I tried to move. Something heavy lay across my chest. I opened my eyes to a dark room, lit only by the light of the roaring fire. Furs covered all I could see of my body. I was lying on my side, and the weight on my ribs was comforting rather than claustrophobic, as was the smooth, soft warmth behind me. I leaned back into it, my body craving the heat, my mind still drowsy from cold and fatigue.

The warmth moved, too.

Awareness poured into me, mercilessly informing me that my toes and fingers still ached with frostbite, and also that I was very, very naked. The body beside me, that wondrous source of warmth, was also naked, and there was only one person on this mountain to whom that body could belong.

“Skin to skin. It is the only way to save someone as cold as you are.”

I froze as her words drifted across my ear. Something moved at my feet, and I saw the tip of a white ear. The wolves were here, too. My pack. Leaves rustled just outside the edge of hearing, and I tried to sit up, but her arm weighed a thousand pounds and my muscles refused to obey me. There was a strange clacking sound, like old bones knocking together, and as she pulled me closer, I realized the sound was my teeth chattering.

“You are safe. I promise.”

Her body was as soft and hard as she was. I could feel the muscles of her stomach move as she spoke, and the curve of her breasts pressed against my back. She was wrong. I was not safe. In fact, I had never been more in danger. I remembered the decision I had come to in the snow. My heart beat faster, stuttering in my chest.

“Breathe slowly,” she said. “Cold can weaken the heart.”

I closed my eyes against the bitter irony of her words. My heart stuttered again, then resumed its beat, and I took a deep breath of warm air. The breath brought me closer to her, and the torpor that clung to my limbs prevented me from rolling away from the heat of her skin and the cool, piney scent of her hair. I shuddered as she held me while the nearness of my death passed over me like a winged shadow, and the feel of her arm around me was all that kept the ice at bay.

“It will pass.”

“The storm came out of nowhere,” I said, grateful that she could not see my face.

“Rowan.” She pulled away from me, leaving me once again out in the snow, and I shivered uncontrollably as she propped herself up on one elbow to look into my eyes. I saw the accusation there.

“I didn’t,” I said, my body shaking uncontrollably. “I didn’t want to die.”

“You didn’t?”