Chapter 16
“Not like this.”
The words hung between them, sharp as broken glass. Ember felt the cold rush in where Rykan’s warmth had been, his body no longer pressing her into the furs, the sudden absence of his heat leaving her exposed and trembling.
She automatically reached for a fur, covering herself, and hated that she did it. Hated the flush of shame that crept up her neck. Hated the way her voice came out small and uncertain when she spoke.
“Did I do something wrong?”
His jaw tightened. He sat back on his heels, his chest still heaving, his eyes still burning with that golden fire that told her his beast was close to the surface. “No. You did nothing wrong.”
“Then why—”
“Because I was about to take your innocence. I was about to claim you.” The words were rough, torn from somewhere deep inside him. “And once I did that, I would never let you go. And if you decided later that you didn’t want—”
“You think I would change my mind.”
It wasn’t a question. She could see the truth written in every line of his body—the tension in his shoulders, the way he wouldn’t quite meet her eyes. He wasn’t protecting her from himself. He was protecting himself from her.
He thinks I’ll change my mind once I’m back in my world.
The understanding hurt more than his rejection. Did he think so little of her? Of what they had together?
“Rykan.” She reached for him, but he flinched away from her touch. “I would never—”
“You don’t know that.” His voice was flat, empty. “You think you want this now, but you don’t know how humans treat my kind. How they would look at you, if you were mine.”
“I don’t care how they look at me.”
“You will.” He finally met her gaze, and she saw the old pain there—the wounds that Lysara had left, scars that had never properly healed.
“When you’re back in your world, with your company and your responsibilities, you’ll remember what you gave up to be with me.
And you’ll resent me for it. You’ll look at me the way she did, eventually. Everyone does.”
She. He didn’t say Lysara’s name, but he didn’t have to. She could feel Lysara’s ghost between them, poisoning everything.
“I’m not her,” she whispered.
“I know.” Something cracked in his expression, a flash of vulnerability quickly hidden. “And I want to trust that. But I’ve been wrong before.”
She wanted to argue. She wanted to shake him until he understood that she was different, that her feelings were real, that she would never betray him the way Lysara had. But the words died in her throat, because she recognized the truth beneath his fear.
She was going to leave. She had to leave, to face Marina and reclaim her father’s legacy. And once she was back in that world, everything would change.
What if he was right? What if this was just isolation talking, proximity and circumstance creating feelings that wouldn’t survive in the real world? What if she was asking him to risk everything—his heart, his beast, his entire sense of self—for something that might not last?
She didn’t believe that, not for a second, but she didn’t have any experience with passion, let alone love. He was the only one who had ever kissed her or seen her naked or brought her pleasure.
How do I know this is real? a small voice whispered.
The thought was like ice water, dousing the fire that had been burning in her blood. She pulled the fur tighter around herself and looked away.
“Maybe you’re right,” she said softly.
The silence that followed was deafening.
That night they lay in the darkness for hours, close enough to touch but miles apart.
She could feel his presence beside her, a furnace of heat in the cold cabin.
He’d rebuilt the fire before they settled into the furs, but he hadn’t reached for her.
He hadn’t pulled her against his chest or wrapped his arm around her waist. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, and the distance between them felt like an ocean.
She should have been angry. Part of her was angry—at him for pulling away, at herself for not fighting harder, at the universe for putting them in this impossible situation. But mostly she just felt hollow, scraped out, too exhausted for rage.
Maybe you’re right.
She wished she could take the words back. They’d been cowardly, a surrender rather than an argument. But his doubts had taken root.
She didn’t know if this was real. Everything she’d ever known about love came from books and observation.
She’d watched her father love her mother’s memory, seen the way his eyes softened when he spoke about her.
She’d read stories of grand romance, of passion that transcended circumstance and defied expectation.
But she’d never felt it herself—not until Rykan.
Not until she’d opened her eyes in that escape pod and seen those golden eyes watching her.
Her need for him, her desire to be with him, was that love? Or was it just… proximity? The natural result of two lonely people trapped together, finding comfort in each other because there was no one else?
