He's angry and shouting and so much like he's element she's just a bit scared. She readies herself for a gust of fire or anything to come but nothing does. He just collapses in a chair, his head in his hands as he breathes deeply. In and out like it should be and he wants so very desperately to cry.
The only parent he has is in jail and he doesn't know what to feel, what to believe in anymore. There's no way to undo what his aunt had done and there's no way he can recover from this without losing who he is.
Everything he grew up with, all the ideals, feel like lies and he wants to break something and put things on fire.
He came to her because she understood anger, confusion and the bitter taste of regrets.
He'd never come to Lissa, not when she's just been made queen and she's busy with all her new responsibilities. Rose is too goddamn selfish and he wouldn't dream of confessing all of this to Dimitri.
But Mia – he goes to her. Maybe because they're alike in ways he'd never care to admit. They're broken in a lot of ways, darker, angrier. But unlike him, she faces it all with coolness and unending patience. She's the epitome of her element and he is his after all.
She stands up from where she was seated on her bed and comes over to where he is. Her hands are gentle, soothing as she takes his face in her hands, he stares into pools of ice blue before her lips touch his. She tastes sweet like honey and he immediately deepens and the kiss and she gasped at the heat that follows.
They're fire and ice. His rough, passionate, almost animalistic in his need to satisfy, to forget and she's calm and yielding, her hands continuous with gentle touches as they ignite and break and put each other back together again.
They lay in tangled sheets, her kisses like the touches of butterflies as she kissed his chest and he moaned and stared at the halo of her blonde, blonde hair.
It ended quietly like it began.
"Thank you," He whispers as they're lulled in the afterglow, his arms around her, her head on his chest. She smells sweet like some kind of flower and he feels intoxicated and lazy and sated.
"You're welcome," She murmured back, already half sleep. She makes little mewling noises in her sleep and she treats him like a teddy bear and it all feels kind of odd how comfortable he feels.
He hasn't thought of Lissa during the whole thing and he doesn't know if that's a good or bad thing.
All he knows is the content feeling deep in his bones as he falls in a bed of a woman he doesn't love.