"And when the storm clears?"
He doesn't answer.
Already standing, I refuse to back down. I adjust my weight, legs bare and shaking but rooted with stubborn defiance. "Look. I appreciate the rescue, but I don't make a habit of playingdamsel in distress so if you'll give me my clothes and my gear, then I'll be on my way."
"You think that's how this works? There's a blizzard wailing out there sweet thing. There's no escalators, no limos, no helicopter rescues. You'll stay here until I say it's safe for you to go."
I glare. "I don't think so. That's not how normal human interaction works."
He takes a step forward. Just one. But it's enough to steal the breath from my lungs.
"There's nothing normal about this. And if you still think I'm human, then you haven't been paying attention," he says, voice low and rough enough to scrape down my spine. "It wasn't just circumstance back then—not with the way you looked at me. But you were too young. So I walked away."
His eyes rake over me, slow and burning, and bile rises in my throat as I wonder—did he just look? Or did he touch, lingering under the guise of care? The thought sends a cold shiver racing down my spine, fury flaring hard and fast—but tangled in it is something more disturbing.
My breath stutters. Shame prickles across my skin, hot and humiliating, because the image of his hands on me doesn't just enrage me—it ignites something low and wrong that makes my stomach twist. I hate myself for wondering, for wanting to know... for wanting it to be true. The confusion churns in my gut, sharp and raw, and I can't tell if I want to hit him—or beg for the answer.
"I tried to forget. I couldn't. You haunted me. A ghost I couldn't outrun. And now here you are again… like something sent you straight back into my world, whether you meant to or not."
The cabin shrinks. Or maybe it's just the way he looks at me—like I'm a thing he found in the wild, and he hasn't decided whether to keep me or consume me... maybe both.
"You're scaring me," I whisper.
"Good."
A beat. Two.
He reaches out and strokes the curve of my jaw. "But you're also aroused."
My face heats. "Go to hell."
"Been there. Done that. Can't much recommend it."
My breath comes faster now, the tension electric, intimate, wrong.
"I'm not staying here," I snap.
"Then leave," he says, motioning to the door with a flick of his fingers, like it's a joke he already knows the punchline to.
I glance past him, toward the heavy slab of wood that separates me from the storm. The blizzard is still raging—I can hear it outside. The snow is battering the windows in relentless sheets, the wind howling like it wants to tear the cabin apart. I take a half-step toward the exit, testing both him and myself.
He doesn't move.
But that stillness? It's calculated. Intimidating. A silent dare. His jaw tightens almost imperceptibly, a flicker of restraint passing through his posture. One hand curls slowly into a fist at his side, and the muscles in his neck cord with tension. His body may not block the path outright, but his presence does—an invisible wall of force and unspoken threat.
He's not stopping me, not technically. But every instinct screams that if I try to pass, something in him will break loose, and I'll see what kind of beast I've really wandered into the den of.
I can hear the snow thick, fast and deadly.
Bastard.
I retreat a step. "Fine. But I want my things."
He nods once, disappears through a doorway. A moment later, he returns with my bag, sets it on the table, and watches.
I go to it with trembling hands, each step a negotiation between defiance and dread. Camera—still damp. My lifeline to everything beyond these walls reduced to fogged glass and dead circuits. GPS—cracked down the middle, spiderwebbed like ice underfoot. Useless.
A sob threatens to rise, but I choke it down, swallowing the sharp twist of panic clawing up my throat. My chest tightens, breath hitching on the inhale. My hands feel too large, too clumsy, shaking as I unzip the side pocket. My scalp tingles with cold sweat despite the heat from the fire, and my heart thuds hard enough that I feel it in my throat, an erratic beat warning me that I am not safe. My ears ring faintly. I blink rapidly, trying to focus, but every sound is too loud, every shadow too deep. The walls feel closer than before—like they're pressing inward, inch by inch.
