*Kieran*
I didn’t sleep much after the ranch.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Kurt’s face under my paws. The flare of his terror. The flash of the gun in his belt.
And Sage’s eyes.
Wide.
Scared.
Steady.
The memory of her voice—*Don’t*—had more power over me than any treaty stone.
Control was something I’d been taught early.
My father had drilled it into me with blows and words and bone-deep expectations.
“Alpha doesn’t flinch,” he’d said, when I was thirteen and shaking after my first solo hunt. “Alpha doesn’t show fear. Alpha doesn’t *fail.*”
He’d died before I could prove him wrong.
Now I held onto control like a talisman.
But every day Sage was here, it frayed.
Not just because she was a problem.
Because she was…light.
Heat.
A hand on my arm that didn’t demand. A voice in my ear that didn’t always agree, but listened.
I found myself listening for her laughter in the village. Watching for the way her face lit when one of the pups got a concept right. Guarding the moments she got that far-off look, like she was grieving a world she wasn’t sure she wanted back.
And at night, when the valley quieted and the pack settled, I found my feet carrying me, again and again, to the cabin where she slept.
Not inside.
Not at first.
I told myself I was standing watch.
That the scent of Northridge on the wind, the faint tang of Kurt’s fear still lingering in the snow, justified my presence.
That the way I paused, hand on the doorframe, listening for her breathing, was…incidental.
The first time I nudged the door open a crack and saw Rafe sprawled on the pallet opposite hers, I almost turned around.
His snores were soft but unmistakable.
Sage, in the faint glow of embers, lay on her side facing him, hands tucked under her cheek, mouth slightly parted.
She looked…younger.
Softer.
Vulnerable in a way she never allowed while awake.
Jealousy bit under my ribs at the sight of Rafe between us and her.
Stupid.
Rafe was exactly where I’d asked him to be.
He felt me watching and cracked one eye open.
We stared at each other across the darkness.
He didn’t move.
Didn’t speak.
Just rolled his eyes, very slightly, as if to say, *Finally,* and then closed them again.
I stayed.
Leaning in the doorway.
Listening to two heartbeats even out in sleep.
Guarding.
It became a habit.
On nights when patrols took me far into the valley, I still made sure my last loop brought me past the cabin.
On nights when the pack’s restlessness kept them howling and pacing and snapping, I anchored myself with the soft sound of Sage’s breathing.
Sometimes, she dreamed.
I could tell by the way her scent shifted, by the small sounds she made, by the way her fingers clutched the blanket.
Once, when the nightmares were worse, she whispered my name.
Not *Alpha.*
Not *hey you.*
Kieran.
It dragged something raw and ragged to the surface.
I stepped inside then, unable to stay at the threshold.
Rafe was on his back, one arm flung over his eyes. He’d fallen asleep on watch, the idiot.
I nudged him with my foot.
He grunted, blinking awake, then stiffened when he saw my face.
“Bad?” he whispered.
“Nightmare,” I murmured.
Sage’s breath hitched.
“No,” she mumbled. “Don’t…don’t go…”
I crossed the room in three strides and knelt beside her pallet.
Her hands were fists under her chin. Sweat beaded on her forehead.
“Hey,” I said softly. “Little wolf.”
Stupid words.
They fell out anyway.
Her eyes flew open.
Wild.
She stared at me for a heartbeat, not seeing.
Then her focus snapped into place.
“Kieran,” she gasped.
“Yes,” I said. “It’s me.”
She sat bolt upright, chest heaving.
Her hair was tangled, falling around her face. Her shirt clung to her damp skin.
I wanted to push it off her shoulder and press my mouth to the hollow of her throat.
I shoved the thought down hard enough to make my teeth ache.
“Water,” I said instead.
She nodded jerkily.
Rafe, bless him, took the hint and rolled out of his pallet, grabbing the cup from the table, filling it from the pitcher, and thrusting it into her hands like a man delivering a baby.
She drank.
Both of us watched.
When she’d finished, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Sorry,” she muttered. “Didn’t mean to…wake you.”
“You didn’t,” I said.
“Liar,” she said weakly.
