Monsters & Mates · Book 4

Aelith

A bonus scene with Dawson, Aelith, a snowboard, and a prince who has several opinions about gravity.

“I’ve made exactly one mistake today.”

Aelith looks down at me from his truly unnecessary height, one dark eyebrow lifting above luminous silver eyes. “Only one?”

“Fine,” I say, grinning as I crouch in the snow in front of him. “Several. But the biggest one was telling you that you’d probably be a natural at snowboarding.”

“You believe that was unwise?” he asks.

“I believe I accidentally inflated the ego of a prince.”

His mouth curves with the smallest, most dangerous hint of amusement. “You should have anticipated the consequences.”

“I really should have,” I admit.

The mountain stretches out beneath us, wide and white and shining beneath a clean green sky. Fresh powder sits thick along the edges of the beginner slope, while the groomed run itself glitters in the sunlight. The air bites pleasantly at my cheeks every time I breathe, carrying that sharp, clean scent of snow, pine, and cold that sinks straight into my bones and makes some buried piece of me loosen.

I missed this.

I really bloody missed this.

Mountains. Snow. The scrape of board edges. The sound of distant laughter drifting from the lift line. The weirdly satisfying clunk of boots and bindings. That feeling of standing at the top of a makeshift run with the whole slope waiting below like a dare.

And now, Aelith is with me.

Aelith, Crown Prince of the Glowranth, terrifyingly composed rebel-royal menace, future ruler-in-training, and the love of my life, is standing on my restored snowboard looking like he intends to bring order to winter through force of will.

The board itself has seen better days. It came through the rift at some point over the years and was eventually recovered from a storage vault, where someone had apparently labelled it as “unknown Earth object, possible ceremonial shield.” Which is not the worst guess, honestly. It had needed work, but one of Terrafeara’s engineers repaired the damaged edge, the bindings were replaced, and apart from the scratches and one suspicious scorch mark from the rift, it’s in pretty good nick.

I tighten the final strap around Aelith’s boot and sit back on my heels. “There. You’re officially attached.”

Aelith looks down at the snowboard, then shifts his weight experimentally. His posture remains immaculate, shoulders back, chin lifted, every inch of him regal despite the thermal layers, gloves, snow pants, and jacket I insisted he wear. Somehow, even dressed like an extremely handsome ski rental model, he still looks like he could address a kingdom at any second.

“It feels unstable,” he says.

“That’s because it is.”

His gaze flicks back to mine. “You assured me this activity was enjoyable.”

“It is,” I reply. “Unstable and enjoyable are not mutually exclusive.”

He considers that with complete seriousness. “Humans willingly participate in dangerous activities because they bring joy.”

“That’s actually a pretty fair summary.”

“I have been doing that since I met you,” he says.

Warmth rolls through my chest so quickly I forget the cold. He says it calmly, like it’s simple fact, but the bond between us hums with affection, bright and steady and so completely Aelith that I have to breathe through the sudden tightness in my throat.

I stand and brush snow from my knees. “You’re getting far too good at that.”

“At what?”

“Making me fall in love with you again while I’m trying to be professional.”

His expression softens, and his gloved hand comes up to brush a loose strand of hair back beneath my beanie. The touch is gentle, careful, and familiar enough now that my entire body leans into it before I can pretend to have dignity.

“I do not wish you to be professional,” he murmurs. “I wish you to be mine.”

My heart does something dramatic and inconvenient. “Right,” I say after a beat. “Well, that’s cheating.”

His thumb lingers briefly at my temple. “I am learning from you.”

“You absolutely are not blaming me for your flirt game.”

“I believe I just did.”

I laugh, then step closer to straighten the collar of his jacket, mostly because I want an excuse to touch him. The dark fabric suits him beautifully, making the faint glow of his markings look even more striking where they rise along his throat. I glance over his shoulder towards the lower part of the run, where several trusted guards pretend not to be watching us from a very respectful distance.

They’re failing spectacularly.

“Do you think they’re taking notes?” I ask.

Aelith follows my gaze. “On my technique?”

“On how quickly their Crown Prince can be defeated by frozen water.”

“I have not yet been defeated.”

“Sweetheart, you haven’t moved.”

“A strong opening position is essential.”

