Chapter 8 The Spark Beneath The Ice

• Arias’s POV
• I knew her before I met her.
• Not her face. Not her voice.
• But her soul—spilled across canvas in a thousand shades of pain, fury, longing.
• Each painting signed with that name like a whisper from the ashes: Phoenixia.
• She was already a ghost that haunted me.
• Until today.
• And now… she’s not a ghost.
• She’s something else entirely.
• When I first saw her—truly saw her—standing in that sterile room, the light catching the outline of her spine through layers of black fabric, I thought:
• This girl’s going to destroy me.
• Because she shouldn’t have looked like that.
• Not after everything she’s painted. Not after what her work screamed.
• I expected someone louder. Wilder. Someone with fire pouring out of her eyes and rage leaking from her pores.
• Instead, I got silence.
• And fragility wrapped in tension, like a violin string pulled too tight.
• But even cracked glass reflects light.
• And fuck, she glowed.
• Not in the obvious way. No. Her glow was the kind that lived in the shadows. You only saw it if you stared long enough… if you got close enough.
• Close enough to burn.
• I told myself I wouldn’t go up to her apartment.
• Matias had given the report—she arrived fine, unpacked, said nothing. She was quiet. She was settled.
• But my feet didn’t listen.
• I told myself it was business. That I needed to confirm the setup, ensure the space suited her needs.
• But it was a lie.
• The moment I opened that door and saw her…
• Barefoot.
• Draped in a black hoodie too big for her frame, curled up on the wide windowsill with a steaming cup of something in one hand and a sketchbook in the other—
• My body reacted instantly.
• Heat shot straight through my veins. Not lust—need.
• The way she sat there, hair loose and slightly messy, legs tucked under her, eyes half-lost in her sketch…
• She looked like art becoming.
• Untouched. Undisturbed. Entirely hers.
• And I wanted to devour her.
• But then she turned.
• And I saw it.
• The bruise beneath her eye. Soft. Fresh. Ugly in a way nothing about her should ever be.
• The fire inside me exploded.
• I wanted names. I wanted blood. I wanted to wrap my hands around whoever dared lay a hand on her and make them suffer in ways that would make Dante rewrite his Inferno.
• But I couldn’t show her that part of me.
• Not yet.
• Not when she already looked like she’d been surviving a battlefield her entire life.
• I approached slowly. Controlled. I kept my voice calm, my expression steady. I asked if everything was in place. If she needed anything.
• And then she looked at me with those eyes.
• Those grey eyes—smoke and frost and something ancient, something ruined and still standing.
• And for the first time in my life… I was fucking nervous.
• When I reached out, my fingers barely grazing the edge of her cheek, the warmth of her skin melted something in me I didn’t know I had.
• She flinched. I paused.
• But then… she leaned into my touch.
• She leaned into me.
• Her head settled into my palm like it belonged there. Like her body knew me before her mind could accept it.
• Her scent—clean and soft, something like paint and heat and rain—wrapped around me, made my blood run too hot.
• I wanted to lift her into my arms and bury her against my chest, whisper that no one would ever hurt her again. That she was mine now. That the past was over, and I would burn the world down to prove it.
• But I didn’t.
• I let her pull away.
• She retreated like a wounded animal, reinforcing walls I hadn’t even tried to breach yet. Her voice was firm, but not cruel. Her silence louder than any scream.
• She was protecting herself.
• From me.
• And the sickest part?
• She was right to.
• Because if she knew how badly I wanted her, if she could feel the restraint it took not to press my lips to the soft skin beneath her bruised eye, not to claim her right then and there—
• she’d run.
• Because this thing in me? This need?
• It’s not gentle.
• It’s starved.
• Now, in the dark quiet of my own apartment, just across the hall, I can still smell her.
• Still feel the weight of her cheek in my hand.
• And it’s driving me fucking insane.
• I’ve had women. I’ve had art. I’ve had power.
• But her?
• She’s something else.
• She’s pain made beautiful. A scream turned into a whisper. She’s fire that doesn’t blaze—it smolders.
• And I want to be the one who makes her burn.
• Not with fear.
• But with freedom.
• With pleasure.
• With every damn thing the world stole from her.
• But first, I’ll wait.
• Because the thing about phoenixes?
• They rise on their own.
• I’ll just be here, watching from the shadows…
• Until she realizes the fire in me was always meant for her.