“I was on patrol,” I said. “It’s my job to notice when people scream.”
“I wasn’t—” She broke off. “Was I?”
Rafe nodded. “Just once. Not a full horror movie. More like…jump scare.”
“Great,” she muttered. “Love that for me.”
“What did you see,” I asked.
She stared at the coals.
“The tower,” she said. “And the valley. And…you. And…falling.”
My chest tightened.
I wanted to ask if she’d jumped.
If she’d landed.
If I’d caught her.
But the questions lodged in my throat.
“You’re safe,” I said instead. “Here.”
“‘Here’ is a relative concept,” she muttered.
“Not tonight,” I said.
Our eyes met.
Heat flickered.
Rafe cleared his throat loudly.
“I’m gonna, uh, check the perimeter,” he said, backing toward the door. “You two…do what you do. Talk. Glower. Whatever.”
“Rafe,” I warned.
He slipped out, closing the door behind him with infuriating care.
Sage snorted. “Subtle, he is not.”
“No,” I agreed.
Silence settled.
Not comfortable.
Not hostile.
Familiar, now.
“Do you always stand outside my door like that?” she asked suddenly.
I stiffened. “You…knew?”
“You’re not exactly quiet,” she said. “Also, I’m not dead. Yet. So I assume someone’s keeping the monsters away.”
“Technically, I *am* the monsters,” I said.
“Semantics,” she murmured.
“Does it…bother you?” I asked.
Her gaze softened.
“No,” she said. “It…helps.”
I exhaled, something loosening in my chest.
“Come here,” I said, before I could overthink it.
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Lie down,” I said, more gently. “On your side. If you want.”
“I—I don’t—”
I settled myself on the edge of the pallet and lay back, leaving an obvious gap.
Not touching.
Not crowding.
Her breath hitched.
“I’m not asking for anything you don’t want to give,” I said quietly. “I just…know that when the nightmares come, sometimes it’s easier to sleep if there’s…weight. Warmth. Something real to anchor you.”
She stared at me.
“Who did that for you,” she asked softly.
The question punched a hole in my chest.
“No one,” I said.
Not like this.
Not since my mother, when I was small and feverish.
My father had believed in hardening, not holding.
She bit her lip.
“Okay,” she whispered.
She slid under the blanket beside me, stiff and awkward, like someone who’d never lain next to another person in her life.
Which, given what I knew of her, might not have been far from the truth.
I rolled onto my back, leaving my arm outstretched between us, palm up.
An invitation.
Not a demand.
After a heartbeat, her fingers curled into mine.
Heat flared up my arm, into my chest.
“Better?” I asked, keeping my voice light.
“Ask me in the morning,” she said.
We lay there.
The cabin creaked softly around us. The fire sighed.
Her breathing slowed.
Every time she twitched, I tightened my fingers, a silent reassurance.
At some point, my own eyes grew heavy.
I woke with her head on my shoulder and her leg thrown over my thigh.
For a blissed-out, disorienting moment, I just…breathed.
Her hair smelled like smoke and cheap shampoo. Her breath ghosted across my chest. Her hand had migrated to rest over my heart, fingers splayed.
Possessive.
Like *mine*.
My cock, traitorous bastard that it was, took the opportunity to make its presence known.
I bit back a groan.
Very carefully, I shifted my hips an inch away from hers.
She made a small, sleep-mussed sound and burrowed closer.
Fuck.
Her thigh slid against mine.
Bare skin on bare skin.
At some point in the night, the blankets had twisted down. Her sleep shirt had ridden up, exposing the curve of her hip.
My hand hovered millimeters above it.
I could feel the heat radiating from her body.
Her scent—warm, female, with a faint undertone of arousal from some half-remembered dream—wrapped around me.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
*Control,* I told myself.
*You are not eighteen. You are not your father. You do not take what isn’t offered.*
I forced my hand to rest on the mattress instead of her.
Forced my breathing to slow.
Forced myself to think of anything but the woman curled against me.
It didn’t help.
Every inhale brought more of her into me.
Every exhale brushed my chest against her cheek.