I grin. “That’s exactly the kind of thing someone says right before eating snow.”

He narrows his eyes, though the bond betrays his amusement. “You are enjoying this far too much.”

“I have dreamed of this moment.”

“You have dreamed of me falling?”

“I have dreamed of teaching you something I love,” I say, softer than I mean to.

The teasing eases out of his expression. For a moment, the mountain, the guards, the cold… it all fade beneath the way he looks at me. Like I matter. Like every strange little piece of me is worth learning.

“I am honoured,” he says quietly.

And just like that, my chest gets stupidly tight again. I clear my throat because there are only so many big feelings a man can have while wearing snow gloves. “Good. Excellent. Then honour your instructor by listening carefully.”

“I always listen to you,” he replies.

I snort. “No, you don’t.”

“I listen,” he says. “I do not always obey.”

“Deeply accurate.”

Aelith gives me his full attention, and the sight almost does me in. It’s unfairly attractive, the way he focuses completely when he decides something matters. I’ve seen him listen like this in council chambers, during strategy meetings, when Fithrust speaks, when his father explains the slow, painful work of rebuilding the kingdom. Now he’s directing all that intensity at a beginner snowboarding lesson, and I’m somehow expected to function normally.

“First rule,” I say. “Snowboarding is not about fighting the mountain.”

“I have fought mountains before,” he replies.

I blink. “You have not.”

“There was a mountain pass occupied by—”

“No, no. Not literal fighting. I mean you can’t overpower the slope. You work with it. You shift your weight, listen to the board, and let gravity help.”

His brow furrows. “Gravity has already shown questionable judgement.”

“It’s consistent, at least.”

“That does not make it trustworthy.”

I laugh, then take his hands to adjust his stance. Even through gloves and layers, the contact sends a soft pulse through the bond. His body remains too upright, too controlled, as though the slope is a court and he’s determined not to show weakness.

“You need to loosen up,” I tell him.

“I am loose.”

“You’re standing like you’re about to negotiate peace terms with snow.”

He looks down at himself, then back at me. “Is that incorrect?”

“For snowboarding? Very.”

“I see.”

“You need slightly less dignity.”

Aelith pauses for long enough that I know he’s giving this serious thought. “I do not know if I possess that.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” I say, laughing. “You do. I’ve seen you first thing in the morning when your hair’s sticking up.”

His eyes sharpen. “You promised not to mention that.”

“I promised not to mention it in council.”

“That distinction was not clear.”

“It was very clear to me.”

Aelith exhales slowly, but the corner of his mouth lifts. “I shall attempt less dignity.”

“Perfect. That’s the spirit.”

I demonstrate first. I strap in, push off, and let the board glide beneath me. My body remembers before my brain has to explain anything. The edge catches cleanly. The snow whispers under me. I carve a slow, lazy turn, feeling the old rhythm settle into my muscles, then stop below him in a neat spray of powder.

For one bright second, I’m exactly who I used to be and exactly who I am now.

Both.

Not divided.

Whole.

Aelith watches from above, his face unreadable to anyone else. Through the bond, though, I feel the quiet wonder in him. The pride. The tenderness. The way he understands, without me having to explain, that this isn’t just a sport to me. It’s a piece of home I thought I’d lost forever.

“You made that appear effortless,” he calls.

“It wasn’t always,” I call back.

I unclip and walk back uphill, boots sinking into the snow. “The first time I tried this, I spent more time on my arse than upright.”

“You continued regardless,” he says.

“I was stubborn.”

“You remain stubborn,” he replies.

“I prefer persistent.”

“I know,” he says, his voice softening. “So am I.”

The words settle between us, simple and true. Neither of us would be here without stubbornness. Not after rifts, wars, fear, queens, kings, and everything that tried to pull us apart. Maybe stubbornness gets a bad reputation. Sometimes it’s just love refusing to give up.

I reach him and squeeze his hand. “Ready?”

Aelith nods once. “Yes.”

He pushes off with far more confidence than experience warrants.

For the first few metres, he looks magnificent. Annoyingly magnificent, actually. His balance is steady, his shoulders relax, and his posture adjusts with surprising instinct. I start to wonder whether he really is going to prove me wrong and become disgustingly good at this immediately.

Then the front edge catches.

