CORALINE
Someone’s arms are around my body, and I’m being pressed against something warm. Everything burns and aches as I heave to the side. Weakness pulls me back to the floor, and I gaze at the white light from before. With each slow blink, my vision stabilizes.
Gavin.
He’s above me with flashes of worry in those celestial, cerulean eyes. His beauty is irresistible. It’s unfair the way it makes me forget about the no flirting or dating rule I set for myself after what Liam did to me.
I reach for Gavin’s face and run my hand against his perfect jaw, feeling the pricks of his beard against the palm of my hand.
“Am I alive?” I blink slowly, trying to stay awake, but it’s hard with the way my body feels like it was run over. I swallow as I try to suck in breath after slow breath.
It feels good to breathe again.
“Yes, Coraline. You’re alive.” His brows narrow. His relieving smile morphs into a deep frown the longer we lock eyes. The harsh lines around his eyes deepen. Then his full, red lips aremoving again. “Alive and still a stubborn woman,” he scolds. “Why are you out here? What the fuck were you thinking?”
Before I can respond, reality pulls me further in. The avalanche. The moose and the pack of wolves. A slap in the face with how dangerously beautiful Alaska can be. Now, I’m in pain, andI’m so damn cold. I can’t feel my hands or feet, and I can barely process a single thought. I guess I deserve it for being impatient.
“You weren’t thinking,” he reminds me. “Listen to me next time, goddamnit.”
Groaning, my hand falls back to my side—soreness bleeding from my chest down to my frozen toes. I’m going in and out of consciousness.
Gavin lifts me in the air and presses me against his hard, muscular chest. Shadows of darkness are calling my name every other second. Large, thick flurries roam around us, and I’m tempted to reach out for one.
“Stay awake,” he rasps. “Don’t fall back to sleep.”
I nod lazily, my forehead brushing against his steel-muscled chest. Instead of closing my eyes, I focus on the snowfall.
It swirls down from the sky, ghosting my face, and swirls in the air.
It looks like magic.
Seeing snowfall has always felt like a wonder of the world to me. Like a version of heaven on Earth. Living in South Texas, I don’t get to experience it often, but when I do, it distracts me from everything. For a moment, I forget about my daily problems, responsibilities, and insecurities. Everything good and bad vanishes the longer I get lost in its essence.It’s not just the weather to me. Snowfall is a gentle, minuscule reminder that seasons change just like chapters in a book.
It won’t stay dark forever.
Sometimes, when I get stuck on how I’m feeling inside, and there’s only pain that feels like I’m burning alive, I forget itwon’t always be constant. The page will turn. The skies will clear, and there will be light again, even when it seems my story feels like it’s going nowhere.
Being in Alaska is making me feel like I’ve put the brakes on an isolating train ride with no specific destination. The mountains call my name when the city lights drain me.
“H-hey,” I murmur, looking at Gavin’s Adam’s apple.
He keeps his focus on the cabin, face forward.
“I found my car.” My lungs seize the words in my itchy throat.Cough.
“But I didn’t find my cell. There was a pack of—”cough. “Wolves and then?—”
“Don’t talk. Just stay awake for me,” he quips like an order.
Gavin kicks his door open as I continue to shiver against him. The familiar bells chime against the rich wood. The frostbite all over my frail body is slowly torturing me. My shivers are frantic and desperate, clinging to him desperately.
As soon as we get inside his cabin, the temperature is no better. He sets me on his couch, my back falling into the cushion.
“S-so c-cold,” I say, coiling into a fetal position, trying to soak up any heat my body has to offer.
He rushes to his fireplace, throwing more logs in. The fire rises, an orange glow growing larger, illuminating the living room. I’m too focused on clinging to the couch that I hadn’t realized I was drifting into sleep again.
“Coraline,” he calls me.
