Chapter 9
Chapter
Nine
It turned out that the fog had teeth.
Ryker felt it the moment they crested the ridge above the cove, the cold biting through his jacket hard enough to make him hunch his shoulders.
His wolf stirred somewhere deep, a restless shift he’d been missing for a long time.
He ignored it the way he'd learned to ignore everything his instincts tried to tell him about this woman.
Willow walked beside him now instead of behind, her shoulder nearly brushing his arm with every step.
The investigation had changed something between them, loosened a knot he hadn't realized was tied so tight.
She'd read the cove's magic the way he'd read the deer tracks, different skills aimed at the same problem, and somewhere in that recognition his walls had cracked.
He didn't like cracks. Cracks let things in.
The wind picked up as they descended toward the tree line, carrying a sound that set his teeth on edge. A rhythmic pulse, almost like breathing but not quite. It vibrated in his chest and turned his blood to ice. Wolves ran hot. He was never cold.
"The wind sounds strange." Willow's voice came tight, her arms wrapped around herself. "There's a pattern to it. Almost like—"
"I hear it." He cut her off because he didn't want to think about what it sounded like. His wolf shifted against his ribs, not trying to surface but definitely awake, responding to something Ryker couldn't name.
The sky had gone dark in the time they'd spent at the cove, clouds rolling in thick and fast from the open water. The fog thickened until he could barely see five feet ahead, forcing him to navigate by memory and the faint pull of pack bonds that connected him to the island's familiar paths.
A gust of wind hit them hard enough to make Willow stumble.
He caught her elbow without thinking and steadied her.
He let go quickly, but it wasn’t enough.
Her scent wrapped around him anyway. Lavender and honey from the bakery, and that extra warmth underneath that made his mouth water.
All his efforts to keep distance between him and everyone else were crumbling his defenses.
"Storm's coming in fast." He scanned the sky, what he could see of it through the fog. "We need to pick up the pace."
They made it another hundred yards before the hail started.
The first piece hit his shoulder, hard enough to sting through his jacket. Then the sky opened, ice pellets the size of marbles hammering down in sheets. Willow cried out, throwing her arms over her head, and Ryker grabbed her hand without conscious thought and pulled her toward the cliff face.
"There's a cave." He had to shout over the roar of hail against rock. "Twenty feet. Come on."
She ran with him, her smaller hand gripping his with surprising strength. Hail battered them both, stinging his neck, his ears, the backs of his hands. The cave mouth appeared as a darker shadow in the cliff, barely visible through the white curtain of ice.
He shoved her inside first, then followed, pressing them both against the back wall as the storm raged outside.
The space was smaller than he remembered.
The low ceiling meant he had to duck, and the walls were close enough that his shoulders nearly touched both sides.
The floor was damp sand and scattered shells, the air thick with salt and cold and her.
Willow huddled against the stone, her teeth chattering, her clothes soaked through from the sprint. Water dripped from her hat and ran in rivulets down her cheeks, and when she looked up at him, her lips were already going pale.
"Well." Her voice shook. "This is cozy."
The word hit him hard. Cozy. Trapped in a space barely big enough for two people, her body inches from his, the hail making a wall of white noise that sealed them in together.
His wolf pressed harder against his control, responding to proximity or danger or that strange pulse still thrumming through the wind. Maybe all three.
"We need to get warm." He kept his voice flat, practical. "Wet clothes are going to be a problem."
"I can try to—" She closed her eyes, her magic reaching out. He could almost feel it, a shift in the air pressure. Then her face twisted and she pulled back, gasping. "Something's wrong. The air won't respond. That sound is interfering with my element."
The rhythmic pulse was still there, humming through the stone walls of the cave, vibrating in his chest. Whatever it was, it had followed them. Or maybe it had always been here, and they'd just gotten close enough to feel its full effect.
Her magic surged beneath her skin, pressing outward. It was a warning she couldn’t ignore. Whatever was making that sound wasn’t the storm. The storm didn’t have a heartbeat.
"Body heat, then." The words came out rougher than he intended. "Unless you'd rather freeze."
