He looked back at me, breathing hard, dripping with blood. I didn't even need the Queen's bitter words to tell me that this was his natural form, and that when he stood on two feet it was because he demanded it of himself. The edge of tension that always haunted Dain's movements was completely gone in the Beast before me. I'd seen him stalking towards us, as sinuous and powerful as a jaguar, with the same self-possessed quality of motion. He stood still, now, not in the frozen way he could, but like a man waiting for the firing squad to pull the trigger and end his life.

She'd said it had taken him three years to stand on two feet after Phazikai, and that he had only been able to do it because of Alluin's love. I could almost imagine it—his friend refusing to be driven off, kindness in his eyes and a loyalty that could not be broken in his hands. Seven hours in Phazikai, and three days fighting the dead. Dain had to be fucking exhausted, and I hadn't forgotten the arrows or the sword.

I smiled at him. I couldn't help it. I smiled at him and walked down off the dais, my chainmail clinking beneath my tunic and my footsteps ringing out through the throne room. Unbelievable. I was the soulmate of a big fuck-off wolf monster, a straight-up demigod, whose godhood waxed and waned with the moon and the seasons. What even was my life?

His ears laid back, and Dain took a step backwards, his wing-arms flaring out in a defensive position. Cold bloomed around him, as if I walked into the heart of winter.

"So this is the big secret, huh?" I said, walking right up to him while he shrunk away from me, fear in his beautiful eyes. Always the fear, that belief that this would be the step too far. He'd been terrified of this moment, certain that I would look at him and see a monster. I looked up at him, at those flaring nostrils and the tension of his face, pulling his lips up almost into a snarl. He had what looked like sword-wounds on his mouth, one slicing through his lip enough that it pulled open into a notch. I looked at him, and saw only the man I loved.

"I'm going to kiss you now, and I'm not gonna jump for it," I informed him. "Bring your face down here, your majesty."

Dain went perfectly still, the air growing even colder, emanating off of him like cold air off a glacier. His breath fogged in the winter that curled around him, a soft plume of steam, and as if that breath released him from his motionlessness, he shuddered. Slowly, as if at any moment he might encounter an iron blade instead of his soulmate's hands, Dain lowered his massive head towards me, his ears flat against his skull and his eyes open too wide.