Her fingers twitched.
“Kieran,” she murmured.
My name had never sounded like that.
Soft.
Needy.
Hand-fisted-in-my-heart.
I swallowed hard.
“Yes,” I whispered.
Her lashes fluttered.
She blinked up at me.
For a moment, pure confusion.
Then memory flooded her face.
Her eyes widened.
“Oh,” she breathed.
Her gaze dropped.
To where our bodies were tangled.
To my bare chest.
To the sheet barely covering my hips.
Heat flared in her cheeks.
“Morning,” I said, voice rough.
“Is it?” she croaked.
“Technically,” I said. “Sun’s up. Kids are screaming. Rafe’s probably making innuendo.”
Her hand jerked off my chest like she’d been burned.
“Sorry,” she blurted. “I didn’t— I must have—”
“It’s fine,” I said quickly. “You were…restless. Then you weren’t. That’s all.”
“That’s not *all,*” she muttered. “We were…wrapped around each other like a…like a—”
I arched a brow. “Like a what.”
“A pretzel,” she said.
Despite the ache in my groin and the heat under my skin, I laughed.
“A what,” I repeated.
“Never mind,” she huffed. “God, I need coffee.”
“Is that…a code word?” I asked.
“That’s my ‘I’m embarrassed and need caffeine before I process this’ word,” she said.
“We can pretend it didn’t happen,” I offered.
She studied me.
“No,” she said slowly. “We can’t.”
My pulse stuttered.
“But,” she added quickly, “we also don’t have to…make it a thing. Yet. It was…nice. Helpful. I slept. You…didn’t attack me in your sleep. Win-win.”
“That’s a low bar,” I said.
“I’m working with what I’ve got,” she said. “Which is…a half-feral brain and a very attractive man in my bed.”
Heat punched my gut.
“You think I’m…attractive,” I said before I could stop myself.
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t fish for compliments, Alpha. It’s unbecoming.”
“Answer the question,” I pressed, hungry.
She sighed. “Yes, Kieran. You’re attractive. You know that. You have a mirror.”
“I don’t look at myself that way,” I said.
“How do you look at yourself?” she asked softly.
“Like…a problem to solve,” I admitted.
Her expression twisted.
“Then you need better mirrors,” she said.
She pushed herself up, wincing as her foot hit the cold floor, and limped toward the washbasin.
I watched her go.
The ache in my chest eclipsed the one in my groin.
I wanted to be more for her than a problem.
I wanted to be…a solution.
A place to land.
A place to jump from.
But I was also the man who’d taken her choices.
Who’d stood over a rancher with bloodlust in his teeth.
Who might, if Mara’s grandmother was to be believed, drag her into a destiny she hadn’t asked for.
“Don’t overthink it,” Rafe said from the doorway.
I hadn’t heard him approach.
He leaned on the jamb, hair damp, a mug in his hand.
“How long have you been there,” I demanded.
“Long enough to see you two spooning like teenagers,” he said. “Ten out of ten. Very cozy. Not at all fraught.”
I flipped him off.
Sage snorted into her towel.
“Congratulations,” Rafe went on. “You’ve reached level two: shared sleeping space. Next stop: emotional vulnerability and inappropriate jokes about knotting.”
“Get out,” I growled.
He grinned.
“Breakfast in ten,” he said. “Try to put clothes on before the pups come barreling in. Or don’t. Up to you.”
He left.
I groaned, dragging a hand over my face.
Sage caught my eye in the warped mirror above the basin.
Our gazes met in reflection.
We both looked…wrecked.
“I’m not sorry,” she said suddenly.
“For what,” I asked.
“For last night,” she said. “For…letting you hold me.”
Air left my lungs.
“Me neither,” I said.
Her mouth quirked.
“Good,” she said. “Then we can keep doing it. If…if that’s okay. If you want to.”
“Yes,” I said.
Too fast.
Too hard.
She nodded, a faint blush climbing her neck.
“Okay,” she said. “Ground rule: no…sex. Yet. My brain can’t handle that many neural pathways lighting up at once.”
A laugh burst out of me, startled and rough.
