of his throat. Metal shimmered beneath my touch—his magic, always close to the surface, beginning to rise. His skin glinted in places where the moonlight struck it, like living silver threaded just beneath.

“You’re dangerous,” he muttered.

“I’m everything you want,” I whispered back, nipping his jaw.

He breathed heavy against my lips. “Anyone could see us.”

But his hands were already moving, pulling my hands away and pushing aside my own robes, his touch urgent and possessive. He wasn’t trying to stop me. He was meeting my chaos with his own.

His mouth crashed against mine again, rougher this time. His hands slid up to cup my breasts through my tunic, his thumbs brushing over my nipples until they pebbled into stiff peaks. I arched into him, biting his neck again, harder this time, a low groan of satisfaction in my throat. He tasted of metal and winter air.

He growled something incoherent and pulled my tunic up to slip his hands underneath until they found bare skin. He kissed down my neck, then lower, sucking gently at the sensitive spot just above my heart.

He mirrored my previous actions, his fingers finding the ties on my own trousers, undoing them with a practiced, infuriating ease, pushing them down my hips. Thank the gods I hadn’t worn my armor today. The thought was fleeting, immediately consumed by the sensation of his hands sliding my underthings down next before one hand slipped between my thighs. His fingers were cool at first, but they warmed instantly against my skin.

I gasped as he slid two fingers inside me, his touch sure and deep. He kissed me again, swallowing my moan as he began to move, his rhythm a slow, deliberate torture. The world narrowed to the feeling of his fingers inside me, the cold stone at my back, and the searing heat of his mouth on mine.

“Orivian,” I gasped, grabbing his wrist, not to stop him, but to ground myself.

“You’re soaked,” he whispered, almost reverently. “Gods, you’re perfect.”

His fingers curled just right inside me. My back hit the wall harder as my hips bucked against him, chasing every flick and stroke.

“Come for me,” he said, voice rough. “Right here. Right where anyone could hear.”

As pleasure coiled tight in my belly, a molten core of need, he whispered against my lips, a litany of filthy, beautiful things he wanted to do to me, his noble composure completely shattered. It was too much, too fast. I came apart with a choked cry, my body shuddering against his as he captured my release with his mouth, kissing me like he was drinking me in.

He pulled his fingers away, and I whimpered at the loss.

“Patience, rebel,” he whispered, his own breath ragged.

The air around us vibrated.

And then I saw them.

For a breathtaking moment, I thought I was imagining it. From his back, appearing as a silent, magnificent explosion, came his wings. They weren’t feathers, not really. They were overlapping plates of gleaming, articulated metal—bronze and silver and steel—that caught the last of the twilight and shimmered like a living constellation. They were sharp as razors at the edges, but they moved with an impossible, fluid grace.

I knew Metal Fae, even some hybrids like me, had them, but they could easily tuck away magically into their bodies. I had never seen Orivian’s impressive wings.

I didn’t have any of my own.

I reached out, touched one. It was warm, despite the sheen.

An ache came fast and hard, just beneath my ribs. A sadness I hadn’t prepared for. As hard as I tried to ignore how much it hurt me that I was only half fae, times like this made it hard to forget my imperfections.

Especially when faced with a fae who was so perfect, so gorgeous, that it hurt to continue looking at him.

It was like he read my thoughts, his green-gold eyes blazing with an emotion so raw it stole my breath. He lifted me, and my legs locked around his waist instinctively.

He pressed me back against the wall.

“I need you,” he said, voice hoarse. “Now.”

I nodded, and then all I felt was him as thrust into me.

His wings wrapped forward, cocooning us in gleaming privacy. The world fell away. No academy. No snow. Just bronze and silver and steel. And heat.

The feeling was electric. A lock clicking into place. A circuit completing. For my entire life, I had been running, never belonging anywhere. But in this moment, pinned against a wall in the freezing cold, completely filled by him, I felt… home. It was a terrifying, overwhelming sensation, a sense of rightness I had never known.

The bond between us flared, a physical presence, tightening and humming with each powerful thrust. He moved with a raw, consuming hunger, breaking all his own rules of control and decorum.

“Finally,” he growled, the word vibrating through me. “This is where you belong, Garnexis. With me.”

He was right. Gods, he was right. I clung to him, meeting his rhythm, my body singing a song it had waited its whole life to learn. With each movement, the metal of his wings shifted and whispered around us, a soft, metallic chime that was the music of our joining. For the first time, I prayed for a home I never had. For the first time, I didn’t want to be the rebel. I didn’t want to be the half-breed. I simply wanted to be his. The other half of a whole, finally, impossibly, complete.

My second orgasm ripped through me with a force I couldn’t contain, and he followed moments later, spilling into me with a groan that was part release, part prayer.

When he sank to his knees, still holding me, wings curved protectively around us, I let my forehead fall to his.

“I’ve never felt anything like that,” I whispered.

He looked at me, eyes molten silver as his magic bled through.

“It’s the bond,” he said. “It’ll always be like this. Better. Stronger. Because it’s us.”

Then, softer: “You’re mine now, Garnexis. And I’ll never let you go.”

And for the first time in a long time, I didn’t want to run.

But I also wasn’t sure if I could stay.

We stayed wrapped in that quiet blaze for a while, his arms around me, his breath warming the hollow beneath my jaw.

He held me like I was something sacred. Like the moment might break if he moved.

And gods help me, I didn’t want it to.

