Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Edwina
The hall was colder than I remembered. Maybe it wasn’t the hall at all, maybe it was me, overheated and trembling beneath my clothes, every nerve frayed and raw, my skin still trying to remember how to contain me after unraveling beneath his touch.
I moved quickly, barely aware of the creak beneath my boots or the hush of wind curling under the windowpanes.
The air clung to me, thin and biting, yet it couldn’t compare to the weight of what I’d left behind, his mouth, his voice, his fingers, the restrained power in his body as it surrounded mine without ever crossing the line, and still, every inch of me felt claimed.
My lips still tingled. Not from the cold. From him.
I descended the stairs slower than I should have, willing the quiet to stretch a little longer, but the moment I turned the corner toward the breakfast lounge, reality met me head-on. Aster looked up first, her brows drawn in suspicion.
“Where the hell have you been?”
I blinked, scrambling to gather my thoughts into something that could pass for a lie. “I just, needed some air.”
She frowned, her spoon tapping against the rim of her mug. “That took more than twenty minutes, Edwina. You were just going upstairs to grab your gloves or something. You okay?”
I nodded too fast, then corrected myself with a slower one. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
Her gaze swept over me, landing on my sweater, slightly rumpled, clinging to places it hadn’t before. I saw the exact moment curiosity shifted into something sharper, but she didn’t press. Not yet.
Instead, she gestured toward the chair beside her. “Sit. You’re gonna need something hot. You look…flushed.”
I sat carefully, each movement measured, as if the wrong shift might shake loose the echo of his voice still carved into me, roughened by control, deep with something that claimed and burned straight through my spine.
He said I was his. That I belonged to him.
And the worst part? Some treacherous part of me wanted that to be true.
Before Aster could say more, a shadow fell over our table.
“You two ready to ski?” Noah asked, already dressed for the slopes, goggles resting on his head, that same cocky grin spreading across his face. Jason stood beside him, quieter, hands buried in his jacket pockets, gaze skimming over us with calm interest.
“I’m not sure I’ll be much good,” I said, hoping to deflect.
“You’ll be fine,” Noah replied, confidence rolling off him as he adjusted his goggles. “We’ll stick to the easy runs first. Come on, it’ll be fun.”
Jason gave a small nod, his tone even. “It’s not too bad once you get the hang of it.”
Aster nudged me beneath the table. “Let’s go. It’s not every day we get this high up a mountain with nothing due and no pressure.”
I hesitated, but then Gwen stood, tugging on her gloves, Zayn close behind her, his grin effortless, his presence easy. The room stirred with movement, students gathering their things, laughter spilling into the hall, boots crunching against the frost-coated floor.
I couldn’t exactly refuse without drawing attention. But how could I go? How could I follow them after what had happened in that room, after his fingers, his breath, his words had branded me into stillness? After I’d promised that I wouldn’t?
The memory of his voice still coiled inside me, and yet, I was already walking toward the door. My fingers tightened around my gloves, my boots striking the floor in a rhythm I couldn’t control. What was I supposed to say?
That the man I used to hate had kissed me with a hunger that stripped me bare, that he’d devoured me with possession and fury until I forgot how to breathe?
His breath still haunted the space beneath my throat, his words still burned behind my ribs, and the ache between my thighs pulsed with every step I took.
Because I had come on his fingers. My professor’s fingers.
The truth of it clung to me more stubbornly than the fabric of my sweater.
No one could see it, but it lived under my skin, a secret thrumming with every inhale.
Each step toward the slopes felt false, a quiet betrayal of what had happened in that room and how it had rewritten me.
Yet, I kept moving, because I knew he wouldn’t forget. And neither would I.
Even though I hadn’t seen him since slipping out of that room, I could still feel him somewhere behind me, his presence heavy in the air, his unseen gaze dragging against the back of my neck.
That silent claim he’d left on me still burned, unyielding, undeniable.
It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t even guilt. It was something far more dangerous.
Desire. And that was the hardest part to walk away from.
***
Snow crushed beneath our boots as we followed the narrow trail toward the equipment rental, the cold sharp against my cheeks but powerless against the heat rolling under my skin.
My gloves felt thin, useless against the memory imprinted on my palms. My fingers still remembered where his hands had been, how they had held me, moved me, undone me.
I curled them into fists now, as if I could press the sensation out.
Aster was talking with Jason about slopes and snow quality, her voice lively, her laughter bright against the white quiet of the mountain.
Gwen and Zayn’s banter drifted somewhere ahead, easy and untroubled.
But their words blurred together, fading into a distant hum.
I walked beside them, nodded when I needed to, smiled when expected, but my mind wasn’t with them.
Part of me was still upstairs in that lodge room, caught between the door and his restraint, drowning in the way his eyes had consumed me until I’d forgotten where I ended and he began.
Noah stayed close as we approached the ski racks.
His shoulder brushed mine once, twice, his body language casual enough to disguise intent.
He offered to help with my boots, complimented the color of my sweater, said it reminded him of the pines on the slopes.
He joked about helmets, about me falling into him, his grin careless but deliberate.
And still, I smiled back. A reflex. A performance. Because pretending was easier than admitting how deeply everything had shifted.
At the foot of the slope, he leaned closer, voice soft but laced with a kind of easy confidence. “We’ll take it slow,” he said. “You’ll be clinging to me in no time.”
I gave a laugh, practiced and harmless. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
He winked, amused. I turned away. But my gaze moved on its own, past the chatter, past the crowd at the base lodge, straight to the single figure standing motionless against the snow.
Hayden.
