Chapter 5
Spike
My truck was a tank. It was a matte black lifted Silverado that took up a lane and a half, smelled like diesel and pine, and vibrated with enough torque to rattle teeth. I loved it. It was a fortress on wheels.
But this morning, my fortress felt like a trap.
I sat idling in the faculty parking lot, the heater blasting, watching the entrance to Riley’s dorm. My fingers drummed a restless rhythm on the leather steering wheel. My left hand was still wrapped in the white gauze she had applied yesterday, a stark reminder of my lack of control.
Every beat of my heart sent a throb of pain through the healing knuckles, but it was a good pain. It was a grounding pain. It reminded me that I was flesh and bone, not just instinct and rage.
She touched me.
The thought kept circling in my head like a vulture. Riley Bennett—the mouse, the fragile little thing I was supposed to be terrified of breaking—had dug iron out of my flesh and hadn't flinched. She had scolded me. She had touched my skin with those cool, competent fingers.
And now I was driving her into the middle of the woods for three days.
This was a mistake. A massive, tactical error. The Wolf in my chest was currently doing backflips, wagging its tail like a puppy. It knew we were going to be alone. It knew we were going to "The Den" (the cabin). It had already decided that this wasn't a study trip; it was a honeymoon.
"Shut up," I growled at my own reflection in the rearview mirror. "We are going to fix the generator. We are going to read about the Treaty of 1894. We are going to sleep in separate rooms."
The dorm door opened.
Riley stepped out.
My breath hitched in my throat, a traitorous reaction that annoyed me instantly.
She looked... ridiculous. And perfect.
She was wearing a parka that looked like it was designed for an arctic expedition.
It was puffy, neon blue, and swallowed her whole.
She had a massive backpack slung over one shoulder and was dragging a rolling suitcase that bumped over the frozen slush.
She had a scarf wrapped around her face so tightly only her eyes and glasses were visible.
She looked like a neon marshmallow.
A laugh bubbled up in my chest—a genuine one, which was rare. I killed the engine, jumped out of the cab, and strode across the lot toward her.
"Going to Everest, Bennett?" I called out.
She stopped, blinking at me over the scarf. "It’s supposed to be negative ten tonight, Thorne. Some of us don't have internal furnaces."
"Here." I reached for her suitcase.
"I got it," she argued, tightening her grip on the handle. "I can carry my own—"
I didn't listen. I just grabbed the suitcase and the backpack in one hand—my good hand—and swung them up like they weighed nothing. Because to me, they didn't.
"Get in the truck," I ordered, nodding toward the passenger side. "You're letting the heat out."
She huffed, a puff of white steam escaping her scarf, but she marched toward the truck. Watching her climb in was an event. The truck was lifted; she was five-foot-three. She had to grab the handle and practically hoist herself up.
The view of her ass in those jeans as she scrambled up was the best thing I’d seen all year.
Focus, Butcher.
I tossed her bags into the back seat and climbed into the driver's side. The cab instantly shrank. With just me, it felt spacious. With her, it felt intimate. Her scent—that damn vanilla and honey—hit the warm air from the vents and exploded. It filled the space, burying the smell of diesel.
"Okay," Riley said, peeling off her scarf and gloves as I pulled out of the lot. She reached into her bag and pulled out a stack of flashcards. "It’s a three-hour drive. That’s plenty of time to review the socio-economic factors leading to the Shifter uprising of 1902."
I groaned, merging onto the highway. "Can we listen to music for at least twenty minutes?"
"Music doesn't get you a passing grade," she said, flipping a card. "Question one: Who was the signatory for the Northern Packs during the Peace Summit?"
I glanced at her. Her cheeks were pink from the cold. Her glasses were slightly fogged. She looked serious, determined, and absolutely terrified of the silence between us. She was using the flashcards as a shield.
I decided to play along.
"Elder Blackwood," I said, keeping my eyes on the road. "My great-grandfather."
Riley paused. She looked at the card, then at me. "Wait. Really?"
"Yeah. The cabin we're going to? He built it." I shifted gears, the truck roaring as we hit the incline of the mountain pass. "He signed the treaty because he realized the humans had better whiskey. True story."
Riley laughed. It was a startled, bright sound that made my chest tighten. "That’s not in the textbook."
"Textbooks are written by the winners, Mouse. The winners are usually boring." I looked over at her, letting a smirk tug at my lips. "Ask me something harder."
