Chapter 12
Chapter
Twelve
WREN
The phone buzzed again.
And again.
The muted thrum of it against the thick knit blanket I’d tossed over the kitchen table sounded like thunder against my skull.
I didn’t have the energy to reach for it, didn’t have the clarity to care.
I’d turned the alerts off, or thought I had.
But somehow, the breaking news pings still came through.
Probably about me.
Probably about the photo.
About Rylan.
About the team.
Maybe about Roan. Maybe Rhett. Maybe Jay.
Each time the device shivered, it pulled at a thread I didn’t have the strength to follow. The fog in my skull was dense now, burning at the edges. I’d given up on food hours ago—protein bars and electrolyte drinks lay scattered across the kitchen counter, some half-eaten, others untouched.
I’d torn off my hoodie somewhere between the bathroom and the firewood stack. Now I was curled into a corner of the old leather couch in just a tank and sweats, wrapped in a quilt that didn’t stop the cold or the shivering.
Or the scent.
My scent.
Everything smelled like me. Too sharp. Too strong. Too much.
And outside…
God, the snow.
The first flakes had started falling hours ago—soft and harmless at first. Now it was relentless. It hissed as it hit the windows, rasped like whispers across the roof and deck. Not loud, not really, but persistent. Scraping against my brain like claws.
It sounded wrong. Like it wasn’t falling—it was coming for me.
The world was so quiet out here, it amplified everything.
Too much.
It was all too much.
I’d taken the last suppressant forty-eight hours ago. Seventy-two was supposed to be the mark. The real turn. But my body had its own schedule. It always had. And now it was tightening the screws, locking me deeper inside a skin that didn’t fit. The heat was no longer a whisper beneath my skin.
It was wildfire.
I couldn’t sit still. Couldn’t lie down. Couldn’t focus. Couldn’t breathe.
I’d tried to work. Failed. Tried to read. Failed harder.
The shower hadn’t worked.
The water had gone from blistering hot to ice-cold, and I’d stayed there through both.
I’d braced my hands on the tile, the heels of my palms digging in like that would somehow ground me. I’d bitten my lip until I tasted blood. Let the steam curl around me and tried to pretend it was enough.
That this would be enough.
But it wasn’t.
It never was.
Now, the couch creaked beneath me as I shifted again, one leg tucked up, the other half off the edge. I pressed the heel of my hand between my thighs, biting back a sound that felt more like frustration than need.
I tried again.
The palm of my hand, then fingers. I slipped a hand past the waistband of my sweats. The thin cotton of my underwear was already damp, and not from the snowmelt I’d tracked inside earlier.
It should’ve worked. It used to work.
Back before.
Back when I didn’t have three very real, very untouchable reasons imprinted on the inside of my skull.
Roan, who watched the world like it was a threat and carried it like a burden.
Rhett, who deflected and charmed but had a storm living just under his skin.
Jay, who never touched unless invited, but looked like he could… and would… if you let him.
I ground the heel of my hand harder, chased the flicker of pleasure and came up short.
Every breath I took was ragged. My pulse thudded behind my eyes. I shifted again, pulled the blanket tighter, tried to block out the cold and the noise and the fire eating its way through my blood.
There were toys.
I’d packed them.
Had a whole bag with neatly folded towels and supplies and items I’d researched as I prepared everything for this break. Basic heat wasn’t fun without a partner, but survivable. Lube, heat aids, even scent-masking candles could all help.
But they were in the other room. In a drawer.
And that was too far.
Too much.
I didn’t want to go get them. Not when reality sank into my bones that I’d planned for everything—everything—except one key issue. Battery-operated toys, no matter how nice or cleverly designed, weren’t them.
Nothing I brought would work. Nothing I touched would scratch the itch. Not when every cell in my body had apparently decided now was the moment it wanted… them.
I curled tighter into the blanket, furious at myself.
This wasn’t supposed to happen like this. I was in control. I had been in control. I had planned for this.
I had done everything right.
Still, this aching, hollow, trembling need had bloomed like fire in my lungs and in my bones. I couldn’t focus. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t even get myself off.
I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to ground myself, but it barely worked.
My phone buzzed again from the other room.
Then again.
I didn’t move.
Didn’t look.
Didn’t want to know.
Because if one more headline had my name in it—if one more notification lit up with their faces or some new speculation—I was going to lose the thread entirely.
Another breeze scraped against the cabin’s window, a low moan through the wood.
Outside, the snow was falling faster.
Inside, I was coming apart by degrees.
