I close my eyes, press my palms against them, and mutter, “I’m going to hate myself in the morning.”
When I drop my hands, his brows are raised, the faintest flicker of curiosity breaking through the stoic mask.
“There’s one bed,” I say flatly. “And it’s barely big enough for two if we don’t move. You want to live through this storm, you’re going to have to swallow your pride and share.”
“I don’t need?—”
“Don’t start with me.” My voice cuts sharper than I intend, but I don’t stop. “You’re not some iron statue, and I’m not about to dig your frozen carcass out of the rug at dawn. This isn’t about comfort. It’s about survival.”
For a second, I think he’ll refuse just to prove a point. But then he nods once, short and sure, like a man who’s used to making decisions with consequences. “Fine.”
The stairs creak under our weight, the old wood protesting each step as if it knows what kind of trouble I’m walking myself into. The bedroom smells like cedar and mothballs, the quilt still folded at the foot of the bed the way Gran always kept it.
I hesitate at the door, staring at the frame carved with little stars and pine boughs, the same one I used to trace with my finger as a child when I’d sneak in to curl against her side during thunderstorms.
It feels wrong, bringing him here. But I don’t have a choice.
I shove the thought down and light the lantern on the dresser. The flame flickers across his face as he surveys the room with the same detached focus he gives everything, but there’s something softer in his eyes when they land on the quilt. He doesn’t comment. Neither do I.
I climb into the bed first, dragging the covers up to my chin. The mattress dips when he follows, the weight of him a reminder of just how much space he takes up. He lies stiff as stone, his body a solid line on the far edge, and for a moment it feels almost manageable. Just two people, backs turned, pretending the other doesn’t exist.
“Stay on your side,” I mutter, facing the wall.
“I always do,” he answers, his voice low and even.
The quilt is heavy, but not heavy enough to stop the cold from finding the cracks. I shift closer to the center without meaning to, chasing the faint pocket of warmth between us. He notices. Ofcourse he notices. I can hear the change in his breathing, steady but slower now, like he’s holding himself too tightly.
The silence stretches, thick and restless. I close my eyes, force myself to breathe evenly, but my body won’t listen. I’m aware of every inch of space between us, of how close his heat is, of how ridiculous this all is. I tell myself it’s just survival, just common sense, but the beating of my heart refuses to believe me.
At some point, exhaustion wins. The storm howls, the quilt shifts, and I drift into sleep.
When I wake, it isn’t the cold that greets me. It’s warmth.
I blink against the gray light sneaking through the curtains, my cheek pressed to something solid and warm that rises and falls in a steady rhythm. For a disoriented moment, I think the lodge itself has grown a heartbeat. Then I realize where I am.
His arm is around me, heavy and unyielding, his chest solid against my back. His breath stirs the loose strands of my hair, and my hand is curled against his wrist like I put it there on purpose. We are tangled, closer than I ever intended, my body molded to his in a way that feels alarmingly natural.
I should pull away. I should untangle myself, put the quilt back between us, rebuild the wall we both swore would hold. But I don’t move. Not yet. Because the truth is, in this moment, I don’t feel cold, or angry, or even trapped. I feel safe. And that scares me more than the storm ever could.
CHAPTER 10
DRALGOR
The storm loses its teeth with the slow reluctance of a beast that doesn’t want to surrender. By morning the howling has eased into long sighs, the kind that rattle the shutters but no longer sound like they’ll tear them off. The snow is heavy on the porch roof, piled against the windows so high the world looks drowned in white, but the violence has passed. What remains is the silence storms leave in their wake, the silence that demands you decide what comes next.
Clara wakes before I do, slipping carefully out of the tangle we made of ourselves during the night. She doesn’t notice that my eyes are open, that I feel the loss of her heat the way some men feel the absence of a blade.
I stay still while she straightens her clothes, pushes her hair back with impatient fingers, and moves to the window. She pulls the curtain aside and stares at the wall of snow pressed against the glass. Her shoulders rise with a deep breath, then fall, and for a moment she looks small against the weight of winter. Not fragile. Just small, as if the storm is reminding her of her scale.
I sit up, swing my legs off the bed, and pull on my boots without ceremony. She turns when she hears the leather creak, eyes flashing with something sharp and complicated. “The driftsare taller than the porch rail. You’ll break your back trying to dig us out.”
“I’ve done worse,” I tell her, standing and stretching the stiffness from my shoulders.
“Of course you have,” she mutters, but the corner of her mouth betrays her.
I step past her to the window, draw the curtain wider, and measure the depth of the snow with a practiced eye. “It will take hours. The plows won’t reach us until late. We’ll need to make use of what time we have.”
Her eyes flick up to mine, challenging. “Always thinking like a general, aren’t you?”
