Elaine
The bed was cold when I woke.
Not just empty—cold. The kind of chill that seeped into the sheets and settled in the bones, the kind that told me he’d been gone for hours, not minutes. I reached instinctively for the pillow, fingers curling into the fabric, and breathed in.
Cedar. Smoke. That elusive warmth that always made my pulse slow, like the hush before snowfall. Kave’s scent lingered, stubborn and grounding, but the man himself was gone.
Beyond the cabin walls, past the frost-laced trees, his heartbeat thrummed faintly against mine. A quiet, steady echo through the bond. I closed my eyes and reached for it, letting my own rhythm sync to his. It was like pressing my palm to a distant drum—muted, but there. Alive.
But beneath that steady beat, something twisted.
He didn’t
