“We’re working on footwork again,” he repeated, cutting off whatever she’d been about to say. He couldn’t have that conversation. Not now, not ever. “One hour.”
A pause. Then her footsteps retreated into the cabin, and he let out a sigh.
This has to stop.
But he didn’t know how to stop it. He didn’t know how to stop noticing her, wanting her, dreaming of her in ways that left him aching and furious and desperate for something he couldn’t have.
The axe bit deep into the log, splitting it cleanly. He grabbed another, then another, working until his muscles burned and his breath came hard and fast.
It didn’t help. Nothing helped.
When the training resumed, he kept his distance, correcting her posture verbally whenever possible, touching her only when it was absolutely necessary. He forced clinical detachment into every contact, treating her body like a mechanism to be adjusted rather than a temptation to be resisted.
It worked, mostly. He managed three hours of drills without incident, watching her fall and rise and fall again, noting her improvement with professional satisfaction rather than personal investment.
Then she tried the pivot-step again and her ankle turned the wrong way.
He was beside her before he consciously decided to move, catching her before she hit the ground, one arm around her waist and the other around her shoulders. Her back pressed against his chest, and her scent flooded his senses.
“I’m fine,” she said quickly. “Just lost my balance.”
“Your ankle?”
“Fine. Just a twist, not a sprain.”
She wasn’t trying to pull away. She wasn’t struggling or stiffening or showing any sign that she wanted to be released. She was just… resting against him, her breathing quickened, her heartbeat rapid beneath his palm. One of his hands was in the center of her chest, the other on her stomach. When had that happened?
“Thank you,” she said softly. “For catching me.”
“Instinct,” he said gruffly. “I couldn’t let you break something on your third day of training.”
“Is that the only reason?”
Don’t answer that. Don’t let her know?—
“What other reason would there be?”
She turned her head, looking up at him over her shoulder. Her eyes were very close, very warm, asking questions he didn’t know how to answer.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “You tell me.”
His beast surged. His grip tightened before he could stop it, pulling her fractionally closer. He watched her pupils dilate, heard her breathing shift, and for one crystalline moment he let himself imagine?—
He released her and stepped back.
“That’s enough for today.” The same words as yesterday, the same retreat, the same desperate attempt to maintain the control that was slipping through his fingers like water. “Rest your ankle. We’ll continue tomorrow.”
“Rykan—”
“Tomorrow.”
He walked away before she could say anything else, before those grey eyes could break down the last of his defenses. It was proximity. It had to be proximity. The result of years alone, of isolation, of his beast going too long without… companionship. Once the pass cleared and she returned to her own life, this madness would fade. This obsession would end. It had to.
She stood in the snow and watched him go.
CHAPTER 8
The forest swallowed sound. Ember noticed it in the quality of silence—not the peaceful quiet of snowfall, but something deeper and more watchful. The trees here grew close together, their branches interlocking overhead to create a canopy that filtered the pale morning light into scattered fragments. Snow lay thick on the ground, muffling their footsteps, but also muffling everything else.
