The night smelled of resin and cold iron. Torches stitched thin seams of light along the cliff, and below, the ravine opened like a mouth waiting to be fed. Two ropes sang under strain—one to my right where Joanna clung and shivered, the other sawing at my palms as I held my weight against bark rough enough to grate skin into sparks.
Taylor's arrival changed the temperature of the world. He broke from the tree line with warriors at his back, winter steady in his bones, his eyes doing the math of distance, tension, knives. Alpha, commander, man—three faces, one body—and all of them looking for the move that would break the problem cleanly apart.
For a breath, he gave me his gaze. It held like a brace. “Breathe," his mouth shaped more than said, and I did—because my lungs recognized that t