“Uh-oh,” I say.

He shifts his weight exactly the wrong way.

And I wince, mouthing, “No.”

The board shoots sideways, and Aelith disappears into a spectacular cloud of powder.

I hurry down the slope, trying very hard not to laugh until I confirm that my mate has not been assassinated by the slope I officially announced as the bunny run. “Aelith?” I ask.

A blue hand emerges from the snow, then the rest of him follows.

Snow clings to his dark hair, his shoulders, his eyelashes, and the very unimpressed line of his mouth. He sits there for a moment, staring down the slope as though the mountain has personally betrayed him. “I have reached a conclusion,” he says gravely.

I bite the inside of my cheek. “What conclusion?”

“The mountain dislikes me.”

The laugh bursts out before I can stop it. I try to turn it into a cough and fail completely. “It doesn’t dislike you,” I say, crouching beside him. “That was gravity.”

“Gravity appears to have chosen a side.”

“Gravity is famously neutral.”

“I disagree.”

“You disagree with gravity?”

“Vehemently.”

I laugh again, and this time his expression shifts. Only slightly, but I catch it. He’s watching me laugh with the same look he gets when he’s memorising something precious.

“What?” I ask.

“I was attempting humour,” he admits.

My grin widens. “You were.”

“Was it successful?”

“It was very successful.”

He looks almost proud, and that tiny glimpse of satisfaction makes my heart ache in the best possible way. I brush snow from his shoulder, then from his hair, letting my fingers linger because I can.

“You all right?” I ask.

“Yes,” he replies. “My pride sustained most of the injury.”

“Tragic.”

“Deeply.”

I lean in and kiss the cold tip of his nose. He stills for a moment, then smiles properly.

The rest of the lesson is slow, careful, and only slightly dangerous.

Aelith falls again on the second run, though less dramatically. The third time, he makes it almost halfway before sitting down with deliberate control and announcing that he had “chosen to stop horizontally.” By the fourth attempt, he begins to understand how to shift his weight without treating the board like an enemy. By the sixth, he manages two hesitant turns in a row, and the quiet sound that escapes him when he realises he’s done it is worth every second of paperwork, royal negotiation, and guard-related logistical nightmare that made this trip to the mountains possible.

He releases a surprised laugh on a delighted breath that slips out of him before he can contain it.

I stand at the bottom of the run and forget how to move… because that sound. Bloody hell, that sound.

Aelith reaches me with an awkward but successful stop, sending a small spray of snow over my boots. His eyes are bright, cheeks darkened slightly from cold and exertion, his entire body looser than it was at the start.

“I remained upright,” he says.

“You did,” I reply, unable to stop smiling.

“For the entire descent.”

“You absolutely did.”

“I believe I am improving.”

“You definitely are.”

Aelith unclips himself, then steps closer with the board dragging slightly behind one boot. “You are proud.”

“So proud,” I say.

His gaze softens immediately, as though the words matter more than they should.

I step into him and wrap my arms around his waist. He gathers me close without hesitation, his chin dipping as his forehead comes to rest against mine. Amongst the blowing wind brushing through snow-heavy trees and the collection of royal guards, who I’m pretty sure are keen to have a go themselves… somehow, in the middle of all of it, he feels like stillness.

“I fell several times,” he murmurs.

“You got up every single one.”

“So did you.”

I lift my head. “When?”

“The first day you learned,” he says. “And after the rift. And after my mother. And after every terrible thing this world placed in front of you.”

My throat tightens. He says it so simply. As if he isn’t talking about the shape of my entire life. I rest my gloved hand against his chest, right over the steady beat of his heart. “You got up too.”

“Because you were there.”

The bond warms, full and golden between us.

I don’t know what to do with how much I love him sometimes. It’s too big for language and too soft for the world that made him. So I do the only thing I can. I kiss him.

Aelith answers slowly, one hand rising to cup my jaw while the other settles at my back. The kiss is warm despite the cold, tender despite the layers between us, and when he draws back, his eyes remain on mine.

“I understand now,” he says.

“Snowboarding?”

“No.” He glances out over the mountain, where the late afternoon sun has turned the snow to a field of glittering light. “Why this matters to you.”

I follow his gaze. “Yeah?”

