Chapter 3
Something crackled and popped nearby—a warm, familiar sound that didn’t belong in the cold void of space.
Ember’s consciousness crept back in fragments.
Wood smoke. The soft weight of furs against her skin.
Heat radiating from somewhere to her left, gentle and steady.
Those sensations made no sense. The last thing she remembered was cold—bone-deep, terrifying cold—and the hiss of the escape pod’s systems failing around her.
Then golden eyes. Eyes that glowed like twin suns in a face carved from shadow and stone.
I dreamed that, she thought. I must have dreamed it.
She opened her eyes.
The ceiling above her was rough-hewn timber, firelight flickering across the beams in shifting patterns. She lay in a bed—no, not a bed exactly, more like a sleeping platform built into the corner of the room—piled high with animal pelts that held her body heat like a cocoon.
She slowly turned her head, cataloging her surroundings.
A single room, maybe twenty feet across.
A stone fireplace dominated the wall to her left, flames leaping behind an iron grate.
Wooden shelves were lined with supplies—smoked meat, cloth-covered baskets, tools she didn’t recognize.
A heavy door reinforced with metal bands stood at the far end of the room, and narrow windows, currently shuttered against what sounded like a screaming wind, flanked the door.
A cabin, she realized. Someone’s home.
Movement in her peripheral vision made her freeze.
He sat in a chair by the fire, so still she’d almost missed him.
Massive. That was her first coherent thought—he was massive, easily twice her size, all broad shoulders and long limbs and coiled muscle.
Dark hair fell past his jaw, half-obscuring a face that was roughly handsome in a way that made something flutter low in her belly.
Silver grey skin, angular features, and a strong jaw.
And those eyes. Golden eyes watching her with the patient intensity of a predator observing prey.
Not a dream, then.
Her heart should have been racing. He was not human.
He was Vultor and she was alone with him in an isolated cabin.
Every lesson she’d ever received about proper behavior, about the dangers of the frontier and the violent reputation of the Vultor should have had her terrified and searching desperately for an escape route.
Instead, she felt… calm. Curious. And underneath that, something warm and entirely inappropriate that she chose not to examine too closely.
“You’re awake.”
His voice was a low rumble that seemed to vibrate through the floorboards. No emotion, just a simple statement of fact.
She pushed herself up on her elbows, wincing at the ache in her muscles.
The furs slipped down past her shoulders, and she realized with a start that she was no longer wearing her nightgown.
She was dressed in a linen shirt far too big for her body.
His shirt. Which meant that he had changed her clothes and seen her naked body—a body that no male had ever seen before.
She should have been mortified, but a different type of heat colored her cheeks. Did he like what he saw, she wondered before she quickly pushed the thought aside.
“Where…” she managed, her voice rough. “Where am I?”
“My cabin.” He gestured vaguely with one large hand. “The western side of the mountain range.”
The mountain range that split the continent was hundreds of miles from Port Cantor and populated by little more than wild animals and the occasional trapper. They were in the middle of nowhere.
She sat up fully, automatically pulling the furs around herself for modesty.
“You pulled me out of the escape pod. That was you.”
He inclined his head. A single, minimal acknowledgment.
“Thank you,” she said sincerely. “You saved my life.”
For a moment, he looked genuinely surprised, as if gratitude was something he rarely encountered. Then he nodded once, curtly. “You would have frozen. Another hour, maybe less.”
“Then I’m very grateful you found me when you did.”
Silence stretched between them. The fire crackled.
Wind howled against the shutters, a sound like wild animals fighting over scraps.
She became acutely aware of how alone they were—no servants, no guards, no chaperones.
Just her and this enormous Vultor male in a cabin buried somewhere in the mountains.
I should be afraid, she thought again. She searched herself for fear and found only that same strange calm and that same inappropriate warmth.
“I need to contact someone,” she said, shifting to the edge of the bed. The movement made her head swim, and she gripped the frame of the sleeping platform until the dizziness passed. “My… family will be searching for me. If I can reach a communication hub—”
“No.”
One word. Flat and final.
She blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“I don’t have any communication devices.” He didn’t move from his chair, didn’t shift his gaze from her face. “And the storm earlier this week blocked the southern pass. Nothing’s getting through until it clears.”
“When will that be?”
He shrugged, an oddly human gesture.
“Days. Maybe longer, depending on the weather.”
The words should have filled her with panic. She was trapped in the mountains with a stranger, with no way to contact the outside world, no way to let anyone know she was alive. Aunt Marina would be searching for her.
Or pretending to search? Her aunt had been a part of her life for as long as she could remember, stepping in after her mother died giving birth to her. She’d always been pleasant and polite, and yet there had been no real warmth between them.
And if I’m not there, she’ll continue running the company, just as she’s done since my father’s death. Without me, she’ll simply take over the company. Take everything my father built—
“You’re not going to faint, are you?”
The gruff question snapped her back to the present. He was watching her with something that might have been concern, although it was hard to tell beneath that stoic mask.
“No.” She straightened her spine. “I don’t faint.”
“Good.”
“Where am I exactly?” she asked. “You said western mountains, but…”
“The southern pass leads to a small human settlement at the base of the mountains. The settlement is about halfway between Riverton and the coast.”
“I see.” She filed that information away and studied him more carefully. “You’re Vultor.”
“Obviously.”
“I’ve read about your people.” The words came out before she could stop them, driven by the same curiosity that had always gotten her in trouble with her tutors.
“Although I suspect the early contact reports were heavily biased—most of the accounts I found were written by humans with obvious prejudices against non-human species.”
He stared at her.
“What?”
“You…” He seemed to be searching for words. “You read about us.”
“Of course. I studied the history of Cresca and the colonization by both humans and Vultor. Despite the prejudiced accounts, the pack dynamics are fascinating and—" She caught herself, aware that she was rambling. “I apologize. My father always said I talked too much when I was nervous.”
“Are you nervous?”
The question was almost a challenge, and she considered her answer carefully.
“I should be,” she admitted. “I’m weak, stranded, and trapped in a cabin with a male I don’t know, in territory where no one will think to look for me. By all logic, I should be terrified.”
“But you’re not.”
“No.” She met his golden gaze without flinching. “I’m not.”
She pushed the furs aside and swung her legs over the side of the sleeping platform. His shirt, the linen shirt he’d dressed her in, fell to her knees, preserving whatever modesty she had left after he’d changed her clothes. Her bare feet curled against the cold wooden floor.
“I need to walk around,” she said, as much to herself as to him. “My muscles are stiff from the stasis.”
He stood, rising from his chair in a fluid motion that reminded her of a predator uncoiling, and the sheer scale of him made her catch her breath.
The cabin seemed to shrink around him, the firelight casting him in immense shadow against the walls.
He moved towards the shelves on the far wall, and she tracked his progress with a fascination she didn’t try to hide.
Every line of him spoke of power and controlled strength, of a body designed for survival.
She should not have found that as attractive as she did.
“How long was I unconscious?” she asked, partially to distract herself from the way his shirt stretched across his shoulders.
“Half a day. The cold put you into shock. Your body needed time to warm up.” He hesitated for a fraction of a second, not looking back at her as he retrieved two carved wooden bowls from a shelf. “That’s why I had to remove your wet clothes.”
A flush of heat rose to her cheeks as she imagined that massive body bending over her and those big hands stripping off her nightgown, but she did her best to keep her voice calm. “I understand.”
He turned, holding the bowls. “Do you?”
She couldn’t read his expression, but something in his tone made her heart beat a little faster. “Yes. It was… necessary. Thank you.”
“Your nightgown and your necklace are in the wooden box by the bed.”
Her mother’s necklace? Another wave of gratitude swept over her.
“That means so much to me. Thank you.”
He simply nodded and filled the two bowls from a pot simmering over the fire, then carried them to a table carved from a single massive slab of wood.
He gestured towards the table with one of the bowls. “Sit. You need to eat.”
She made her way to the table, her steps unsteady. Every muscle in her body protested, and her head still ached, but she refused to show weakness. She sank onto the chair, hard and unyielding after the softness of the furs.