It’s more than that, her heart insisted. I know what I feel when he looks at me. When he touches me. When he whispers my name like it’s something sacred.
But her mind countered with cold logic. I’ve never had anything to compare it to. How can I be sure?
She couldn’t. That was the truth she’d been avoiding. She couldn’t be sure, and asking Rykan to claim her—to bind himself to her permanently—when she wasn’t certain seemed like the cruelest thing she could do.
He deserved someone who was sure. Someone who could promise him forever without hesitation. Someone who wasn’t already planning to leave.
The fire crackled in the hearth. Outside, the storm still raged, wind howling against the walls like a living thing. She lay still and listened to him breathe, and wondered if this was what heartbreak felt like.
Morning came grey and quiet.
She woke to find the space beside her empty, the furs still warm where Rykan had been. She sat up slowly and looked around the cabin.
He was by the window, staring out at the fresh-fallen snow. The storm had passed sometime in the night, leaving behind a world transformed—everything buried under feet of pristine white, the trees bowed low under their burden, the sky a pale silver-blue that promised sunshine to come.
“You’re awake.”
His voice was neutral. Careful. The voice of a man who had rebuilt his walls overnight and was determined to keep them standing.
“Yes.” She pulled one of the furs around her shoulders and rose, crossing to stand beside him.
The view was beautiful—stark and wild and utterly inhospitable—but she barely saw it.
All her attention was focused on the male beside her, trying to read the tension in his shoulders and the set of his jaw. “Did you sleep?”
“Some.”
A lie. She could see the shadows under his eyes, the weariness in the lines of his face. He’d spent the night awake, probably arguing with himself the same way she had, reaching the same impossible conclusions.
We can’t go back, she thought. Not to how things were before. Everything’s different now.
“I need to hunt.” He didn’t look at her as he spoke, his eyes still fixed on the snow. “The storm will have driven game down from the higher peaks. It’s a good opportunity.”
“I could come with you.” The offer was automatic, an attempt to bridge the distance between them. “You’ve been teaching me to track. I could—”
“No.” The word was sharper than necessary, and he caught himself, softening his tone. “The terrain will be unstable. Snow drifts covering crevasses. I can move faster alone.”
Alone. The word echoed in the silence.
“How long will you be gone?”
“A few hours. Maybe longer, depending on what I find.” He finally turned to look at her, and she saw the careful blankness in his expression—the mask he wore to hide whatever was happening beneath. “You’ll be safe here. Keep the fire going and stay inside.”
She wanted to argue. She wanted to demand that he stop running away from her, stop using excuses to avoid the conversation they needed to have. But the words stuck in her throat, trapped behind a wall of pride and hurt.
I told him maybe he was right, she reminded herself. I gave up. I don’t get to be angry that he’s acting accordingly.
“Fine,” she said quietly. “Be careful.”
Something flickered in his eyes—pain, maybe, or regret. But it was gone before she could name it, replaced by that maddening blankness.
“I always am.”
He gathered his hunting supplies without looking at her again. A knife at his belt. A coil of rope over one shoulder. The heavy fur coat that had become so familiar over the weeks she’d spent watching him come and go.
At the door, he paused.
“Ember.”
She looked up, hope and fear warring in her chest.
“Stay inside,” he said. “No matter what. The storm may have driven predators lower. Don’t open the door for anything.”
Then he was gone, the door closing behind him with a quiet click that somehow sounded deafening.
She threw herself into work with desperate energy.
She cleaned the cabin from top to bottom, scrubbing surfaces that were already spotless, reorganizing supplies that didn’t need reorganizing.
She hauled water from the barrel Rykan kept filled near the door, heated it over the fire, and washed every piece of clothing she could find.
She swept the floor twice, then swept it again.
None of it helped.
The hollow feeling in her chest remained, a constant ache that no amount of physical activity could ease. Every task felt meaningless without Rykan there to share it. Every silence felt louder without his presence to fill it.
This is ridiculous, she told herself sternly, scrubbing at a pot that was already clean. I’ve been alone before. I can handle a few hours without him.
