Michael is still shaking even as he curls up next to the fire of his suite. After he had seen Elsa's expression of sheer horror, after hearing her voice and seeing she was alive, he just – shattered. The adrenaline that fueled his sprint for the castle just dropped and suddenly Michael could feel everything.

He could feel the ache in his arms from the fighting; he could feel the blood that had covered him completely; he could feel the scratches and cuts and bruises inflicted upon him by that assassin, and he could feel his heart racing as if it were about to jump out of his chest.

And when he saw Elsa, the fear in her eyes, he almost shattered thinking he had lost her, but the queen merely held him while he cried pathetically. His tears were relief that had overwhelmed him since the beginning.

It's a miracle that Elsa is still bothering to speak with him. Apart from seeing the carnage that he had left in her room, when he had arrived, he practically scared the ice out of her only seconds before he grabbed the queen and forcibly shoved her into the armoire without much explanation. And that was just a minute before that assassin burst through her chamber doors.

After he had heard of his mother's plans, the world just slowed and blurred, and the next thing he knew, he was sprinting through the streets and up to the castle.

He climbed up the freezing, slippery stones up to her balcony. Then he surprisingly, ever so gently opened the queen's balcony doors and slipped inside.

He had scared Elsa as she was in the midst of preparing for bed, and when she was about to ask what he was doing there, one look of his cold, dead eyes had rendered her frozen with fear.

Michael simply grabbed her and ordered her to stay hidden and not make a sound. His voice was calm and sounded like gravel. He then simply sat in one of the chairs by the fire and waited.

And when the assassin did show up . . .

He only greeted him with calm words, and a wicked smile. That assassin didn't expect to see him, and Michael took full advantage of that surprise.

He first flicked his wrist and a dagger immediately found its home in the assailant's eye, erupting a scream from him. He had barely finished when Michael launched himself.

He pulled the dagger free, not even caring at the eyeball lodged hallway up the blade. He only had a few blades on his belt, but it was all he needed.

After thoroughly hacking and slashing at the assassin, accompanied by blows of his fist and knees, when he got the assassin on the floor, he pinned her there with those same daggers.

Michael practically dissected, cracking open his chest cavity like a nutshell, plucking his nails off like petals to a flower, and stabbing daggers into his limbs like he was a living pincushion.

Michael then proceeded to pry him for answers, and every time he refused or cursed at Michael, (which was a lot) he then ripped off each and every one of those iron claws. He only got one hand done before the assassin confessed.

His mother had paid him a lot of gold to kill her – the man was experienced, long retired, but apparently, he still loved the line of work enough to take her contract. He can deal with that regret in hell.

But it wasn't enough. He wasn't ready to let the bloodshed end. He wanted to rip out that man's rutting throat with his teeth. And he would've had the assassin not died so quickly.

He was good though, those god-damned iron claws sure have a reach. Michael looks to his now bandaged side, the area where those claws swiped him. Even he didn't know the full extent of his injuries until the doctors removed his clothes. Thankfully, that was only nick that the assassin had managed to inflict. Every other part of Michael was untouched.

Only now does Michael realize the torture that he had probably put Elsa through as well. The armoire he had stuffed the queen in was right there while Michael performed his own execution.

She had heard every scream, every curse, and every begging word that the man unleashed to Michael; only to have splashing blood, ripping flesh and gurgled screams in return.

What had terrified Michael the most was that familiar feeling of when he had rampaged through that death camp. It was the exact same feeling. He could only see the assassin and the queen, he could only hear his pounding heart.

Everything else was blurred and meshed together in smears of color. And when Elsa spoke to him, it all just – cleared away like a fog.

He fists his hands as his mother's words ring in his ears: "You think she'll accept you for the monster that you are?!"

He had failed.

A trap. He fell right into it.

It wasn't just about an attempt on the sisters' lives, that would've just been icing on the cake.

She wanted to expose him for the monster he knew he was beneath this skin.

He'd been so blinded, so focused on protecting her, he failed to care enough about the repercussions for what she was about to witness.

He never wanted her to see that darkest part of him. He was sure he had secured everything in place after what he had done to the miners and guards alike in that camp, but after hearing what was about to happen to Elsa . . .

