Chapter 7 Winslet
SEVEN
WINSLET
The Arctic environment of Northland Bay had a way of stretching time until it felt both endless and fragile, like the thin layer of ice forming on the inside of the research outpost’s windows each morning.
Winslet had learned that, along with a dozen other small, critical truths about survival in this frozen world.
She’d cataloged the groan of the generator before it needed fuel, memorized the exact pitch of the wind that meant a squall was coming, and could now lace her insulated boots with a speed that would have impressed her former city self. She’d acclimated to this place, whether she’d wanted to or not.
The hollow feeling in her chest was another matter.
After Korrak’s Jeep had disappeared into the white expanse four mornings ago, a silence descended that had nothing to do with the landscape.
It was the silence of a door closing, of a connection snipped before it could properly form.
She’d spent the first day coiled tight, jumping at every creak of the building, her eyes constantly flicking to the walkie-talkie charging on the main console.
Ellie had watched her with sympathetic hazel eyes but said nothing.
He fed you. Sheltered you. Looked at you like you were the only fire in a world of ice. Then he vanished.
The humiliation of her own hope was a quiet, private burn. She hadn’t expected promises, but basic human courtesy? A check-in? Something to prove the charged intimacy of that night hadn’t been a product of wine and storm-locked isolation.
By the second day, the sting had cooled into a familiar numbness.
This, she knew how to handle. Men who got close and then retreated when things became real.
Bracken had been a master of the hot-and-cold torture, showering her with attention before withdrawing to punish some imagined slight.
Korrak’s method was different—a clean, total severance—but the effect was the same.
It left her off-balance and questioning her own judgment.
So she buried it. She buried it in the meticulous logs Ellie taught her to keep, in the satisfying heft of snow shovels, in learning to distinguish between seal tracks and fox prints outside the outpost door.
She buried it in the surprising, easy friendship with Ellie, who was witty and kind and didn’t treat her like a fragile refugee.
She even buried it during Kol’s visits to drop off supplies, laughing at his dry, irreverent jokes about Korrak’s “temporary case of stick-up-the-ass.”
“He’s really not so bad,” Kol had said, his gray eyes dancing as he handed her a crate of freeze-dried meals. “Just thinks feeling things is a structural weakness. Give him time. He’ll come around. Probably.”
The words were meant to be comforting, but they just underlined the absence. Korrak was making a choice. A choice to stay away from her.
On the morning of the fourth day, Winslet woke in her narrow bed and knew something had settled. The desperate, hopeful ache was gone. In its place was a steely kind of clarity.
She got out of bed and dressed methodically, the thick wool of her sweater soft against her skin, and her jeans still holding the crisp cold of the unheated floor.
Moments later, as she stood in front of the small mirror in the bathroom brushing her teeth, her green eyes looked back, guarded but clear.
Good, she thought. This is better.
Korrak’s restraint, intentional or not, had given her a gift.
Space. Room to remember who she was without the distorting lens of a man’s attention.
For two years under Bracken’s thumb, she’d been slowly erased—her opinions, her friendships, her autonomy all sanded down to fit his design.
In just three days of steady, quiet, and purposeful work, pieces of herself were clicking back into place.
She walked into the main room, where Ellie was already at the samples station, a steaming mug in hand.
“You look… refreshed,” Ellie said, her red ponytail a bright splash against the gray consoles.
“I feel refreshed. Three days of honest hard work is exactly what I needed,” Winslet replied, and it was the truth.
She moved to the kitchen area, grabbing a quick cup of coffee and a breakfast bar, and consuming them with practiced efficiency. “Solar panel check today, right? After the storm drift clearing?”
“Yep. They’re probably buried. I’ll handle the data uplink if you can tackle the physical sweep. Bundle up good. The wind’s picking up.”
The normalcy of her new lifestyle was a balm. The predictability. The routine. The safety. She could build something sturdy here.
As she pulled on her parka, her mind drifted.
Not to Korrak’s intense blue eyes, but to the lesson his absence taught.
If he’d stayed close, if that electric tension in his cabin had snapped and pulled them together, she might have mistaken him for salvation.
She might have leaned into his strength and forgotten her own.
