He froze.
For one endless moment, she thought he would do it. She felt the tension coiling in his body, felt his fangs pressing just hard enough to dimple her skin without breaking it. Her pulse hammered beneath his mouth. Her entire body throbbed with need.
Then he tore himself violently away. One moment he was everywhere—surrounding her, consuming her, the only thing in her world—and the next he was across the room, his back to her, his shoulders heaving.
“Rykan—”
“Don’t.” The word cracked like breaking ice. “Don’t say anything right now.”
She stayed pressed against the wall where he’d left her, her legs trembling, her body screaming in protest at the sudden absence of his heat. She could see his hands clenched into fists at his sides. Could see the fine tremor running through his massive frame.
“I need to—” He didn’t finish the sentence. The cabin door slammed behind him, and then she was alone.
The fire crackled in the silence.
She leaned back against the wall, her knees drawn up to her chest, her heart still racing. The cold air that rushed through the cabin with his departure barely registered. All she could think about was the look on his face in that final moment—the desperate hunger, the ruthless control, and the anguish of denying himself something he wanted so badly.
What would have happened if he hadn’t stopped?
She knew the answer. He’d explained it clearly enough that day in the snow, when he’d warned her about the claiming bite and the bond it would create. If he’d broken the skin at her throat, she would have become his mate. Permanently. Irrevocably.
She pressed her fingers to her throat, tracing the spot where his fangs had rested. The skin was tender but unbroken—a near miss that left her aching with disappointment.
Is that really what I want?
She knew what society would say. The proper circles of Port Cantor, the business associates who had known her father, the tutors who had shaped her education—they would be horrified. A Duvain heir, consorting with a Vultor? Worse, wanting him to be a permanent part of her life? It was the kind of scandal that could occupy Port Cantor’s elite for months.
But sitting alone in this cabin, with the taste of him still on her lips and the phantom weight of his body still pressing against her, she didn’t care about any of that. Let them be scandalized. Let them whisper behind gloved hands and exchange meaningful looks at garden parties. She had spent her entire life being the perfect Duvain daughter—demure, proper, obedient. And what had it gotten her?
A sabotaged ship. A legacy being stolen while she was trapped on a mountain. A life defined by what others expected rather than what she wanted.
She pushed herself to her feet and moved to the window. Outside, the mountain stretched in endless white, broken only by the dark shapes of pine trees and the distant silhouette of the peaks. Somewhere out there, Rykan was running off his frustration, probably cursing himself for letting things go so far.
But he didn’t stop because he didn’t want me,she thought.He stopped because he wanted me too much.The distinction mattered more than she could explain.
She turned away from the window and began to pace. The cabin felt smaller than usual, the walls pressing in around her as her thoughts spiraled. She would have to go back eventually. The pass would clear—soon if the weather stayed warm—and she would have to return to Port Cantor to face whatever awaited her there. Her father’s company, her inheritance, the enemies who had tried to kill her—all of it waited at the bottom of this mountain like a reckoning postponed.
And when that time came, what then?
The question had been lurking at the edges of her mind for weeks, but she’d managed to avoid confronting it directly. Now, with her body still humming from his touch and her heart cracked open, she couldn’t hide from it any longer.
Would he come with her?
Could he come with her?
She tried to imagine Rykan in Port Cantor—his massive frame filling the sterile corridors of Duvain Enterprises, his fierce eyes scanning the crowd at a business function, his claws gripping a delicate champagne flute. The image was almost absurd.
He belonged here, on this mountain, in this wild and untamed place. He belonged to the forest and the snow and the howling wind, to hunting and solitude and spaces too vast for human understanding. Port Cantor would be a cage for someone like him—a prison of concrete and propriety that would slowly suffocate everything wild and beautiful about him.
And yet…
The thought of leaving him behind carved a hole in her chest. She had known him for less than a month, and already shecouldn’t imagine a future that didn’t include him. He had seen her at her weakest and helped her become stronger. He had looked at her like she was capable of anything and then pushed her until she believed it herself.
How could she walk away from that?
How could she ask him to give up everything he knew for a world that would never accept him?
The questions had no easy answers. She turned them over in her mind as the fire burned low, as the moon rose over the mountains, as the cold crept in through the gaps in the cabin walls. She was still awake when the door finally opened.