The way that rage blurred the events of the night his old life went up in flames with the events of this night, that made his parents' and Elsa's faces bleed together, seized him so fiercely . . .

The door shuts loudly but Michael just stares at the crackling fireplace, his knee bouncing. He only calms slightly when she sees it to be Elsa, carrying a blanket. Michael doesn't look at her even as she wraps the blanket around him like he is a child.

"There you go." She utters gently.

Michael cringes at that kindness in her tone. She sits next to him, dressed in a different cotton nightgown. What was a pale grey is now a silky magenta, a thin glittering veil overlaying the long skirt dripping from single blue diamond-shaped sequin resting at the pane of space between her breasts. The neckline dips low, spreading wide before resting on the edge of her shoulders.

So beautiful.

Beautiful and alive.

Though Michael doubts she'll be able to sleep tonight, and even if she does, he might not.

After Caiden and a couple of guards led them out, the shadow weaver wanted to bring the girls to someplace safe; why that's still in the castle, he doesn't know why.

Caiden had approached Michael and asked where he wanted to go. As he slowly drifted back into his aching, bloodied body, he was able to draw enough sense that he had mumbled about going to his suite. Being surrounded by something familiar. Something that feels like a home to him gives him a little bit of comfort.

No one protested as Elsa insisted she join him – not even Anna, though she did open her mouth to begin her protest. And Michael and Elsa held hands the whole walk there. He didn't want to let go of her, he doesn't even think he wants her to leave the castle again if the threats continue on.

He hopes that his mother hears, in detail, about what he had done to that assassin. He hopes she hears and knows to stay the hell away from Elsa and Anna.

He had managed to wash the blood off, having spent over two hours in the tub, taking three baths just to ensure he washed every ounce of that man's blood off his skin. Then Elsa had brought him some fresh cotton nightclothes.

He barely remembered the sisters' tearful reunion – Anna looking no different than Michael, safe for her clean clothes and slightly clearer eyes; blubbering madly about how she was so worried about Elsa, speaking about the demon attack in the library. Elsa soothed her rattled sister, wiping away her tears and gathering her into a hug.

He did register how Caiden looked after his battle. He doesn't know what happened to Danika. He only remembers getting her up on the horse, his mother's words finding their mark, and then he'd nearly abandoned her as he sprinted back towards Arendelle. He caught a brief glimpse of her in the foyer of the castle, relief flooding him at the sight of her alive as well. Alive and looking more aware. More like herself. It'd seemed like her eyes had cleared from whatever dreadful memory his mother made her relive in that fog.

Gods, his mother.

That woman – the false Queen of the Fae, the Midnight Beauty – that's his mother.

Possessed by some dark force and using her body as means of furthering whatever agenda it has. He still has to explain all of this to everyone. The mere thought heavying his muscles with exhaustion.

How could he tell them, especially the sisters? One of many questions buzzing around his head like a hornets' nest. To have to explain to them, after all of this . . .

Michael wraps the blanket tighter around himself, hunching over his knees with a warm cup of tea between his hands. Mai had brought it, along with a three-tier dessert tray, but he barely touched it.

The heat of fire doesn't seem to be reaching him at all. Even the heat of his own magic seems to have retreated.

For a moment, he wonders if the darkness in his heart had probably leeched away that heat as well. Perhaps he had spent so long without warmth that he now possesses a heart of ice.

Elsa shifts next to him, tucking her legs underneath herself. He knew she wanted to talk about what happened, another reason why Michael is even more upset. He never wanted anyone to see that side of him again. That part of it, it belonged in the dark. So it was right at home in that death camp.

Her hand touches his shoulder, and Michael cringes again. "Michael," Elsa speaks, her voice barely louder than the crackling fire.

He almost wants to scream.

"Are you all right?"

He doesn't look at her. "No," he whimpers.

He has the vague feeling of the world slipping out from under his feet like sand washing away from the shore.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

He can't answer that.

She shifts again, folding her hands in her lap. "I know you've told us things, but . . . I had no idea what you'd be capable of. Even if I didn't see much, to hear what you had done . . ."

