Won’t look at me. Just stares at the space between us where both our blades lie abandoned.
Outside, the storm howls. Snow builds against the entrance in drifts that will seal us in.
My shoulder throbs where her blade caught me. Blood seeps slow and warm beneath my jacket. The cut across my ribs stings with each breath.
None of it matters.
All I can feel is the phantom weight of her against me. The memory of heat that had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with something I don’t understand. Or maybe I do understand it. I just never expected to encounter it here. Now. With this female, who just vowed to kill me.
She still won’t look at me.
And I realize… whatever just happened terrified her more than any blade could.
We face each other. Both breathing too hard. Neither moving.
Something changed.
Something fundamental.
And there’s no going back.
Chapter 8
Nadia
I can’t breathe right. My back presses against stone. Cold seeps through the coat, but I barely feel it. My lungs work too hard. Too fast. Like I just ran six hours instead of standing still.
The heat won’t fade.
It should. The fight’s over. The adrenaline should be crashing. My body should be remembering exhaustion, injuries, the thirty-some hours I’ve been awake.
Instead, my skin burns. Not fever. Not exertion. Something else.
I press my palms flat against the wall. Focus on the texture. Rough stone. Real. Solid. Anything to anchor myself to something that makes sense.
It doesn’t work. Because I can still smell him.
Even across the shelter—eight feet of space that feels like inches—his scent wraps around me. Cuts through snow andblood and smoke like none of that matters. Like my wolf has decidedthisis the only scent worth tracking.
Clean. Male. Dragonfire buried but not hidden. Something else underneath that I recognize, even though I can’t identify it.
My wolf prowls. Not aggressive. Not hunting.
Wanting.
No!
I stop the thought in its tracks. Try to find rage. The fury that’s kept me sharp. The hate that feeds me. It’s still there. But underneath—
The heat intensifies. Spreads from my chest down my spine. Settles low in my belly in a way that makes me want to claw my own skin off.
My thighs clench. I realize with sick clarity that I’m wet.
No. No. No!
But my body doesn’t listen. Just keeps responding to proximity and scent and some biological imperative that shouldn’t exist anymore.
Heat.