“You are different here,” he says. “Not happier than you are with me. Not more yourself. But another piece of you becomes visible.”

My heart trips. That might be one of the most beautiful things anyone has ever said to me, and he doesn’t even seem to realise it.

I swallow and look at the slope. “It’s the freedom, I think. When you’re on a run and everything clicks, there’s no space for anything else. No overthinking. No noise. Just the mountain, the board, and your body knowing what to do.”

Aelith is quiet for a moment. “I have felt that.”

“When?”

“The first time I allowed myself to love you without fear.”

Well… there goes the last functioning piece of me.

I press my face briefly into his chest with a groan. “You can’t just say things like that when I’m emotionally vulnerable and wearing snow boots.”

His chest rumbles beneath my cheek. “Should I wait until you remove the boots?”

“No, because then I’ll be even more vulnerable.”

“I see.”

“You’re dangerous.”

“I learned from you.”

I laugh, lifting my head again. “You keep saying that like I’m a bad influence.”

“You are the best influence I have ever known,” he says.

The sincerity knocks the humour right out of me.

For a moment, I just look at him. At this male who once carried duty like armour and now stands on a snowy mountain because he wanted to know a piece of me. At the prince who fell, got up, laughed, and trusted me enough to look undignified in front of guards, strangers, and gravity itself.

“You’re going to make me cry on a ski slope,” I accuse softly.

His thumb brushes beneath my eye though there are no tears there yet. “I would catch them.”

“Of course you would.”

“Always.”

I smile, and he kisses me once more, brief and sweet this time.

Eventually, the cold begins to creep back through my gloves, and Aelith glances towards the lift with renewed interest. I know that look. It’s the same one he gets when a strategy starts forming.

“No,” I say immediately.

He turns to me. “I have not spoken.”

“You’re thinking about the bigger slope.”

His brows lift. “The bond makes secrecy difficult.”

“Your face makes secrecy difficult.”

“I do not believe that is true.”

“It is when you’re planning to conquer geography.”

Aelith considers the mountain above us, where more experienced riders would carve down steeper runs with enviable ease—if we were on Earth. “I believe I could attempt a more advanced descent.”

“You’ve been snowboarding for one afternoon.”

“I have progressed quickly.”

“You have progressed beautifully,” I say, because he has and because I’m proud of him, “but we are not ending our romantic excursion with you embedded in a snowbank halfway down a red run.”

“A red run?”

“Harder than this one.”

His eyes narrow. “And black?”

“Absolutely not.” I’m seriously regretting telling him so much about slopes.

“That was not an answer.”

“That was very much an answer.”

He studies me for a long moment, then inclines his head. “Very well. We will master this mountain first.”

I smile before emphasising, “This section of the mountain.”

“Yes,” he says solemnly. “The small cowardly section.”

“It’s not cowardly.”

“It attacked me, then retreated beneath my success.”

I laugh, threading my fingers through his as we begin walking back towards the lift. “You’re never going to let that go, are you?”

“No.”

“Good. I like you ridiculous.”

“I am not ridiculous.”

“You’re walking through snow with one foot strapped to a snowboard, arguing with gravity, while wearing a beanie Sonny made for you that says ‘snow prince’ on it.”

Aelith goes very still.

Slowly, his free hand rises to the hat, and I grin, saying, “I told you not to trust Sonny.”

His expression becomes thunderous. Then his eyes meet mine, and the thunder fades into something warmer. “I trust you.”

“You shouldn’t. I knew what it said.”

Aelith stares at me, and I smile as innocently as possible. Then, to my delight, he laughs. The sound follows us down the mountain, warm and rare and entirely mine.

And as we start walking back up the slope, my restored snowboard tucked beneath one arm and Aelith’s hand held firmly in mine, I realise this is what I wanted from today. Not a perfect lesson or even a flawless run.

I wanted to share this piece of myself with him.

I wanted him to know the joy I found before Terrafeara, before rifts, before monsters and mates and the impossible love that remade my life. I wanted him to stand on snow and understand, just a little, why part of me will always belong to mountains.

Now he does.

And when Aelith squeezes my hand, his affection moving through the bond as steady as sunlight on snow, I know something else too.

Wherever we are, whatever world waits beneath our feet, he’s the place I come home to.