The herbs stung faintly where they touched his torn skin, and the wet cloths were cold—cold enough to bite even through Adam’s winter-numbed nerves. He could hardly feel his arms from the cuts or from the frost that still clung to him like a second pelt, yet the wounds left by the wolves, shallow as they were, burned with a rawness that pulsed beneath the bandages. Softness cradled him now—pelts, cushions, the warmth of the fire crackling near the hearth—and still he refused to lift his eyes. Pride could weigh heavier than chains, and he bore it stubbornly. The bandages were tied already; the bleeding had slowed. You had withdrawn back to your chair—your chair, the one you always chose without asking, as though it had been crafted for you alone, as though some forgotten magic had decided you belonged there.

And he, who had roared so loudly that the ancient stones themselves had trembled, who had sent every servant—living, enchanted, cursed—scurrying to the shadows, now sat trembling not from fury but from something far more dangerous. Exhaustion. Shame. The remnants of fear he would never dare speak aloud.

How foolish you had been, he thought bitterly. How reckless, how desperate, to flee into the forest in the teeth of a blizzard, with the scent of wolves hot upon the wind…and he, in his madness, had chased after you. Rage had ruled him then—rage at your defiance, rage at your escape, rage at the biting terror that you might vanish from his grasp forever. He had fought the pack until the snow drank the blood of beasts and prince alike, until their snarls died under his claws and your breaths turned shallow with cold.

But now—now that the danger was past—the fury curdled into something he despised: helplessness.

“She binds my wounds with a steadiness that shames me,” his thoughts murmured in the hollow corridors of his chest, a confession he would never speak but could not silence. “She, small as a candle in a storm, dared the winter that would have killed her—and still she lays her gentle hands upon the monster who frightened her into running. What manner of heart does she possess, to soothe the creature who roared at her, to offer warmth to the beast who offered her none? If I tear myself open further, it will not be by fang nor claw, but by the tenderness she does not even know she wields.”

He flexed his jaw, hating the tremor he felt there. He would not be pitiable. He would not bend. Yet his body betrayed him—leaning subtly toward the fire, toward you, toward anything that promised warmth deeper than flame.

You sat watching him quietly, your breath still uneven from the ordeal, your fingers stained faintly with the herbs you had crushed. In the wavering gold light of the hearth, you looked almost like something conjured—too brave to be real, too gentle to be safe.

He dared a single glance at you.