“Agreed,” I said. “No sex. Yet.”
Her eyes darkened slightly at the word.
Heat curled low in my belly.
We were playing with fire.
Again.
Always.
Outside, a wolf howled.
Mara’s voice, in my head: *When the valley storms, she’ll stand beside the Alpha.*
I didn’t know if I believed in prophecy.
But I believed in the feel of Sage’s head on my shoulder.
I believed in the way her scent twined with mine in the small hours of the night.
I believed in the way she’d faced down Cassian and Kurt and her own fear.
Maybe that was enough.
For now.
***
The storm hit three days later.
Not the one in the prophecy.
A real one.
Snow, thick and blinding, driven sideways by wind that howled like a beast.
It started at dusk, low clouds rolling in like bruises. By midnight, the world outside the cabin was a white wall.
The pack battened down.
Hunts were suspended.
Even Northridge’s scent faded under the snow.
“Good time for a siege,” Rafe noted dryly. “Can’t see shit, can’t move fast, can’t smell more than ten feet.”
“Don’t give them ideas,” Mara snapped.
We settled in.
The longhouse became the center of gravity—warmth, light, bodies. Kids sprawled on furs, telling stories. Adults mended gear. Someone started carving a new toy.
Sage gravitated between worlds.
Sometimes she sat with the pups, letting them braid her hair while she quizzed them on predator-prey dynamics.
Sometimes she hovered near the warriors, listening to their low-voiced assessments of the weather, the land, the subtle shifts in the pack’s energy.
Sometimes she slipped outside with me, into the swirling white, to stand under the eaves and watch the snow.
“This is…beautiful,” she said, snowflakes melting on her lashes.
“It’ll kill you if you’re not careful,” I said.
“A lot of beautiful things will,” she murmured.
Her gaze slid to me.
Heat flared in my chest.
“You’re tired,” I said abruptly. “You should rest.”
“You’re tired,” she countered. “You’ve been running yourself ragged.”
“I’m built for it,” I said.
“You’re built for a lot of things,” she said. “That doesn’t mean you don’t break.”
I thought of halfway things.
Of Mara’s scars.
Of my father’s eyes as he’d bled into the snow.
“I won’t,” I said.
She made a face. “That’s not how bodies work, Kieran.”
“Says the woman who forgets to eat when she’s writing,” I shot back.
“Touché,” she said.
The wind gusted, driving a curtain of snow past the doorway.
We huddled closer to the wall.
Her shoulder brushed mine.
She didn’t move away.
“Tell me something true,” she said suddenly.
I glanced at her. “What.”
“About you,” she said. “Not about pack politics or prophecy or Northridge. About…Kieran. The man. The boy. The…person.”
I stared at the snow.
“I broke my wrist when I was seven,” I said. “Trying to climb the big pine above the dens. My father told me to walk it off. Mara set the bone anyway.”
She smiled faintly. “Of course she did.”
“I like the smell of rain on hot stone,” I added. “I hate the smell of gasoline. I’ve never been in a movie theater. I don’t understand TikTok.”
“No one really does,” she said. “We just pretend.”
“I thought about leaving once,” I said quietly. “When I was nineteen. Before my father died. I thought about running in human skin. Getting in a truck. Driving east until the mountains disappeared in the rear-view.”
“Why didn’t you?” she asked.
He shrugged.
“I came back from a patrol,” he said. “My brothers were wrestling in the snow. Mara was yelling at Rafe for eating all the stew. The pups were howling at nothing. It…hurt, sometimes. All that noise. All those needs. But the idea of never hearing it again was…worse.”
Her eyes were soft.
“Your turn,” I said gruffly.
She blinked. “My…what.”
“Something true,” I said. “About Sage. The woman. The girl who climbed towers and thought wolves were just wolves.”
She huffed a laugh. “I used to have a goldfish,” she said. “Named Einstein. He died because I overfed him. I cried for three days and wrote ‘never get attached’ in my journal.”
“Did it work?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “I got attached to everything. Rocks. Books. The idea of wolves in places they’d been wiped out.”
“What else,” I pressed.
