Page 430 of Pucking Feral: Part Two

Never.

We move.

It's slow. So slow. He skates backward in front of me, holding my waist the entire time, and I shuffle my feet forward in tiny terrified increments. Every time I wobble, his grip tightens and I'm caught before I can move out of alignment more than an inch.

He lifts one hand again to fingerspell so he only needs the one.

P-E-R-F-E-C-T.

"Yeah, right," I snort, stumbling against him.

Somehow I end up dipped backward over his arm, my hair trailing toward the ice, staring up at the blue ribbons swirling across the whole sky. The aurora fills my entire vision, breathing and wild, like the sky is filled with dragons, and my beautiful feral mate is the one that came down to the ice to hold me.

I forget about my ankles entirely.

"Oh," I breathe.

He turns his head and follows my gaze up, and we stay there, me draped over his arm, both of us gazing up at the sky. I keep staring long after his gaze slides back down to me, searching my face, even though he can look at me whenever he likes.

Worth it? he signs, one-handed, still holding me up with the other arm.

Show-off.

"So fucking worth it."

He pulls me upright and we keep going, and slowly, slowly, my feet start to understand. He lets go of one hand and just holds my fingers. Then he lets go of that and skates beside me, close enough to catch me, and I make it ten whole feet on my own, arms out, wobbling, cackling.

"I'm doing it! Look, I'm⁠—"

I go down.

He catches me.

He's laughing again before we hit the ice. His whole chest shakes, that broken gravelly huff-huff-huff pouring out of him, and he pulls me into his lap, wrapping his arms around me.

I grab his face and kiss his teeth.

"You're laughing at me!"

Yes.

I shove at his chest, laughing myself. "You're supposed to deny it!"

Why? You fell.

"Because YOU let go!"

Ten feet. On your own. You did it.

I stop mid-shove, my hands flat against his chest. Under my palms, his heart pounds heavy and hard enough I feel it through his shirt.

"I did, didn't I?"

He nods.

The laughter drains out of me, because he's right.

I fucking skated.