She didn’t bask in the praise. Her green eyes were already scanning the dark horizon, seeing not stars and snow, but timelines and threats. “We need to get ready. All of us. This isn’t over.”
“No, it’s not,” Korrak agreed. The situation had crystallized. This was no longer about chasing off a stalker. It was territorialdefense. An Alpha’s claim was being challenged. The game had escalated from hide-and-seek to war.
Winslet stepped closer then, until the heat of her body cut through the biting wind. She looked at him, and there was no plea in her eyes, only stark determination. “I don’t want to wait until tomorrow.”
He knew what she meant instantly. The protective instinct in him flared, wanting to bundle her back to the cabin, to wrap her in furs and let sleep heal the day’s wounds. She’d been kidnapped, drugged, terrorized. His mate needed rest.
But the look on her face—the unyielding set of her jaw, the fire in her gaze—told him arguing would be an insult. She wasn’t asking for permission. She was stating a new fact.
So he didn’t argue. He met her resolve with his own. “It won’t be easy. Training with me… it will hurt. You’ll ache in places you forgot you had. It will push you to your edge and then ask you to step further. Fear will try to surface. Doubt will whisper in your ear.”
“I know.” Her reply was immediate. “But when he shows up here, I need to be ready to face him. Not as a liability. As a partner.”
Partner.The word did something dangerous and warm to his insides.
“Then we start tonight,” he said, his voice dropping into a register that was pure Alpha.
He guided her back to the snowmobile. As they sped across the silvered landscape toward the cabin, his mind was already a war room.
The unknown variable of Bracken loomed larger and more sinister. A human crime boss was one thing. A human crime boss with a rogue grizzly shifter for a right-hand man, who spoke of patience and burning… that suggested an apex predator.
The wind tore at them, but Winslet held on tight, her body aligned with his.
Korrak didn’t know how the fragile mate bond would resolve into something permanent. But he knew one truth with bone-deep certainty. Whatever storm was gathering on the horizon, she would not face it blind, or weak, or alone.
FIFTEEN
WINSLET
The snowmobile’s engine was a steady vibration beneath her as they carved a path through the moon-washed landscape back to Korrak’s cabin. Winslet tightened her arms around his solid torso, pressing her cheek against the thick fabric of his parka. She tried to anchor herself in the heat radiating from him, but her mind was a storm.
Viktor’s gruff voice was a ghost in her ear.You were already claimed by him.
The words were a foul echo, a brand Bracken had tried to sear onto her soul. An engagement ring, a shared penthouse, two years of her life—in his twisted calculus, that added up to permanent ownership. A transaction with no refunds.
She was so tired of being the prize, the contested territory in a war between men. She wasn’t a painting to be collected or a fortress to be stormed. She was a person. And she was done with narratives she hadn’t written.
Korrak’s broad back was a wall of silent strength before her. His was a different kind of claim—fated, yes, a cosmic pull she felt in her very bones—but he’d placed the choice in her hands. He’d given her space even when it cost him. He wielded his immense power with a restraint Bracken could nevercomprehend. Bracken’s love had been a gilded cage, all about what she couldn’t do, who she couldn’t see, how she should be. Korrak’s love was about making her capable, about standing beside her, not in front of her.
Partnership.The word felt like a warm, solid weight in her chest.
The cabin emerged from the darkness, its windows glowing like a promise. As Korrak guided the snowmobile to a smooth halt, another thought, cold and slithering, resurfaced.
Viktor was a grizzly shifter. Korrak implied Bracken might be one too.
Her memory rewound, scanning two years of Bracken’s behavior—the terrifying rages that seemed to shake the room, the possessive intensity that felt… animal. The way he’d sometimes look at her, like he was seeing prey. She’d chalked it up to the pathology of a controlling man. But surrounded by the quiet, potent power of polar bear shifters, her instincts were recalibrating.
Was she seeing patterns where none existed, or were her senses finally learning to trust themselves?
It didn’t change the threat. It just made it more monstrous.
The engine died, and the sudden silence was profound, broken only by the wind’s low moan. Korrak swung off first, his movements fluid and economical. He turned, his ice-blue eyes catching the moonlight as he reached for her. His hands closed around her waist, and he lifted her down as if she weighed nothing, setting her on her feet but not letting go immediately. The heat of his grip seared through her layers.
“Your mind is racing,” he said, his voice a low rumble that vibrated in the space between them.
“Viktor talked about me like I was a misplaced car key,” Winslet said, the words sharp in the cold air. “Something to be retrieved. Not a person who left willingly.”
Korrak’s thumb stroked a slow arc over her hipbone. The simple touch was a balm and a spark. “He was wrong. You had every right to leave. Bracken is a terrible man.”