"I – I'm so sorry about that. I wasn't thinking." His lips are chapped, tight. "I so was bent on protecting you and, making him pay that I didn't think to consider –"

"Michael," Elsa's hand rubs his shoulder. Each time she says his name, he wants to just scream and shatter something. "I owe you my life. And that's all that I understand."

Two tears slid down his cheeks, swift and cold. He didn't wipe them away as he confesses, "I never wanted you to see that side of me."

Elsa doesn't say anything, but he can feel her pause. That's fine. She doesn't have to say anything. She just has to listen.

"When I was sixteen, I was captured by our enemy forces. I was a decent rank at the time, and it didn't take long for them to sentence me without so much as a trial. I was sent to a salt mind, a death camp for prisoners of war and traitors and conspirators. On my first day, they beat me to a bloody pulp then dragged me over to the whipping posts." He swallows. "I remember screaming after twenty-one lashes. And then I passed out after forty-two. They left me there, in the cold and rain. I had hoped that my commanders would hear of what happened and attempt to rescue me." He shakes his head. "But I was there for six months. Within that time, I had seen so much death and evil and corruption that it would have left most men unstable."

He wasn't sure Elsa was breathing, but he did see her eyes flick to his back.

To the scars that clawed their way down his back.

"I kept trying to escape, regardless. And I think I pissed off the warden enough that he just kept torturing me or whipping me, as revenge or, something. They barely gave me any food, any water. And if another prisoner showed me any kindness, they were met with cruel retribution; so, most of them stayed away from me. But then one day, this woman . . . she helped heal my back one night when I was waiting for death. The following morning, she handed me a tin of healing salve . . . and one of the overseers saw."

He drops his gaze to the teacup. His hands are shaking.

"Later that evening they raped and killed her."

Tears roll down his face.

"And I just . . . snapped," he whispered. Her face and my mother's face seemed to just, blend together, and all that rage and hatred from that night, it just –"

Tears are sliding down Elsa's cheeks.

"I had marked their faces the day they'd dragged her behind the building, marked every detail about them as they used her, then slit her throat from ear to ear. As she begged to gods who didn't save her. I stalked from the mine shaft, the two guards at the end of the tunnel were dead before they realized what was happening. I reached the entrance to their section of the mines, and the first two overseers died when I heaved the ax into their necks. When I reached the other two, I let them see me, let them try to draw their blades."

He knew it wasn't the weapon in his hands that made them stupid with panic, but rather his eyes—eyes that told them they had been tricked these past few months, that torturing him and whipping him hadn't been enough, that he had been baiting them into forgetting that The Reaper was in their midst.

But he had not forgotten a second of pain, nor what he had seen them do to the others.

"I wasn't fighting to escape. The men died too quickly. And then I was running, sprinting for the death that beckoned to me, making for the towering stone wall at the other end of the compound." He points a shaking finger as if she could see the layout. "They wouldn't kill me, by order of the king. But I would make them reconsider once the carnage was too massive to ignore. I took a gash in the leg—deep, but not deep enough to cut the tendon. They still wanted me able to work. But I wouldn't work—not again, not for them. When the body count was high enough, they'd have no choice but to put that arrow through my throat. I laughed when I became surrounded by forty guards. I think I might've killed five more before the world went black."

He taps his fingers along the side of the teacup, cringing at how dirty and rugged they looked against the pink flower design. He looks to Elsa, her cheeks tearstained and her shoulders quivering.

"When the rebels finally did rescue me, word had already spread about what had happened. Maybe that was the reason why they even bothered to come and get me in the first place, but, during my recovery, one of my commanding officers visited me in the infirmary." Michael squeezes the cup. He thought he heard the ceramic groan. "And he told me he hoped I learned my lesson, about being brash and impulsive. I would've snapped his neck had some other soldiers not held me down. He left me there . . . to teach me a lesson. After that, they reassigned me under a different commander, and, I don't know what happened to him. I remember the others giving the verbal thrashing of a lifetime. Hell, he might've even gotten demoted, because I never saw him again. But . . ."

He brushes his thumb along the handle of the teacup.

