Changed by Fire (Phoenix Rising #6) - Harper Wylde Page 0,76

a shudder I knew had nothing to do with the cold. “While I’m definitely up for that kind of reward, I don’t think it’s exactly what Theo had in mind.”

Theo grinned. “Well, it wasn’t, but… I could be convinced to change my mind.” His blue eyes twinkled behind his glasses as he tapped her nose.

Her eyes widened as she considered him. “It wasn’t?”

He chuckled, shaking his head. “No, sweetheart, I had something else in mind for the two of us.”

She shot me a look, and I pressed another kiss to her fingers. “Go have fun. I’ll see you later. I’m going to find Ry and make sure he ate something today.” That man frequently forgot to take care of himself when he got into a project.

“Come on,” Theo urged, tugging her arm. “Your surprise awaits.”

“Bye!” Nix called to me, and I waved. Maybe I could find some time for a surprise of my own later. My Kitsune purred his agreement. Yes, that was definitely going to happen.

Sixteen

Nix

“Where are we going?” I laughed as Theo tugged me through mounds of snow. The heat from my Phoenix meant I didn’t notice the cold, but it did dampen my clothes when it melted against my skin. Once I got out of the higher drifts, I’d need to send out a heat burst to dry them before they became too uncomfortable.

“I have a surprise for you,” Theo repeated, shooting me a playful grin, his blue eyes twinkling madly. That had been his reply since he towed me from the practice field, down the hallway, and out a side door and onto the grounds. I racked my brain trying to think of anything in our settlement that was in this direction, but I came up with nothing. Most of the cabins were the other way, and it wasn’t like we were close enough to water here for him to take me out to play. My Phoenix let out a small chirp of regret at that, she missed playing with the Kraken. I did too.

When we reached a large, empty field, he dropped my hand and turned to face me with a wide grin as I blinked at the open area. It was perfectly flat depression in the nearby rocky landscape. Only the mounds of snow coating it gave it any shape. “Um, what’s this?” I hoped I hadn’t forgotten something important, because I could not, for the life of me, figure out what he was doing.

“Wait,” he murmured. Theo closed his eyes and held his hands out in front of him. The snow covering the area swayed and smoothed, the dips and curves of the mounds flattening away until it was perfectly level. Theo breathed deeply, his brow scrunching in concentration as, bit by bit, the snow hardened and turned to a glossy, solid sheet of ice.

“What?” I breathed, watching in fascination as he froze the snow. He turned to wink at me.

“Give me your foot,” he instructed, waving his hand.

I blinked but didn’t refuse. Balancing carefully, I lifted my foot into the air. He grasped it in gentle hands and scooped snow from the ground to pile around my shoe. “Theo?” I asked cautiously, wondering what in the hell he was doing. I was pondering if it was some new form of target practice for me, like the ice statues I’d used with Killian, when he pulled his hands away, revealing a sharp blade where the snow had been. “Oh!”

His grin was brilliant. “I thought we could go ice skating,” he told me, lowering my foot to the ground and repeating the gesture on my other foot.

“I’ve heard of ice skating, but I don’t think this is what they meant,” I teased, as I stared at the glittering blades he’d created over my shoes. This was so cool.

“Have you ever skated before?” he inquired, breathing deeply and evenly as he created his own skates.

“No, never.” It hadn’t even crossed my mind to try and ice skate. It seemed like something upper-class people did, or people in movies. I didn’t even know if there had been a skating rink anywhere near the town I’d grown up in, and since moving to Alaska, it hadn’t come up.

“It’s fun,” Theo promised, helping me walk in the skates. It felt odd, and I worried that the ice under my feet would shatter, but when he squeezed my hand reassuringly, I tried to ignore my fear. Theo would never do anything that would hurt me, and I assumed crashing