A shadow of motion again, nearer the front door this time.
I wanted to sob. I wanted to claw out of my skin. I wanted to open the door andrun.
But my body wouldn’t obey.
Instead, I whispered, “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.”
My throat broke around it. “Why is it—hurting—why is it?—”
My voice died under the sound of another thud, closer, like a shoulder or a hand against the porch railing.
Then silence.
The kind that pressed against your eardrums, thick and absolute.
My heart beat too fast, my breaths too short. Every inch of me trembled, heat pulsing through my veins like poison. I couldn’t tell anymore if the world was really shaking—or if it was just me.
The air shifted again. A scent—faint but distinct—curled beneath the door.
Clean ice. Cedar. Smoke.
For one impossible moment, my instincts surged with recognition. My bodyknewthat scent, wanted to drown in it, even as my mind screamed that it couldn’t be real.
My lips parted. My voice came out cracked. “Roan?”
No answer.
Just the wind.
Just the snow.
Then there was me, half-delirious, half-wild, pressing my hand to the locked door as if I could stop my own heart from breaking through it.
For a while, there was nothing. Just the wind. Just the sound of my heartbeat, too loud in the stillness.
Then…
“Wren.”
Soft. Familiar. Rhett.
That easy charm stripped bare, all smoke and hunger. His voice slid through the cracks in the door, brushing my skin like a whisper of heat.
“Wren, hey—look at me…”
My throat closed. Icouldhear him. I couldfeelhim. I could almostsmellhim—warm amber and spice, the scent that always clung to his gear, to the crease of his grin.
But it was too vivid. Too real. A hallucination. It had to be.
I pressed my palms to my temples and tried to breathe through it.
Then another voice threaded in, cooler, deliberate.
Measured down to the breath.
“Wren, you need to open your eyes.”
Jay.
