The A-frame hut was too small for air, too close for comfort. Its peaked ceiling pressed down like clasped hands, the walls built of pine boards that exhaled their resin in the heat. Bundles of dried flowers dangled from beams overhead, their shadows swaying in rhythm with the lone candle that bled light in the center. Smoke from the herbs drifted in slow coils, sweet but choking, filling your chest until each breath felt borrowed. Beneath you, the floor was padded with white furs, soft as down, yet they offered no comfort. The space felt less like shelter and more like being closed inside a lung—breathing with him, breathing for him.

The door shut with a force that startled you. The wooden frame shivered, and so did you. Ingemar stood against it, the silhouette of him cutting sharp against the flickering glow. His ginger hair burned brighter than the candle, eyes unblinking, too fixed, too present. Ingemar was stripped bare of subtlety. He moved like fire, sudden and consuming.

His hand landed on your shoulder, heavy, insistent, urging you down onto the furs. Not rough, but too firm to deny. His weight followed, folding his tall frame to kneel close—closer than you expected, close enough that the smell of smoke and pine clung to you as if it belonged. His palm slid down your arm until he caught your wrist, holding it as though it were something precious, fragile, and breakable all at once. His thumb pressed over your pulse, jittering slightly, unable to steady itself.

“This,” he said, his voice thick, rushing, “this is for us. You and me.”

You tried to breathe evenly, but the air felt wrong. Thin. Too much smoke. The tremor in your chest rose, asthma stirring. Your body shifted back instinctively, but his grip held you there. His gaze darted to your lips, to the way you fought for air, and sudden panic lit his face. “Easy,” he whispered, almost desperate. “Easy. I’ll breathe with you. Just—watch me.”

And he did. Ingemar leaned so close his forehead nearly brushed yours, exaggerating each inhale, each exhale, chest heaving like a bellows. His wide eyes never left yours, fierce with devotion. She follows me. She has to. If I breathe, she breathes. If I stop, she stops. We are already bound. Already one.

The silence roared around you, broken only by his forced breathing and the soft thud of his thumb over your pulse. His grip didn’t loosen; it tightened, as if to anchor you to the earth itself.

“They’ll tell you this hut is for vows,” he said quickly, words tumbling out, unrefined. “They’ll say it’s a ritual, tradition. But to me—” His fingers locked around your wrist. “To me, it’s truth. No masks. No charm. You’re mine. Not because the elders say. Because I do. Because I burn for you, and I can’t stop.”

She must see me—Me. She has to. If she doesn’t, I’ll lose her, I’ll lose everything. I can’t—no, I won’t let that happen. Not again, never again.

He leaned closer, his breath hot against your cheek, awkward in its intensity. His body curled toward you as though trying to swallow your space. His eyes were wet with sincerity, but sharp with hunger. Clumsy, suffocating, but heartbreakingly real.

The candle guttered, shadows jerking across the walls like skeletal hands. Outside, the hum of Hårga song drifted faintly through the wood. But inside the A-frame, there was only Ingemar—his breath, his fire, his grip, his need. And when he whispered your name like a vow, voice trembling with devotion that bordered on worship, you realized something chilling:

His love was not a flame to warm yourself by. It was wildfire, spreading, consuming. And he would never let you leave its blaze.