Chapter 4 Hunger
Soren
Snow had begun again by the time Soren left the training grounds.
Not the sharp mountain storms that buried paths and stripped heat from exposed skin, but a quieter snowfall drifting steadily through the fortress, soft enough to blur torchlight and soften the edges of the stone walls around him.
It should have calmed him.
Instead, the pressure beneath his ribs remained exactly where it had settled the moment he nearly brought the practice blade down across Riven's throat.
He crossed the lower corridor without really seeing it. Voices carried faintly through the fortress, doors opened and closed somewhere beyond the stone walls, and more than one wolf stepped aside after a single glance in his direction.
They had seen enough to recognize that something was wrong, and the distinction between jealousy, instinct, and instability mattered far less than Soren wanted it to.
The thought followed him up the inner stairwell and into his chambers, where silence settled around him the moment the door closed behind him.
Normally, this was where control returned. Tonight, it didn't.
He crossed to the basin and plunged both hands into the freezing water. The cold bit instantly into his skin, sharp enough that it would have grounded most men back into themselves.
It barely touched him.
His thoughts returned immediately to the training yard.
Not to the strikes themselves, but to the moment afterward, when he had seen the expressions around him.
The hesitation.
The glances.
The uncomfortable awareness that everyone present had recognized something he could no longer convincingly dismiss.
Distance was necessary. Distance was rational. The less Eira depended on him, the safer both of them remained—for Ironfang, for the bond, and for the control he had spent weeks trying to preserve.
That had always been the plan.
Tonight should have proven it was working.
Eira was settling into life at Ironfang. She spoke more easily with the wolves than she had weeks ago, moved through the fortress with growing confidence, and seemed increasingly capable of finding her place without relying on him.
None of that should have bothered him.
Yet the thought left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Not because desire itself was unfamiliar, but because it had begun to blur into something far more dangerous. What had started as attraction and instinct increasingly resembled possessiveness, carrying a sharp edge he neither trusted nor liked.
Soren straightened from the basin and exhaled slowly.
This was exactly why he had kept his distance after the ravine.
Why he had avoided being alone with her whenever possible.
Every encounter seemed to strengthen the bond rather than weaken it. Proximity sharpened awareness, and awareness fed instinct until ordinary moments began carrying more weight than they should have.
Tonight, that loss of balance had nearly become visible to everyone.
The memory of Riven kneeling in the dirt while Soren advanced anyway settled heavily in his chest.
He swore quietly and reached for his cloak before fully realizing what he was doing.
The movement stopped halfway.
For several seconds he stood motionless, staring at his hand wrapped around the dark fabric.
He knew exactly where he wanted to go.
The realization settled heavily. Distance had been his answer for weeks, the one boundary that still allowed him to believe he had some control over what was happening between them.
Soren released the cloak and stepped back.
The bond stirred anyway.
The pull beneath his ribs was quiet and familiar, so woven into his thoughts now that he could no longer tell where one ended and the other began. He could feel her somewhere deeper inside the fortress, still awake, and the simple awareness tightened something low in his chest.
Soren closed his eyes briefly.
When he opened them again, he reached for the cloak anyway.
The corridor outside her chambers stood empty beneath the dim torchlight.
By the time he reached the door, snow had already melted from his shoulders and dampened the edges of his dark hair, though the cold still clung faintly to his skin beneath the heavier heat gathering under it.
For several seconds he simply stood there.
He had come without deciding what he intended to say. Realizing that should have been enough to make him turn around and leave.
Instead, he lifted a hand and knocked once against the wood.
Silence stretched in the corridor before footsteps sounded on the other side.
The door opened. Eira stopped when she saw him. Neither of them spoke.
The room behind her glowed softly with firelight, warm enough to catch gold against the loose strands of pale hair falling over one shoulder. She had already changed for the night, dressed simply now, without the heavier outer layers she usually wore through the fortress.
The sight of her like that — unguarded, unwaiting — struck through him with dangerous immediacy.
Surprise flickered briefly across her face before caution settled over it.
“You’re here,” she said quietly.
The words held neither accusation nor disbelief, only something softer that tightened unexpectedly in his chest.
Soren’s throat tightened unexpectedly.
He had come to say something precise. Necessary. Controlled.
Standing there now, he could barely remember what it had been.
Eira studied him for another moment before stepping slightly aside from the doorway.
“Come in before you freeze the corridor.”
The attempt at lightness only sharpened the tension between them.
Soren crossed the threshold slowly.
The door closed behind him with a muted sound that suddenly felt much louder than it should have.
Warmth gathered immediately around him — firelight, wool, the faint scent of cedar smoke woven into the room beneath something softer that belonged entirely to her.
The bond tightened hard enough that he nearly exhaled through his teeth.
Eira noticed.
Her expression shifted slightly. “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
The answer came too quickly.
Her gaze narrowed a fraction. “You look like you fought half the fortress.”
“I fought Riven.”
The words slipped out before he decided to say them.
A brief pause followed, but it was long enough for Eira's attention to sharpen immediately.
Eira’s attention sharpened immediately. “Why?”
Because he touched you too easily. Because you laughed beside him. Because I nearly put a sword through his throat for no reason I can explain without sounding unstable.
Soren looked away first.
“Training.”
The lie settled badly between them.
Eira watched him in silence for another moment before crossing slowly toward the hearth. Firelight moved along the edges of her skin as she stopped beside it, close enough that warmth softened the cold still clinging to her from the stone corridors outside.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” she said at last.
She did not sound angry. The certainty in her voice was far more difficult to face.
Soren said nothing.