But she’d never been alone like this. Alone with a deep aching emptiness inside her. Alone with the knowledge that she might have destroyed the best thing that had ever happened to her because she was too scared to be sure.
She paused mid-scrub, her arms trembling with exhaustion.
What if he didn’t come back? What if he decided it was easier to just disappear into the mountains than face this impossible situation? The thought of never seeing him again was an almost physical pain.
No. She refused to follow that thought. He would come back. He had promised he would be back. He would never leave her alone.
She returned to her tasks with renewed determination, but her mind kept drifting back to him. To the way he’d looked at her when he’d thought she was asleep. To the possessiveness in his touch when he’d kissed her by the wall.
He wanted her. She was sure of that. The wanting wasn’t the problem. The trust was.
And could she blame him? When her own trust had been so badly shattered by someone who was supposed to be family?
Marina.
The name surfaced like poison, tainting everything. Perhaps that betrayal had affected her more than she realized. If she couldn’t trust her aunt’s love, could she trust anyone’s?
I can trust him, she thought, and felt the truth of it. As that truth settled into her bones, she realized she wasn’t willing to give up on him. On them.
I have to go back and confront my aunt, but then I’ll come back, she promised herself silently. To him. If he’ll have me.
The thought brought a small measure of peace, but it was fragile. Would he want her back if she left him? Would the door to his heart close for good once she left?
She set the pot aside and stood, pressing her hands against her lower back to ease the ache. Through the window, she could see the forest stretching away in endless white, beautiful and terrible and utterly empty.
He’ll come back, she told herself. He always comes back.
But what would happen when he did? More careful distance? More walls? More nights lying side by side with an ocean between them?
Maybe this was how it ended. Not with dramatic confrontation or tearful goodbyes, but with a slow fading. Two people who’d briefly found something real, watching it slip away because neither of them was brave enough to fight for it.
I could fight, a voice whispered. I could tell him how I really feel. I could refuse to accept his fear as an answer.
But what right did she have? She’d admitted she wasn’t certain. She’d given him her doubt like a weapon, and now she couldn’t blame him for using it.
She was reaching for another pot to scrub—anything to keep her hands busy, anything to keep the thoughts at bay—when she heard a sound outside. A sound other than the wind or the settling snow.
She froze, every muscle in her body going rigid. Rykan’s warnings echoed in her mind: The storm may have driven predators lower. Don’t open the door for anything.
But this didn’t sound like an animal. It was too deliberate, like footsteps. Footsteps that didn’t belong to Rykan.
He’d insisted that she always know where to find a weapon, and she automatically reached for the knife she kept near the cooking supplies. The handle felt cold in her palm as she moved silently towards the window, pressing herself against the wall to peer outside without being seen.
For a long moment, she saw nothing. Just snow and trees and the empty expanse of Rykan’s territory. Then a figure emerged from the tree line, and her blood went cold.
A Vultor. Male. Not Rykan.
He was about the same height as Rykan but leaner, crossing the clearing in front of the cabin with the easy confidence of a predator in his own territory. Long dark hair was pulled back from a handsome, arrogant face. As she watched, he came to a halt and lifted his head, inhaling deeply.
Scenting, she realized. He’s scenting for something.
For her?
Her heart hammered against her ribs. She pressed herself flatter against the wall, barely breathing, watching as the stranger’s gaze swept across the cabin, his head tilted in what looked like surprise. Then he started walking towards the door.
Don’t open the door for anything.
Her hand tightened on the knife. She knew it was a laughable weapon against a Vultor. Even with all the training Rykan had given her, she was no match for one of them in a real fight. But she also knew she wasn’t going to die cowering in a corner.
The footsteps stopped outside the door. Silence stretched, thick and oppressive.
Then he spoke, his voice smooth and slightly mocking.
“I know you’re in there, little human. I can smell you.” A pause. “I can smell him on you, too.”
She didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Didn’t make a sound.
“My name is Korrin,” the voice continued. The tone was almost conversational, but there was something else beneath it, something that might have been concern. “Tell me. Are you afraid of me? Or are you afraid of him?”