And no one even knew.
Or… maybe they did.
Maybe that’s what scared me most.
Sleep came in shards. Broken things. Sharp things. Beautiful, cruel things.
Every time I drifted off, I dreamed of them.
Roan’s hands — steady, sure, bracketed on either side of me, holding me still while he looked down like I was something dangerous he couldn’t quite put away.
Rhett’s laugh, low and hot against my skin, all mischief turned molten.
Jay’s voice, that cool precision melting into something that sounded like a command: look at me, Wren.
I’d jerk awake gasping, slick with sweat and want, sheets twisted around my legs. The change in location didn’t help, not that I remembered moving. The cabin was too hot and too cold at once. I’d kick the blankets off only to drag them back up seconds later, the air biting at my skin.
Every dream ended the same way — a climax that didn’t come, a voice that sounded real, and the crushing awareness of being alone.
Except now… I wasn’t sure I was.
Somewhere between one breath and the next, the walls began to hum. The faint rattle of the windowpanes sounded too much like footsteps on the porch. The faint thud of snow slipping off the roof — too much like someone brushing against the door.
I sat up fast, heart hammering. The low light from the embers in the fireplace painted everything in amber and shadow. My pulse was a drumbeat against my ribs.
There was nothing out there.
There couldn’t be.
Still, I got up.
My knees almost gave out the moment I stood.
Every inch of my body ached with need, a raw, throbby, living thing that pulsed in time with my heartbeat.
I shoved the blanket aside, staggered toward the main door.
My fingers fumbled on the lock before I twisted it shut.
One. Two. Three times. The solid click of the deadbolt gave me a flash of relief that vanished as soon as I exhaled.
Then I heard it.
A voice. Soft. Rough-edged. Familiar. “Wren…”
My name. Whispered through the walls.
My stomach twisted.
“No,” I muttered. “You’re not here. You’re not—”
“Wren.” Another voice this time. Lower. Rougher.
It was Rhett’s cadence, Rhett’s tone, the teasing lilt sanded down by something darker.
My breath hitched, eyes darting toward the frosted windows. The glass was fogging. Slowly. Like breath pressed against the outside pane.
I stumbled back. “No. No, you’re not—” My words cut off as another voice joined the others. Calm. Steady. Threaded with command.
“Open the door.” Roan.
My throat went dry.
They weren’t here. They couldn’t be here. There was no reason for them to be here.
Except… the scent in the air shifted again, thickened, coiling with my pulse. My body believed them, even if my mind didn’t. The room tilted.
I backed away, bumped into the corner of the sofa, then half-ran for the hallway. I slammed my bedroom door, twisted that lock too, pressed my forehead against the wood.
The sound outside the cabin intensified — a scuff, a low thump, something dragging through snow.
The fog on the windows was thicker now. I could see it from the crack under the door — dim light flickering against it. My imagination painted silhouettes in the haze. Shapes moving. Waiting.
A whimper escaped before I could stop it. Not fear. Something worse. Something needier.
“Go away,” I whispered, but it didn’t sound convincing. Not even to me. “Please…”
The silence that followed stretched too long. My pulse thundered, blood singing in my ears. Then—
A knock. Low. Heavy. Deliberate.
It rattled the whole cabin.
I staggered back until the backs of my knees hit the bed. My scent spiked and I felt it all thick, lush, and impossible to hide. The world narrowed to the hammering of my pulse, the phantom echo of their names still in the air.
I curled onto the bed, dragging the blanket over my head like it could block out the sound.
But the last thing I heard before I drifted under again, half-delirious and trembling, was a voice I couldn’t mistake for a dream.
“Wren, open the door.”
The wind had picked up.
At least, I thought it had. The sound outside deepened, a low rush that could’ve been a storm building… or footsteps crunching through fresh snow. The kind that didn’t echo so much as pressed against the air.
I didn’t look.
Couldn’t.
If I looked, I’d see shapes and if I saw shapes, I might believe them.
Dragging the blanket tighter around my shoulders, I curled tighter on the bed, forehead pressed to my knees. My whole body pulsed in waves—hot, cold, electric. Every nerve ending felt wrong, exposed, like the world was rubbing raw salt into me just by existing.
“Stop it,” I whispered, though I wasn’t sure who I was begging. “Stop it, stop it, stop it—”
Outside, the wind howled, catching on the edge of the roof. Something thudded softly against the siding. A tree branch? A boot?
My chest seized.
This wasn’t how heat was supposed to feel. Not this deep. Not this lonely.
