Page 23 of Guardian of Talon Mountain

His gaze warms—liquid heat under ice. “Deal.”

We eat in companionable silence, the only sounds the gentle scrape of spoons against enamel and the occasional creak of the cabin settling. Outside, the wind prowls like a restless ghost, but in here, it's warm, grounded, real. Bit by bit, the tension leeches from my shoulders. By the time our bowls are empty and the fire has settled into glowing embers, some part of me I didn’t realize was clenched finally starts to loosen.

I stack dishes, hyper-aware of the quiet gravity behind me—large, silent, watching. The cabin feels smaller somehow, as ifthe air itself has thickened. Heat prickles across my skin, tension coiling low. I turn, the dish towel twisting between my fingers, an anchor I didn't know I needed.

“Caleb...”

He crosses the distance in three strides, palm curling at my nape. Not a kiss. Just contact—steady, grounding. “Sleep. Tomorrow we finish this.”

I press my forehead to his chest. “Together?”

“Until my last breath, Bryn.”

I believe him—and that terrifies me in a way drones or poachers never could. Because trust, once given, doesn’t bend. It breaks. And when it does, it cuts deeper than any trapline ever could.

Outside, the wind rasps across the roof, threading through the eaves like a warning whispered by the mountain itself. It moans low and steady, a reminder that out there, the wild is never silent, never still.

Tomorrow, the mountain demands payback. A distant howl slices through the night—wolf, raw and aching. It echoes like a challenge hurled into the dark. The alpha’s still running. And tomorrow, we follow where she leads—through shadow, through ice, toward whatever truths wait buried beneath the snow.

Dawn promises blood or answers—maybe both. And for the first time, I’m not backing down from either.

10

CALEB

Dawn leaks into the world like cold metal—sharp and biting at the nostrils with a sting of frost and iron. The silence carries a far-off creak of shifting ice, a brittle warning that the mountain is waking—thin, metallic, ready to burn, its bite sharp in the back of my throat. The air carries the ghost of frostbite and pine, prickling along the edge of awareness like a warning shot.

Bryn’s asleep when I ease out of bed, but her fingers catch my wrist—barely a twitch, and still, it grips something in my chest. For a second, I pause, watching the slow, steady rhythm of her breath, the crease between her brows that never fully relaxes. Even asleep, she’s on guard. It makes me want to keep guarding her back. I press a kiss to her hair. “Fifteen minutes,” I murmur. “Layer up.” She nods without opening her eyes, fierce even half-dreaming. That stubborn fire keeps me breathing.

Outside, the air is knife-sharp: minus-twenty, no mercy. Frost crystals catch the early light, glittering like broken glass across the hard-packed snow. Two snowmobiles idle in the half-light beside Zeke’s SUV, their engines puffing steam into the frozen stillness. Nate finishes tightening the cargo sled to hissnowmobile, breath clouding around him, while Wren checks tranquilizer darts clipped at her hip with surgical precision.

Bryn limps out in my spare parka, ankle wrapped in fresh tape visible under her boots. Her breath comes in sharp, determined puffs, misting the air with each exhale. Cheeks flushed from adrenaline, not cold, she looks like she was born for this hunt. The telemetry tablet is clutched in her hands like a weapon, her fingers moving fast across the screen, eyes locked on the data. Each step is deliberate, defiant. She isn’t along for the ride—she’s part of the mission, wired into every step.

“Wolf collar pinged three minutes ago,” she says, tapping the screen. “Heading west-southwest, fast.”

“That’s the ice shelf line,” Wren adds. “Crevasse fields all over.”

Even better.

I nod toward the slope. "We’ll split up," I say, already visualizing the route. "Zeke with Nate on point. Wren rides pillion behind Z. Bryn stays with me."

Zeke raises a brow. “You sure? She’s baggage on rough ice.”

Bryn answers for me. “I’m cargo with brains. Works out.”

I bite back a grin. “Cargo climbs behind me. Now.”

She huffs under her breath but moves, planting her foot with deliberate pressure onto the snowmobile’s rail. Her arms slide around my waist a second later, tight and sure. I feel the flare of her defiance in the way she grips me—strong, unyielding. Her chin rests between my shoulder blades, and for a moment, the world stills, heat and heartbeat throbbing in tandem. I know her jaw is set and her eyes are sharp without looking back.

Her warmth anchors me, settling low at my spine like purpose forged in fire. I gun the throttle. Snow spits. The machine growls, claws at the earth, and we rocket downslope. Treetops blaze in pink light as dawn slices the horizon wide open.

The GPS beeps in my chest pocket—steady pulses marking the alpha’s collar. Bryn calls ranges over engine roar: “Four-hundred meters… three-seventy-five… she’s veering right!”

I lean into the turn; the machine snarls, treads clawing powder as the cold whips across my cheeks. Pines blur past in dark streaks. Ahead, the trees break open into a glacial bowl, its surface a hard sheen of blue ice, wind-scoured and gleaming like a death trap. The air shifts—sharp with ozone and the faint bite of mineral frost—every inch of it lethal.

Ice shelf. One wrong throttle and we’re swallowed by the mountain—crushed in fractures no wider than a breath, entombed in glacial silence. The wind howls across the frozen surface, sharp as razors, and each vibration from the engine feels like a dare. I tighten my grip on the bars, eyes scanning the pale sheen for the faintest spiderweb crack or shadow of collapse.

I ease off, letting the snowmobile glide. Bryn’s grip tightens. “Shelf edge thirty meters,” she warns.

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