"But that thing, inside me – the thing that drives me to the edge, at my lowest point . . . I never wanted you to see that part of me. I kept that piece locked away, and I never dared to let anyone in. Not even Danika, or Caiden, but, I'm sure they have their assumptions."

His eyes finally lift to hers. His lips wobble, and he presses them together.

"I was so afraid you'd run away. From me. You are the greatest thing that's happened to me in a long time. You looked at me like . . . like I was worth something. And I was so afraid to destroy that – that you would see the kind of person I can become, and then this beautiful, wonderful thing that had come into my life, this gift from the gods . . . It would be gone."

Elsa shakes her head, unable to take much more, mumbling and near sobbing, "No. No, no, no." More tears spill down her cheeks as she takes his head in her hands, but not before taking the teacup and placing it on the table.

Aware of every breath, every movement, she sits in his lap. His hands gently brace her hips as she studies his face. A stroke of her fingers against his shoulders has the blanket slipping down his back.

She brushes his hair out of his eyes, revealing the scar that trails through his eyebrow. His eyes drop to the necklace resting between her collarbones. The snowflake twinkles like an early night star.

He stills as she presses her forehead to his. "It's okay." She whispers. "Michael, look at me." He obeys. "Listen to me: there is nothing, in this world, that would ever make me turn away from you. I see you. I see your everything, Michael. And I am not afraid."

His arms wrap around her and he presses his forehead to her shoulder, his body shaking.

"The only thing I'm scared of is losing you." she whispers. She strokes a hand through his hair.

He felt the truth in her words, felt them like a song he's been waiting to hear for the longest time. He hadn't felt this kind of love since his parents. This unconditional love. And how is he to have been so lucky to finally find it?

Michael looks up, his face gleaming with tears. He goes still as Elsa leans in, kissing away one tear. Then the other.

"I care about so much. So much." She mutters. A trembling confession.

"But it is so much than that."

A steady nod as more tears fills her eyes.

"But I have nothing to give you."

A breathy laugh. "I told you. You've already given me so much. And so much more."

And then she is kissing him.

He can barely breathe, barely keep inside his skin, as Elsa's mouth settles over his.

This kiss lingers. Her mouth traces his, and at the slight pressure of her lips, the gentle request he answers with his own.

The taste of her threatens to undo him entirely, and the tentative brush of her tongue against his own draws another rolling purr from deep in his chest. He lets her explore him, slowly and sweetly, giving her whatever she asks.

And when her mouth becomes more insistent, when her breathing turns ragged, he slips a hand around her neck to cup her nape. She opens for him, and at her low moan, Michael thought he'd fly out of his skin.

Elsa arches into his touch, another of those small noises coming from her. As if she'd been just as starving for him.

It's like waking up or being born or falling out of the sky. It is an answer and a song, and she cannot think or feel fast enough.

Her hands curl into his shirt, fingers wrapping around fistfuls of fabric, tugging him closer.

His lips caress hers in patient, unhurried movements, as if tracing the feel of her. And when his teeth grazed her lower lip . . . She opens her mouth to him.

So gentle—soft.

Michael tears his mouth away, and before she can grab his face back to hers, he looks up to her. "You love me." He whispers. His breath a wisp of a touch against her lips.

Elsa wonders if love is too weak a word for what he feels, what he'd done for her. For what she feels for him.

Another steady nod, her eyes pleading for him to touch her, to kiss her as she breathes, "Yes."

A breath of a laugh as his hands skim over her hips, slow and steady. "Then say it."

The whimper she gave – the sound is like kindling. "I love you, Michael."

The words seem to snap whatever leash he had on himself, his mouth seizing hers again – this one more thorough. As if he wants to learn every taste, every angle of her.

She brushes her tongue against his, and his growl has her toes curling in her slippers—

Her hand slips around his shoulders, drifting from his nape to run down his back, savoring the warm, unbreakable body beneath the layers of clothes.

He hardens against her, and Elsa groans into his mouth.

He deepens the kiss, his tongue dancing with her own. She whimpers as he lets out a dark laugh as his hand gathers the long skirt and wanders under the back of her dress, down the length of her spine, his calluses scraping. She arcs into the touch, her own hands undoing her braid while his skillfully lowers her zipper with torturing slowness.

