Ellie’s knowing grin hit her the moment she walked through the door.
“Well, well. Must’ve gone pretty good if you spent the night.”
“It was just the storm,” Winslet said quickly, hanging up her parka with more force than necessary. “Nothing happened.”
“Shame,” Ellie said with a shrug that suggested she wasn’t buying the defensive tone. “Wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if it had.”
“Romance isn’t an option right now.”
“Honey, when is it ever? Life doesn’t wait for convenient timing.”
Winslet turned toward the research equipment with deliberate focus, determined to lose herself in work and routine. But her mind kept drifting—to the way Korrak had looked at her in his kitchen, to the safety she’d felt in his bed, to the terrible longing in her chest for something she couldn’t afford to want.
Snap out of it,she told herself.This is temporary. You’re hiding, not building a life here.
But as she began cataloging supplies and learning Ellie’s systems, her parents’ faces flickered through her thoughts. Her father Dmitri with his steel-gray hair and practical eyes. Her mother Anastasia with her elegant poise and intuitive warmth. They thought she was thriving in Seattle, building a career, moving forward from her “amicable” split with Bracken.
They had no idea their daughter was hiding in the Arctic from a man they’d welcomed into their family. A man who’d charmed them at dinner parties while slowly isolating their daughter from everyone she loved.
What would they think if they knew the truth?
That their accomplished, independent daughter was on the run from a criminal who thought he owned her. That she was hiding under the protection of an Alpha polar bear she barely knew but was desperately attracted to.
That she was falling for a man who could destroy her just as thoroughly as Bracken had, just in a different way.
“You okay?” Ellie asked softly.
Winslet looked up from the equipment checklist she’d been staring at without seeing, forcing a smile that felt like glass.
“I will be.”
SIX
KORRAK
The Jeep’s engine cut through the crystalline silence as Korrak pulled away from the research outpost, but the sound felt hollow compared to the roar of conflict in his mind. Each mile that stretched between him and Winslet carved at him, an ache he hadn’t experienced since standing at the edge of that avalanche site eighteen years ago, watching rescue teams pull his parents’ bodies from the snow.
This is different,he told himself, gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles went white.This is choice, not loss.
But the distinction felt meaningless when every instinct screamed at him to turn around, to go back and collect what belonged to him.
The ice road stretched ahead, familiar and predictable, yet his attention fractured despite his best efforts. His mind replayed the morning without permission—Winslet padding into his kitchen barefoot, wearing only his shirt that hung loose and tantalizing on her curves. How sleep had softened her usual guardedness, leaving her unaware of the picture she presented.
And the surge of primal hunger that had nearly shattered his control.
He’d come within a heartbeat of lifting her onto that kitchen counter and claiming what his polar bear insisted was rightfully his. The only thing that had stopped him was eighteen years of practiced restraint and the knowledge that she had no idea what she was to him.
She doesn’t know she’s mine,he reminded himself.And I’m not ready to accept the mate bond either.
The admission settled heavy in his chest. In thirty-five years, he’d never had to fight himself this hard. Never had his polar bear push against his human control with such relentless determination. The realization unsettled him more than any external threat ever had.
Control was his foundation. Without it, everything crumbled.
But his thoughts circled back to the drive to the outpost, analyzing it like he would any tactical situation. Winslet had been too quiet—closed off in a way that hadn’t been there during dinner or even breakfast. Something had shifted between the moment she’d emerged from his bedroom fully dressed and when she’d said goodbye.
The woman who’d moved through his cabin like she belonged there had retreated behind walls he couldn’t see but definitely felt.
What spooked her?
