Chapter 3

Aidan's POV

The moment her palm touched my muzzle, something inside me answered before I understood why.

Her hand drove the flames out of my fur. I felt some invisible force move down my spine, touching every place the fire had reached, and for the first time in longer than I could remember, the burning simply stopped.

No one had been able to touch me without getting burned since I was a child. And during a Blood Moon, it was even worse. My beast went wild, and I couldn't control him.

"You can touch me?" I stared at her hand, then at her. "Who are you?"

She didn't answer.

A veil hid most of her face, pale fabric torn along one edge, dirt and blood staining what must have been an expensive dress hours ago. Only her eyes were visible. Gray.

Her gaze moved over my face, my shoulders, my chest — lower — then snapped back up so fast I almost laughed.

"See something you like?"

"I wasn't staring." She looked away too quickly, a blush creeping into her cheeks, visible even in the moonlight filtering down through the bare winter trees around us.

I almost smiled.

Then her legs gave out.

I caught her before she hit the ground. She fell against me, freezing and soaked through, her whole body trembling in my arms.

Nothing happened. No flames, no scream. I hadn't felt another person's touch in years without someone getting hurt, and my whole arm wanted to shake with the strangeness of it — the sheer, impossible ordinariness of holding another person and not hurting them.

"What the hell are you doing out here dressed like this?"

Silence. Just the wind moving through the pines and the distant sound of the river running somewhere below the ridge.

"Stay with me," I said, lifting her fully into my arms.

I started toward the tree line, where a small hunting cabin waited, stocked for exactly this kind of night — dry wood, blankets, supplies left behind by whoever had chained me here and gone. The snow crunched under my bare feet the whole way, though I barely felt the cold. She weighed almost nothing, and she'd gone quiet against my chest, her breath coming too fast, too shallow.

I kicked the door open and carried her to the bed, laying her down on the furs.

"I'm going to get the fire going."

"Isn't your own fire enough?" Hoarse, half-delirious, and still sharp enough to needle me.

Who are you, that you'd smart off to a monster instead of begging?

I got the fire going in the hearth, grabbed two blankets off the shelf, and laid them over her. The cabin was small — one room, a woodstove, a single window shuttered against the wind — but it would hold heat quickly enough once the fire caught.

"Take off the dress."

"No."

"It's wet."

"I noticed."

"You'll never get warm wearing it."

"Fine. I'll do it myself." I reached for her, mostly to see what she'd do, and she dodged, quicker than I expected given how badly she was shaking.

"I can do it myself."

She struggled out of the dress beneath the blankets, then held it out to me without meeting my eyes.

The moment I took it, her scent hit me. My whole body locked up, every muscle going rigid. I knew attraction. I knew lust. I didn't know whatever this was, reaching inside my ribs and pulling, or why it made my beast go so quiet.

During a Blood Moon, my wolf wanted destruction.

Now he only wanted her. And he wanted her badly enough that my hands curled into fists at my sides just to keep from reaching for her again.

"You're red."

I leaned over her and pressed the back of my hand to her forehead.

Burning.

"You have a fever."

"I don't feel sick."

"You're burning."

She shivered — not the rough shaking from the cold, but something smaller, different — and her scent hit me again, stronger, sweet enough that I could taste it at the back of my throat.

She curled up, a low sound of pain escaping her, and my body reacted before my mind caught up.

"Open your eyes, sweetheart."

Her eyes slowly opened.

"Everything hurts," she whispered, trying to sit up.

I reached out to steady her, but the moment she looked at me, something changed. Her gaze dropped to my bare chest and stayed there.

Then she wet her lips.

That scent. Her flushed skin. Sweet jasmine — that was her scent, and it was driving me out of my mind. I could barely hold onto myself, my control fraying. The way she was looking at me.

No.

"Are you in heat?"

"Yes."

How the hell had she ended up out here alone, in the middle of winter, dressed like that, when whatever was happening to her body had clearly already started? Whoever put her out here was going to regret it when I found them.

But that could wait. Right now, I needed to take care of her.

"Come here," I murmured.

She hesitated. Her body trembled, already exhausted from being in heat for too long.

“She’s going to die like this!” my wolf growled. “She needs a knot, and fast!”