His polar bear rumbled in agreement deep within his chest.Mate. Protect. Keep.
The walkie on the low table shattered the moment. The crackle was sharp and intrusive, tearing through the trust they were carefully recalibrating.
Kol’s voice came through, clipped and alert. “Korrak. He’s awake. Fit for questioning.”
Awake.
The single word flipped a switch in Korrak’s mind. The intimate focus on Winslet, on their bond, snapped outward, locking onto the external threat with lethal precision. Answers were a currency more valuable than gold right now. He needed to know Bracken’s next move, his resources, and his timeline.
He snatched up the walkie, his movement fluid and efficient. “On my way.”
He turned to Winslet, already calculating patrol adjustments and security layers. “Stay here. The cabin is secure.”
“No.”
The refusal was immediate and steady. Not a reaction born of panic, but a decision forged in the fire of her recent helplessness. She met his gaze, her chin lifting.
“I’m done being the one who sits and waits while others handle the threats aimed at me. If we’re going to be…” She hesitated for a heartbeat. “If this is going to work, I stand with you. Not behind you.”
Something hot and fierce flooded Korrak’s veins. His polar bear sang its approval. This was his mate. Not a porcelain doll to be sheltered, but steel being tempered. Her courage, her demand for agency, stoked a fire in him that was more than protective instinct—it was respect mixed with raw attraction.
He studied her, his expression giving away none of the fierce pride that tightened his chest. He nodded once, a curt, decisive motion. “You’re right.”
He fetched their parkas from the hook by the door, handing hers over. They dressed in a silence that was more comfortable than tense, a new understanding weaving itself between them. He held the door for her, his hand finding the small of her back as she passed—a brief, proprietary touch that settled his bear.
Outside, the Arctic night was a living entity, the wind slicing through the clearing with a clean, brutal sharpness. It stripped away the cabin’s illusion of permanent safety, a reminder that danger was never more than a breath away.
He guided her to his snowmobile and helped her settle behind him. When her arms wrapped around his waist, her body pressed against his back, the warmth of her seeped through the layers of fabric and into his soul. It was an anchor. A promise.
This was what he was fighting for.
The engine growled to life beneath them, and he guided the machine away from the cabin, the headlight carving a tunnel through the swirling darkness. He could feel the shift in her through their growing mate bond—not fear, but a sharpening awareness. Her attention was no longer turned inward, it was scanning the night alongside his, learning the contours of his territory and of him.
This was not the broken woman who’d arrived on the back of Gerri’s snowmobile. This was a survivor, realigning and choosing to walk toward the threat instead of away from it.
Halfway to the isolated holding facility, he broke the silence between them, his voice carrying over the engine’s thrum.
“There’s something you should know about Viktor,” he said, keeping his tone even. “When I confronted him, when he had you… he shifted into his true nature.”
He felt her hands tighten on his jacket. Heard the sharp intake of breath near his ear.
“He’s a grizzly bear shifter.” He let the information hang, a dark shape in the night.
Her voice was steadier than he expected when it came, carried on the wind. “A shifter? You don’t think that… I mean Bracken never… I never saw anything like that from either of them.”
Korrak listened carefully. He didn’t correct her assumption. He didn’t voice his own dark suspicion—that a man like Bracken, with his resources and his obsession, employing a rogue bear shifter as his right hand, might very well be one himself. The absence of certainty was its own warning.
“Viktor didn’t fight like a man out of his depth,” he said instead. “He fought like someone with backup plans.”
They left it there, a thread of dread intentionally unpulled, as the low, fortified shape of the holding facility emerged from the gloom ahead. The truth, Korrak knew, had a way of clawingits way to the surface when put under enough pressure. And he intended to apply all the pressure he had.
The snowmobile’s headlight soon terminated against the low silhouette of the holding facility. Korrak killed the engine, and the sudden quiet felt thicker than the wind. He swung off the machine first, then turned, his hands finding Winslet’s waist to guide her down. The touch was brief, a silent transfer of care from the journey to the fight ahead.
His polar bear growled beneath his skin, already tasting the bitter tang of rogue shifter on the frozen air.
Kol waited just inside the reinforced steel door. He gave Korrak a tight nod, his gray eyes flicking to Winslet. There was no surprise there, only a grim assessment. “He’s coherent and defiant.”
“Good,” Korrak said flatly.
