The precision in his tone carved through the haze like a knife. I could almostseehim in my mind—arms crossed, expression unreadable, those dark eyes cutting through every layer of my defenses.
And with it came the scent—crisp ozone and ink and something sharper, something male and grounding. My body reacted before my brain could deny it. My pulsejumped.
“No,” I whispered, shaking my head. “You’re not here. You’renot here.”
But the air was thickening again.
The heat pulsed harder.
Under it all—steady, deep, calm in a way that terrified me—camehim.
Roan.
Not in sound at first. Not even in sight.
In scent.
Clean ice and cedar, steady as breath, the smell of control itself. It wrapped through the others, anchoring everything that threatened to splinter apart.
“Wren.”
His voice was low this time. Close enough that it vibrated in my chest, in mybones.
I blinked, eyes blurring, and for one impossible second, Isawthem—three shadows outlined through the fogged glass, tall and solid, shapes that could have been born from my worst or best dream.
My whole body locked. They couldn’t be real. Theycouldn’t.
But I could scent them.
All three. Layered together. Threaded through the snow. Crackling in my lungs.
Rhett’s heat. Jay’s ice. Roan’s gravity.
My fingers trembled on the doorknob. I wanted to reach for it. I wanted to tear it open andknow.
But my voice came out wrecked and small.
“Stop. Please. I can’t?—”
Then—
A single knock.
Hard. Sharp. Demanding.
The sound thundered through the cabin walls and straight into me.
The air stilled.
Through it, clear as the next heartbeat, came Roan’s voice, real or imagined, I couldn’t tell anymore.
“Open the door, Wren.”
Chapter
Thirteen
WREN
