They reached the mouth of the cave and Zuko thrust her inside. Unable to steady herself with her hands, she fell to the cave floor. He descended on her and quickly bound her ankles. He then drug her over to the cave wall furthest from the entrance and propped her against it. She huddled against the wall and glared at him as he began collecting the wet, dead leaves and bramble from the cave floor in an attempt to start a fire. She watched him struggle to ignite the soggy foliage for a long time, getting progressively more frustrated, finally shouting and hurling fireballs at the floor.

"We have to go back," she shouted.

"No!" he snarled, fire erupting from his hands.

"Look around you. You are just as much a prisoner as I am. We're trapped in here and if you try to take me back to your ship we'll die. Is it really worth dying to capture the Avatar?"

"You don't get it! Someone like you could never understand the position I'm in! You don't know what it's like to be scarred and banished by your own father. Capturing the Avatar isn't just about my honor, it's about getting my family and my home back." Zuko turned to the mouth of the cave and looked out into the white abyss swirling before him. "It's so easy for someone like you." His voice was soft, eerily calm. "You're like my sister. You mastered waterbending in, what, a few weeks? Everything comes easy to Azula. My father used to say she was born lucky. He said I was lucky to be born." Katara stared at his broad back in silence. She had never heard Zuko speak like this. He was usually screaming threats at her; she never knew he came from such cruel home.

As darkness fell, Katara shivered in the corner of the cave. Zuko sat in the center, meditating, palms upward cradling a ball of fire in each hand. The light from the fire flickered around the cave walls, but the warmth couldn't fight the howling winds outside. Zuko had untied her torso, knowing her escape was limited from the weather, so she was able to attempt to warm her hands with her breath. She began to shiver more and more violently as her body began to shut down from the cold.

Zuko's eyes shot open and focused on her trembling body. He crossed the cave and crouched down next to her.

"Here," he said trying to take her bound hands. She jerked them out of his grasp, losing her balance and falling on her side. She never stopped shaking. "Give me your hands," he ordered harshly. She glared at him from the floor. He took her hands and she didn't resist. Heat radiated from his palms and warmed hers, but the shaking didn't subside.

"If I untie you and keep you warm, you must give me your word you won't run." She glared at him from under her long eyelashes. "Swear it!" he snapped.

"I s-swear," she spat. He unsheathed one of his swords and severed the ropes around her wrists and ankles. With surprising gentleness he rubbed the raw marks on the places the ropes had cut into her flesh.

"Water," she rasped. He glared at her suspiciously but went to the mouth of the cave, plucked up a handful of snow, and handed it to her. His sword remained unsheathed and pointed at her as she used the water to heal the welts and then consumed the remains.

When the warmth produced by movement wore off and Katara began shivering again, Zuko crossed over to where she sat and said, "Put your arms around me." She wrapped her trembling arms around his neck and he pulled her onto his lap. "Wrap your legs around me." She glowered at him but obeyed. He began to remove his shirt. She pulled back from him sharply. He gave a low, dark chuckle. "Don't flatter yourself peasant, this is purely for survival. My core will heat your core." He continued to remove his shirt until she was staring at a pale expanse of muscles. She brought her eyes up to his so he wouldn't guess what the sight of his chest and stomach was making her feel. His golden eyes bored into her between locks of shaggy, jet-black hair. She felt a pulsing movement from the bulge in his pants that she was now pressed against.

His lips parted slightly and his eyes slowly lowered to her chest. His long fingers plucked open the first button on her coat. In a flash she seized his hand, eyes wide with anticipation. "Do you want to freeze to death, peasant?" His voice was almost a whisper.

"My name is Katara."

"Katara," his voice was a low rumble that made her shiver. She let go of his hand and he resumed unbuttoning her coat. He gently slid it over her shoulders and onto the cave floor. He touched her back and she let out a small gasp of pain as he conjured a small flame that burned through her tunic and undershirt. All that was left to hide her chest was the cloth that bound her breasts. His eyes raked over her. She felt a definite pulse coming from his crotch which was now digging into her demandingly.

