Holly woke to warmth.
Not the dry, crackling heat of the cabin’s old woodstove, not the numb burn of Rowan’s wolf-hidden gentleness as he carried her through the storm, but a slow, steady warmth diffused through soft blankets and still air. A warmth that didn’t belong to the world she had come from.
Her eyes blinked open to a room that wasn’t hers.
Stone walls, smooth and pale, curved gently upward with wooden beams that arched overhead like the ribs of some ancient creature. A window on her right washed the room with golden morning light, soft enough that it didn’t sting her eyes. A thick rug lay across the floor, woven in muted forest greens and deep charcoal. The bed beneath her was soft—too soft compared to weeks of sleeping on a stiff cabin mattress—and smelled faintly of pine, mor
