"Hey," he said.
I glanced over. "Yeah?"
"Whatever happens up there—I'm glad I followed you. I'm glad I found you. Even if everything goes wrong from here, I wouldn't trade any of it."
My throat tightened. "Even the bear?"
"Especially the bear." He grinned, wolfish and wild. "That bear gave me the best gift of my life."
I shook my head, but I was smiling. "You're ridiculous."
"You love it."
Maybe I did.
We climbed together into the brightening day, and somewhere above us, a wolf was waiting to be found.
Chapter nineteen
The mountain didn't care that we'd survived the night.
It threw everything it had at us anyway—wind that cut through layers, slopes that crumbled under our boots, ice patches hidden beneath fresh snow waiting to send us sliding. I'd trained for this. Prepared for this. But preparation and reality were different animals, and by midday, even I was feeling the strain.
James, impossibly, seemed energized.
His new shifter metabolism was running hot, burning through the cold like it was nothing. He moved differently now—more sure-footed, more aware of his body in space. The clumsiness from yesterday was gone, replaced by a predator's grace he was still learning to trust.
"You're staring," he said without turning around.
"I'm assessing. There's a difference."
"What's the assessment?"
"You move like a wolf now. Even in human form." I watched him navigate a rocky outcrop with an ease that would have been impossible twenty-four hours ago. "Your body knows things your mind hasn't caught up to yet."
He paused at the top of the outcrop and turned to look back at me. His eyes—brown and warm and entirely too perceptive—found mine.
"Is that good or bad?"
"Depends on how fast you learn to trust it."
I climbed up beside him, and we stood together surveying the terrain ahead. The ridge from my visions was visible now—a dark line cutting across the white, maybe three hours away. Beyond it, the mountain continued upward, disappearing into clouds that promised nothing good.
"Storm coming," I said.
"How long?"
"Six hours. Maybe less." I pulled out the map I'd traced from library books, cross-referencing with the landmarks around us. "We need to reach the ridge before it hits. There should be shelter on the other side—a rock formation I saw in the visions."
James nodded, already scanning for the best route. Through the partial bond, I felt his focus sharpen—the wolf rising to meet the challenge.
We started moving again.
The first sign appeared an hour later.
I almost missed it—a disturbance in the snow near a cluster of boulders, half-buried by the morning's wind. But something made me stop. Some instinct I'd learned to trust.
"James. Hold up."