She zipped her coat with a definitive sound and reached for her snow shovel.
When Korrak eventually reappeared—and he would, he’d promised Gerri he’d keep an eye on her—she would be ready.
Not as the woman who’d slept safely in his shirt and bed, but as the woman who’d used his absence to rebuild her own foundation.
She wouldn’t expect anything from him. Wouldn’t hope for a repeat of that charged moment by his fire. The attraction she felt was just a byproduct of finally feeling steady. It was situational chemistry, not destiny.
She swung open the outpost door and stepped into the blinding white morning, squinting against the glare. She took a deep, bracing breath that crystallized in her lungs.
She had work to do. And distractions were not on the agenda today.
The wind had sculpted the snow against the research outpost’s eastern wall into a solid, glittering drift that buried the bank of solar panels completely.
Winslet attacked it with her shovel, each thrust of the blade a satisfying release.
The rhythmic scrape-thud of compact snow hitting the ground was better than any meditation.
Her blood soon pumped hot under her layers, her breath a steady plume in the crystalline air.
The world had narrowed to this simple, vital task. She was so deep in the zone, her muscles singing with the effort, that the low voice behind her didn’t register as sound—it registered as an electric shock to her system.
A scream ripped from her throat before she could stop it. She whirled, shovel half-raised like a weapon.
He stood five feet away, a monolith of solid stillness against the white.
Korrak.
He was dressed in dark, heavy-duty gear, his golden hair bright against the hood’s fur trim.
His ice-blue eyes were fixed on her, an unreadable intensity in their depths.
The sheer, silent power of his presence hit her like a physical force, and the careful calm she’d cultivated all morning shattered.
Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic, betraying rhythm.
So stupid. It’s just him.
But the jolt of primal fear wasn’t about him, not really. It was the old wiring, the part of her that still expected Bracken’s hand to clamp down on her shoulder at any moment. The part that had forgotten what it felt like to be safe.
“I called your name. Twice.” His voice was a low rumble, carrying easily over the wind. He didn’t move closer, but his gaze tracked the rapid rise and fall of her chest. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
Winslet forced her grip on the shovel handle to relax. She lowered it, feeling a flush of hot embarrassment creep up her neck. “I was… focused. The air is so crisp, it’s easy to get lost in it.” The excuse sounded weak, even to her.
She tried to summon the cold clarity from her morning reflections, to rebuild the wall his sudden appearance had toppled.
He’s just a man. An annoying, presumptuous, vanished-for-days man.
But his scent—pine, cedar, and something wilder, something uniquely him—wrapped around her, dismantling her rational thought one nerve ending at a time. She hated it. Hated how her body responded to him on a level her mind couldn’t override.
“I’m pretty busy today,” she said, her tone sharper than she intended. She gestured vaguely at the half-cleared drift. “Was there something you needed? I can’t really afford distractions.”
A faint, knowing smirk touched his lips. It was infuriating. “I didn’t realize I was a distraction.”
The casual dismissal of the past three days, the implication that his absence was irrelevant, ignited a spark of anger. It cut through the residual fear and the unwanted attraction. “It’s not like that. I have a list. A long one. I don’t have time to stand around talking.”
He studied her for a moment, and to her surprise, the amusement in his eyes shifted to something like respect.
He gave a single, slow nod. “I see that. Your focus is commendable.” He paused, the Alpha assurance rolling off him in an almost palpable wave.
“I spoke with Ellie. Told her I was coming by to show you some basic survival protocols for the territory beyond these walls. She agreed to cover your tasks.”
Winslet’s jaw tightened. The betrayal was minor, but it stung. It felt like being managed all over again, her schedule rearranged without her consent. Another man deciding what was best for her.
“She didn’t mention it to me,” she said, her voice tinged with irritation.
“My oversight,” he replied quickly. “Next time, I’ll ask you personally. Not Ellie.”
The concession, delivered with that unshakable alpha calm, somehow made it worse.
Before she could formulate a retort, he closed the distance in two strides and took the shovel from her hands.
His gloved fingers brushed hers, a brief contact that sizzled up her arm.
He set the tool neatly against the outpost wall.
“Follow me.”