The fire crackled softly in the cramped shelter, its meager warmth barely holding back the bone-deep chill that settled into every corner. Outside, the storm continued its relentless assault, the wind howling through the skeletal trees like the wails of dying men. Snow piled against their makeshift refuge, the weight of it pressing down, suffocating, as if the entire forest was trying to bury them alive.

  Inside, the air was thick with an uneasy silence.

  Two rabbits roasted slowly on spits over the fire, their juices hissing as they dripped into the flames. The scent of charred meat filled the space, but neither Emmett nor Eira looked particularly eager to eat. Hunger gnawed at them, but exhaustion had dulled everything. Pain, frustration, even the will to argue.

  Emmett sat closest to the fire, his hands stretched out, fingers stiff and sluggish as he tried to coax warmth back into them. His clothes, now patched and still slightly damp, clung uncomfortably to his skin. His face, lined with exhaustion, was set in a permanent scowl. He ground his teeth as the cravings struck again. His thoughts drifting to the pack of Pervitin that the river had ruined. He felt his body shiver. It wasn’t just from the cold.

  Across from him, Eira sat with her knees drawn to her chest, her fur bristling slightly each time a gust of wind rattled the shelter. Her piercing blue eyes reflected the fire’s glow, unreadable as ever. She had remained silent for the better part of the evening, her tail curling and uncurling lazily at her side, the only sign of her restless mind.

  For the past two days, survival had been reduced to the bare essentials. Food, warmth, and the mutual agreement that neither would try to kill the other. Eira had sniffed out rabbits in the woods, her keen senses proving far more useful than Emmett cared to admit, while he had pulled what fish he could from the half-frozen river. Every venture outside left them coated in ice, their fingers too numb to work properly, their bodies stiff and sluggish.

  Neither task was easy.

  Neither task was optional.

  They spoke only when necessary. Their words clipped and edged with irritation. It wasn’t camaraderie that kept them alive.

  It was necessity.

  Finally, Eira groaned and broke the silence, tilting her head toward Emmett as he rubbed his hands together near the fire.

  “Where are you from?” she asked suddenly, her thick German accent cutting through the crackling flames.

  Emmett glanced at her, his brows furrowing in irritation. “Why the hell does it matter?” he grumbled, his voice low and gravelly.

  “It doesn’t,” she admitted with a shrug, her tone laced with boredom. “But I am freezing, starving, and going mad. Might as well talk about something.”

  Emmett scowled and stared into the fire. "None of your damn business," he muttered. Eira’s ears flicked slightly, her expression shifting into something unimpressed. She muttered something under her breath.

  Emmett shot her a glare. "Sorry, didn't quite catch that."

  She looked up at him, her lips pulling into a sneer. “I was calling you an idiot.”

  Emmett glared at her for a moment longer, then sighed, turning his attention back to the fire. “Yeah, I get that a lot,” he muttered.

  A long silence settled between them again. The only sound was the crackling of the fire, the occasional pop of burning wood. Eira exhaled through her nose, staring into the flames. She slowly extended her hands toward the heat, bringing them so close that the tips of her fur began to singe. The scent of burning hair curled into the air, but she didn’t seem to care.

  “This is a miserable arrangement,” she said finally, her voice low and bitter.

  Emmett snorted. “No shit.”

  She tilted her head slightly, her sharp eyes cutting to him. “When you captured me,” she said, her voice devoid of emotion, “what did you see?”

  Emmett’s brows furrowed slightly. “What?”

  “My squad,” she clarified. “Did any of them escape?”

  For a moment, Emmett considered lying, but what would be the point? He shrugged. “Saw a few run into the woods. Looked like there were a lot of casualties on both sides.”

  Eira nodded slowly, her face unreadable. “I know,” she murmured, almost to herself.

  Emmett watched her for a moment, then motioned with his hand. “How the hell did they even make you?”

  She blinked, glancing up at him. Then, without missing a beat, she smirked. “None of your damn business.” She said, mimicking his tone.

  Emmett gave her a flat look. She tilted her head, amused by his irritation. Finally, with a heavy sigh, Emmett leaned back against the shelter wall. “Fine,” he muttered. “I’m from Montana.”

  Eira’s ears flicked slightly. “Montana?”

  “Yeah,” he said, exhaling a long breath. “Middle of nowhere. Ranch country.”

  She studied him for a moment, then nodded slowly. “And what did you do there? Before… this.” She gestured vaguely to their miserable situation.

  Emmett’s lips curled into a smirk. “Your turn.”

