Page 16 of Mountain Storm (Mountain Shadows #1)

CARYN

The silence is worse than the storm. It settles over the cabin like wet wool, dense and clinging, muffling even the creak of the logs as they contract in the cold.

It presses in from every direction, thick and suffocating, a velvet vice squeezing the air from my lungs.

The silence hums with tension, stretched taut across my skin, vibrating with something unseen and waiting just beyond reach.

It crowds against my ears like water rising in a tank, every second stretched until it cuts thin and sharp, daring me to breathe.

Then it changes. The quiet fractures with a grunt, the heavy thud of something slamming into wood, reminders that whatever is happening on the other side of the door hasn’t ended.

I press closer to the warped bathroom window, but the storm and darkness smear everything into shadows.

The log walls drink in sound, turning the violence into muffled echoes that crawl under my skin.

I can’t see it, but I feel it—like heat pressing against glass, insistent and inescapable.

Metal clicks, steel scraping wood. A weapon readied, discarded, or poised.

The sound knifes through the silence, threading through the cabin like a warning.

Or maybe it’s only my pulse, hammering too loud, too fast, reminding me I’m caught in the middle of something I shouldn’t want but can’t turn from.

Someone knocked. Zeb sent me here, then opened the door. Now there’s blood in the quiet. I can’t watch, but I can taste the inevitability of it.

My breath ghosts sharp and uneven. The cabin isn’t cold, yet I shiver, clutching the blanket like it’s armor. Not from fear. Not exactly. This is darker, heavier—the kind of dread that coils low in the belly, sharp enough to hurt, intoxicating enough to crave.

The quiet gnaws at me, a hollow pulse I can’t shake.

The floor creaks beneath deliberate weight, each step unhurried, savoring the approach.

Boot leather grinds against wood, dragging menace closer until it waits outside the bathroom door.

The silence that follows isn’t empty—it swells, thick and weighted, swollen with promise.

The bolt across the door is solid, but safety is a lie.

When Zeb moves, he does it with the inevitability of a storm, calm and unrelenting, a force that bends everything around him.

The air tilts with his presence, every surface bending toward him.

There’s the feral grace of a predator in his stride, and beneath it, the heat of something far more dangerous.

Each step feels like a claim, each breath a reminder: I’m not safe from him, and I don’t want to be.

It reminds me of the low build of thunder before a strike: slow, deliberate, and saturated with threat.

It feels like the space itself bends around him, as if even the walls shrink back.

He doesn’t knock. Doesn’t ask. He steps forward with the certainty of a wolf taking ground, no pause, no apology, his presence swallowing the space as if it was always his.

“Caryn.”

My name lands low and quiet, almost intimate. It roots me in place. I can’t move. The door handle turns and I let it. Let him.

Zeb steps inside, blood spattered across his forearms and the collar of his shirt, and something inside me twists.

Not just fear. Revulsion prickles along my skin, cold and sharp, but it tangles with fascination, too.

With the way he moves, the way the blood doesn’t seem to weigh on him.

My pulse skitters as I watch him, every instinct screaming danger while something deeper stirs in a place I refuse to name.

The line between horror and hunger thins, blurring until I can't tell whether it's revulsion tightening my chest or heat pooling deep inside me.

The violence still clings to him, but it's the control—the sheer command in the way he moves—that twists inside me, equal parts warning and lure.

What kind of woman watches a man covered in blood and aches to know how that same power would feel with his hands on her skin?

Blood, dark and tacky, paints the skin in broken patches that glint dully under the low light, clinging to him like war paint applied by violence itself.

His eyes are a different kind of storm, void of rage or heat, just a cold, unsettling calm that warns of something deeper.

Something icy. Calculated. Leashed fury beneath still water.

I should ask if he’s hurt. I should be afraid. I should run.

Instead, I breathe, even though my chest feels like it might cave in under the weight of everything I've just seen and heard.

I force the air in slowly, trying to ignore the bitter taste of confusion and the heat still smoldering inside me.

How do I reconcile this hunger with the blood on his hands?

“You going to tell me what that was?” I ask, voice thin but steady. “Or do I get the silent treatment again?”

His mouth tightens. “Handled.”

“That’s not an answer.”

He steps closer. “You want answers?”

“Yes. Start with who the hell those men were.”

“Contractors. Ex-military. Sent here to find you.”

I stare at him. “Me?”

“They said someone somewhere was worried that you were missing.” He watches me too closely. “You tell anyone where you were going?”

“No. I didn’t.”

“Think harder.”

Anger flares in my chest. “You think I brought them here on purpose?”

“I think they came for you. I think someone wanted you close to me.”

My spine stiffens. “That sounds paranoid.”

He steps in close, and the air tightens around me.