“I hate balloons,” she said. “The sound they make when they rub together gives me full-body shivers.”
I smiled.
“I lost my virginity in the back of a Subaru,” she added. “To a guy who quoted Jack London unironically.”
Heat punched low in my gut.
“I want his name,” I growled.
She snorted. “Relax. He’s in Vermont now. Married to a very nice woman who makes artisanal jam.”
“I don’t care,” I said. “He doesn’t get to quote London at you and walk away unscathed.”
“It was consensual,” she said dryly. “If disappointing.”
“He didn’t make you…” I trailed off, acutely aware of the kids inside, the storm outside, the thin wall between.
“No,” she said. “He didn’t. No one has.”
My blood roared.
“You’ve never—” I began.
Her chin lifted. “Orgasm? No. Not with another person.”
Rage and hunger tangled under my sternum.
“Idiots,” I said.
She laughed, startled. “Pardon?”
“Every man who’s touched you,” I said. “Idiot.”
Her eyes darkened.
“Your turn,” she said, voice lower.
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Something true,” she said. “Since we’re apparently oversharing. You ever been…in love?”
The word tasted strange.
“No,” I said.
She arched a brow. “You say that like you’re sure.”
“I’ve been…attached,” I said. “Interested. Lustful. I’ve…taken lovers. But love…” I searched for the right words. “Love, the way Mara describes it. The way my mother looked at my father even when he didn’t deserve it. I haven’t…found that.”
“Yet,” she said softly.
I huffed a humorless laugh. “You all and your ‘yet.’”
“You think you’d know it if you did?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“How?” she pressed.
“When the idea of them dying hurts more than the idea of me dying,” I said simply. “When their safety matters more than my pride. When…being near them feels like breathing. And being away feels like choking.”
She swallowed.
Snow swirled around us, thick and relentless.
“Hypothetically,” she said slowly. “If you felt those things for…someone who wasn’t…pack. Who wasn’t…wolf. What then?”
“Then,” I said hoarsely, “I’d be very, very careful.”
“Careful how,” she whispered.
“Careful not to break them,” I said. “Careful not to chain them. Careful not to…pretend I have a right to them when I don’t.”
“And if they…wanted you?” she asked. “If they…reached.”
I closed my eyes.
“Then,” I said, voice shaking, “I’d break every treaty I ever made to keep them safe.”
Silence.
I opened my eyes.
She was watching me.
Her eyes were bright.
“You’re an idiot,” she said softly.
“Probably,” I said.
“You think love is…tidy,” she said. “Like you can make a list. Check off boxes. Control it.”
“I know I can’t control it,” I said. “I can only control what I do with it.”
She stepped closer.
So close that her breath warmed my chin.
“So what are you going to do with…this?” she asked.
“Define ‘this,’” I rasped.
She rested her palm flat against my chest.
Right over my pounding heart.
“This,” she whispered.
I swallowed.
The storm howled around us.
Inside, the pack laughed, oblivious.
“Carefully,” I said again.
She smiled.
“Good,” she said. “Me too.”
She leaned up.
For a heartbeat, I thought she was going to kiss me.
Instead, she pressed her lips to my cheek.
Soft.
Warm.
Just at the corner of my mouth.
Then she stepped back.
“Come on,” she said, voice too bright. “If we stand out here much longer, Mara’s going to accuse us of ‘brooding’ and make us chop wood.”
I let out a shaky breath.
“God forbid,” I muttered.
We went inside.
Snow pounded against the roof like drums.
Somewhere beyond the storm, beyond our little circle of warmth and light, something dark moved.
Cassian.
Waiting.
Watching.
Hungry.
But inside the longhouse, Sage’s laughter threaded through the air.
Mara’s hands were warm.
Rafe’s jokes were bad.
The pups were loud.
And for one stolen evening, with the storm raging and her hand still ghosting warmth on my chest, I allowed myself to believe that we could hold this.
This valley.
This pack.
This fragile, impossible, growing thing between us.
At least until the snow melted.
At least until the next howl.
At least until the prophecy knocked on our door and demanded to be let in.
***
*To be continued…*