The temperature dropped sharply after sunset on our fourth night at West Ridge.
A vicious mountain wind rattled the cabin, pushing cold air through every gap in the floorboards.
I huddled under three wool blankets on the bed.
My fingers were numb, and my teeth chattered no matter how tight I clamped my jaw.
“I hate mountains,” I muttered into the dark, watching my breath fog in front of my face.
“I hate military camps.
Whoever decided humans should live somewhere the air freezes your lungs deserves a strongly worded letter.” A loud mechanical pop echoed from the yard outside.
The single overhead bulb flickered once and died, plunging the cabin into black darkness.
The small electric heater in the corner hummed to a halt, and the room temperature plunged even further.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.” I dragged a fourth blanket over my head.
Shouts echoed across the compound as personnel scrambled to check the power grid.
I stayed buried in my cocoon, shivering as the draft cut straight through the fabric.
An hour later, the cabin door creaked open.
Dylan walked inside, carrying a portable heating unit under one arm.
He set it on the floor, flipped the switch, and kicked the side panel.
Nothing happened.
He tried again.
The unit stayed cold.
“Don’t,” I called out from under my hill of blankets.
Dylan looked over at the bed.
“I haven’t said anything.” “You’re about to.” I peeked out with only my eyes showing.
“Please tell me that thing isn’t broken.” “It’s broken.” “Wonderful.
Just wonderful.” He unhooked the radio from his belt, keyed it, and listened for a moment before clipping it back.
“Command tent lost heat too.
The main generator lines are frozen solid.” “So everyone’s freezing.” “Everyone’s freezing.” He shrugged out of his jacket and dropped it over the back of the chair.
I sat up slightly, watching him in the dark.
“What are you doing?” “You’re freezing.” “Astute observation.
Anything else?” “The command tent isn’t usable either.” He was already walking toward the bed.
I sat bolt upright.
“Oh, no.
No, no.
You are not sleeping in here.” “Then freeze.” “That’s not — you can’t just say ‘then freeze’ like that settles it!” “It usually does.” I yanked the blankets tighter around my shoulders, glaring at him over the top edge.
“This feels remarkably convenient.
The generator dies the one night it’s cold enough to justify this.” Dylan raised an eyebrow.
“You think I sabotaged a generator to get into your bed.” “I wouldn’t put it past the Apex Hunter.
There are rumors, you know?
” “Didn’t the rumors specify that I can track a Class-4 through six miles of dead forest and talk anyone I want into my bed, Knox?
I don’t need to freeze a power grid for that.” He stopped at the edge of it.
“Move over.” “Absolutely not, Casanova.” “Suit yourself.” He didn’t move to leave.
He just stood there, arms crossed, clearly prepared to wait her out until the cold did his arguing for him.
“You’re insufferable.” “Then freeze,” he said again, and this time there was the faintest edge of amusement in it, like he knew exactly how this would end and was simply waiting for me to catch up.
A sudden gust slammed against the cabin wall, and the whole structure groaned like it might come apart at the seams.
I winced, and — cursing the wind, the mountain, and every ancestor who’d ever thought marrying into the Burke family was a good idea — shifted toward the far side of the mattress.
Dylan climbed on, fully dressed, and lay flat on his back with a wide gap left between us.
Neither of us spoke for a while.
Then I noticed the air near him wasn’t cold anymore.
He ran hot, like standing too close to a stove.
Without quite deciding to, I inched backward half an inch.
“Stop moving,” Dylan said to the ceiling.
“I’m not.” “You are.” “The mattress has a slope.
It’s the mattress’s fault.” He didn’t argue, which I decided to take as permission.
I slid another inch, and another, until my back was pressed flush against his side, and the cold in my bones finally started to lose the argument.
I lay there, abruptly, uncomfortably aware of the rise and fall of his chest against my shoulder blades.
This was the same face the system had been shoving into my skull every five minutes for the better part of two days.
I shut my eyes and prayed the memory would have the decency to stay quiet tonight.
“No,” I muttered, mostly to myself.
“What?” “Nothing.” I shifted two inches away on principle.
The draft hit my spine like a slap.
I gritted my teeth and slid straight back.
Dylan didn’t say anything this time.
He just reached over, and his arm settled around my waist, solid and unhurried, pulling me back against him until there was nowhere left to retreat to even if I’d wanted to.
My heart did something complicated and undignified.
“Relax,” he said, close to my ear.
“I am relaxed.” “Your heart says otherwise.” “Shut up.” I pressed my cold nose into his shirt collar to hide however my face had decided to betray me.
“And don’t get any ideas, Apex Hunter.” I felt the laugh before I heard it — a low vibration against my back.
“If I had ideas, Knox, you’d be wearing considerably less wool.” I tipped my head back just enough to glare up at his jaw.
“Was that your version of flirting?” “It wasn’t.
Why would I need to flirt with you?” “Oh please, it absolutely was.” “Then your standards have fallen further than I thought.
Assuming you had any to begin with.” “You’re a lot less terrifying when you talk like a person.” “Don’t get used to it.” A smile tugged at my mouth before I could stop it.
I let my head drop back against his chest and listened to his heartbeat, slow and even, while the wind tried and failed to get in.
I braced for the blue screen to ruin it — for the chapel to flash, for the system to remind me exactly whose arms I was in and why that was supposedly a punishment.
It didn’t come.
For the first time since the punishment ended, the system stayed completely and suspiciously silent.
I didn’t bother trying to examine why that felt like its own kind of gift.
I just closed my eyes and let myself be warm.
♡´･ᴗ･`♡ Morning came in gold across my eyelids before I remembered where I was.
I was curled into something solid and warm, my cheek pressed to soft cotton, one arm slung over what I slowly identified as a waist.
There was also a faint, damp patch under my chin.
That train of thought led me to opening my eyes slowly.
My face was against Dylan’s chest.
A very visible wet spot from something I refused to name was soaking into his shirt, and his arm was still locked around me, heavy and unbothered, like it had never once considered letting go.
My brain did not so much short-circuit as detonate.
I threw myself backward hard enough to crack my own neck.
Dylan’s eyes opened instantly, and his grip tightened for half a second before releasing me.
He pushed himself upright, looked down at the damp patch on his shirt, then over at me sprawled at the foot of the bed with my hair probably standing at several conflicting angles.
“Is it the drool that frightened you or what?” he said, voice still rough with sleep.
“I didn’t—I’m not…” I scrambled out from the blankets and hit the floorboards with an undignified thud.
“That was — condensation.
From my breath.
It’s a mountain.
There’s humidity.” “There’s no humidity in a heated cabin.” “There was no heat, genius, that was the entire problem last night.” Dylan looked at me for a moment too long, like he was deciding whether to let it go.
“Sure,” he said finally.
“Condensation.” “Thank you.” He reached for his jacket off the back of the chair, and if there was the ghost of a smile on his face as he turned away, I chose not to see it.
Pure biology.
If there happens to be chemistry under that blanket, I didn’t see it.
Ha Ha Ha