Page 6 of Mountain Storm (Mountain Shadows #1)

CARYN

Iwake slowly, disoriented, as if surfacing from a nightmare layered in snow and smoke.

My breath is ragged, shallow, like my lungs have forgotten how to work in warmth.

The air tastes like dry ash and pine sap, too warm against my chapped lips, too still to feel real.

My skin prickles with the ghost of cold that's only just let go—fingers twitching, toes numb despite the heat wrapping around me.

There's no hum of machines, no distant hospital beep like before.

Just silence. A deep, heavy, unnatural silence that settles into my bones like a warning.

A low fire crackles nearby as I open my eyes and watch shadows dance along rough-hewn log walls. My body registers the ache of cold long endured, muscles trembling just beneath the surface. I reposition, and that’s when I feel it.

Fur.

Soft, heavy, and unmistakably real. Not the fake kind you find in boutiques, but thick pelts that once belonged to predators—creatures that once stalked and killed with silent precision.

The weight of them presses into me, their scent still clinging faintly to the supple hide, earthy and wild.

The texture brushes against my skin like a caress and a warning all at once—seductive, wrong, and impossible to ignore.

It's both comforting and disturbing, like being cradled in the jaws of something that hasn't quite decided to let me go.

The heat seeps into my bones, thawing me too fast, making my pulse stutter in confusion.

It's not just the strange sensation of furs against bare skin—it's the sense that something ancient is watching.

The scent of wild things wraps around me, coiling in my lungs like memory and hunger.

I inhale again, and it hits me—not just the animal musk of the pelts, but something human beneath it. Male. Dark. Like the memory of hands that have never touched me, but somehow know every inch of where they belong.

I can't tell if I want to run or curl deeper into the warmth.

I adjust again, trying to push the sensation away, but the friction against my bare thighs only makes it stronger.

A flicker of shame pulses through me, because buried beneath the unease is something else—some dark, coiled curiosity that wants to be touched, claimed, possessed.

And I don't know if it belongs to me or to whatever predator left these furs behind.

It feels primal. Territorial. Like I've been claimed—and part of me doesn't want to be let go.

I bolt upright and instantly regret it. The room tilts. Nausea claws up the back of my throat, but I force it down, blinking hard until the blur of my surroundings settles.

I'm in a cabin. A real, old-school, Alaska-as-hell log cabin—with thick log walls chinked with moss, gaps sealed tight against the cold.

There's no sign of wiring, no switches, no blinking lights or outlets.

Just the dancing glow of the fire, and that single window—its glass fogged and rimed with frost so thick it turns the world outside into a blur of white and shadow.

The absence of any hum, any modern humanness, confirms it: no electricity.

Just wood, stone, and silence. There's a battered wood stove in the corner, flames licking the edges of a cast iron pan.

A single chair. A table. A rack of weapons—rifles, knives, blades that look like they haven't seen daylight in years.

My heart pounds. Where the hell?

And then I remember the storm. The crash. The snow swallowing me whole.

I look down, remembering before my eyes confirm it. No clothes.

Correction: not my clothes. Someone's undressed me and then redressed me—barely. I'm wrapped in layers of fur, and beneath that, an oversized thermal shirt that hangs nearly to my knees. It smells faintly of wood, cold air, and something darker—him.

I search the table next to me. My camera. My phone. Gone.

My stomach knots.

Before I can slide out of the rather comfortable iron bed, the door creaks open.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed, steadying myself as the furs slide off. The cold bites instantly at my bare thighs, but I grit my teeth and rise to standing, wrapping the pelts tighter around me.

He steps in like he owns the world—and dares anyone to challenge him. His shoulders fill the doorway like a threat, his movements deliberate, silent, predatory. Snow clings to his boots and beard, melting in slow rivulets that glint like blood in the firelight.

The air bends around his presence, growing thick with heat and warning. My breath catches, sharp and involuntary. Muscles I didn't know were tense pull tighter, my spine instinctively straightening under his gaze.

His eyes find me, cold and assessing, and for a second, I swear the temperature in the room drops ten degrees. Broad shoulders. A beard that's half-shadow, half-sin. And eyes like sharpened steel—cold, calculating, and unmistakably familiar.

