Chapter 15
The storm came without warning. One moment Rykan was standing on a ridge overlooking a valley, staring at nothing and trying to silence the chaos in his skull. The next, the sky had darkened to charcoal and the wind was screaming through the pines like a living thing.
He’d seen mountain storms before. He’d survived dozens of them in his years of exile. But this one had teeth. The temperature plummeted so fast he could feel ice forming on his skin, and the snow came sideways, thick and blinding, turning the familiar landscape into a white void.
His beast wanted to shift and ride out the storm in the form better suited to survive it.
But that would mean hours in beast form, possibly overnight, and the thought of leaving her alone in the cabin was unacceptable.
Even furious, even hurting, even convinced she was going to abandon him the first chance she got—he couldn’t leave her unprotected.
He fought his way back through the blizzard, navigating by instinct more than sight. The cabin was a dark shape in the white, barely visible even from a few feet away. He slammed through the door and fell into warmth, gasping, covered in snow that was already melting against his heated skin.
“Rykan!” She was there in an instant, her hands on his arms, pulling him towards the fire. “You’re half-frozen. What were you thinking, staying out so long?”
“I didn’t see it coming,” he managed through chattering teeth. The cold had sunk deeper than he’d realized, numbing his extremities and slowing his thoughts, challenging even his Vultor physiology. He let her guide him to the hearth, too drained to resist her touch.
She quickly stripped off his outer furs, draping them over the rack near the fire to dry. Then she wrapped him in a dry fur and pressed a cup of heated broth into his hands.
“Drink,” she ordered. “Don’t argue.”
He drank. The warmth spread through his chest, chasing away the worst of the chill. When he lowered the cup, he found her watching him with an expression he couldn’t read.
“Better?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Good.” She sat back on her heels, her grey eyes darkening. “Now maybe you’ll stop running away from me long enough to have an actual conversation.”
His jaw tightened. “I wasn’t running.”
“Weren’t you?” She gestured towards the window, where the storm was still raging, snow piling against the glass in thick drifts. “You’ve been avoiding me since we left the wreck. You won’t look at me and won’t talk to me. You can barely stand to be in the same room. And now this.”
“The storm wasn’t planned.”
“No. But staying out until you nearly froze to death was a choice.” Her voice cracked on the last word, and he saw the fear beneath her anger—real fear, raw and trembling. “I thought you weren’t coming back. I thought—”
She stopped, pressing her lips together as if holding back words she didn’t want to speak. Something shifted in his chest. The ice around his heart cracked, just slightly.
“I’m here,” he said quietly. “I came back.”
“You almost didn’t.” She stood abruptly, turning away from him to pace the small cabin like a caged animal. “You walked out that door without a word, without telling me where you were going, and then the storm hit and I thought—”
“What?” He rose to his feet, the fur falling away. “What did you think?”
“That you’d rather die out there than be trapped in here with me!” She whirled to face him, and he saw the tears she’d been hiding, tracks of silver running down her cheeks. “That I’d finally driven you away, just like everyone else who’s ever—”
She stopped again, this time catching herself before she revealed too much. But he’d heard enough.
Everyone else.
How many people had left her? Her mother, dead before Ember could know her.
Her father, taken by illness despite her desperate wish to keep him.
Her aunt, who had raised her as a tool to be discarded.
Every servant and tutor and guard who had treated her like glass—none of them seeing her, all of them leaving in their own ways.
And now him. Adding to the list of people who had made her feel abandoned.
“That’s not what I was doing,” he said roughly. “That wasn’t—”
“Then what were you doing?” She advanced on him, her small body vibrating with emotion. “Because from where I was standing, it looked exactly like punishment. Like you’d already decided I was going to hurt you, so you might as well hurt me first.”
The words slashed across him like claws across his face. Because she was right. That was exactly what he’d been doing. Building walls, creating distance, preparing himself for the inevitable rejection by rejecting her first.
Just like he’d done with everyone since Lysara.
“You’re leaving,” he growled, the beast’s voice bleeding through. “You told me yourself. You need to go back, to fight your aunt, to reclaim your company. And when you do, you won’t—”
“Won’t what?” She was right in front of him now, so close he could smell her scent—that intoxicating mix of sweetness and warmth that had haunted him since the first moment he’d caught it. “Won’t remember you? Won’t miss you? Won’t spend every day wishing I could come back to this cabin and—”
“Won’t want me.” The admission ripped out of him, brutal and honest. “You’re an heiress. I’m an exile. In what world does someone like you choose someone like me?”
Her eyes widened. For a moment, she was utterly still. Then she did something he never expected.
She laughed.
It wasn’t cruel laughter, not the mocking kind he feared. It was incredulous, almost hysterical, the laugh of someone who had just discovered the punchline to a terrible joke.
