Page 13 of Sentinel of Talon Mountain (Men of Talon Mountain #3)

WREN

T he wind dies down by degrees, leaving the trees in a breathless hush. Nate nods once, hand skimming the doorframe like he can feel the weather in the wood. "We’ll take the long route around the ridge," he murmurs.

I follow him outside, stepping into the fading light, the door clicking shut behind us like a seal.

The snow crunches softly under our boots, that delicate, brittle sound the only thing marking our passage.

The sky is darkening fast—clouds dragging thick and low—but there’s enough twilight left to move without lanterns.

Just barely. My eyes adjust quickly, memory and instinct doing the work logic can’t.

We descend through the thinning timber, stepping into the tension of what comes next.

My boots barely whisper against the snow-crusted ground, a fragile crust of ice crunching faintly beneath each step, but I still pause before clearing the tree line. The air bites cold—damp earth, frost, and a metallic tang that prickles my throat and raises every hair on my arms.

A breeze moves through the clearing, carrying with it the distant hush of branches creaking under old snow and something that smells faintly wrong, like the moment before a storm breaks.

It brushes against my face, crisp and clean, and carries a silence that rings too loud in my ears.

Every instinct flares—a quiet hum of tension that tightens my spine and keeps my foot suspended in place.

Instinct, not logic. A breath catches, held tight in my chest as I scan the slope above.

Nothing. Just wind-dusted branches and rock. Still, I don’t move.

Nate’s presence behind me is quiet but potent. I don’t need to see him to feel it—solid, steady, close. The kind of nearness that vibrates along nerves frayed too thin. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t rush. Just waits.

A clearing is ahead, a wide patch of frost-laced ground where the snow has begun to crust unevenly, catching stray shards of twilight.

Melt pools glint faintly in the dips and hollows, catching the last fractured slants of light that spill through the thinning spruce canopy.

Pine needles are caught in ice pockets and wind-swept to the edges, pressed flat into the soft crust where the sun barely touches.

The space feels too quiet—like sound itself has been pushed back to the tree line.

Cold air coils low against my ankles and rises harsh in the back of my throat.

It is tinged with the faint scent of old fire and something mineral, like water run through iron.

I don’t like how still it is, how exposed the open ground feels.

My gaze skims the shadowy margins, pulse tapping harder behind my ribs.

It’s beautiful, in a bleak kind of way—but it’s the kind of beautiful that dares you to trust it. And I don’t.

Cold iron, sap, and the faint taint of old smoke—like something passed through that didn’t belong.

The silence feels weighted, every breath suspended in a hush that presses against my skin.

It’s the kind of place that makes instincts prickle, that hums with the memory of things watching and waiting, flattened by wind and edged in towering spruce.

Dusky light filters through the thinning canopy in fractured streaks, casting the clearing in muted glimmers—uncertain, half-hidden, and edged with shadow.

Every instinct in me recoils, nerves drawn tight.

It feels like stillness laid as bait—the forest holding its breath, waiting for our misstep.

A breeze stirs faintly, carrying a scent that doesn’t belong—metallic, like old blood or the tang of fear.

My gut tightens. Something’s off. Something’s watching.

We’ve both clocked it as a vulnerability. He’ll want to cross fast. I prefer cover. But when I lean my weight back, he’s already beside me, a low murmur near my ear.

"I’ve got eyes north and east. Movement, we hit the ground. Don’t stop."

I nod once and we move.

Crossing feels endless. Every step screams—a half-frozen earth beneath my boots that rings too loud in the hush. A hawk calls overhead and I flinch before I can stop myself. Nate steadies me with a brush at my lower back, short-circuiting everything for a heartbeat. Damn him.

We clear the tree line on the far side without incident. My lungs burn, but not from exertion. It’s him—his steady breathing, the lethal calm that clings to him like another layer of gear.

I catch myself watching the way he holds himself, the way he feels like the only stable thing in a world that keeps slipping under my feet.

And that stability? It terrifies me as much as it draws me in.

