I wanted to touch her then, but all I could do was lie there while the last of the cold left me in great, shuddering tremors.

“No.”

“Then why did you run?”

Hold me, my mind screamed. “It’s all I know how to do,” said my mouth.

“You should not have stopped running.”

I closed my eyes against her words, hurt seeping in around the cold.

“If you had kept running, you would not have frozen.”

“If I had kept running, you would not have found me.”

“Open your eyes, Rowan.”

I refused. If I opened my eyes, I would see her skin, glowing rose-gold in the firelight as light spilled over her shoulders and breasts and the little pool of shadow between her collarbones, and she would see everything.

“I’m cold,” I said, hoping she mistook the shaking in my voice for a different kind of need.

“Here.” She lay back down beside me, pulling me against her.

I continued to shake, but this time with the effort of keeping my heart inside my body. She ran her hand down my arm the way I had seen her stroke a wolf, or the bear, and I bit my lip against the longing that followed her touch.

I am sick with cold, I tried to tell myself. I did not come back for this. I came here to escape Avery.

The denial lasted all of another heartbeat as I lay, trembling, seeing stars behind my eyes and hearing the quick draw of my breath as she swept her fingers over the curve of my shoulder and down to my wrist, then up, careless, unaware of the desire spreading from her fingertips like fire.

I wanted to turn, to feel her hands on the tips of my breasts, on my lips, on the smooth skin of my stomach and the hard line of my collarbones, but I didn’t dare with my heart so close to hers and winter still gripping my marrow. I lay there until the last shudder of desire faded, and the world went soft around the edges as warmth, real and lasting, flooded me like wine.

“Tell me about the roses,” I said from the center of this new, warm world.

“You’ve never heard the story of the Winter Rose?”

“No.”

A wolf rose, stretched, then flopped back down on the floor.

“Would you like to hear it?”

“Yes,” I said, remembering with a twinge that was almost bittersweet the contempt I’d felt for Avery’s stories.