His lips leave her mouth and find her neck, pressing openmouthed kisses to it, nipping at the sensitive skin beneath her ears. "Are you sure?"

In answer, she meets Michael's now-blazing eyes, and then licks up the column of his throat. Rain-kissed pine and sun-warmed leather and sweat. It almost undoes her.

"I've never been more sure of anything in my life." The person who says that – husky and sultry—she's never heard that voice come out of her before.

Those words also became his unleashing, and Michael scoops her up in a smooth movement, his hands grasping high on her thighs as she wraps her legs around his waist, grinding against the hardness pushing into her, insistent and dominating. Every thought eddied from her head. Only a thrill of power remains as she writhes along that impressive length. Michael lets out a low, rough laugh.

With the loosened zipper, her dress slips from her shoulders, gathering at her waist. He drags his teeth along the side of her neck, and she pants, her entire consciousness narrowing to the sensation. She doesn't care if she's moaning loud enough the entire castle to hear. Not as Michael mouth and teeth close around her breast, sucking and biting and kissing, and nothing, nothing, nothing had ever felt this good.

He puts his mouth on hers again, Elsa driving her hands beneath his shirt as he walks towards the bed.

Gods, she just wants him to just take her against the wall, but he carries her over to the bed and sets her down on the bed with heartbreaking gentleness.

His mouth finds hers, the kiss open and deep, a clash of tongues and teeth. He pulls back enough for her kick off her slippers, to watch him peel away his shirt in one easy motion.

Gods above.

She'd seen him shirtless before, and yet never noticed – not like this. Never allowed herself to drink in the mouth-watering image before her.

Muscles upon muscles upon muscles, all covered by sun-kissed skin that glows in the peeking moonlight. The silver streaks also seemed to highlight all of the scars that marked his beautiful body. Short and long, smooth and jagged – each laid claim to some piece of skin.

Her hand quivers as her fingertips trace along a particularly gruesome one resting just over his heart.

The story it would tell.

Elsa gasps when Michael's hand rests over hers, pressing her hand deeper into his chest, to feel the thunderous heartbeat raging against her palms.

He whispers, "I am broken Elsa. But I am healing, and every piece of my heart belongs to you. I won't let them take you from me."

He had never said such words—to anyone. Never let himself be that vulnerable, never felt this burning and unending thing, so consuming he might die from the force of it.

She can only answer by sitting up and kissing that scar across his heart.

"You love me," she gasps. Not a question.

"Yes," he answers, just as breathless. She gasps a bit as his knuckle grazes along her jaw, entangling in her hair.

Rising onto her knees, Elsa keeps her one hand on his scarred heart. She looks into those beautiful, blazing sapphire eyes.

"Then say it."

"I love you, Elsa." Michael breathes, and she feels the claiming in her bones, her soul.

She gasps as she's pushed onto her back and bucks her hips off the bed to help him remove her dress.

His tongue flicks against her nipple, and her head tips back, her fingers digging into his shoulders, urging him to take more, take harder. He traces his fingertips over her thigh. Higher.

She plunges her fingers into his hair, and he braces a hand beside her head. His mouth finds her other breast. He grinds his hips against her, teasing—teasing her so horribly that she has to touch him, has to just feel more of him.

One hand slid across her abdomen, the other hooking into the thin fabric of her underwear.

Her face flushes with heat as he trails kisses down her abdomen, painting a path with his tongue while his hands slowly pull the fabric down her legs. His hair tickles her with its featherlight touch, causing her breasts to ache as her skin crawls with goosebumps.

"I love you, Elsa. And I will prove it." he purrs against her skin.

Michael pulls back again, and she lets out a bark of protest—that chokes off into a gasp as he grips her thighs and yanks her to the edge of the bed, hooks her legs over his shoulders to rest on either side, and kneels before her.

He would bow for no one and nothing—

But his queen.

His love.

His equal.

"I want to taste you first," he says, his voice so guttural she barely recognizes it.

Oh gods.

"Michael –!" She doesn't know if it's a plea or a question.