The way his breath stays calm even after a sprint, the way his eyes never stop scanning.

Laser focus, like he was made for moments like this.

It should be reassuring. Instead, it ties my stomach into a tight, aching knot.

He slows as we reach a slope peppered with boulders and half-buried logs. "Take five. Stay low."

I crouch against a rock, unshouldering my pack. The surface is cold and rough beneath my palms, anchoring me with its familiar bite. Damp earth presses through the knees of my pants, the scent of lichen and stone filling the air.

My fingers move by rote, checking the med kit, adjusting the straps, but every muscle stays taut—too aware of Nate’s presence and the silence pressing in around us. But my mind won’t stay still. Not with this kind of quiet. Not with the kind of man who sees too much.

"You keep twitching," he says without looking over. "Something you want to say?"

I force a laugh. "Not unless you want a full rundown of all the ways I hate open ground."

He gives me a look—flat, amused. "I already know that."

The wind shifts and brings a bite of cold harsher than before. I zip my jacket halfway, then stop.

I could tell him, and that’s the part that scares me—the fact that I even consider it. That some part of me, tired and bruised and craving something steadier than solitude, thinks maybe he could handle it. Maybe he could handle me .

The urge claws up, sudden and fierce, catching me off guard.

My pulse stutters. The story presses against my throat—snow’s weight, Mason’s rope going slack, the messages colder than the avalanche.

I picture Nate hearing it all, the way his jaw would set, how he’d carry it like one more weight he insists on bearing alone.

I almost want that. But wanting him is dangerous—because if I let myself want him, I might start needing him. And needing someone? That’s where it all starts to fall apart.

I stand, brushing snow from my knees. "We moving or nesting?"

His mouth quirks. "You call this nesting?"

"I’ve had worse."

He straightens, scans the treetops. "Yeah. I believe that."

We push forward. The ridge looms ahead, steep and scattered with shale. My boots press softly over the broken rock, each step sending a harsh bite of sound into the brittle quiet. I scan the slope automatically, but my focus splinters.

My breath quickens—not from exertion, but from something tighter, deeper. My heart skips, then thuds harder, as if trying to keep pace with a warning I haven’t fully registered yet. My lungs pull fast and shallow, the way they do when adrenaline spikes and there’s no clean target to aim at.

It’s not fear exactly. It’s him. And the way the air feels different now—charged, tense, like it’s carrying more than cold.

Like it’s carrying him. The kind of awareness that knots in my gut, hot and wrong and real.

I don't like the way it feels—like something's about to snap. Like I'm already bracing for the sound.

From the corner of my eye, Nate moves with fluid control.

Efficient. Silent. His body reads the terrain with the ease of someone who’s lived too long in combat silence—every angle calculated, every shadow assessed.

It should ground me. Instead, it sends another surge of tension up my spine, sudden and instinctive, like the forest itself is reacting to him.

He signals me down and gestures—two fingers, then a point. Movement. Upper right quadrant.

My heart kicks hard, a sudden, pounding jolt that echoes in my ribs like a warning shot.

A whisper of motion at the edge of my vision sets off a cascade of instinct, tight breath, ears straining, the crunch of brittle snow magnified like a crack of gunfire in the stillness.

The air thickens, cold and electric with the bite of frozen moss and anticipation.

I flatten to the earth beside him. Nate moves fluidly, rifle up, scope locked in. Every line of him tense but composed.

I should be terrified. Instead, I’m watching the flex of his hands, the subtle tension in his forearms, the steady control in each movement. The way his fingers adjust with confident ease, like he’s done this a thousand times, like the rifle is just an extension of his will.

My gaze betrays me, drawn to his hands on the rifle stock.

Every movement is measured, steady, unhurried—as if nothing in this world could shake his control.

That kind of composure shouldn’t belong out here, not with danger pressing in from every shadow.

It makes him look carved from something older, steadier than flesh, and it leaves a shiver racing down my spine.

I swallow against the sudden dryness in my throat, unsettled by the calm rolling off him in waves.

