Chapter 14
The silence between them was deafening. Rykan walked ahead on the narrow trail, his boots crunching through the crusted snow. He didn’t look back. He didn’t offer a hand when the path grew steep or treacherous, the way he had on the journey out.
He could hear Ember struggling behind him—her labored breathing, the occasional slip of her foot on ice—and every instinct in his body screamed at him to turn around. To catch her. To carry her if necessary, cradling her against his chest the way he had when he’d pulled her from the wreckage.
He kept walking, but he did slow down enough to make sure she wouldn’t lose him.
I need to go back.
Her words echoed in his skull like a curse, each repetition carving deeper into something he’d thought was already dead.
He should have expected this. He should have known from the moment he’d found her that she would leave.
Females like her didn’t belong in mountain cabins with solitary beasts.
They belonged in warm rooms with soft beds and civilized males who knew how to speak without growling.
She was never mine, his mind whispered savagely. I knew that. I always knew.
But knowing and feeling were different things. And right now, his beast was howling with a pain that bordered on rage.
He’d held her in his arms last night. He’d felt her small body curled against his, trusting and warm, fitting into the hollow of his chest like she’d been made for it.
He’d slept—actually slept, deeply and dreamlessly, for the first time in six years—and when he’d woken to find her still there, still breathing, still his, something had cracked open inside him. Something dangerous. Hope.
Now that hope was ash in his mouth.
I need to go back.
Not “we.” Not “come with me.” Just “I.”
She hadn’t even considered asking him. She hadn’t entertained the possibility that he might want to leave with her, to fight beside her, to protect her from the aunt who had tried to murder her.
She’d simply announced her decision and waited for him to accept it, the same way she probably expected everyone in her privileged little world to accept her commands.
You’re being unfair, a quieter voice argued. She just found out her own blood tried to kill her. She’s in shock. She’s hurting.
He knew that, but the knowledge didn’t stop the betrayal from festering in his chest like poison. It didn’t stop him from hearing Lysara’s voice layered beneath Ember’s words—that same casual dismissal, that same assumption that he would simply… accept.
You were useful while I needed you. Now I don’t.
Lysara had never said those exact words, of course. She’d been far too clever for that. She’d smiled and touched him and whispered sweet promises right up until the moment she’d chosen his brother instead. And then she’d looked at him with those lying eyes and asked him to understand.
He wouldn’t survive that again. Not from Ember. Not when every moment with her had peeled back another layer of the armor he’d spent six years building.
The cabin came into view through the trees, a dark smudge against the endless white.
He increased his pace, putting more distance between himself and the female behind him.
He needed space. Needed walls between them.
Needed to remember who he was before she’d crashed into his territory and turned everything inside out.
He pushed through the door without waiting for her, crossing to the fireplace and kneeling to build up the flames. His hands moved automatically—kindling, then larger sticks, then proper logs—while his mind churned with thoughts he couldn’t escape.
The door opened and closed behind him. He heard her footsteps, tentative and slow, crossing the cabin’s small floor.
“Rykan.”
He didn’t answer, just stared into the growing flames and willed her to leave him alone.
“Rykan, please. Talk to me.”
“Nothing to talk about.” His voice came out harsh, rough with barely contained emotion. “You’ve made your choice.”
“What choice?” she asked quietly after a long silence. “I haven’t chosen anything.”
He laughed—a bitter, broken sound that echoed off the walls. “Haven’t you? You need to go back. Those were your words.”
“Yes, and—”
“And nothing.” He rose to his feet, keeping his back to her. “You have your answers now. You know who tried to kill you. The pass will clear soon, and you’ll return to your world and your company and your aunt, and that will be the end of it.”
“The end of what?”
He didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Because putting words to what existed between them would make it real, and he couldn’t afford that. Not when she was already leaving.
He heard her move closer. He felt the warmth of her presence at his back, too near for comfort, yet not nearly near enough to satisfy the beast prowling inside him.
“You think I want to leave,” she said softly. “You think I’m choosing to abandon you.”
“Aren’t you?”
“No.” Her hand touched his arm, and he flinched like she’d burned him. “Rykan, look at me. Please.”
He turned before he could stop himself. It was a mistake—he knew it the instant he saw her face. Her grey eyes were bright with unshed tears, her cheeks flushed from cold and exhaustion, her expression a complicated mix of hurt and confusion and desperation.
“I have to go back,” she said. “Not because I want to leave you. Because Marina won’t stop. If she was willing to kill me, she’s willing to kill others. And as long as I’m officially dead, she has everything she ever wanted. My company. My father’s legacy. Everything he worked for.”
“Then let her have it.” The words tore out of him, savage and desperate. “Stay here. With me. Let her think you’re dead.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.” He caught her shoulders, his grip just short of bruising. “You choose not to. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?” She met his gaze without flinching, and he saw the steel beneath her softness—the same steel he’d been watching develop over weeks of training and struggle and quiet determination.
“You walked away from your pack. From your birthright. From everything you were supposed to be. Was that really a choice? Or was it the only option you could live with?”
The question struck him like a blow. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything except stare at this impossible woman who somehow understood him better than he understood himself.
“That was different,” he managed finally.
“Was it? You gave up everything to protect people who betrayed you. You sacrificed your future so your pack wouldn’t tear itself apart.
” She reached up and touched his face, her fingers gentle against his jaw.
“But I’m afraid that my company will tear itself apart without me.
I have to fight for what’s mine. And I need you to understand that. ”
He wanted to. Gods, how he wanted to. But his beast only understood one thing..
She was abandoning him. Like Lysara. Like his pack. Like everyone he’d ever trusted.
He released her shoulders and stepped back, putting distance between them that felt like miles. “You should rest. It’s been a long day.”
“Rykan—”
“I need air.” He was already moving towards the door, unable to look at her any longer, unable to stay in the same room and pretend he wasn’t falling apart.
He fled into the snow like the coward he’d always known himself to be.