The first lick of his tongue sets her on fire.

He growls his approval at her moan, her taste, and unleashes himself on her entirely.

A hand pinning her hips to the bed, he works her in great sweeping strokes. And when his tongue slides inside her, she reaches out to grip the edge of the bed, to grip the edge of the world that she is very near to falling off.

He licks and kisses his way to the apex of her thighs, just as his fingers replace where his mouth had been, pumping inside her as he sucks, his teeth scraping ever so slightly—

She arches off the bed as her climax shatters through her, splintering her consciousness into a million pieces.

He keeps licking her, fingers still moving.

"Michael," she whimpers. Begs, as she digs her fingers into his hair.

Now. She wants him now.

But he remains kneeling, feasting on her, that hand pinning her to the table.

Moans and whimpers escape her like a lyrical song, her legs twitching to close, but those powerful hands keep them spread wide, baring everything she is to him. She can feel the pressure on the balls of her feet as they support her writhing body. His tongue and lips licking and sucking while his fingers curled inside her, hitting that spot –

Release shimmers in her again, a wild and reckless song. And only when she is trembling, half sobbing, limp with pleasure, does Michael rise from the floor.

Wholly naked in mind, body, and soul, Elsa watches as he unbuttons his pants, and the considerable length of him springs free. She surprises herself as her mouth waters at the sight.

She wants him, wants every glorious inch of him inside of her.

He looks her over, naked, covered in sweat, his own face and body smeared with it, and gives her a slow, satisfied male smile. His eyes hold her as he brings those fingers to his mouth and sucks on them.

On the taste of her.

She is going to eat him alive.

"You're mine," he snarls as he crawls over her.

She is instantly liquid again, and she can't stop a yelp as she feels him hook his arm under her, hauling her further onto the bed, laying her down on the pillows. Elsa locks her legs around his back, careful of the scars clawing their way down his spine.

Though she stops caring as he nudges at her entrance. And pauses.

"Please," she manages to say.

Michael's laughs in a way that skitters along her bones. "So polite," he purrs, and slides in. And in. And in.

She can hardly breathe, hardly think beyond the pressure between her hips. He stills inside her, letting her adjust, and she opens her eyes to find him staring down at me. "Say it again," he murmurs.

She knows what he means.

"I love you, Michael," She breathes.

He pulls out slightly and thrusts back in slow. So torturously slow.

"I love you," She gasps out.

Again, he pulled out, then thrust in.

"I love you."

Again—faster, deeper this time.

She moves her hips in time with his. He kisses her over and over, and both of their faces turning damp. Every inch of her burns and tightens, and her control slips entirely as he whispers, "I love you."

She feels it then, the bond between them, like an unbreakable chain, like an undimmable ray of light.

Her soulmate. Star-crossed between kingdoms, forged in fire and ice and steel and passion.

Her partner.

Her love.

Her equal.

With each pounding stroke, the bond glows clearer and brighter and stronger. "Michael," she whispers, dragging her hands through his hair, down his back.

Release tears through her body, and he pounds into her, hard and fast, drawing out her pleasure until she feels and sees and smells that bond between them, and she is his and he is hers.

Elsa cries out, only to have his lips cover hers, as if he can devour the sound. Michael moaning as he comes, slamming in to the hilt.

Silence falls, interrupted only by their panting breaths. She takes his sweat-smeared face between her quivering hands and makes him look at her.

His eyes are radiant like the Northern Lights.

And she smiles at him as she feels their hearts beating together as one.

He buries his face in the crook of her neck and shoulder, his uneven breath warming her skin. He carefully pulls himself out, Elsa flinching at the unfamiliar sensation. He drops next to her with a satisfied sigh. Elsa giggles as she turns on her side.

He mirrors her movement, adjusting the blanket and sheets until they're both burrowed beneath. With her remaining strength, she pulls herself closer until her head rests against his chest.

She nearly purrs as his arms wrap around her, his finger idly stroking light circles along her right shoulder blade. Not to arouse – to soothe.

She doesn't know how long they lay there, lazily touching each other, but she doesn't care. Not as they have all the time in the world. For now.