“Yeah. I think she will.”
The cabin creaks. The wind howls. Somewhere down the hall, a door clicks shut.
I close my eyes.
For the first time in a long time, I fall asleep smiling.
Chapter 11
Tessa
Iwake up warm.
That’s the first thing I notice. Not the unfamiliar bed or the gray morning light filtering through curtains I don’t recognize. Just warmth, bone-deep and heavy, like I’ve been wrapped in a cocoon.
The second thing I notice is the scent.
Leather and musk, everywhere. In the pillow my face is pressed into. In the sheets tangled around my legs. In the flannel I’m still wearing, soft and worn and drenched in Ben Wilson.
My body responds before my brain catches up.
Heat pools low in my belly. My skin prickles with awareness. I burrow deeper into the pillow without thinking, breathing him in, and a sound escapes my throat that I’d be embarrassed about if I were fully awake.
I am now.
My eyes snap open. The room comes into focus—small, simple, masculine. A dresser with a few framed photos. A closet door hanging open. Boots lined up neatly by the wall. Ben’s room. Ben’s bed.
I’m in Ben Wilson’s bed.
The memories flood back. The storm. The snowbank. Three figures emerging from the white. Being carried through the blizzard, passed between them like I mattered. Elijah wrapping my hands. Milo’s chili. Borrowed clothes and firelight and?—
You walk into a room and I forget what I was saying. You laugh and I want to spend the rest of my life figuring out how to make you do it again.
I go still.
Milo said that. Last night, sitting on the floor beside me, firelight dancing in his eyes. He said he had feelings for me. Real feelings, not just flirting. And I... I reached for his hand. Squeezed it. Let him kiss my forehead while I drifted off to sleep.
What the hell was I thinking?
I wasn’t thinking. That’s the problem. I was exhausted and overwhelmed and surrounded by alphas who smelled too good and made me feel too safe, and I let my guard down. I let them in.
Then let us teach you.
My chest aches.
I push myself upright, shoving the covers back. The cold air hits my bare legs—Ben’s sweatpants rode up in the night—and I shiver, but it’s not entirely from the temperature. My whole body feels strange. Oversensitive. Like my skin is too tight and my blood is running too hot and every nerve ending is dialed up to eleven.
My hands ache. I look down at the gauze Elijah wrapped around them last night, now slightly loosened from sleep. The scrapes underneath throb dully.
Pre-heat symptoms.
I know what this is. I’ve felt it before, years ago, before the suppressants locked everything down. The restlessness. The warmth that won’t fade. The way scents hit harder and toucheslinger longer and everything feels like too much and not enough at the same time.
It’s fine. I have suppressants. I just need to take one and this will settle down and everything will go back to normal.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand. The floor is cold under my bare feet—no socks, they must have come off in the night—and I pad toward the door, pulling the flannel tighter around me.
The cabin is quiet. Gray light filters through the windows, muted and soft. The power’s out—I can tell because the clock on the nightstand is dark and the hallway light switch does nothing when I flip it.
