Before I can shout, he drags me forward, half-carrying, half-hauling me through the whiteout. My boots skid uselessly on the snow, my arms flailing until I realize he’s not letting me go, not even when I stumble.
“Wait—the dogs!” I try to twist back, but his grip tightens.
“Alive,” he growls, the word low and rough, barely audible over the gale, but somehow I hear it.
I don’t argue again. I don’t think I could even if I wanted to, because the storm swallows everything except the heat of his hand locked around mine.
We crash into the side of a ridge where a gash in the ice gapes like a doorway. He shoves me inside, and I tumble onto cold stone, breath punching out of me. When I look up, he’s already pushing at the entrance, stacking snow in a way that seals the worst of the wind outside. The blizzard howls against the barrier, muffled now, more ghost than monster.
I sit up slowly, shaking snow from my hood. The cave is a bubble of blue light, walls of ice gleaming faintly, smooth andcurved like glass. My breath fogs in the still air, and I can’t stop staring at the stranger.
He shrugs off his outer coat and tosses it onto the ground between us, then pulls something from his pack—a sleeping bag, battered but intact. Without ceremony, he unzips it and spreads it wide.
“You’ll freeze,” he says, voice low, clipped, and so steady it makes the storm outside seem like a tantrum.
My heart stutters, partly from the cold and partly because there is something about him, something that makes every nerve in my body hum. “I—uh—yeah, thank you, Mr. Stranger Who Rescues Girls From Snow Coffins. I’ll try not to hog the blanket.”
He doesn’t smile. Not even close. He just fixes me with a stare that could outlast glaciers. “In,” he orders.
I blink, laugh nervously, and pull my mittens off with my teeth. “Bossy. All right. But fair warning, I talk in my sleep, and I steal covers, and I have a really strong elbow if you crowd me.”
His only response is to lift the flap of the bag and jerk his chin toward it.
I sigh, muttering under my breath, “Glacier in boots, that’s what you are.”
Still nothing. Not a twitch. He’s either carved from ice or hiding the fact he has zero sense of humor.
I crawl into the bag, shivering so hard my teeth clack. The cold bites even through my insulated pants, but the fabric traps some of my body heat quickly. He follows, sliding in beside me, and suddenly the world is narrowed to the heat of him, the solid wall of his chest, the faint scrape of stubble against my temple as he adjusts.
We’re pressed close by necessity, but it feels like more than that. His body radiates heat like a furnace, steady and unyielding, and I press against it shamelessly, sighing withrelief. “Oh, thank God. You’re like a radiator in human form. I might actually live through this.”
He grunts, and it’s the closest thing to agreement I’ll get.
I nestle deeper, unable to stop the words spilling out. The storm might have stolen my breath earlier, but now that I’m safe I can’t seem to shut up. “You know, I should probably be terrified right now. Random giant stranger rescues me, drags me into a snow cave, demands we share body heat. Every horror movie cliché says I should be screaming. But you don’t feel like danger. You feel like… like the opposite.”
His silence stretches long, heavy. Finally, he rumbles, “Sleep.”
I laugh softly. “You’re a terrible conversationalist. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“No.”
“Well, consider it said. You’re lucky I do enough talking for two people. Maybe three.”
He exhales, slow and deep, and I swear it almost sounds like amusement. Almost.
I tilt my head up, searching his profile in the faint glow. His features are shadowed, but strong, sharp, and unreadable. “You’ve got secrets,” I murmur, “and you’re not gonna tell me any of them, are you?”
He doesn’t answer. Of course he doesn’t.
I sigh, resting my cheek against his chest, listening to the slow, steady beat of his heart under layers of muscle. “Fine. Keep your secrets, glacier. Just know I’ll figure them out eventually. I always do.”
His chest rumbles faintly, but whether it’s a warning or something else, I can’t tell.
The storm rages outside, snow hammering the ridge, wind shrieking against the barrier he built. But inside, the cave is still. Warm, even, wrapped in the cocoon of his presence. My eyelidsdroop, heavy with exhaustion, though I fight it because I want to hear him speak again, want to break through that wall of silence.
But the cold wins, dragging me down. My last thought before sleep takes me is that for someone who claims nothing, who offers no name, no smile, he feels more real pressed against me than anyone ever has.
When I wake hours later, dawn light seeps pale through the snow wall. My head is still on his chest, his arm still locked around me, his breath steady and warm at my hair. He hasn’t moved once.