  Eira arched a brow. “For what?”

  “How the hell do they even make you things?” His voice was laced with dry amusement. “What, does one of your… countrymen, get down and dirty with a wolf?”

  Her ears flattened instantly, and her tail flicked sharply behind her, a clear sign of irritation.

  “Nein,” she growled, glaring at him. “We are grown… like plants.” She hesitated. “They do not tell us everything.”

  “Grown,” Emmett repeated, his voice tinged with disbelief. “Sounds like something out of a bad movie.”

  Eira smirked slightly, her tone wry. “Ja, only it’s not fiction.”

  Emmett shook his head, staring at her with a mix of disbelief and grim amusement. “Christ. How old even are you?”

  She hesitated. Just for a moment. The movement was subtle, but he caught it. She glanced down, her fingers tightening slightly against her knee. “We came from the tanks as... at least children, as for age…” She frowned, considering. “It is difficult to say. I would guess I am eighteen. Maybe nineteen. At least that’s what they told me.”

  Emmett exhaled through his nose, shaking his head. “Jesus.”

  Eira looked at him, her gaze sharp. “What?”

  “You’re just a kid.”

  Her ears flattened slightly, and something flickered across her face. Something Emmett couldn’t quite place. “I am no child,” she said sharply, her voice edged with something dangerously close to offense.

  “Could’ve fooled me,” he muttered, leaning back against the roots with a sigh.

  Her eyes flashed, but she took a deep breath as if to calm herself. “Your turn to answer my question,” she said, her voice low, almost lazy. “What did you do in Montana?”

  Emmett considered not answering. His jaw tightened, his gaze flicking toward the fire as he debated telling her to shove the question somewhere dark. But after a long silence, he relented.

  “Worked my parents Ranch.” He said flatly.

  Eira let out a quiet laugh, her tail twitching again. “A cowboy,” she repeated, rolling the word around like it was something foreign and novel. “I never would have guessed.”

  Emmett glanced up at her, his eye narrowing slightly. “That supposed to mean something?”

  She smirked, tilting her head. “Nein, not at all,” she said, feigning innocence. “It’s just… amusing.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “Because it’s so… American.”

  Emmett shot her a glare. “Yeah, well, what the hell else would I be?”

  Eira pressed on, shifting slightly in her spot. “What was it like?” she asked. “Being a cowboy? I only know what I have seen in American cinema.”

  His eye flicked up at that. “They let you watch movies?”

  “Of course,” she said simply. “They taught us many things. Cinema was included in our education, both as a way to understand the world and as entertainment.”

  He studied her warily. “That so?”

  “Ja,” she said, her tone almost casual. “I have seen many wonderful American films.” She lifted a clawed finger, ticking off examples. “Schneewittchen und die sieben Zwerge… Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, yes? Beautiful animation. The Adventures of Robin Hood, High Noon.” She smirked slightly. “Of course, they preferred to show us German films, but I always preferred the American ones better. They had more…” She searched for the right word, then settled on, “spirit.”

  Emmett scoffed. “A theater packed with wolves… what idiot had that bright idea.”

  She ignored the jab, instead fixing him with an expectant look. “Well?” she said, circling back to her original question. “What was it like? Being a cowboy?”

  Emmett sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “It was work,” he said gruffly. “Hard work.”

  Eira frowned, ears twitching in mild irritation. “That is it?”

  “That’s it,” he repeated flatly.

  She exhaled through her nose, tail flicking sharply. “You are terrible at conversation.”

  He lifted his head just enough to shoot her an unimpressed look. “Well, forgive me for not getting chatty with the goddamn enemy, a freak of nature for that matter.”

  Her fur bristled, and she bared her teeth slightly in annoyance. “As if I am enjoying this? Schei?e.”

  “Could’ve fooled me,” he muttered.

  Eira narrowed her eyes. “I only wish to think of something, anything other than how cold I am, how hungry I am, or how utterly dreadful you are.” She motioned toward him with a sharp flick of her wrist.

  Emmett huffed, shaking his head.

  He moved near the fire, his face bathed in flickering light and reached for a pair of heated stones nestled near the flames. His gloved hand tested them carefully. Hot enough to offer warmth, but not enough to scald. He grunted in satisfaction and tucked them into his coat, the sudden heat radiating through his chilled body.

  Across from him, Eira mimicked the process, pulling her own set of stones free. Her ears flicked back slightly at the warmth seeping into her chest as she tucked them under her coat. She sat there for a moment, tail curling around her legs, before lowering herself onto the crude bedding they’d fashioned out of pine boughs, and whatever else they’d scavenged.

