CHAPTER 23: COLD SHEETS, COLDER NEWS

EMBER'S POV

I wake to cold.

Not the gentle chill of early morning, but the particular emptiness that comes from sleeping alone in a bed that was, moments before, full of another body's warmth.

My hand reaches across the sheets and finds nothing but cool fabric and the indentation where Knox's head was pressed into the pillow. The bedside clock reads 4:17 AM.

I should stay in bed. Should roll over and go back to sleep like a rational person.

Instead, I'm padding barefoot through the penthouse, following some instinct I don't quite understand. It's not fear. It's something closer to need.

I find him at the floor-to-ceiling windows of the living room, the ones that frame the snow-covered Cascade peaks like nature's most expensive painting.

He's standing with his back to me, shirtless, and fuck, he's so goddamn attractive. Gray sweats hanging so low I can see the dimples at the base of his spine.

Muscular broad shoulders, tapered waist, the kind of back that makes you want to sink your nails in and hold on.

Moonlight dripping down every cut of muscle like even the sky wants to lick him. This man is unfairly sexy and he knows it.

He doesn't turn around when I approach. But I feel him register my presence the way a predator registers movement.

Coming closer, I just wrap my arms around his waist from behind, pressing my cheek against the warm skin of his back, breathing him in.

His body tenses for a split second, the automatic response of someone who isn't used to being touched without warning, and then something in him softens.

His hands come up to cover mine where they rest on his chest, pressing my palms flat against his heartbeat.

"Couldn't sleep?" His voice is quiet, rough with something I can't name.

"Your side of the bed got cold." I lean into the pretense of casual. "I came to file a formal complaint with management."

A sound emerges from deep in his chest, not quite a laugh but close enough that I feel it rumble against my palms.

"That's not a complaint I can fix from here."

"Pretty sure that's literally your job. You're the Lycan King. You have resources."

He turns in my arms without warning, his hands dropping to my hips, and suddenly I'm pressed between his body and the floor-to-ceiling window.

The glass is shockingly cold against my spine even through the shirt, a sharp contrast to the heat radiating from him. He lowers his head until his forehead is nearly touching mine.

"I can think of several ways to warm you up," he murmurs, and the innuendo is so obvious and so perfectly delivered that I feel heat bloom across my skin despite the freezing window. His hand slides up my side, fingers brushing along my ribs. "Want me to demonstrate?"

"You're a tease," I accuse, but my voice comes out soft, breathless.

"I am." He agrees without shame. "But you like it."

He leans down like he's going to kiss me, and every muscle in my body goes taut with anticipation. His lips are a breath away from mine.

I can feel the warmth of him, can almost taste him, and I'm waiting for the press of his mouth, for the moment when this flirtation tips over into something more.

Except he doesn't kiss me.

He pulls back just enough to break the moment, and I watch his expression shift.

The humor drains from his face. The tenderness retreats, replaced by something harder. Something that looks like conflict.

"We need to talk," he says, and those might be the four most dreaded words in the English language. "About something important."

My heart shifts from anticipation to something closer to dread.

"Okay."

Knox steps back, releasing me, and I feel the absence of his warmth immediately. He runs a hand through his hair and walks over to the bar built into the wall.

He pours himself a drink from a crystal decanter without asking if I want one. I've learned that when Knox starts pouring whiskey at 4 AM, the conversation that follows requires a clear head.

"Rayana contacted me. It’s something about a bucket list," he says. "She wants to meet with me. Privately."

Of course she does. The dying ex-fiancée with her bucket list and her perfect timing.

"Let me guess." I keep my voice neutral. "Reconnecting with you is somewhere on that list."

"Apparently." Knox takes a drink, and it's not delicate. "Pack elders think I should see her. They think it looks cruel if I refuse to grant a dying woman's last wishes."

I'm quiet for a moment, trying to parse what I'm supposed to feel. There's jealousy, certainly, sharp and ugly.

But underneath it, there's the understanding that a dying woman trumps a fake girlfriend. A dying woman probably trumps most things.

"What do you think?" I ask.

"I think it's a trap." His jaw tightens. "But I also think refusing makes me look like an asshole to everyone who matters."

"So you're asking my permission?"

"I'm asking what you think I should do."

This is a test. I realize it with absolute clarity. Knox is trying to figure out if I trust him.

If I'm secure enough in our arrangement to handle him spending time with Rayana. He's asking me to prove that I can be the sort of woman who doesn't make demands, who understands the boundaries of what we have.

"I think," I say slowly, "that you should do what you think is right. Not what makes you look good. Not what the elders want. What you actually—"

His phone rings.

The sound is jarring in the quiet, the kind of ring that only comes through when it's important.

Knox doesn't move to answer it immediately. He pulls the phone from his pocket, and even in the darkness, I can see the shift in his expression when he reads the caller ID.

"Nathaniel." His voice has already changed. Sharper. More focused. "It's four in the morning."

I can't hear what Nathaniel is saying, but I can hear the tone. Urgent. Controlled.

Knox's entire body goes still.

"He did what?" A pause. "Where is he now?"

Another pause. I'm trying to read his face, but his expression has gone carefully blank.

"Bring him up. Yes, now." Knox's eyes find mine across the room. "And Nathaniel? Make sure he understands that if he so much as breathes wrong, I'll break every bone in his body myself."

He ends the call.

"Gale," he says simply. "Security caught him trying to break into the penthouse."

My stomach drops.

The next few minutes exist in a strange blur.

Knox moves with controlled urgency, putting on a shirt, positioning himself between me and the door, his entire body language shifting into something predatory.

The vulnerability we were just inhabiting dissolves like it never existed.

When the elevator opens, Nathaniel emerges with two security guards flanking him, and between them is Gale.

But this isn't the Gale from the airport meltdown. This isn't the screaming, enraged version that tried to claw his way through crowds to get to me.

This is the other Gale. The one I've learned to fear in a different way. The one that made me stay for four years.

He's carrying a pale pink box tied with ribbon and a small amber bottle. His expression is soft with concern, his eyes gentle and wounded like a saint who's been repeatedly misunderstood.

He's wearing a cashmere sweater I recognize from our first Christmas together, before I understood what I'd actually married into.

When Nathaniel releases him to stand on his own, he doesn't lunge. Or scream, or threaten.

He walks calmly toward me with his hands visible, palms up in surrender, and every cell in my body recoils.

Knox steps between us before Gale can get close.