He stood near the tree line, half-buried in shadow, his body turned just enough to suggest he might leave, but his eyes told a different story. They were locked on me, unyielding, predatory, burning through the cold until I swore the air itself shivered between us.
He wore a dark coat, gloves hanging from one hand, snow melting in his hair as it caught the wind.
There was no pretense left, no trace of the careful restraint he used in lecture halls.
What burned in his eyes wasn’t just anger but possession, restrained and slow, a force that seemed to exist only for me.
Our eyes met, and the world stilled. The cold receded. The noise dimmed. My pulse thundered in my ears, drowning everything but him.
I couldn’t move. Because if I did, I’d run to him. And I couldn’t, not with Noah standing beside me, not with Aster waving from the lift, not with the echo of his mouth still bruised against mine and his voice whispering you belong to me, that vow carved straight into my bones.
I drew a breath, slow and shaking, and tore my gaze away.
But even when I looked elsewhere, I could still feel him, his stare burning against my back, a touch that never quite broke skin but branded all the same.
Even as the lift carried us higher, even as the sky widened and the trees thickened, I knew he was still watching. Still waiting.
The snow had started gently, dusting the slope in silver, soft and harmless beneath the pale morning light.
But the sky was changing. The sun dulled, swallowed by a growing mass of gray that gathered low and thick, clouds heavy enough to crush the horizon.
The wind sharpened, slicing through laughter, biting through layers, and yet no one noticed the shift.
Not Gwen, flushed with joy as she tightened her gloves.
Not Zayn, still bickering with Jason about trail markers.
Not Noah, whose grin lingered too long in my direction, as if I were some challenge he was destined to conquer.
But I felt it, the quiet before something cruel. The air pressed tighter around my ribs, each breath thinner, sharper.
I followed the others, tried to match their pace, smiled when Aster called that I was doing well, but my mind was elsewhere. Still trapped in that room, still tasting his breath, still hearing his voice crawl across my skin.
“Let’s head to the ridgeline!” someone shouted from ahead—Noah, maybe—but the words were torn away, shredded by the wind before they reached me. The air changed again, heavier now, humming with something that wasn’t just cold.
The sky darkened. The world dimmed.
Then the mountain roared.
The gust came out of nowhere, a monstrous thing born of ice and fury, ripping down the slope with a scream that split the air open.
The wind struck hard, violent enough to tear sound from my throat.
Snow erupted upward, a wall of white swallowing everything, trees, trails, voices, until there was no horizon, no up or down, only chaos.
The storm devoured the world whole.
I couldn’t see the others. Couldn’t hear them.
The laughter was gone, replaced by a hollow, feral wail of wind clawing at my clothes, dragging me sideways through blinding white.
The ground vanished beneath me, disoriented and shifting, and panic shot through my chest with a speed that stole the air from my lungs.
The storm didn’t just surround me, it consumed me. The mountain was gone. The world had turned to nothing.
The air struck with a force that felt alive, heavy and merciless, wrapping around me until breathing became a battle.
It clawed at my face, flung needles of ice against my skin, and forced the breath from my lungs until each inhale came shallow and sharp.
Snow lashed upward in violent bursts, filling my mouth, my collar, my sleeves.
My skis jerked beneath me, sliding over terrain that no longer felt solid.
I plunged my poles into the ground for balance, but the snow gave way instantly, soft and treacherous, swallowing them whole.
“Aster!” I shouted, but the storm tore the sound from my throat, devoured it before it even reached the air.
“Gwen!”
Nothing. Not even an echo.
The wind screamed louder than my voice ever could.
My heart hammered in my chest, wild and frantic, not from exertion but from the creeping, feral edge of fear that began to coil beneath my ribs.
I spun, searching for movement, color, any sign of life, but there was nothing left.
No outlines. No tracks. Just a world of white devouring itself.
The snow wasn’t gentle anymore. It slashed across my skin, freezing every patch of exposed flesh, burning as it numbed.
It stung my eyes until they watered, until tears froze at the corners and blurred what little I could still see.
I reached out, blindly, my gloved fingers meeting nothing but air so cold it felt like stone.
Panic rose, quick and choking, filling the space my breath couldn’t.
I fumbled for my phone, yanked it out with trembling hands, and lifted it toward the sky. The screen blinked awake, blue light flickering weakly against the storm. No service. No bars. No one. The tiny symbol at the corner might as well have been a death sentence.
A sound tore from me, half sob, half growl, and I forced it down, bit it back. Don’t panic. Don’t shout. Don’t waste energy. The words ran through my mind like static.
I wrapped my arms tight around myself, pressing gloved hands to my ribs as if I could hold the fear inside.
My legs were shaking. My boots sank deeper with every step I took, the snow dragging at me, heavy and hungry.
The skis caught at my ankles, dead weight now, and I tore them off, throwing them aside with a frustrated cry that vanished into the blizzard.
The wind howled back. The light was dying.
The sky above me dimmed to a bruised gray, darker with every heartbeat.
I turned in slow, dizzy circles, my breath fogging in quick bursts, trying to find a direction, a shape, a goddamn miracle.
But every way looked the same. Every step only led me deeper into the blur.
My heart was pounding too hard, echoing in the hollowness of my chest, every beat louder than the last. My body trembled with exhaustion and cold, my mind fraying around the edges of panic.
And then the truth landed, cutting through me with a force that left no room for denial. There was no one coming.
No voices.
No light.
No sound but the scream of the wind.
The mountain had swallowed me whole.
I was alone—truly alone—caught in a storm that didn’t care if I lived or froze where I stood. The white around me wasn’t snow anymore. It was a shroud.
And somewhere beneath the roar, beneath the terror, one thought surfaced—
Hayden.