  The silence between them was thick enough to choke on.

  Eira shifted, glancing toward the fire. Her instincts urged her to roll over and face away, but that would mean facing away from the fire, sacrificing the small comfort the flames offered. She gritted her teeth and stayed put, facing the warmth instead. Even if it meant facing him.

  Sleep, if it came at all, would be a long time coming.

  Minutes stretched into an hour. Occasionally, one of them would stir to toss another piece of wood onto the fire or shift the stones to keep them warm. The storm outside was relentless, each gust of wind making the shelter creak ominously.

  Emmett, swapping out his stones, glanced across the flames. And caught her staring at him. More specifically, at his face.

  His good eye narrowed. “The fuck are you looking at?”

  Eira didn’t flinch. Her blue eyes remained fixed on him, her expression unreadable. Then, slowly, her lips curled into a smirk. “Nothing,” she said smoothly. “I’m looking at no one, of course.”

  Emmett scowled, shaking his head as he turned his glare back to the fire. The urge to reach for his pistol and end this whole mess was back again, tugging at the edges of his mind. God, how easy it would be...

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  The fire popped, sending a spray of sparks upward.

  Eira shifted, pushing herself up slightly on one elbow. “What exactly was your plan then?” Her voice was calm, but there was a sharp edge beneath the words. Anger, bitterness, maybe something else. “Capture one of my kind, hm? Fly away? Singlehandedly?” She snorted in amusement.

  “Go to sleep,” Emmett growled, voice gravelly with exhaustion.

  But Eira wasn’t done. She sat up more fully, her expression turning stern as she jabbed a clawed finger toward him. “This is your mess,” she snapped. “You dragged me into it. I deserve to know what damned me to this... this fate.”

  Emmett’s jaw clenched. He said nothing.

  “Of course,” she muttered after a moment, bitterness dripping from her words. “Nothing to say.” She laid back down with a huff, pulling her coat tighter. The firelight glinted off her fangs as she spoke again, voice cutting through the tension like a blade. “You should cover the left side of your face,” she said, her tone deliberately casual. “It’s hard to look at. Perhaps a bag over your head?”

  Emmett’s glare could’ve melted steel. “Look at something else, then.”

  Eira smirked, her tail flicking. “Pigheaded bastard,” she muttered in German.

  He caught the words and shot back in the same language, his voice cold and biting: “Dirty, flea-ridden mistake of God.”

  Her eyes narrowed, lips pulling back to reveal sharp teeth. “I’m not a mistake of God,” she retorted, switching back to English. “I’m a mistake of man.”

  “Yeah,” Emmett drawled, his voice like gravel on concrete, “well, at least we agree your being alive’s a mistake.”

  A muscle jumped in Eira’s jaw. She glared at him, firelight casting sharp angles across her face.

  Leaning forward, Emmett lowered his voice to a cold, venomous whisper. “If it were up to me, I’d put a bullet in you and save myself the unimaginable amount of trouble you’ve been.”

  Eira’s ears pinned back, her tail lashing once. “I can’t wait to reach German lines... so I can kill you myself.”

  Her gaze didn’t waver. Neither did his.

  Finally, with a sharp exhale through her nose, she rolled over, presenting her back to him. Her tail twitched in aggravation, the fur along her neck bristling. “God must be having quite a laugh,” she muttered darkly. “Stuck here with you.”

  Emmett sat back, rubbing at his face before glaring into the fire again.

  The storm broke on the fourth day, leaving behind a white wasteland that looked more like the end of the world than a forest. Snow had blanketed everything in smothering silence. Trees bent under the weight. The air hung heavy, bitter and still. The sky had lightened to a dull gray, but it offered no warmth, no promise. Just cold clarity.

  Emmett stood by the blackened remains of their fire, cinching the last knot on a pair of snowshoes he'd thrown together from rabbit hide, split wood, and scavenged odds and ends. They looked like something out of a survivalist fever dream. But they worked. Eira had tested them first. She’d taken a few cautious steps, then more confident ones, surprised that they didn’t collapse beneath her weight. She didn’t say anything at the time, but the impressed look she gave him said plenty.

  Now, she leaned against a tree, arms crossed, watching him with thinly veiled amusement.

  "You’ve surprised me, cowboy," she said. "Didn’t think you had the brains for something so practical."

  Emmett didn’t even glance up. "Yeah, well. Just goes to show what you know, mutt."