The suppressants should’ve eased me out gently—years of careful dosing, of keeping everything quiet, contained, professional. I’d prepared for side effects. I’d planned for restlessness. A few sleepless nights, sure. Some craving, maybe.
Not this.
Not this complete unraveling of self.
Every breath tasted like lightning and salt and something half-feral. My body didn’t know whether to fight or beg. I could smell my own scent—thick and sweet, clinging to the walls, bleeding into the air. I hated it.
It filled the cabin like proof.
Proof of everything I’d buried.
Proof that I wasn’t built to be untouchable after all.
Outside, the snow whispered again—soft, slow. Too steady. Too heavy.
I jerked my head up, staring at the window.
The glass was completely fogged now, every inch blurred to white. But movement shifted behind it—a darker smudge crossing the pane. Another followed. Then another. My pulse spiked so fast I tasted metal.
It was a hallucination. It had to be.
I’d heard of this—extreme heats could trigger sensory distortions. You could imagine scents, sounds, touches. Your brain filled in what your body screamed for.
That was all it was.
Except…
When I pressed my palm to the wall, it thudded.
A weight on the other side.
A shadow of motion again, nearer the front door this time.
I wanted to sob. I wanted to claw out of my skin. I wanted to open the door and run.
But my body wouldn’t obey.
Instead, I whispered, “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.”
My throat broke around it. “Why is it—hurting—why is it—”
My voice died under the sound of another thud, closer, like a shoulder or a hand against the porch railing.
Then silence.
The kind that pressed against your eardrums, thick and absolute.
My heart beat too fast, my breaths too short. Every inch of me trembled, heat pulsing through my veins like poison. I couldn’t tell anymore if the world was really shaking—or if it was just me.
The air shifted again. A scent—faint but distinct—curled beneath the door.
Clean ice. Cedar. Smoke.
For one impossible moment, my instincts surged with recognition. My body knew that scent, wanted to drown in it, even as my mind screamed that it couldn’t be real.
My lips parted. My voice came out cracked. “Roan?”
No answer.
Just the wind.
Just the snow.
Then there was me, half-delirious, half-wild, pressing my hand to the locked door as if I could stop my own heart from breaking through it.
For a while, there was nothing. Just the wind. Just the sound of my heartbeat, too loud in the stillness.
Then…
“Wren.”
Soft. Familiar. Rhett.
That easy charm stripped bare, all smoke and hunger. His voice slid through the cracks in the door, brushing my skin like a whisper of heat.
“Wren, hey—look at me…”
My throat closed. I could hear him. I could feel him. I could almost smell him—warm amber and spice, the scent that always clung to his gear, to the crease of his grin.
But it was too vivid. Too real. A hallucination. It had to be.
I pressed my palms to my temples and tried to breathe through it.
Then another voice threaded in, cooler, deliberate.
Measured down to the breath.
“Wren, you need to open your eyes.”
Jay.
The precision in his tone carved through the haze like a knife. I could almost see him in my mind—arms crossed, expression unreadable, those dark eyes cutting through every layer of my defenses.
And with it came the scent—crisp ozone and ink and something sharper, something male and grounding. My body reacted before my brain could deny it. My pulse jumped.
“No,” I whispered, shaking my head. “You’re not here. You’re not here.”
But the air was thickening again.
The heat pulsed harder.
Under it all—steady, deep, calm in a way that terrified me—came him.
Roan.
Not in sound at first. Not even in sight.
In scent.
Clean ice and cedar, steady as breath, the smell of control itself. It wrapped through the others, anchoring everything that threatened to splinter apart.
“Wren.”
His voice was low this time. Close enough that it vibrated in my chest, in my bones.
I blinked, eyes blurring, and for one impossible second, I saw them—three shadows outlined through the fogged glass, tall and solid, shapes that could have been born from my worst or best dream.
My whole body locked. They couldn’t be real. They couldn’t.
But I could scent them.
All three. Layered together. Threaded through the snow. Crackling in my lungs.
Rhett’s heat. Jay’s ice. Roan’s gravity.
My fingers trembled on the doorknob. I wanted to reach for it. I wanted to tear it open and know.
But my voice came out wrecked and small.
“Stop. Please. I can’t—”
Then—
A single knock.
Hard. Sharp. Demanding.
The sound thundered through the cabin walls and straight into me.
The air stilled.
Through it, clear as the next heartbeat, came Roan’s voice, real or imagined, I couldn’t tell anymore.
“Open the door, Wren.”