He pulled her close so their chests were pressed together and her head rested on his shoulder. The position was almost tender. She felt heat radiating throughout his core and spreading through her own body.

"Why don't you just let me freeze to death?" she asked into his shoulder.

"You're no good to me dead. I need you alive to trade for the Avatar." His lips tickled her hair.

"It must disgust you to be so close to a waterbender peasant," she said with some satisfaction.

"Nonsense. We have our way with Water Tribe women we capture all the time." He knew it was a lie but he wanted to get a rise out of her.

She wrenched herself back from him and struck him in the face with all her might. "You are a foul, evil, spoiled prince who will suffer for what you've done to my people!"

He touched the stinging mark on his face and scowled at her, his yellow eyes narrowed into slits. "You shouldn't strike a prince," he hissed. He seized a handful of her hair and pulled her head back, exposing her neck. He brought his lips down on hers fiercely. She pushed on his chest trying to force him away. She couldn't make him budge and he crushed her to his chest in retaliation. When he finally ended the brutal kiss she was gasping for breath.

"I will not be another victim for your privileged pleasure, Prince. I'd rather die," she spat through bruised lips. He kept his grip on her hair with one hand and with the other tore open the tie on the cloth around her chest.

"I may be a prince, Katara, but I have never been privileged, nor have I ever laid a hand on a woman against her will, not even from the Water Tribe. But now that I've tasted Water Tribe flesh, I'm going to satisfy that hunger. You will yield to me." He brought his lips down on hers again but this time she opened her mouth and let him explore her with his tongue. She buried a hand in his hair and pulled. He drew back from her mouth and pulled her own hair back further so her neck and breasts were exposed to the cold air. He quickly began warming them with his lips and tongue. Her hands roamed his broad back. When he gently closed his teeth over one of her nipples, she let a moan escape her lips and drug her nails over his shoulder blades. He growled in pleasure and his hands closed over her breasts. The heat from his hands was searing but instead of feeling pain, waves of pleasure ran over Katara and she bit his shoulder to muffle a scream.

He threw her onto her back and with a slash of fire, tore away her pants. She lay with her chest heaving, blue eyes wide as she stared up at him in desire. His eyes raked over her, slowly and hungrily. His lips curled into the smallest of smiles and he descended upon her ravenously.

She felt as if she was being consumed by flames as he licked and nibbled his way over her neck, chest, and abdomen. When he reached her mound, he paused and she moaned and arched in protest. He threw her legs over his shoulders and began licking her clit gently. As her breathing grew harder, so did the pressure of his tongue. Once she was dripping wet with pleasure he slipped a finger inside her. He moved it in and out, faster and faster along with the rhythm of his tongue. In only moments she screamed out in pleasure, burying her hands in his thick hair and arching almost completely off the floor.

Once the waves of her orgasm had subsided, she looked up at him. He was staring at her in a way that reminded her of some kind of animal, blind with lust. She reached up and tugged at the waist of his pants. He scrambled out of them and knelt before her. She stared in wonder at his manhood, fearing its impalement and craving it all at once.

Before she could catch her breath, he slid an arm under her back and flipped her over. He seized her hips and raised them slightly, then plunged into her. She cried out in pain and he reached around her and gently touched her clit. He pulled out slightly and plunged into her again. She let out another moan of pain but this time pleasure was mixed in. As he moved in and out of her she threw back her head, her hair cascading down her back. His fingers dug into her backside as he rode her. She reached back and clutched his thigh, fighting another wave of ecstasy.

He brushed her hair from her slick back and flattened himself on her, pushing himself even deeper into her. He moved faster and faster, biting her neck to muffle his groans. As he drew closer and closer to climaxing, he slid his hands under her, clutching her breast and touching her mound.

