Page 19 of Sentinel of Talon Mountain
She nods again and heads to the other side of the room, and something changes in the air when she leaves my side. The warmth from her shoulder still lingers like an echo, and the space she occupied feels too empty, too quiet. I drag a breath in, but it doesn't steady me the way it should. I stare at the map for another long second before folding it. My pulse is elevated, jaw tight. It’s not the weather.
She doesn’t ask about the brush. Doesn’t make a joke or call it out. Her hands tremble when she pours water; a spark she masks quickly. Proof I’m not the only one who is fraying.
That night, we sit across from each other in the firelight, the restless glow painting shadows across her cheekbones and catching in the strands of her hair, making them shimmer with each subtle movement. She sits cross-legged, posture casual, eyes anything but, measuring with heat threaded through calculation. She holds the same mug from the night before, fingers curled around it like it’s an anchor, and looks at me with something deeper than strategy in her gaze. She’s judgingmore than terrain or timelines, she’s weighing the charged space between us. Risk and reward. Threat and temptation. Her eyes don’t just study me, they challenge me.
There’s a glint there, a calculation that makes something inside me tighten hard. Is she wondering if I’ll be the one to cross the line? Or debating if she’ll beat me to it? My eyes fall to the slow, absent circle her thumb traces along the mug’s rim. It’s a tiny, distracted movement, but it draws my focus to her mouth with ruthless precision.
The air feels weighted. Not just with smoke and firelight, but with something that hums just beneath the surface. Anticipation. The storm outside might’ve forced a pause, but it’s only stirred up the one building between these walls—between us.
She catches me looking, and instead of glancing away, she holds my gaze—steady, unflinching, like she wants me to see the storm beneath her skin. Heat flares low, sudden and fierce, my breath catching in my throat as tension coils through me. My muscles tighten, chest rising with a breath that feels too deep, too aware. She doesn’t blink. Neither do I. The air crackles between us, heavy and electric, as if touch isn’t necessary to feel the impact of her eyes on mine.
Outside, the wind screams against the glass, harsh and relentless, like a warning spun through wire. It doesn’t just batter the glass—it probes, circles. A predator outside, patient and waiting for weakness. The sound grates along my spine, too focused. It doesn’t feel like weather anymore. It feels like intent. Inside, it’s quiet. Too quiet. Like the hush before something breaks.
And I know when something breaks, it won’t be the storm that decides the fallout. It’ll be what happens between us when the walls crack and something more dangerous tries to slip through.
7
WREN
The power cuts with a gut-deep jolt—sudden and intense. It doesn’t feel like weather. It feels like someone pulling a trigger. The low hum of electricity dies, and the soft lights that warmed the cottage vanish like a snapped thread. One moment, we’re soaked in the orange glow of firelight and utility bulbs. The next, the only thing between us and the cold, disorienting dark is the dim light of the fire.
"Shit," I mutter, already reaching for my flashlight. The beam slices through the dark, narrow and weak against the void pressing in around us.
"Generator's in the shed," Nate says. "I'll see to it."
His voice is low, calm, but there’s a new edge to it—like he’s already cycling through options.He grabs his rifle and coat. I’m already shoving my arms into mine, boots hitting the floor as I move to follow him. The temperature inside begins to drop without the heat pumping, but it's nothing compared to the bitter cold outside. I know this chill—dry, aggressive, the kind that bites under your skin if you let it.
The wind howls, feral and alive, ripping through the trees like it’s covering tracks, like the storm itself wants to erase whoever’s out here. Snow slashes at us in blinding sheets, the icy stingharsh against every scrap of exposed skin. I trudge behind Nate through the knee-deep drifts, each step a battle. The flashlight beam dances across gnarled pine and wind-warped shadow, the storm turning the world into a blur of white fury and flickering shapes.
The shed crouches half-buried, crusted with ice and too exposed if anyone wants us trapped inside. Nate wrestles the door open against the wind while I duck in beside him, the space is small, but big enough for the two of us. The backup generator sits in the corner, cold and silent, but the Toyo heater is working away to keep the temperature tolerable. He kneels beside it, checking connections while I hold the light steady.
Our breath fogs the air in twin plumes, curling between us in the dim, icy space. I catch the rise and fall of his chest in the pulse of the flashlight, the taut lines of muscle under his coat, the way the confined air carries his heat. There’s a faint trace of something on him—woodsmoke, maybe, and the scent of cold air clinging to fabric. It’s grounding and intimate, and far too easy to breathe in. The tension between us hums just beneath the surface, not quite spoken, but undeniable. The shed is cramped, and every move jostles us closer. Adrenaline thrums through my limbs, but it’s his nearness that really lights the fuse.
Cold leather, wind, woodsmoke—his scent is everywhere, filling the space until the shed feels more like him than walls. Every brush of his shoulder charges the air like a live wire. It’s like static charging the space between skin and impulse. The tight quarters don’t just trap body heat—they trap tension, need, everything we’ve been trying not to acknowledge since this started. I feel him at my side—not just physically, but in the way his presence starts to fill up all the space in my chest. It shouldn’t matter, shouldn’t register. But it does. Every single time.
“Shouldn’t take long,” he mutters, fingers working with practiced precision through the snarl of wires, making sure thegenerator’s exhaust will vent cleanly to the outside. His brow pulls tight in concentration, jaw set hard, the dim beam carving shadows across the defined line of his cheek. His voice is low, a quiet hum that threads through the shed like heat from a banked flame—curling into me, settling low and unsteady where I can’t shake it.
I nod, even though he can’t see me. My throat’s dry, and not just from the cold. My stomach flips, a tight clench of nerves and heat, and I swear I feel every inch of space between us like a current barely restrained, sparking just beneath the surface.
I move slightly, trying to relieve the pressure gathering low and intense. It only heightens my awareness of his nearness, the way his breath moves the air and the rough whisper of fabric as he adjusts his grip. It’s too much. It’s not enough. I move a little more, trying to ease the tension wound tight in my spine. But I can feel him watching now. Even in the dark. Especially in the dark.
He looks up, and the moment catches like a snare—his gaze locking onto mine with an unreadable intensity that steals the breath from my throat. Time hiccups. Everything else—the storm, the cold—fades to static as heat and hesitation war in the narrow space between us.
"You okay?" he asks.
It’s a simple question. But everything in it lands wrong. Or maybe too right.
"Yeah," I say, but it’s too quick. Too tight.
His eyes narrow, keen and unreadable in the dim light. "Don’t feed me lies, Wren." His tone cuts low, the kind that leaves no room for evasion, and suddenly the air between us feels charged, like a wire stretched too tight, ready to snap.
Something breaks loose in my chest. A sound, a laugh, a breath—I’m not sure what it is. Maybe it’s just the pressure valve cracking. Maybe it’s the way his voice drops lower when he usesmy name like that. Or maybe it’s the storm, the dark, the cold, and the fact that he’s too close and not close enough.
"I’m not the one who left half a map unmarked just so we could brush shoulders," I say, quieter now.
His mouth curves. Not a smirk; I don't know that Nate even knows how to smirk. Something darker. "You noticed."
"Of course I noticed," I say, my voice low, almost defiant.
