His hand closed around her upper arm, gentle but firm, stopping her forward march. The contact seared through her layers. “Look at me.”
She turned her head, her green eyes flashing with defiant anger.
His jaw was tight. “My behavior is my own to manage. It had nothing to do with you.”
The lie was so blatant it stole her breath. “I’m sure.”
A muscle ticked in his cheek. He released her arm as if burned. “We should head back.”
He didn’t wait for agreement, turning toward the distant shape of the outpost. The dismissal was a fresh wound. She followed, anger simmering, determined to have the last word. But as they neared the familiar ground, a primitive alarm shrieked up her spine. The vastness of the landscape, so empty moments before, now felt claustrophobic. Every shadow cast by the low sun seemed to hold a sinister shape.
Her gaze flicked to the distant ridgeline, a jagged black line against the gray sky. Nothing moved. But something watched. She knew it in her bones.
Korrak stiffened beside her, his whole posture transforming in an instant. The thoughtful teacher was gone, replaced by something taut and lethal. His head tilted, scenting the wind.
“Hurry up and get inside,” he commanded, his voice a low, urgent vibration.
She opened her mouth to argue, to demand to know what he saw, but the look on his face froze the words. His expression was pure, focused predator.
“Korrak—“
“Go.” He didn’t look at her, his attention riveted on the ridge. “Lock the door. Do not come out until I return.”
She stood frozen for a heartbeat, torn between the safety of the outpost and a desperate, irrational need to not leave him out there alone. The old, familiar helplessness wrapped around her.
“Winslet, someone’s here that shouldn’t be. You need to get to safety now,” he ordered as he moved toward the ridgeline.
Bracken?
She turned and ran for the outpost door.
EIGHT
KORRAK
The fury building in Korrak’s chest had nothing to do with strategy and everything to do with the primal need to eliminate any threat to his mate. Three days of self-imposed exile, three days of fighting every instinct that demanded he claim what was his, and now this—some bastard had been watching her while he’d been playing at restraint.
His polar bear clawed at his ribs, demanding release, demanding blood. The rational part of his mind cataloged his failures with brutal efficiency. He should have maintained his regular patrol near the outpost, should have checked the perimeter patrol reports better, should have noticed when this threat first appeared. Instead, he’d been deliberately avoiding the outpost and Winslet, convincing himself that distance and time would somehow diminish the mate bond burning through his veins.
Idiot. Selfish, reckless idiot.
The moment he put distance between himself and the outpost, moving with predatory silence across the packed snow, the wrongness crystallized into something sharp and undeniable. His polar bear surged beneath his skin, not with theconfused hunger that had plagued him around Winslet, but with cold, lethal certainty.
Someone was out there. Someone who didn’t belong.
The wind carried traces of foreign scent—motor oil, metal, something that had no place in his pristine territory. Korrak’s nostrils flared as he sorted through the information his enhanced senses provided. Not animal. Not lost researcher. The scent carried the unmistakable marker of another shifter, but wrong somehow.
Rogue.
His lip curled back in a silent snarl as he tracked the disturbance through the air, following the invisible thread of wrongness toward the distant ridgeline. The snow crunched softly under his boots, each step calculated to avoid detection while he closed the distance.
Movement caught his eye—a dark shape crouched low against the snow-packed rocks, partially concealed but not invisible to his enhanced vision. The figure raised something to his face, and Korrak’s blood turned to ice in his veins.
Binoculars.
The sight detonated a cold, controlled fury in his chest that made his previous anger seem like a gentle breeze. No one watched his land without permission. No one stalked his territory, cataloged his weaknesses, and observed his people. And absolutely no one spied on his mate.
Korrak stepped into clear view, abandoning stealth for the more potent weapon of his presence. He didn’t need to shift—his human form carried enough Alpha dominance to make lesser beings reconsider their life choices. Power radiated from every line of his body, a promise of violence wrapped in deceptive calm.
