Chapter 14
Fourteen
SEBASTIAN
The alpha wolf’s teeth gleam yellow against black gums, close enough that its rancid breath fogs the air between us. My survival training never covered this—standing as the only barrier between four apex predators and a woman with a broken ankle who can’t stop talking, even as death circles us.
“If we die,” Bailey whispers, her voice vibrating against my shoulder blade, “I want you to know your Christmas tree decorating skills are subpar at best.”
A laugh almost escapes me, inappropriate and wild. In this moment of absolute terror, I find her jokes strangely soothing.
My training pops up in my head. Make yourself big, maintain eye contact, no sudden movements—but the wilderness manuals never addressed protecting someone else, someone whose only defense is sarcasm and a broken branch. Someone who can’t run.
Bailey’s fingers dig into my coat, ten points of desperate pressure against my back. A quiet swallow sounds behind me. Bailey—speechless. The universe must be ending.
The wolf’s yellow eyes lock onto mine. Intelligence gleams there, along with something else. Hunger, curiosity, or maybe both. Its fur is thick, gray mixed with white, blending with our snowy surroundings. A perfect predator in its perfect environment. And we are very much out of our element.
The cabin stands a hundred yards behind the wolves. So close, yet impossible to reach. The pack has positioned itself, cutting off our escape route. The light from our fire glows through the windows, taunting us with its unreachable warmth.
My mind catalogs every survival technique, every documentary insight, every relevant data point while looking for escape routes. Wolves: pack animals, coordinated hunters, can outrun humans in snow. Perfect. Just perfect.
“Bailey,” I whisper, keeping my voice level despite the adrenaline flooding my system, “when I move, you move with me. Like a dance.”
Her fingers twist deeper into my coat.
“Worst. Dance. Ever.” The familiar snark steadies me like a compass finding north.
We take our first step forward in unison. Then another. The alpha mirrors our movement, maintaining exact distance. The snow betrays each step with a sound that seems deafening in the tension-charged air.
A branch snaps to our left. Another crack from the right. My stomach plummets. Fuck. They’ve surrounded us.
“Four wolves,” she breathes against my neck, her exhale warm against my skin. “Like four of your ex-girlfriends coming after you.”
“Is now really the time?”
The wolves are spreading out in a classic pack hunting formation. The kind that ends with their prey surrounded and panicked.
“I joke when I’m terrified. Sue me.” Her fingers grip my coat like it’s the only solid thing in her universe.
Each lupine step pushes us where they want—block us from safety, from shelter, from survival. My hand tightens around the axe handle, its weight pathetically inadequate against four evolved killers.
Bailey trembles against me. Or perhaps those are my own tremors, our bodies pressed so tightly together that the boundaries blur.
“Sebastian?” Her voice sounds small, stripped of its usual confident rambling.
“Hmm?” My eyes track the alpha, cataloging micro-movements that might telegraph the attack.
“Remember when I said your tree decorating was subpar? I lied. It was actually really sweet. Just wanted you to know.”
My fingers readjust on the axe handle, feeling every groove in the wood grain.
“Don’t get sentimental on me now,” I say, forcing lightness into my tone. “We’re going to be fine. I didn’t carry you through a snowstorm just to let some overgrown dogs ruin Christmas.”
“Not being sentimental,” she mutters. “Just stating facts. Your pine cone angel was kind of cute.”
“Bailey.”
“And the way you arranged those twigs into a star—”
“We’re going to be okay,” I tighten my grip. “Save the compliments for when you’re criticizing my survival skills later.”
“Promise?” Her voice breaks on the single word.
“Promise. Now stop being nice to me. It’s unsettling.”
The wolves edge closer. Options narrow. A decision crystallizes.
“You need to get to the cabin.” My voice drops lower. “I’ll create a distraction.”
“Right, because leaving you to fight wolves alone is totally happening.” A branch snaps behind me—not from wolves this time. “I have a weapon, too. See? We’re practically the A-Team.”
“Bailey, for once in your life, please just—”
“If you say listen, I will hit you with this branch instead of the wolves.” Her voice quavers but carries steel underneath. “I’m not leaving you here alone.”
“The logical move—”
“Is to stick together.” Her body presses against my back, the branch raised beside me. “Besides, what kind of story would this make if I abandoned you? ‘Oh hey, Mom, Merry Christmas. I left a guy to die because he told me to.’ Yeah, no.”
The alpha’s ears swivel forward at our voices. My fingers tighten around the axe handle.
“This isn’t a story, Bailey. This is—”
“Life or death, yeah, got it. Still not leaving.” The branch trembles, but her voice holds. “So what’s the actual plan, Mr. Survival Expert? Because these guys look hungry, and I don’t want to be Christmas dinner.”
“Bailey—”
“Stop saying my name like that. Like you’re going to do something stupidly heroic.”
“Bailey, on my signal—”
“No.”
“Three.”
“Sebastian—”
“Two.”
The alpha springs forward without warning. No growl, no tensed muscles—just sudden, lethal movement. My axe swings up, but the wolf’s weight slams into my chest. My back hits the snow. Teeth snap inches from my throat.
“Sebastian!” Bailey’s scream pierces the air, higher than I’ve ever heard her voice.
My arms strain against four hundred pounds of muscle and fur. The wolf’s breath steams my face, reeking of raw meat. The axe handle is the only barrier between my throat and its jaws.
