The casual dismissal of the past three days, the implication that his absence was irrelevant, ignited a spark of anger. It cut through the residual fear and the unwanted attraction. “It’s not like that. I have a list. A long one. I don’t have time to stand around talking.”
He studied her for a moment, and to her surprise, the amusement in his eyes shifted to something like respect. He gave a single, slow nod. “I see that. Your focus is commendable.” He paused, the Alpha assurance rolling off him in an almost palpable wave. “I spoke with Ellie. Told her I was coming by to show you some basic survival protocols for the territory beyond these walls. She agreed to cover your tasks.”
Winslet’s jaw tightened. The betrayal was minor, but it stung. It felt like being managed all over again, her schedule rearranged without her consent. Another man deciding what was best for her.
“She didn’t mention it to me,” she said, her voice tinged with irritation.
“My oversight,” he replied quickly. “Next time, I’ll ask you personally. Not Ellie.”
The concession, delivered with that unshakable alpha calm, somehow made it worse. Before she could formulate a retort, he closed the distance in two strides and took the shovel from her hands. His gloved fingers brushed hers, a brief contact that sizzled up her arm. He set the tool neatly against the outpost wall.
“Follow me.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a command, but one layered with an unspoken offer. A challenge. Her mind screamed a dozen protests, but her feet were already moving, falling into step behind him as if pulled by a magnet. The unspoken thingbetween them, carefully buried for days, re-engaged with a silent click. Her pulse hammered a traitorous rhythm against her throat.
The landscape changed as they left the familiar, trampled ground around the outpost. The silence here was deeper, heavier. The ice underfoot sang a different note, a low creak of immense pressure. The vastness wasn’t just empty, it was watchful. Alive.
“Living here means understanding this,” Korrak said. He moved with a predatory grace, each step deliberate. “Not just the outpost. All of it.” He stopped and pointed to a seam in the ice ahead, a faint, dark line she would have walked right over. “Pressure fracture. It looks solid, but it’s a shell over moving water. Step there, and the ice shelf could shear.”
He explained how sound traveled—why a shout could be swallowed whole in one direction and carry for miles in another. He showed her how to read the wind-scoured snow for hidden hollows, and how the quality of the light could warn of a coming whiteout.
Winslet listened, absorbing every word and every subtle gesture. She repeated his instructions back to him in clear, concise terms, her breath fogging between them.
“The fracture is unstable because the tidal current undercuts it from the southeast.”
“Correct.”
“And the low, humming sound isn’t the wind—it’s the ice pack grinding against the shore cliffs further north.”
A slight incline of his head. “Good.”
The spark of pride that warmed her chest was immediate and infuriating. She didn’t want his approval. She didn’t want to feel this childish thrill at his terse praise. She wanted to prove her competence to herself, to show him—and that stubborn, hopeful part of herself she thought was silenced—that she was not somedelicate thing to be coddled or protected. She was a survivor. She could handle this.
She asked another question, this one about the strange, spiraling patterns of snow dust ahead of them. He turned to answer, and for a second, his full attention was on her, his gaze holding hers in the stark white world. The air between them crackled, charged with everything they weren’t saying. The lesson, the territory, the survival protocols—all of it faded into a buzzing background hum. In that moment, it was just his eyes on hers, and the terrifying, exhilarating sense that she was standing on the edge of a different kind of fracture altogether.
Too close. Way too close.
Instinct screamed for distance. Winslet jerked backward, a clumsy, panicked retreat. Her boot landed not on solid pack, but on the dark, wicked line of the pressure fracture they’d just meticulously sidestepped.
The sound was a visceral crack, a gunshot report that echoed across the frozen bay. Her stomach dropped. The ice beneath her shuddered, a spiderweb of white lines exploding from the point of impact. The black seam widened, revealing a glimpse of the oily, frigid water beneath. A primal, choking fear—the kind she’d worked for days to bury—clawed its way up her throat, dragging memories of helplessness with it.
But she didn’t freeze. Muscle memory, forged from his instructions, took over. She dropped her weight, spreading her stance, but the ice groaned in protest. Another crack splintered the surface, a hair’s breadth from her other foot. The dark water seemed to breathe upward.
Then his arms were around her, hard and certain, lifting her clear of the disintegrating shelf as if she were made of air. He moved with a predator’s economy, carrying her several long strides before setting her down on unyielding ground. Her heartbattered her ribs, and her fingers were knotted in the rough material of his coat, holding on as the world righted itself.
She sucked in a ragged breath, forcing her lungs to work, and met his eyes. Her voice came out thin. “Thank you. That was monumentally stupid of me.”
His expression was carved from granite, but a fierce heat burned just beneath the surface. “Stupid implies a lack of thought. You were distracted.” His voice was low. “Just be more careful next time.”
They stood there, the space between them charged and humming again. The near-disappearance into the icy depths was suddenly secondary to the sheer, radiating heat of him. She was acutely aware of the solid wall of his chest, and the way her body leaned toward his warmth despite her mind’s protests. It was an awareness that went deeper than attraction—it was a gravitational pull, unsettling in its intensity.
She broke the stare and released his jacket, forcing her feet to move, putting a few paces of solid ice between them before her traitorous body did something unforgivable. She needed to steady her breath, to rebuild the wall. And to ask the question burning a hole in her composure.
“Why did you vanish for three days?” The words came out sharper than she intended, laced with the hurt she’d promised herself she wouldn’t feel.
He caught up to her in two strides, his presence a shadow at her shoulder. “The territory needed attention.”
“Right. The territory.” She didn’t look at him. “And does the territory usually require radio silence from its leader when there’s a new, clueless human underfoot?”