I’d never known peace could feel like this. Not soft and quiet, but forged, like metal hammered into a perfect shape. It made me ache in ways I wasn’t prepared for. Not just in my body, but in the raw, pulsing space where I usually kept my walls.

For once, they were down. I let him see me.

And he did.

He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, the gesture absurdly gentle after everything we’d just done.

“I meant it, you know,” he said softly.

I looked up, my voice still dusted with the aftershocks of him. “Meant what?”

“That I’ll never let you go.”

My breath caught. I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t say anything. I leaned my forehead against his chest and let the sound of his heartbeat carry us forward.

Maybe there was a world where this didn’t have to end. Where I could stay.

He kissed the crown of my head.

“My family will be a challenge, of course,” he murmured.

My body went still.

He didn’t seem to notice as his wings retracted with a soft, metallic whisper, folding back into his body as if they'd never been there at all. The loss of their shelter left me feeling suddenly exposed. He helped me to my feet, his hands steady and possessive on my waist as we began to right our clothes.

The bond between us was a warm, steady hum, a silent song that said mine, yours, ours. Yet something about his last words, the pragmatism in his tone, started alarm bells along with the song, drowning the words out.

What Metal Fae would accept a hybrid with no recognizable family name, especially one of old nobility like Orivian?

He straightened the collar of his robes, his usual noble composure beginning to settle back into place, though a new, softer light remained in his eyes when he looked at me. Then he seemed to see my unease.

“I mean, they’ll need time to adjust,” he continued, as if he hadn’t just thrown even colder water over everything between us. “We’ll have to be discreet, at first. A public union would be… complicated.”

I leaned back, just enough to look up at him. “Discreet?”

He didn’t catch the warning in my voice. That’s when he made his mistake. Buoyed by the intensity of our connection, by the raw vulnerability I had just shown him, he assumed we were standing on the same ground, looking at the same future.

He reached out, his thumb brushing a stray flake of snow from my cheek. I almost recoiled but stayed still, waiting to see exactly what he meant.

He kept going, smooth and reasonable, like he was planning a logistics meeting. “They’re not without reason. Once they see who you are—what you are to me—they’ll understand. Fated bonds are rare, so they’ll support whatever arrangements can be made.”

All the warmth in my veins turned to ice. I stared at him, the sound of the wind suddenly roaring in my ears. The world tilted, the fragile sense of belonging I’d just found shattering into a million tiny, sharp pieces.

“Arrangements?” I repeated, the word tasting like poison.

He didn't notice the change in my tone. He was still lost in his world of logistics and noble duty. “Yes. It won’t be ideal, but—”

“Arrangements,” I said again, louder this time, pulling away from his touch as if I’d been burned. “What kind of arrangements, Orivian?”

He blinked, his brow furrowing in genuine confusion. The fact that he didn’t understand was a thousand times worse than the words themselves.

“Garnexis, this is how these things are handled, especially within the nobility. It’s a matter of practicality, my marriage to a titled lady, my heirs to inherit a pure bloodline. It has nothing to do with my feelings for you. I am choosing you.”

“So while you marry some pure-blooded fae to secure your family line I’ll be tucked away in a cottage somewhere.”

“She won’t matter. You’re the one I love. The only one I will ever love.”

I let out a harsh, bitter laugh. Was he really telling me for the first time that he loved me while also telling me no one would ever know of me except as the mistress? “You’re choosing to hide me. You’re choosing to make me your dirty little secret. A footnote in the great history of your House.”

Every fear I had ever had about being a half-breed, about being less than, about never truly being accepted, rose up and choked me. The ‘home’ I had felt in his arms just moments ago was nothing more than a back-alley entrance he would use when no one was looking.

“So I get to be yours,” I spat, my voice dripping with a fury born of deep, sudden pain, “as long as I don’t embarrass the family crest?”

“That’s not what I’m saying!” he insisted, finally realizing the chasm that had opened between us.

“What are you saying then, Orivian?” The edges of my voice could cut him. “Because what I heard is that I’m good enough to rut in the snow behind the academy, but not good enough to be seen with you in court.”

He opened his mouth. Closed it. And gods, he looked confused. Like he genuinely didn’t understand why this hurt.

“I’m trying to find a way for us to be together!”

“No,” I said, my voice dropping to a cold, dead calm. “You’re trying to find a way to have me without sacrificing anything. You think this bond is a convenience you can manage. But for me, it’s a chain, tying me to a gilded cage. And I don’t do cages.”

The old instinct, the one that had kept me and my mother safe for years, screamed at me. Run. Run before he traps you. Run before you let him break you completely.

He reached for me, his face a mask of confusion and hurt. “Garnexis, please…”

But I was already moving. “This bond is a curse. A regrettable lack of foresight.”

I shoved past him, my shoulder deliberately knocking his. In that single, jarring moment of contact, my fingers, acting on pure, rebellious instinct, deftly swiped the cool, hard card of his ID from the outer pocket of his robes. It was a reflex of my habit of taking small items. But it was also an act of defiance. A way of taking something back, of arming myself for the war I now knew I had to fight alone.

I didn’t look back. I plunged into the darkness of the tunnel, running, the fated bond that had felt like a homecoming now a cold, heavy manacle on my soul. I left him standing there in the snow, a shattered nobleman who had offered me his heart, but not his name.

If he wouldn’t give me his truth—if he wouldn’t let me see what the Docilis Vault had shown him—I would find a way on my own.

Even if it broke me.