  He stood, testing the give of the bindings with a slow step forward, his body stiff from cold and overuse. "And I'd prefer to keep it that way."

  Eira smirked, adjusting her own gear. "Charming as ever."

  "Don’t you forget it. Now move. Daylight’s wasting."

  Their journey west resumed in silence, each step a grueling effort against the deep, unbroken snow. No map. No trail. Just a compass and the vague knowledge of where west should eventually lead. Every footfall was a fight, legs burning from lifting against resistance, breath fogging in the freezing air.

  Despite her hybrid stamina and athleticism, Eira found herself glancing toward Emmett more than once, expecting him to falter. But he didn’t. He moved with the same relentless, mule-headed pace she’d come to expect. Grim. Grounded. Stubborn as hell.

  “You’re persistent,” she admitted eventually. “I’ll give you that.”

  He didn’t break stride. “And you’re still talking.”

  “Must be the altitude,” she said, flashing a wolfish grin. “Your wit’s finally clawed its way out of the basement.”

  “Keep talking. You’ll find out how fast I can catch up with a backhand.”

  Hours passed under the low, lifeless sky. Eventually, the trees opened into a familiar clearing. Eira recognized it first. The place they’d first clashed with the Russians. Blood, gunfire, smoke. It had all played out here in a blur. Now it was just snow and silence. The bodies were gone. So was the gear. Nothing but churned snow and the ghost of violence.

  Emmett stood at the edge of the clearing, squinting. “Looks like the cleanup crew already came through. Not a damn thing left.”

  “Not even a crumb,” Eira muttered. She kicked at the crusted snow with a snowshoe, watching it flake away. “How far do you think we have left?”

  He shrugged, pulling out the compass and studying it for a moment. “Hard to say. Could be a day. Could be a week. We just keep heading west. If we’re lucky, we hit a road. A village. German lines.”

  “And if we’re not?”

  Emmett glanced sideways. “Then I hope you taste better than rabbit.”

  She scoffed. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “Wouldn’t bet your ass on it.”

  They pressed on until dusk painted the snow in shades of steel and ash. By then, the cold had deepened into something cruel. A living thing with teeth, biting through layers, through muscle, straight to bone.

  They had found shelter. A depression in the earth where fallen trees had collapsed in on each other, packed with drifted snow. It wasn’t much. Crude, narrow, half-exposed. But it would block the worst of the wind.

  Emmett didn’t speak, immediately getting to work, layering pine boughs against the ground., and against a fallen tree creating a crude lean to. Eira packed snow against the branches, as Emmett finished.

  His hands were stiff, skin cracked and raw, joints swollen from cold. Every movement hurt. His face was a pale mask, lips tinged with blue. But he didn’t stop.

  Because stopping meant freezing.

  Stopping meant dying.

  When the shelter was ready, they both crawled in. There was barely room to move. The cold sank into every gap and seam, an unwelcome passenger they couldn’t shake.

  They didn’t dare light a fire. Out here, with the dense woods and the quiet too perfect, they could only assume the Russians weren’t far. Too close for mistakes. Back at the river, they'd risked a flame. But here, surrounded by snow-laden silence and buried deep behind enemy lines, that luxury had turned to suicide.

  Eira sat hunched in a corner, going through their dwindling supplies. A few bites of dried meat. A shared canteen. That was it. Her breath clouded in the frigid air, and her fur. Normally an advantage, offered not enough protection against cold this brutal.

  Across from her, Emmett wasn’t faring any better. He lay on his side, arms wrapped around himself, convulsing with violent shivers.

  Eira muttered something under her breath in German. Half curse, half exasperated sigh and began moving closer.

  “Whatever you’re thinking,” Emmett rasped through chattering teeth, “Stop. Right now.”

  “Your lips are blue,” she shot back, her tone edged with frustration.

  “And your breath smells like rabbit guts,” he snapped, teeth clicking uncontrollably.

  “Stubborn idiot,” she muttered, crawling toward him. Her joints screamed in protest, and the air burned in her lungs. “This isn’t a choice anymore.”

  “I’ll take frostbite over your damn breath,” he snapped.

  “Then you’ll die." She said flatly.

  Emmett clenched his jaw. He knew she was right. Goddammit, she was right. No fire. No blankets. Just the cold pressing in from every side, eating away at his strength. Maybe he could skin her and wear her damn fur. The thought made him smirk, until another full-body shiver wiped it away.

  Eira, grimacing, laid down beside him. Her face twisted in a mix of disgust and resignation as she raised an arm, offering him space against her side. “I need warmth,” she said flatly. “And so do you.”

