The wind howled low across the ice plains, skimming over ridges and singing through the bone cracked crevices of the frozen gorge below. Aehako tilted his face into the cold, nostrils flaring to catch the last traces of scent from the trail. The snow was fresh but not deep, making the trek easier, though the weight of the kills slung over his back still dragged at his shoulders.

His tail flicked lazily behind him, sated, satisfied. It had been a good hunt. Three snow leapers and a shaggy dvisti taken down with clean strikes and careful patience. Vektal would be pleased, the cave would feast well. Still, Aehako's thoughts wandered, not toward glory or meat or even the deep stretch of muscle after a long chase.

They wandered back to her.

She wasn’t in his cave, not his mate, not yet, but his mind carried her like she was something he’d already claimed.

He grinned to himself, sharp teeth glinting in the icy light. Resonance hadn’t come, but his interest in the small, sharp eyed human had taken root long before the khui could speak. He didn’t need its hum to know what he wanted.

Her name brushed his thoughts like soft fur against his palm, foreign on his tongue, but sweet. Always bundled in those oddly shaped human coverings, always pulling her braid over her shoulder like a shield. She never spoke first. But she watched him.

Every time he came near.

His feet crunched into the snow at the valley's lip as the cave entrance came into view below, half hidden behind furs and stone. Smoke drifted up from the cookfire, and laughter light and soft echoed upward.

His ears twitched.

She was laughing.

It was a sound he rarely caught. Soft. Uncertain. Like she was still testing whether it was safe to feel happy here. That sound curled around his chest, warmer than any firepit.

He moved faster.

Descending the slope with fluid ease, his breath puffed in clouds as he neared the entrance. The scent of roast dvisti and drying hides filled the air, but more than that her scent teased the edges of his senses. Soft spiced and strange. The moment he stepped into the warmth, his eyes scanned the crowded space.

And there she was.

Hunched near the fire with two others, her cheeks pinked from the heat and a curl of steam rising from the wooden bowl in her hands. Her boots were off. Her toes wiggled near the stones. Her hair was loose today.

She didn’t see him yet.

Aehako’s hand tightened on the leather straps of the kill. For a moment, he stood still, silent, watching. Like prey. Like a male afraid to make a sound in case the moment scattered like mist in the wind.

And then—

Her eyes lifted. Met his.

For half a heartbeat, the world stilled.

She didn’t look away.

And Aehako? He smiled, slow and deliberate, as he stepped into the firelight.

She saw him now.

And he had no intention of letting her look anywhere else.

She didn’t look away.

Good.

Aehako’s grin deepened, his fangs just barely catching the firelight as he crossed the remaining distance, slow and easy, like a hunter who’d already cornered his prey.

He shifted the kill bundle off his shoulder and dropped it with a soft thud near the wall, brushing snow from his shoulders before crouching beside her, closer than necessary, close enough to feel the heat of her body mingling with the fire’s warmth.

“Did you miss me, little one?” he murmured, voice low, teasing.