And what about what she wants?
The voice in his head sounded like hers. Calm. Measured. Utterly relentless.
She kissed me first. She asked me to teach her. She told me she wanted this. But I didn’t listen, did I? I decided I knew better.I decided to protect her from myself without ever asking if she wanted to be protected.
His jaw tightened. The sleigh felt heavier than it should, dragging at his arms, slowing his steps. He was being a coward. He knew that. Running away this morning, using the hunt as an excuse to avoid the conversation they needed to have—it was cowardice, pure and simple.
But what was the alternative? Stay and watch her pull further away? Watch her realize that he was right, that this could never work, that she would eventually leave him just like?—
Stop it.
He forced the thought down, burying it beneath the cold clarity of survival instinct. He couldn’t think about Lysara right now. He couldn’t let that old wound bleed into this new relationship. Ember wasn’t Lysara. He knew that. She was everything Lysara had never been—genuine, brave, and kind without calculation. When she touched him, it was because she wanted to, not because she was maneuvering for advantage.
But that almost made it worse. Because Lysara’s betrayal had been comprehensible. He could understand ambition and choosing power over love. All too often, it was the way of the pack. The strong survived. The weak adapted.
When Ember left him, it wouldn’t be like that. It would be something softer. Something sadder. She would look at him with those grey eyes full of regret, and she would tell him that she had responsibilities, that her father’s company needed her, that she couldn’t abandon everything she’d been raised for.
And she would be right.
That was the cruelest part. She would be right. He had no claim on her, no right to ask her to choose him over her birthright. He was an exile living alone in the mountains, a solitary Vultor who’d walked away from everything he was supposed to be. What could he possibly offer her that would compare to?—
He stopped walking as the scent hit him—sharp, foreign, wrong. Vultor.
Another Vultor. In his territory. Near his cabin.
Near Ember.
The sleigh fell from his hands, forgotten before it hit the snow. His beast surged forward with a roar of protective fury, and he was running before he consciously decided to move, his boots tearing through the drifts, his claws extending without his permission.
If someone has touched her?—
The thought fragmented, lost in the red haze of instinct. Trees blurred past him. Snow sprayed in his wake. He pushed himself faster, harder, his lungs burning with cold air, his heart pounding a single word over and over.
Ember. Ember. Ember.
The cabin came into view, and he skidded to a halt at the edge of the clearing.
A stranger stood between him and the door.
The Vultor was lean and tall, his dark hair pulled back from a face that would have been handsome if not for the arrogant set of his jaw and the mocking curve of his smile. He stood with casual confidence, his weight balanced on the balls of his feet, one handresting on the knife at his belt. Not threatening, not yet, but ready.
“Well, well.” The stranger’s voice was smooth, almost lazy. “The hermit returns. I was starting to think you’d abandoned your little pet.”
Every muscle in his body went rigid. “What did you say?”
“The human female.” The stranger tilted his head, his nostrils flaring. “She’s been in there alone for hours. Scared, I’d wager. Probably wondering if you’re coming back at all.”
“Get away from my cabin.”
“Your cabin?” The stranger’s smile widened, showing a hint of fang. “Funny. I don’t remember this being part of any pack territory. Unclaimed land, last I checked. Which means that the female in there doesn’t belong to anyone.”
His beast roared. His features shifted, his fangs lengthening and his eyes burning gold with barely contained rage. “She ismine.”
“Is she?” The stranger didn’t move, but something sharpened in his gaze. “Because she isn’t mated, and she smells terrified. She wouldn’t open the door. Which makes me wonder what exactly you’ve been doing to her up here, all alone, with no one to?—”
He lunged.
He didn’t think. Didn’t plan. His body moved on pure instinct, closing the distance between them in a blur of claws and fury. The stranger was fast—faster than he expected—spinning aside at the last moment, his own claws extending as he dropped into a fighting crouch.