It's him. My nipples tighten under the oversized shirt, a traitorous flush blooming across my chest. Heat pools low in my belly, dark and liquid, uncoiling with every second his gaze lingers.

The air between us thickens, and I'm no longer sure if I'm shivering from residual cold—or something far more dangerous.

I feel it before I fully understand it—my pulse stutters, my breath catches. The same man who once pulled me from the snow like a myth with a heartbeat now stands looking down at me.

I remember the way his arms wrapped around me, the rasp of his voice telling me to hold on.

Back then, I thought I imagined him—a guardian spirit conjured by frostbite and fear.

But now, he's flesh and blood. Bigger. Rougher.

The years have carved something cruel into the lines of his face.

There's a dark power in him now, a kind of barely leashed violence that curls around the edges of his stillness.

Maybe it was there before and I was too young to recognize it.

I wasn't afraid of the memory or the myth before. But now, the reality of him terrifies me because he's real—and because I can feel something in me answering him, something I don't want to even acknowledge, much less name.

The man from the storm. From the dream I've never stopped having. From the dark fantasies that haunted my dreams. But now, wide awake, he's even more dangerous than I imagined.

"You're awake again," he says, voice rough with disuse.

I clutch the fur tighter. "Where's my stuff?"

He shrugs off his coat and hangs it on a hook. "Drying. You were soaked through. Hypothermic. Remember? We went through this before."

"Humor me. Does that explain the whole—undressing me thing?"

He looks me dead in the eye. "Would you rather I let you die?"

I swallow hard. "No, but I think a simple towel would've sufficed."

His mouth twitches, not quite a smile. "You'd be dead, sweet thing. Hypothermia doesn't play fair."

I hate that he's right. I hate more that I remember that same tone from years ago—when I was a lost girl in the snow and he was the ghost who pulled me free.

"You're not exactly a welcoming committee," I mutter.

He cocks his head. "I don't recall issuing you an invitation."

The words land like a slap, blunt and unapologetic. My jaw clenches, and for a second I can't decide whether to shout, laugh, or throw something. Part of me wants to rail against the insult, against the insinuation that I'm just some lost girl chasing shadows.

But the worst part—the part I can't deny—is the flicker of heat curling in my belly.

It spreads like wildfire, licking up my spine, tightening my thighs, making my breath hitch as my body betrays me.

That raw, primal part doesn't care that I'm angry or afraid.

It responds to his dominance—bright and hot, pooling low and sending sharp pulses of want through me.

I press my thighs together, but it only deepens the ache, heightens the awareness of how desperately my body craves contact. I shouldn't want this. I shouldn't. But I do. And that terrifies me more than anything else.

Silence stretches. The wind screams outside, and I realize how far from civilization I really am.

"Who are you?" I ask finally.

"You already know."

Zeb. The beast. That's what they'd called him in rumors. The hermit, the madman, the former Army Ranger with a sniper's past and a ghost's reputation.

"I came here looking for someone else."

"Liar."

I blink. "Excuse me?"

"We both know, you came looking for me. Whether you admit it or not."

He pushes away from the doorframe and steps toward me, slow and deliberate, closing the space between us like a predator herding prey.

The air between us thickens, tension crackling.

I want to back up, to put space between us, but my legs refuse to move.

He stops just short of touching me, his presence brushing against my skin like a warning—or a promise.

My heart pounds so hard it hurts, and I swear he can hear it.

He's not wrong. But the fact that he knows? That he expects it? That he's been waiting?

My pulse kicks up, equal parts fear and something darker. Something traitorous.

"You planning on keeping me here?"

He leans against the doorframe. "Storm hasn't let up. There aren't any roads up here, and any that exist down below are out. You picked one hell of a day for a joy ride."

"Is there any way I can contact my people?"

He snorts. "You don't have people. And there's no radio, no phone, no internet. You're cut off from your world. You might as well get comfortable, you're not going anywhere."

"And when the storm clears?"

He doesn't answer.

Already standing, I refuse to back down. I adjust my weight, legs bare and shaking but rooted with stubborn defiance. "Look. I appreciate the rescue, but I don't make a habit of playing damsel in distress so if you'll give me my clothes and my gear, then I'll be on my way."