I smell snow before I see it, sharp and clean on the wind. Liam pads ahead in wolf form, a massive shadow slipping through the trees. My best mate, part of the same pack. We’re built for this weather, built for running, built for fighting.

You’re not. You press closer to Zayn as we climb the ridge. He’s exactly the same as always—perfect, pale, too still. A vampire doesn’t feel cold the way you do. He doesn’t feel heat either. I do. My skin burns like fire, the wolf inside me always just under the surface. At the top, Niall and Louis wait, keeping their own vampire watch below the slope. Their kind. Zayn’s kind. The uneasy truce between them and us is the only thing keeping tomorrow’s fight from happening tonight.

The tent goes up in seconds—Zayn moves faster than my eyes can track. He ushers you inside without looking at me, as if I’m part of the storm instead of standing in the same cramped space. I crouch at the door. Your lips are blue. You try to tuck yourself smaller, but the shivers rack your body anyway.

“She’s freezing,” I say.

“She’ll be fine,” Zayn answers, voice low and clipped.

“No, she won’t. Not with you. You’re an ice block, mate.”

He turns, jaw set. “You’re not climbing in there.”

“She’ll die of hypothermia before sunrise if I don’t,” I mutter. My wolf blood makes me restless, temper sharp. But then I see how your hands tremble, and that’s it. I shove my way inside.

Zayn’s eyes flash. “You lay a hand on her wrong and I’ll rip you apart.”

I unzip the sleeping bag. “Relax. I’m the radiator. That’s it.”

You flinch when my warmth hits you, then melt against me, your frozen fingers against my bare chest. Heat rolls off me in waves. Your shivering slows, breath hitching, then evens out. Relief punches me in the chest harder than any fight ever has. Zayn sits rigid on the other side, hands clenched. He can hear my thoughts, which is a bloody nightmare, but I lock my mind down hard—nonsense songs, blank space, anything to keep him out.

“You love her,” he says finally, like it’s a fact carved in stone.

“Got that from my head, did you?” I tug the bag higher around your shoulders. “Yeah. Been true a while now.”

“She chose me,” he says, cold as ever.

“She tries to,” I answer. “But you know she cares about me too. You see it when you look at her.”

The tent shakes with the storm. Outside, Liam huffs against the snow as he circles, keeping guard. Down the slope, Niall and Louis blur past on patrol. A whole army of newborn vampires waits in the valley, and here we are—two rivals in a tent, you caught between. You settle deeper into me, the steady beat of your pulse pressing against my palm. I focus on that rhythm, not on the way it feels like everything I’ve ever wanted is right here, for tonight at least.

“She’ll blame herself,” Zayn mutters. “For letting you—”

“For keeping warm?” I cut in. “That’s ridiculous. And anyway, I’m not suffering.”

Truth is, I am—different kind of burn—but he won’t hear that. I keep it buried under static.

“You’re insufferable,” he snaps.

“Hotter than you, though.”

His mouth twitches—almost a smile before it disappears. “Sleep, dog.”

“I don’t sleep much,” I say, chin tucked near your temple. “Not when there’s something to guard.”

The storm howls, the tent groans. Tomorrow waits with teeth and blood. But tonight, you’re in my arms, safe in my heat, while the vampire you chose sits cold and watchful across the tent, forced to let me hold you.