“That isn’t the bond,” she continued quietly. “That’s you.”
The words landed too cleanly.
His restraint felt dangerously thin tonight, worn down by too many weeks of pressure layered one over another without release.
“You think I haven’t noticed?” she asked.
He should have answered carefully.
Instead: “I noticed you stopped minding.”
The silence afterward shifted instantly.
Eira’s brows pulled together slightly. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Soren regretted the words the moment they left him.
Not because they were inaccurate, but because they sounded far too much like jealousy when spoken aloud.
He stepped back once, forcing distance into the room before the instinct behind the reaction could deepen further.
“This was a mistake.”
He turned toward the door.
“Don’t.”
The word stopped him immediately, less because of the command itself than because of the way she said it.
Soren closed his eyes briefly.
When he turned back toward her again, Eira had moved closer without him noticing, close enough now that he could feel warmth radiating from her skin through the colder air between them.
“You came here for a reason,” she said more quietly.
He could smell her now beneath the cedar smoke and firelight — warmth, skin, the faint lingering trace of snow.
The bond reacted violently to the proximity.
His breathing shifted. Eira noticed.
Neither of them moved as the silence stretched between them.
Then she took another step.
The remaining distance disappeared.
Soren reached for her almost instinctively, catching her wrist with the vague intention of stopping her.
The moment his fingers closed around her skin, that intention dissolved.
The bond surged through him, drowning thought beneath something older and far more dangerous.
Before he could reconsider, he pulled her toward him.
Eira stumbled forward, and the force of the movement sent them both back a step until the edge of the bed caught against the backs of her knees.
Neither of them seemed to notice.
His hand slid to her waist. Her fingers found his shirt. The reaction between them surged instantly, far too fast for restraint to recover.
Eira inhaled sharply as he drew her against him, and the sound nearly undid him.
His mouth found her throat before he kissed her properly. The sound she made at the contact nearly undid him.
Heat spread beneath her skin where his mouth moved lower along the mark, slower now, rougher than before. He could feel her pulse racing beneath his lips, could hear the uneven rhythm of her breathing each time his hands tightened at her waist and drew her closer.
“Tell me to stop,” he said against her throat, voice rough enough that he barely recognized it.
Eira’s fingers tightened in his shirt instead.
“You don’t want to stop.”
The words destroyed what little control he still had left.
Soren kissed her hard enough to silence the rest, one arm sliding beneath her knees almost instinctively.
Eira gave a startled breath as he lifted her onto the bed behind her.
The movement should have broken the moment.
Instead, it destroyed what remained of his restraint.
Every point where their bodies touched felt amplified beyond reason, heat threading through him so intensely that instinct and desire became nearly impossible to separate.
Eira felt it too — he could hear it in the way her breath caught each time he moved against her, in the way her fingers slipped into his hair as though holding him closer only made the need worse instead of easing it.
His hands moved along the bare skin of her legs beneath the fabric gathered around her thighs, roughened palms dragging heat in their wake while cold air brushed newly exposed skin. The contrast made her shiver against him, and the reaction nearly drove him past the edge of restraint entirely.
Because she tightened around him immediately afterward.
The pressure of her legs locking harder around his waist tore a low sound from his throat before he could suppress it.
For one dangerous moment, thought disappeared completely.
What struck him then had nothing to do with the bond or simple proximity. He wanted her, and the realization carried enough force to leave him almost shaking beneath it.
The realization hit with enough force to leave him almost shaking beneath it.
Eira felt it.
He saw the exact moment understanding moved across her face — not fear, not uncertainty, but the sudden awareness that if she asked for more now, he would give it to her.
All of it.
His mouth moved lower again, slower now, rougher, lingering at the sensitive line beneath her throat before trailing downward along exposed skin while his hands tightened against her thighs hard enough to leave marks later.
Eira’s head tipped back against the stone with a breath that sounded dangerously close to his name, and the bond reacted instantly, pulling tighter with every shift of her body against his.
The pressure between them became unbearable.
Soren moved against her once, instinctively seeking friction, and the sound she made nearly shattered the last of his restraint.
He could already feel how this ended.
He would take her with all the hunger he had spent weeks denying, and once he crossed that line, he knew he would forget entirely why distance had ever seemed necessary.
The realization struck hard enough to cut through the haze all at once.
Soren froze.
His breathing remained uneven as he forced himself backward just enough to look at her properly again.
Eira’s lips were parted slightly from kissing him, cheeks flushed from heat and breath and closeness, her legs still wrapped tightly around his waist as though neither of them had fully realized yet how far this had already gone.
And the worst part—the truly dangerous part—was that seeing her like this only made stopping harder.
Soren closed his eyes briefly before forcing himself to release her and step back.
The distance was small, but it felt enormous.
After the heat of her body against his, the cold seemed to return all at once, settling heavily between them.
Eira stared at him in stunned silence, her breathing still uneven.
"Soren—"
"I can't."
The words came out harsher than intended, shaped less by rejection than by the fear of what would happen if he stayed where he was.
He forced himself another step farther away.
"If I stay," he said more quietly, "this stops being something I can control."
The honesty of it settled heavily between them.
Eira's expression shifted almost imperceptibly. There was no hurt in it, only understanding, and somehow that made leaving even harder.
Soren looked at her one last time before turning toward the door.
The bond still burned beneath his skin, raw and impossible to ignore.
Until now, he had told himself that distance was a solution, a way to keep the connection contained until it weakened on its own. Walking away from her, he could no longer convince himself that was true.
The certainty followed him from the room like a shadow: distance was not weakening this.
It was feeding it.