Chapter 5
Katerina
The fire has burned down to embers when the first howl rises. High-pitched. Long. Close enough to feel in my bones. My eyes open before I realize I was asleep.
The cabin is dark except for the faint orange glow from the hearth in the main room. Wind moves against the walls in slow breaths.
Then it comes again. Another voice joins the first. Higher. Sharper. A third. A fourth.
The sound threads through the trees and wraps around the cabin like fingers tightening.
Coyotes. The word lands in my mind, foreign and primitive.
I tell myself that they’re just animals, nothing more. But my body disagrees.
My pulse spikes hard this time — no negotiation, no discipline. My throat tightens. My hands curl into the blanket’s edge.
The howling rises again. Many tones layered into a pack.
I sit up too quickly and the room tilts. Memories resurface of the cold, but not this mountain’s cold. Russian winter cold.
A door slamming.
Laughter somewhere outside.
Stay there. You’ll be fine.
The sound of something circling in the dark.
I push the image away, but it clings like frost to my skin. I don’t want to remember.
The coyotes crescendo again, and something inside me fractures. I swing my legs off the bed and step onto the wooden floor.
The door to the bedroom is half-open. I didn’t leave it that way. Another howl. This one closer.
I move toward the hallway before pride can stop me. He is already awake. I find myself happy that he is.
Memory is a cruel equalizer.
Hawk stands near the living room window, posture angled toward the sound. The firelight outlines him in bronze and shadow.
And in his hand — a gun ready if needed. He turns his head slightly when he hears me. The pack howls again. My composure shatters one more inch.
“It’s nothing,” he says quietly. “Just coyotes.”
Just.
He lowers the weapon, but he doesn’t set it down. I hate that I’m standing here. That I walked out. That he can see the crack in my control.
“They travel in groups,” I say before I can stop myself.
“Many predators do.”
His tone isn’t mocking. It’s factual.
Another chorus rises outside, longer this time, echoing through the trees. My breathing stutters. I swallow it down.
“It’s not the sound,” I say, staring at the dark window. “It’s what it means.”
He studies me for a few seconds.
“What does it mean to you?”
I don’t answer. Because I don’t want to explain that once, years ago, they told me the countryside was quiet. That I would be safe for the night. That no one would bother me.
And then something moved outside the locked door. And I understood what it meant to be left.
The howling begins to fade. Distance widening. The pack moving on. The silence that follows is heavier than the noise.
Hawk sets the gun on the table within reach but no longer aimed at anything.
He crosses to the small kitchen area.
“You drink tea?” he asks.
I blink. “Yes.”
He fills a kettle from a bottled jug. The mundane sound of water feels surreal after the wilderness chorus.
“You always this prepared?” I ask, my voice steadier now.
“I plan for variables.”
“And I’m a variable.”
“Yes.”
There is no offense in his answer. The kettle whistles softly. He pours hot water over a tea bag from a labeled emergency tin, then opens a small metal flask from the cabinet.
He hesitates half a second. Then adds a measured pour. He hands me the mug.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Something that helps.”
The scent of brandy rises with the steam. I watch the tea steep and feel helpless to say much more. But there’s a part of me that wonders if the coyotes are an omen — a warning for me. And now, for Hawk as well.
I wrap my hands around the ceramic mug. It’s almost too warm — and that’s exactly what I need.
“You don’t trust me,” I say.
“No.”
Hawk is very direct.
“Yet you’re helping me sleep.”
“You’re my responsibility.”
Not kindness. Not even attraction. Just his responsibility. The distinction matters.
I sip the tea. The heat spreads slowly through my chest, loosening something tight and stubborn.
“You don’t know what you’re protecting,” I murmur.
“I will.”
The confidence in that statement is infuriating … and oddly reassuring.
Our eyes meet and I wonder if this brave man knows what forces may come down on us. Perhaps, I should give him a warning. But not now. I’ll think on that first.
I simply had a memory triggered — a bad one. Because it wasn’t the coyotes in the dark that got to me. It was the ones in broad daylight at a busy intersection in Moscow — smiling and wearing suits.
For now, the pack is gone. I watch as Hawk refreshes the wood in the fireplace. The wind settles. The fire cracks once.
“Thank you for … the tea,” I tell him.
“Anytime, Kat.”
That’s the first time he calls me Kat. Not Katerina. Not Miss Morozov. I return to the bedroom after emptying the mug and partially close the door. Just enough to block some of the light. Because I do not want to hear silence alone.
And somewhere between brandy warmth and mountain stillness, I let sleep take me knowing it never comes without a cost.