The front door opens and shuts. Cold air rolls through the kitchen, lifting the candle flames, and I set the carving down on the table and follow him out to the porch.
He's already crossing the clearing. No hurry. No sound except the crunch of his boots on the frozen ground and the wind in the firs overhead. He stops ten feet from the two men. His frame shifts. The change is subtle, nothing theatrical, a redistribution of weight that drops his centre of gravity and widens his stance. His shoulders settle. His chin lowers, and the horns angle forward, and the man who carved me a hummingbird disappears.
What stands in the open is the thing they made him in the pits.
The guy who'd been smiling isn't smiling anymore. The younger man takes a step back, his heel catching on an exposed root, and he rights himself. The snow falls between them and the cold bites through my shirt and I can't breathe. I have never been afraid of Garrett. I'm not afraid of him now. But I understand, for the first time, why other people are.
He speaks. One word.
"Leave."
His voice drops through the clearing like a stone through ice.
The older man opens his mouth. Garrett takes one step forward. The snow compresses under his boot and the scout flinches, a full-body jerk he can't hide, and the younger man is already moving toward the driver's side door. They're in the car in under ten seconds. The tires spin on the icy gravel, catch, andthe sedan fishtails down the forest road and disappears into the dark.
I stand on the steps with my arms wrapped around myself against the cold and I look at the man in the clearing and I understand, in my body, not my head, what the world sees when it looks at him.
The predator. The pit fighter. The creature who could tear a man apart and the crowd would cheer.
I see it. And my first thought isn't fear.
It's: that's the same man who cried in my arms. That's the same man who carved me a bird from black walnut with his hands shaking and set it beside my plate without a word.
Both things are true. Both things are him.
He turns. His shoulders are still low, his chin still angled forward, and then he sees me on the steps and the whole posture breaks. His hands close. His chin lifts. The horns tilt back. My man returns.
I walk down the porch steps.
The cold hits my legs through my jeans and my breath clouds between us. I take his hand. His fingers swallow mine, his palm fever-warm against the December air, and I pull.
Not toward the cabin. Past it. Past the circle of light, into the open ground where the snow falls thick and the firs stand dark against the sky. He follows without a word.
I stop at the edge of the tree line. I turn. The light from the cabin catches the snow in his fur, white flakes melting against the dark. His horns frame the tops of the firs behind him. He stares at me.
"Take me out there. Not in the cabin."
His chest rises and falls on a single breath.
"Every room you've ever been in was a cage." My voice holds steady but my pulse is hammering so hard I feel it in my throat. "The pit. The handlers' quarters. Every ring, every holding pen, every room where someone told you what you were allowed to be." I step closer. "Out here, nothing is holding you. No walls. No audience. It's your choice. Everything that happens next is your choice."
He stands rooted, the snow landing on his shoulders and melting against his skin, the warmth of him so intense that the flakes dissolve on contact. The purr starts low, lower than I've heard it, a vibration that travels through the ground under my boots.
I reach up. I hook my fingers in the collar of his shirt and pull him toward the trees.
His back finds the trunk of an old-growth cedar and I push him against it. The tree holds. Barely. He's massive even against the timber, his shoulders wider than the trunk, his horns scraping bark when he tilts his head down to look at me.
I unbutton his shirt. My fingers shake from the cold and from want and the buttons are too small for the speed I need. He reaches behind his neck and pulls the shirt over his head in one motion. I press my palms flat against his chest. The warmth of him radiates through my hands and up my wrists. His scars catch the dim light from the porch. I know them now. I've kissed every one.
His purr deepens and a shelf of snow slides off the branch above us and scatters across the ground.
I pull my sweater over my head. The cold bites my bare skin and I gasp. His hands close around my waist and draw meagainst him, and the burn of his chest against my bare stomach is so intense the cold stops mattering. My bra unclasps and falls between us, and his palm covers my breast, and the sound I make into the cold air fogs between us.
"I want you," I tell him. My fingers work his belt. "Right here."
The belt comes free. I undo his jeans. I find him hard, thick, radiating heat that pulses against my palm when I wrap my fingers around his cock. His breath punches out of him and the purr breaks into a growl that vibrates through the trunk of the cedar and sends another cascade of snow from the branches.
"Nina." My name drags out of him like broken gravel. His hands find my jeans, my zipper, and he strips them down my hips with a desperation that makes me grip his shoulders. The cold air hits my thighs and I shiver. His palms slide up the backs of my legs and lift.
