Icebound. Corinna Rogers
hilt of his sword more tightly than ever. “You want to fucking play? Let’s see you dance.”
He drops the tip of his sword to the asphalt, and ice spills out, slicking the ground for a good three hundred yards in every direction. The Soul-Thief slips, legs skittering madly, and fails to catch itself, toppling over to hit the ice with a crack of shattering…body? Ice? Hard to tell.
Shane dashes forward, feeling the wind rip past him even for such a short distance, feet never slipping as he runs forward, sword outstretched, to deal the final blow to the downed, doomed creature.
His sword meets something hard with a blaze of light, so bright it sends him flying back, one arm thrown over his eyes. “Bastard!” he chokes out, blinking furiously as he twirls the sword one-handed. “Playing possum, huh? I’ll—”
His vision clears, and the next words die in his throat as he sees exactly what’s interspersed itself between him and his prey. His mouth goes abruptly dry, and he stammers, “D-Drake, what—”
If he had to put a name to the emotion on Drake’s face, he’d be hard put to think of anything besides weary disappointment. Drake winces, but nods. “Shane.”
I was doing something. Probably something important. “You look good. I like that shirt. Want to rip it off you.”
“For the love of God, can’t you think of anything except—”
“You?” Pain flares behind the smile spreading across Shane’s face, and he welcomes it, embraces it as the best thing he’s felt in years. “Probably not. I don’t try. Say, can we get back to this in like twenty seconds? I’ve got a mark to bag.”
Drake shifts, and just like that, Shane knows, just knows that there’s trouble. “I can’t let you kill it.”
The smile curves, turns less nice, and Shane’s eyebrows raise. “Let me? You think you can stop me?”
“Don’t do this.”
Shane saunters forward, a wicked glint in his eye. He leans forward, enough so his breath will be chill against Drake’s ear as he hisses, “So stop me.”
Drake telegraphs his moves by a mile, always has. He’s fast, sure, but not in the same league as Shane, making it laughably easy for him to dance out of the broadsword’s range. “That’s the problem with being a big man swinging a big sword,” he taunts, as Drake pulls back his arms for another swing. “All your momentum is—”
Just as he slides smoothly away from the next swing, Drake kicks out, a powerful sweep of his leg that takes Shane square in the hip, slamming him back into the half-broken fire escape the Soul-Thief had scrabbled down earlier. The iron bars drive into his ribs, his stomach, and had he been a lesser man, would have broken a lot that he can’t afford to break right now.
It’s a little hard to stay focused on why he needs to capture the Soul-Thief, why he needs to bring it down when the very thing that he wants is standing right in front of him, kicking him in the chest for good measure. For a second, Shane just grins, tasting blood. “Missed you too.”
Drake brings his sword up again, and this time Shane sees it for the decoy that it is, sees the muscles bunch in his side and thigh. He throws out his hand, and the surge of power smacks into Drake’s weight-bearing leg, sending him spinning off over a patch of still-frozen ground.
Shane wipes his mouth on the back of his hand—cut lip from the fall, no problem—and gets to his feet, unable to keep the grin off his face. “If you’re a good boy and hold still, this can end without—”
The sword blazes, that damn sword, he always forgets to account for it, and Shane throws up a hand over his eyes, following instinctively with a shield of power with his other hand, just in time to feel Drake smash against it. He lowers his hand, still blinking away the stars, and sheathes his sword. “You want to fight, big man? I can go all fucking night. Which city block should we tear up first, huh?”
“There are people living in those buildings.”
Shane laughs. “Yeah, but you’re the one who gives a shit about that. Come on. I’ll let you have the first shot.” He nods towards the sword in Drake’s hands, lifting his eyebrows in challenge. “Think that thing would work on me?”
“Of course not. It only works on—”
“Shit that isn’t human,” Shane finishes, smirking. He walks forward, eyes locked on Drake, slowly extending his hand. “Want to see if I still bleed?”
“Shane.”
“You wonder, don’t you? Or maybe you don’t think about me at all. Not like I think about you.” He keeps advancing, feet crunching over the ice, power crackling around his hands.
“Shane, don’t. We don’t have to fight.”
“You gonna stop me from killing my mark?”
Drake swallows hard, but nods. “I have to.”
Within a few feet, then inches, Shane manages to look down at Drake even though he’s got an inch of height on him. “Then stop me,” he murmurs, drawing his hand back for a blast that will probably level the whole block.
Drake kisses him.
The power flares in Shane’s hand, then arcs back into his body, setting his nerves alight with electricity, contorting his spine into an arch of gasping shock as Drake’s mouth closes over his, hard and wet and wanting. That thing in his chest, that spark of pain in the middle of the ever-present cold, flares white-hot, a searing agony that brings actual tears to Shane’s eyes, and god, if anything’s ever felt so good he doesn’t remember it.
For a moment, the pain overwhelms him until he feels a little like himself again, like the words, Nice try, baby, you think I’m that easy? are on the tip of his tongue, an easy teasing smile, a hand twined gently with his. With the taste of Drake so strong on his tongue, the hard planes of his body pressed against him, it’s easy to pretend that they’re not in a filthy alley but in their old apartment, practice blades tossed to the ground during a sparring session where they just couldn’t keep their hands off each other, panting and sweaty and hungry.
Maybe he’s not the only one who feels it.
Shane’s back hits the brick wall again as Drake shoves him, pressing him there with all his weight, and no matter how strong and lithe Shane is Drake’s always been a huge guy, would be intimidating if not for the open honest kindness of his features. The weight of him feels good, something immediate and searingly hot when everything’s been ice for so long. Then they’re both grabbing, yanking and tearing at clothing, totally absorbed in the fervent need for each other that’s never gone away, not really.
Drake’s hand comes up to fist in Shane’s hair, his eyes intensely blue as he yanks his head back. “You hard?”
Shane lets out a strangled noise, hips rutting forward involuntarily against Drake’s thigh, showing him just how much. “Yes. For you. Please.”
He sees it, that wavering, desperate look in Drake’s eyes that he knows better than anyone in the world, and it makes him tremble. His legs spread, his mouth goes dry, and he nods quickly, muttering, “Do it, it’s okay, I want it, it’s me.”
Dear, sweet, honest, kind, saintly Drake. He’s always been the sort of man to make the simpering ladies at his church swear that it’s possible to have a man without a mean side, it’s possible to be human without having an ounce of darkness in the soul.
In his less sober moments, Shane’s always wanted to dare those women to try fucking Drake and see if they still believe that afterwards.
Big hands close around his hips, pulling him close just to slam him back into the wall again, the impact driving the breath from his lungs. Drake’s mouth is hungry on his, biting sharply into his lip, down his neck, hoisting him up careless of the brick scraping Shane’s back. “You like to talk