"No!" she suddenly cried out. He opened his eyes and gazed down at her face, pressed to the cave floor. He could see one ocean blue eye peeking out from under a mass of wild hair. He pulled out of her and gently turned her over. As he entered her again he cupped her cheek and kissed her softly. He drew back and picked up the rhythm he'd had before. She closed her eyes in pleasure and Zuko grabbed her chin. "No. Look at me," he ordered. Her sapphire eyes opened and met his molten ones. He buried himself in her to the hilt and with a guttural moan, he emptied himself into her as she tightened around him, shuddering with her climax.

He collapsed on top of her and buried his head in her collar bone, heaving deeply. His body was radiating heat, a sort of energy pulsing beneath his skin as if her were a volcano. His back was slick under her fingers as she gently touched the dips and curves of the muscles there. The tips of his wet hair grazed her cheek and she sank her hand into the thick, black locks. He raised his head and looked into her face, which was torn between an expression of anticipation and exhaustion.

He reached over to the pile of her belongings gathered on the cave floor and plucked up her water pouch. In a flash, Katara formed a small knife of ice from the thick snow in the cave entrance, slashed open the pouch, and summoned the water into a blade she held at Zuko's throat.

His golden eyes burned into hers as he hovered over her, tense and silent. He slowly brought his hand to her jaw, closing around it. She knew he could easily tighten his fist and crush her throat but she couldn't bring herself to strike. He held her jaw firmly, staring into her deep blue eyes.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he whispered. He lowered his lips onto hers and kissed her deeply. She couldn't help but return the kiss, arching against him. Her hand stayed tense on the ice blade.

He slipped an arm under her back and pulled her deeper into him. He ran his other hand over her butt. Gripping her tightly, he raised her hips and slid into her, hard once again.

Katara let go of the blade and it turned to water splashing down on her chest. As he moved inside her, the water immediately turned to steam.

When they finally drove each other into ecstasy once more, she lay exhausted with her head on his chest and drifted to sleep, rocked by the rhythm of his chest rising and falling and his heart slowing.

She awoke hours later, shivering. The place next to her in the huddle of blankets on the cave floor was empty. She looked around and saw him standing at the mouth of the cave, staring into the storm outside. Each hand held a small orb of fire, warming him as the wind tousled his hair.

"Zuko," her voice was a soft echo in the cave walls. He whipped around. The scarred side of his face livid against the snow behind him, irritated from the cold. He came towards her and sat on the edge of the cluster of blankets, turning away from her.

"You're free to go. You're no longer my prisoner."

"Go where? If I try to go out in that weather I'll die. We're trapped here."

"I just mean you don't have to pretend anymore to keep me from hurting you or to distract me so you can escape." In the dim light she could see his profile framed by shaggy, glossy black hair. His scar framed his golden eye, stretched over his high cheek bone, and ended at the edge of his strait nose and jaw.

"Is that what you think last night was? Me pretending so I could escape?" Her voice grew louder in spite of herself.

"Look at me Katara? Look at my face! I know what you think of me. I know you think I'm a monster, the deformed son of your enemy," his voice rang in the cave.

The silence hung in the air for a moment. Katara reached out to him and let her fingertips graze his back. "Zuko, I didn't do what I did to escape. I did it because I see more in you; I see good in you. You aren't just what your father has made you. You can choose to do more." He turned to her and looked down into her oceanic eyes, framed by long lashes. Her long, brown hair fell around her bare shoulders in silky tendrils. She reached up and touched his jaw. "I think you're beautiful."

He slid down next to her and entwined his fingers in her long tendrils. "Say it again," he growled softly.

"Which part?"

He touched the tip of her nose with his, his lips inches away from hers. "Say my name."

"Zuko," she whispered.

He let his lips graze hers. "Again."

"Zuko." Her breath was becoming ragged.

He trailed his lips over her jaw and down her neck. "Again."

"Zuko."

He began kissing patterns over her neck and collarbone. "Again."

She seized his head, brought his lips to hers and kissed him passionately. "Zuko," she purred and they dissolved into a lustful frenzy.

When they subsided on final time, she cradled his head as he rested on her chest. Her fingers trailed through his hair and lightly touched the edges of his scar. "Promise me you'll never leave my bedside while I sleep ever again," she whispered.

He nodded into her breast.