It’s not normal—not when the air itself feels wound tight with threat.

My breath catches low, chest refusing to rise all the way, caught between fear and something else I don’t want to name.

Because beneath the unease, there’s heat twisting in my gut, fierce and intrusive, tugging at me in ways I can’t afford to notice.

I drag my focus away, eyes fixed uphill, but the imprint of him refuses to fade.

It lingers at the edges of my vision, vivid as flame and just as distracting.

My heart stumbles, an uneven beat thudding hard against my ribs.

The silence presses in heavier, as if the forest itself knows I’m fraying at the edges.

Compelling. Disquieting. And more dangerous than the threat I came here to face.

I squint uphill. Nothing obvious. Just a shadow moving ever so slightly. A trick of light... or not.

"You see it again?" I whisper.

"Not yet. Hold."

Time stretches. My pulse pounds behind my ears. And then—movement. Definitely not wind.

He clicks his radio once—signal only—and we pull back, low and fast. I count each step like a prayer. Only when we’re behind a fallen spruce does he speak again.

"Could be a scout."

His words are barely more than breath, but the instinct that drives them is harsh and visceral. Something about the subtle change in the clearing's energy, maybe the prickling chill that creeps down my spine or the fleeting scent in the air that doesn’t belong, triggers the warning.

Nate continues. "Could be a test. Either way, we stay down. Wait for confirmation."

"You think they’re pushing south already?"

He nods, jaw tight. "They’re too close. We won’t get another warning. We’re the warning."

His voice holds a steel edge, but beneath it—something else. Protective. Fierce.

I watch him in profile, jaw set, eyes narrowed on the ridge.

The wind ruffles the edge of his collar, but he doesn’t flinch.

He’s stone and focus, every muscle wired for action, and something about that steadiness unsettles me.

It’s the kind of composure that belongs to men who don’t break, and maybe that’s why it shakes me more than the threat ahead.

The pull hits again—an ache settling low, warm, unwelcome.

Not just want, but the danger inside it, curling close and fast, like a spark thrown on dry tinder.

The slope of his shoulders, the unyielding line of his mouth, the furrow between his brows—they all draw me in.

My fingers itch to smooth that crease away, to ease the weight from his skin as if it might take the weight off mine.

I hold back. I can’t. A touch like that would betray too much, too soon.

Reckless impulse surges—memories of burned hands, lessons unlearned. My fingers twitch, half-lift, then fist hard against my thighs. The tension stays locked in my body, every nerve tight with restraint. I won’t give in to it. Not yet.

Still, the space between us hums with something I don’t want to name.

It coils through the silence, a current that dares me to lean closer, to forget the walls I’ve spent years rebuilding.

And that’s the danger of him—not the rifle in his hands or the shadows on the ridge, but the way he makes me want to drop my guard.

I inhale slowly. The air is colder now, edged with the faint tang of snow covered earth. It slides over my skin with a clammy chill, clinging like a warning not yet spoken—but it isn’t the only thing making me shiver.

"You okay?" he asks, eyes still scanning the ridge.

"Fine."

He looks over. "You weren't very convincing."

"I wasn't trying to be."

A half-smile. "Then I’ll believe you. For now."

We wait. Minutes drag, each one stretched to the breaking point by silence and the breath we don't fully exhale. My calves start to ache from holding tension, and my fingers twitch, itching for movement—any movement.

The earth beneath me feels unforgiving, the crusted snow gritty and uneven beneath my palms, flecked with bits of bark and windblown debris frozen in place—every pressure point a grounding reminder that we’re exposed, vulnerable, and poised for something we can’t yet name.

I feel the weight of Nate’s presence beside me—solid and alert—and it steadies me, even as part of me resents how much I’ve come to count on that. No more movement.

But something’s changed. The air feels loaded. The ridge isn’t just a threat anymore. It’s a line; something not to be crossed.

I don’t know what comes next. But I know this much—silence won’t take me again. I won’t vanish into frost and shadow like before. Not without a fight. And not without him.