For the next two hours, we drove deeper into the wilderness. The gray sprawl of the campus faded, replaced by towering pines and cliffs of jagged granite. The sky turned a heavy, ominous white.
And we talked.
Not just about history. We argued about music (she liked indie folk; I liked heavy metal). We argued about food (she was a vegetarian, which I found personally offensive as a carnivore). We argued about hockey.
"You play too aggressively," she said, munching on a pretzel rod she had pulled from her bag. "Statistically, your penalty minutes correlate negatively with the team's win percentage in the third period."
"I play to protect the perimeter," I countered, resting my hand on the gear shift. "If I don't hit them, they hit our goalie. I'd rather sit in the box for two minutes than watch Jax get concussed."
"Protective," she murmured, writing something down in a small notebook on her knee.
"What are you writing?"
"Notes. For my thesis."
"Am I a subject now?"
She looked at me, her brown eyes guarded but curious. "You're always a subject, Spike. You're a statistical anomaly. An Alpha with anger issues who voluntarily submits to a tutor he could snap in half."
"Maybe I like the tutor," I said.
The words slipped out before I could check them.
The truck cab went silent. The only sound was the hum of the tires on the asphalt.
Riley stopped chewing. She looked at the dashboard. "You don't like me. You tolerate me because I'm saving your GPA."
"Is that what you think?"
"It’s what I know," she said, her voice quiet. "Alphas like you... you like girls like Vera. Girls who are strong. Girls who can take a hit. You don't like girls who need help opening a jar of pickles."
I frowned, gripping the wheel tighter. "I opened that jar for you in the break room one time. You’re never going to let that go?"
"It’s a metaphor, Spike."
"It’s a stupid metaphor." I downshifted as the road grew steeper. The snow was starting to stick now, turning the world white. "Strength isn't just about how much you can bench press, Riley. Vera is strong, sure. But she's brittle. She breaks when things don't go her way."
I glanced at her again.
"You dug shrapnel out of my hand," I reminded her. "You stood up to me in the library. That’s not weak. That’s a different kind of strength. The kind that scares me more."
Riley turned her head to look out the window, hiding her face. But I saw the way her hand trembled slightly as she tucked a curl behind her ear.
"Just drive, Thorne," she whispered.
So I did. But the air between us had shifted. It wasn't just banter anymore. It was something heavier. Something hotter.
The Blackwood Cabin sat on a ridge overlooking a frozen lake, surrounded by trees so thick they blocked out the weak afternoon light. It was a massive structure of rough-hewn logs and stone, looking more like a fortress than a vacation home.
It was also freezing.
"Okay," I said, killing the engine. "Welcome to the Ritz."
We stepped out into the biting wind. The temperature had dropped significantly. It was easily ten below zero. The snow was falling in thick, heavy sheets now, erasing our tire tracks within seconds of parking.
"It's beautiful," Riley said, shivering even in her neon parka. "And terrifying."
"Mostly terrifying," I agreed. "Let's get inside before we freeze."
I grabbed the bags. We crunched through the snow to the front porch. I unlocked the heavy door—iron-reinforced wood, naturally—and we stepped inside.
The interior was colder than the outside. The air was stale and frigid, smelling of pine sap and dust. It was a single massive room with a vaulted ceiling, a kitchen in the corner, and a loft sleeping area above. The focal point was a fireplace big enough to roast a whole deer in.
"Don't take your coat off," I instructed, dropping the bags. "I need to check the generator in the shed out back to get the power and water pump running. You stay here. Don't touch anything."
"I'm not a child, Spike," she chattered, her teeth clicking together.
"You're turning blue, Riley. Just wait."
I went back out into the storm. It took me twenty minutes to wrestle with the generator. My bandaged hand throbbed in the cold, the stiffness making it hard to manipulate the choke, but I got it running. The lights inside the cabin flickered to life, casting a warm yellow glow through the windows.
When I came back inside, stomping the snow off my boots, I found Riley on her knees in front of the fireplace.
She had built a perfect log pyramid. She was blowing gently on a piece of kindling, coaxing a small flame to life.
"I thought I told you not to touch anything," I said, locking the door and sliding the heavy deadbolt home. The sound was final. We were locked in.
"I was cold," she said without looking up. "And unlike you, I can't generate body heat by just existing."
She sat back on her heels, satisfied as the fire caught and roared to life. She pulled off her hat, her hair tumbling down her back in a mess of static-charged curls.
"Good job," I said, impressed. "Most of the guys on the team can't build a fire without lighter fluid."