She stared at him for a long moment, something flickering in her brown eyes that he didn't want to examine. Then she nodded, short and sharp, and moved toward him.
The first press of her body against his sent a jolt through him that had nothing to do with cold.
She was shivering, her wet clothes seeping through his jacket, but underneath the chill was warmth.
Soft curves fitting against him in ways his body recognized even as his mind screamed warnings.
He wrapped his arms around her and told himself it was survival.
"Your heart's racing." Her voice came muffled against him.
"So is yours."
She made a sound that might have been a laugh if her teeth weren't chattering so hard.
He pulled her closer, tucking her head under his chin, and tried not to notice how perfectly she fit there.
The poker chip in his pocket pressed against his thigh, and his fingers found it without thinking.
Ash. Cara. Everything he'd lost and everything he'd sworn never to risk again.
He wasn't doing this again. He wasn't letting anyone close enough to destroy him.
But his arms tightened around Willow anyway, and when she tilted her face up, her breath warm against his throat, he didn't pull back.
The sound in the wind intensified, thrumming through his blood, making everything sharper. Her scent filled his lungs with every breath. The warmth of her body bled through his clothes. His wolf was fully awake now, pressing against his control in a way it hadn't done since before Cara.
"You're still shivering." His voice came out rough, barely human.
"Not from cold." She looked up at him, and what he saw in her eyes made his grip on himself slip. Hunger. Fear. The same impossible want that was burning through his own veins.
His hand moved without his permission, sliding from her back to her hip.
The curve of her fit his palm like she'd been made for it.
Her breath caught, a small sound that went straight to his cock.
He was already hard, had been since she'd leaned against him, and she felt it.
Her hips shifted, just slightly, pressing closer instead of pulling away.
"This is a bad idea." The words scraped out of him.
"Terrible idea."
Neither of them moved apart. The sound pulsed through the cave, through his blood, drowning out every warning his brain tried to raise.
She smelled like arousal now, thick and sweet, cutting through the lavender and honey.
His wolf snarled at the edges of his awareness, wanting things Ryker had spent three years refusing to want.
Her head tipped back. Her lips parted. The space between their mouths shrank to nothing, and for one endless moment, he let himself imagine taking what she was offering. Tasting her. Losing himself in the heat of her.
Then the images crashed through him. Cara. Iris. And now here was Iris's daughter pressed against him, and his body was responding like years of pain meant nothing.
He pulled back so hard he hit the cave wall.
"This doesn't happen." His voice came out cold, flat, nothing like the hunger still clawing at his insides. "You're a liability. A distraction I can't afford. Whatever you think is happening here, forget it."
Willow's face went blank. Then hurt flickered through her eyes, followed by something harder. The defensive shell slamming back into place.
"Don't worry." Her voice matched his for coldness now. "Message received. I'm not naive enough to think you'd risk contaminating yourself with Iris's daughter."
The words clawed through him, and some part of him wanted to take it back, to explain that it wasn't about her. His damage, his fear, his inability to trust. But the explanation stuck in his throat, blocked by years of building walls and the terror of what might happen if he let them down.
She pulled away from him, pressing herself against the opposite wall of the cave. What little warmth they'd built between them vanished. The silence that fell was worse than the hail still hammering outside, heavy with everything he'd said and everything he couldn't take back.
Time stretched. An hour. Maybe two. The hail faded to rain, then to drizzle, then to nothing.
The light outside dimmed from grey to charcoal as evening settled over the island.
The sound in the wind faded too, that strange pulse growing weaker as darkness approached, until it was barely a whisper at the edge of his awareness.
Ryker's wolf went quiet, whatever had stirred it retreating back into the locked-down silence of the past three years. He should have felt relieved. Instead, he felt hollow.
"Storm's passed." He pushed off the wall. "We should move."
Willow didn't respond. When he looked at her, his chest tightened. Her lips had gone from pale to blue. Her skin was grey in the failing light, and her movements when she tried to stand were sluggish, uncoordinated. She swayed, caught herself on the cave wall, swayed again.
Cal's voice echoed in his head. You're an asshole. He'd been so sure Cal was wrong, so certain he had everything under control.
"Willow."