"He sounds amazing," she says finally.
"He was. He taught us that survival isn't about fighting the world, it's about understanding your place in it. You don't dominate nature, Aris. You participate in it."
"Participate," she repeats, testing the word like it's fragile. "Thaddeus used to say we were observers. That science required distance to be objective. That if you got too close, you compromised the data."
"Thaddeus was wrong," I say gently. "You can't understand something if you're standing outside looking in. You have to be part of the cycle. That's why I hunt. Not for the trophy. But because it keeps me connected to the reality of keeping myself alive."
She wraps her arms tighter around her knees, rocking slightly. "I feel like I'm failing him sometimes. He had this grand vision. He thought Waldo was the key to saving the species. And I'm just … stumbling around in the snow, eating fish I swore I wouldn't touch, relying on a man I judged before I even met him."
"We're going to release that collar, Aris. You didn't fail. We're miles from civilization, in conditions that would break most people, and you're still standing."
"He died alone," she says, the words rushing out like they've been dammed up for a long time. "I was at a conference in Seattle presenting a paper on migration corridors. He was at his desk in the university lab. A janitor found him the next morning."
Her voice cracks, and the need to go to her hooks in behind my sternum, almost overpowering.
"I should have been there," she whispers, wiping a tear from her cheek before it freezes. "I was his student. His legacy. And I was … I was networking while he was dying."
"You were doing the work he taught you to do," I say firmly. "You can't guilt yourself for living your life, Aris. He wouldn't want that."
She looks up, her eyes wet and shining in the firelight. "That's why I can't leave without the collar, Nash. It's not justthe data. It's … it's the only way I can say goodbye. If I finish this, if I prove his theory … then maybe I can let him go."
And there it is, the naked, bleeding heart of the matter. She's a grieving daughter in every way that matters, a scientist second, trying to settle a debt with a ghost.
I stand up and walk around the fire. I don't think about it; I do it. I sit down on the log beside her, close enough that the nylon of our parkas brushes with a soft swish.
"He knows," I say quietly. "If he was half the man you say he was, he knows."
She turns toward me, and the vulnerability in her face hits me like a physical blow. She looks stripped raw, defenseless, my protective instincts flaring hot and fierce.
"I was so wrong about you," she whispers. "I came here thinking you were the enemy. The obstacle to my research."
"And now?"
"Now I don't know what I'd do without you."
Something between us draws tight, the pull we've both been ignoring since the storm. The rest of the world—the snow, the wolves, the cold—fades away until it's just the two of us in this small circle of firelight.
She's looking at my mouth, and I'm looking at hers, and every alarm bell in my head is ringing.
She's leaving,the voice in my head warns, sounding suspiciously like Finn.In three weeks, maybe four, she gets on a plane. She goes back to lecture halls and coffee shops and conferences in Seattle. She goes back to a world where you don't fit. Do not start this.
But my body isn't listening to the logic. My body remembers the feel of her holding onto me on the snow machine, the smell of her hair in the tent, the fire in her eyes when she spotted the herd today.
"Aris," I say, and my voice sounds wrecked to my own ears.
She leans in, just an inch. It's a question. A permission.
I could answer it. I could bridge the gap, pull her in, kiss the sadness off her mouth. It would be easy. It would be good. And it would be the biggest mistake I could make.
Because if I kiss her, I won't stop. And if I don't stop, I'm going to fall in love with her. And when she leaves, because she will leave, it won't be like a client waving goodbye at the dock.
It will be like losing a limb.
I clench my jaw, forcing the control Granddad beat into me to take the wheel. I pull back, just slightly, but it feels like miles.
"It's getting cold," I say, the words going flat in my mouth. "The fire's dying down. We need to be up at dawn if we want to catch the herd moving."
She blinks, absorbing the rejection. A flush rises on her cheeks that the fire can't account for. She pulls back, straightening her spine, the vulnerability vanishing behind a wall of composure.