“Everything about me is paranoid, sweetheart. That’s how I’m still breathing.”

His presence fills the room, commanding and absolute.

My back bumps against the counter’s edge, its cold press grounding me, reminding me there’s nowhere else to go.

The walls seem to narrow, the air thickens with anticipation, and every instinct in my body screams that retreat isn’t just impossible, it’s no longer an option I want.

“So what now?” I whisper. “You going to lock me in here forever?”

His hand lifts. Not to strike. Not to touch. Just to remind me he could. And somehow, that burns hotter than fear.

“You wanted to know who I am,” he says, voice low and edged like a blade. “Let me show you the Beast.”

I try to hold his gaze, but it roots me to the floor, my breath stuttering in my chest. A glint of something feral ignites behind his eyes, raw and untamed, hunger sharpening the icy stillness into something that feels like a silent dare.

It slices through the air between us like a blade, sharp enough to strip me bare.

The urge to look away claws at me, but I don’t.

I can’t. Not when he’s looking at me like he already owns every inch of my body, like defiance only makes the claim sweeter.

He unbuckles his belt slowly, eyes never leaving mine. The leather slides free with a hiss, his movements deliberate. He steps behind me, looping it around my wrists with practiced ease, binding them together as he murmurs, “Say thank you.”

A bolt of heat stabs through me, humiliation tangled with something darker.

It moves through me like a jolt of current, searing and hot, short-circuiting thought with sensation.

I don't want to obey, not after everything.

Not after the blood. But the power in his voice scrapes something raw and wanting inside me, and the war between my pride and whatever he's unlocking rages loud enough to drown out shame.

“No,” I whisper, even as my breath quickens.

His hand brushes my cheek, not gentle, not cruel. “Say it.”

Heat crashes through me, wild and unwelcome. “Thank you.”

“Good girl.”

He tilts my head back, eyes dark with intent, and pushes me lower.

He presses the thick crown of his cock to my lips, and I part for him.

Heat floods my mouth as he pushes inside, stretching me until my jaw protests, his taste dark, raw, and unrelenting.

I gag, choke, then open wider, the rhythm brutal from the start.

His fist knots in my hair, holding me on him, forcing me to take more, to swallow until I can’t think past the stretch of my lips and the fire in my throat.

The cabin echoes with every wet pull, every ragged breath, every groan he can’t hold back.

My knees slide against the floor, my shoulders strain against the belt, and still he drives deeper, relentless.

Spit slicks my chin, tears blur my vision, and the intensity only makes my pulse hammer harder.

I can feel the moment he loses control, his hips jerking, his voice a guttural sound above me as he spills down my throat.

I take it all, swallowing until he’s empty and I’m shaking.

A hush clamps down, weighty and airless. My lips throb, my wrists burn where the leather held them fast. He crouches in front of me, fingers brushing the raw marks he’s left behind.

“You’re not broken,” he says, voice steady. “You’re still here. With me.”

The words dig deeper than his hands ever could.

My lungs drag at the air, my knees ache from the floor, but the real fracture isn’t physical.

It’s the heat pooling low in my belly, and instead of fading, an ache blooms, tight and insistent.

. Shame should follow, but it doesn’t. What rises in its place is darker. A need I can’t name and don’t want to.

My body remembers everything. Every command that broke down my defenses.

Every relentless thrust that left me trembling, raw, and stretched too wide.

Each calculated change in his rhythm marked his possession of me, a branding not of fire but of will, etched into my muscles and nerves until they thrummed with obedience and shameful desire.

My legs feel unsteady, the backs of my knees slick with sweat and a hollow throb pulses low in my belly where need hasn’t been extinguished, only banked.

The weight of his control lingers like heat trapped beneath my skin, my wrists still sensitized from the belt’s bite, my jaw sore from how far I let him push me.

And deeper still, beneath the sting and ache, is the shuddering truth I can’t escape: I didn't just endure it. I burned for it.

My knees are still pressed with phantom bruises, thighs trembling with aftershocks.

There's a dull ache between my legs, a lingering hum that thrums in time with my pulse. My wrists burn with a rawness that sharpens each movement, and every breath feels heavier, like my lungs haven't caught up to what my body endured. But it isn’t just pain. It’s sensation, sharp and alive, surging through every nerve ending and leaving behind a heat that pulses like a second heartbeat I can't shake.

And part of me... part of me wants more.

That scares me more than anything. From the hollow ache left behind when his hands leave my skin.

He unties me slowly. Carefully. Like I might break if he moves too fast.

He brushes a finger down the inside of my wrist. A ghost of a touch. Nothing like the force from before.

“Are you okay?” he asks quietly.

I nod, but inside, something darker coils tighter. I don’t know what ‘okay’ means anymore—but I know I’m not done.