“You think I’m going to leave you because of status?
” She shook her head, still laughing, tears still streaming.
“You think I care about inheritance or social position or any of that poison? Rykan, I’ve spent my entire life surrounded by people who only saw what I was, not who I was.
They looked at me and saw Duvain money, Duvain connections, Duvain power.
And you—” She pressed her hand flat against his chest, right over his pounding heart.
“You’ve never once asked me about any of it.
You treat me like a person. Like someone real. Do you have any idea how rare that is?”
He couldn’t speak. He could barely breathe. Her hand burned against his skin, heat bleeding through his shirt like a brand.
“I don’t want to leave you,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “I have to leave. There’s a difference. I know this is your home, your territory. This is the life you fought so hard to build, away from everything that hurt you.”
He wanted to explain. He wanted to find the words to tell her that territory meant nothing without someone to share it.
That he would burn this cabin to the ground and walk into enemy territory if it meant keeping her safe.
That she had become more essential to him than any piece of land or any claim of ownership.
But he had never been good with words. And right now, with her standing so close, his heart beating against his palm where he’d unconsciously placed his hand over hers, words seemed entirely inadequate.
So he kissed her instead. He took her mouth like a man drowning, like she was the only air he would ever breathe again.
His hands tangled in her hair, tilting her head back to give him better access.
She gasped against his lips and he swallowed the sound, pressing deeper, harder, claiming every breath she would give him.
She kissed him back with equal desperation. Her small hands fisted in his shirt, pulling him closer, and when his tongue swept into her mouth she moaned and the sound sent fire racing down his spine.
The beast roared in triumph. Yes. Ours. Finally, ours.
He walked her backwards without breaking the kiss, guiding her with hands that shook with barely contained need.
When her back hit the wall, he pressed into her, letting her feel exactly how much he wanted her.
She gasped again and arched against him, and the sensation nearly destroyed what remained of his control.
“Rykan,” she whispered as she pulled at his shirt, fumbling with the fastenings, and when her fingers finally found bare skin he groaned against her mouth.
He didn’t remember removing her clothing. One moment she was dressed, the next she was bare in his arms, her skin like cream in the firelight. He lifted her easily, her legs wrapping around his waist, and carried her to the furs near the hearth.
She was so soft. So impossibly, unbearably soft. He laid her down and covered her with his body, drowning in the sensation of her warmth beneath him. His mouth found her throat, and he bit down gently—not enough to mark, not yet, but enough to make her cry out and clutch his shoulders.
“Please,” she breathed. “Rykan, please—”
He didn’t know if that’s what she was asking for, but every instinct screamed at him to claim her, to mark her, to bind her to him so completely that she could never leave. She lay beneath him in nothing but firelight, and he thought he might die from the sight of her.
“Beautiful,” he growled, the word rough and reverent. “You’re so beautiful.”
She blushed—actually blushed, the color spreading from her cheeks down her throat to her chest. Her hands moved to cover herself, sudden shyness overcoming her earlier boldness, but he caught her wrists and pinned them gently above her head.
“Don’t hide from me.” He kissed her again, softer this time, worshipful. “Never hide from me.”
He released her wrists and let his hands explore her body, learning every curve, every hollow, every sensitive spot that made her gasp and arch against him.
When he closed his mouth over her breast, her back arched off the furs, and he took his time, teasing and tasting until she convulsed beneath him.
He slid lower, pressing kisses along her stomach, her hips, her thighs.
He spread her open with reverent hands, and when he swirled his tongue around her clit, she cried out so loudly that a surge of primal satisfaction filled him.
He wanted to hear that sound again. He wanted to be the only one who ever heard it.
She bucked against his mouth, her fingers tangling in his hair, and when he worked a finger into her, stroking deep, she shattered. He watched her face as she came, watched the pleasure wash over her, and something in his chest cracked wide open.
He moved up her body, covering her again, and kissed her deeply, letting her taste herself on his tongue. She was still trembling from her climax, her body warm and receptive, but when he settled between her thighs, she suddenly tensed.
“I’ve never…” she started, then stopped, embarrassment coloring her voice. “I don’t know what to—”
“I know.” He kissed her forehead, her eyelids, the tip of her nose. “We don’t have to. If you’re not ready—”
“I’m ready.” She caught his face in her hands and held his gaze fiercely. “I want this. I want you. I’m just… nervous.”
Nervous. The word pierced through the haze of his desire, bringing with it a cold dose of reality.
She was inexperienced. Innocent. And he was about to take that innocence in a rush of passion driven by fear as much as love—fear of losing her, fear of being left behind, fear of all the old wounds that had never properly healed.
She deserved better than that.
His beast howled in protest as he pulled back, putting crucial inches between their bodies. “Not like this.”