“Let go of him!” Bailey’s scream tears through the clearing.
From the corner of my eye, I see her lunge forward, branch raised like a baseball bat. She swings with everything she has, connecting with the wolf’s hindquarters. The branch splinters on impact. The wolf doesn’t even flinch.
“Goddammit!” She’s screaming now, desperate, primal. “Get off him!”
My arm screams as canine teeth break skin. The pressure increases, the axe handle bending under the strain.
Bailey’s hands fumble with her jacket. “I said, get off him!”
Something sails through the air—a glint of glass and water catching sunlight.
Time slows. The globe arcs, tumbling end over end, water and glitter swirling inside like a tiny hurricane. I watch it fly, unable to process what I’m seeing.
The globe strikes the wolf’s temple with a sickening crack. Glass shatters. Water sprays across fur in a glittery explosion. Bailey—impossible, unpredictable Bailey—just weaponized her most treasured possession.
“That was my lucky snow globe, you bastards!”
The wolf yelps, stumbling sideways off my chest. Blood mats the fur above its eye where Bailey’s snow globe shattered against its skull. Glitter sticks to the wound, a surreal combination of violence and kitsch.
I roll to my feet, axe already swinging. “Back!”
The wolves hesitate. The alpha shakes its head, disoriented, glass fragments glittering in its fur. My axe blade catches sunlight as I advance, channeling fury into each step.
“I said back!”
The pack retreats. One step. Two. The alpha’s ears flick backward, predatory focus dissolving into uncertainty.
Then, responding to some silent signal, they withdraw. Their retreat is fluid, almost elegant. Just...gone.
The punctures in my arm register as minor pinpricks, irrelevant compared to the realization that we survived.
Bailey’s hands materialize everywhere, checking me with frantic movements. Words cascade from her in a relieved torrent. “—could have died, you stupid, brave, idiotic—”
Her face pales beneath smudges of dirt and snowmelt, lips quivering with the aftermath of fear. Her eyes, wild and glistening, scan every inch of me. “Where are you hurt? I saw blood. Don’t you dare lie to me.”
“You threw Vegas?” The snow globe she guards more than her life, that she wouldn’t relinquish even unconscious, just became improvised ammunition.
“Well, I wasn’t going to throw you!” Her voice cracks, raw emotion stripping away her usual sarcasm.
“You threw your snow globe.” The significance of her sacrifice knocks the air from my lungs. Her precious Vegas treasure, abandoned without hesitation. For me.
She freezes mid-sentence, hands stilling against my chest, over the thundering betrayal of my heart. “Of course I did! You were about to die and—” Her breath catches, unable to finish the thought.
“You threw Vegas to save me.” My voice betrays me, dropping to a whisper rough with something I can’t name.
Her palm presses harder against my chest, seeking reassurance in each beat.
Snow crystals cling to her eyelashes, melting with each rapid blink.
Her pupils have consumed the green of her irises, leaving only thin emerald rings that pull at something primal inside me.
Wind tangles her hair into a chaotic halo, her cheeks flushed pink from cold and survival and something else.
My focus narrows to the ridge of her top lip, slightly chapped from cold and worry. The rapid pulse at her throat jumps beneath delicate skin. The constellation of freckles across her nose. So fucking beautiful it hurts to look at her.
“Is that what you’re focusing on right now?” Her voice carries that edge—challenging, breathless, alive—but underneath lurks vulnerability I’ve never heard before.
A few days ago, I discovered betrayal in a hotel room. A few days ago, my perfectly planned future shattered. I should be numb. Guarded. Incapable of wanting anyone.
Yet here, surrounded by wolf tracks and broken glass, my heart hammers against my ribs with an intensity I’ve never experienced. Not with Rebecca. Not with anyone.
Her fingers curl into my coat, no longer checking for injuries—holding on, pulling slightly, drawing us closer. The space between us charges with something raw and unplanned. Something real.
I want Bailey Monroe.
I want her in a way I’ve never wanted anything. Not success, not perfection, not approval. This isn’t a well-reasoned desire. It’s a bone-deep need, raw and terrifying.
I want her rambling thoughts that spiral into absurd tangents.
Her inappropriate jokes that slice through tension like the sharpest blade.
Her fearlessness in facing wolves and fragility when she thinks no one’s watching.
The unapologetic realness of her. Messy, chaotic, honest in a world where I’ve been drowning in pretense.
She wears her soul on the outside. Everything—fear, joy, anger—blazes across her face with absolute transparency.
I’ve spent a lifetime constructing walls, perfecting masks, calculating every word and gesture.
She demolishes pretense without even trying, speaking truths others don’t dare think, seeing parts of me I’ve hidden from myself.
No one has ever looked at me the way Bailey does, seeing past Sebastian Lockhart, CEO, past the tailored suits and practiced smiles to the man beneath. The man I forgot existed until she crashed into my life.
Her fingers move against my chest, tracing my heartbeat. Something cracks open inside me. Something vital that’s been sealed away for so long I’ve forgotten it was there. The warmth spreading through my chest has nothing to do with adrenaline and everything to do with her.
Her eyes drop to my mouth, then back up. A flush spreads across her cheeks. The pulse at her throat quickens, matching the ragged rhythm of my own.
No. I’m not thinking about snow globes or wolves or ex-girlfriends.
I’m thinking that I’ve never wanted anything in my life the way I want to kiss Bailey Monroe right now.