  Emmett stared at her like she’d just suggested he throw himself off a cliff. “Damn you,” he muttered.

  “Just get over here,” she snapped.

  Grumbling curses under his breath, Emmett reluctantly shifted closer. Every instinct screamed at him to keep his distance, but logic, and the cold that clawed into his bones overrode pride. He settled in, tense as a drawn wire. Their bodies touched. Barely at first, then pressed together as the cold demanded practicality.

  The warmth was immediate, if not sufficient. It wasn’t comfortable. It wasn’t pleasant. But it was survival.

  They lay there, shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh, huddled in the narrow hollow with snow-packed walls closing them in. Their breaths mingled in the thin space between them, filling the air with shared warmth and bitter resentment.

  “I hate you Emmett,” Eira muttered, her voice low and bitter, eyes fixed on the darkness ahead.

  Emmett grunted weakly, his head resting against her shoulder despite himself. “Feeling’s mutual.”

  Silence stretched between them, broken only by the wind howling outside and the distant groan of trees bending under the storm.

  Then, unexpectedly Eira laughed. Quiet. Dry. Like even she wasn’t sure where it had come from.

  Emmett cracked his eye open, glaring at her through the haze of exhaustion. “What the hell’s so goddamn funny?”

  She shook her head, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. “This situation. Two enemies... huddled together like lovers to survive. It is... ridiculous.”

  Emmett snorted. “Yeah. Cosmic joke. Real funny.”

  Eira sighed. “Now I know God hates me.”

  “Got that right,” Emmett muttered.

  The storm raged on, battering the hollow as snow piled higher around their shelter.

  Emmett's eye snapped open.

  Dim light filtered through the makeshift gaps in their crude shelter, casting long gray slashes across the interior. The biting cold gripped his bones like a vice, and a fresh wave of shivers wracked his body. His legs were stiff. His toes numb. But by some godless miracle, he wasn't dead.

  He felt the cravings hit again. They had ebbed at times, but this morning they were back with a full crushing force. Souring his already foul mood. He ground his teeth and looked to his companion lying beside him.

  Eira was still asleep, curled slightly, her fur-covered limbs tucked close to her core like a coiled animal at rest. Her breath fogged gently in the air. Her chest rose and fell with infuriating calm.

  Emmett scowled, and before the thought could even finish forming, he twisted and shoved upward, knocking aside the makeshift roof of packed snow and branches. Cold air rushed in immediately, slapping the little warmth out of the space like a whip. A curtain of snow fell directly onto Eira’s face.

  Her eyes snapped open with a snarl, and she bolted upright.

  A low growl vibrated in her chest as she sat up, snow still dusting her ears and snout. She locked eyes with him, the fire that lit behind her pupils unmistakable. “You didn’t need to do that,” she spat.

  Emmett ignored her, reaching for his snowshoes. “Get ready,” he muttered, cinching the leather straps with slow, deliberate pulls.

  She continued to glare at him. “You could’ve woken me without burying me, you inconsiderate…”

  “I said get ready,” Emmett cut in sharply, not looking at her. “We’ve got a long fucking walk ahead.”

  With a long, annoyed sigh, Eira grabbed her own snowshoes and sat up, brushing the snow from her coat and shoulders. And made quick work of tightening the straps. The silence stretched tight between them, stretched until it felt like something might snap.

  Emmett reached into his coat and pulled out a bit of dried rabbit. He bit into it as he finished tying off his gear, chewing slowly. When he looked up again, he realized she was watching him.

  “What?” he snapped, bits of meat still in his teeth. “You’d better find something else real interesting to look at.”

  She didn’t flinch. Just smirked, brushing her white hair back from her face. “I wonder what your parents must have been like,” she said, voice like a knife wrapped in silk. “To raise such a dreadful man.”

  He stood, spitting out a piece of gristle, his good eye hard as stone. “That’s rich. Coming from the spawn of a goddamn Nazi screwin’ a wolf. You bitch.”

  The moment hung between them for half a heartbeat.

  Then her fist crashed into his face with a wet crack.

  Emmett staggered back, a spray of spittle flinging from his lips. The taste of blood hit his tongue. His vision blurred for a second. But instinct did the rest. He snarled, and his own fist rocketed forward, slamming into the side of her muzzle with a bone-jarring crack. Her head jerked sideways, and her lips peeled back into a savage snarl.

  For a split second, it looked like she was going to rip his throat out.

  Her claws twitched. Her hands shook. Her chest rose and fell in shallow, furious breaths. But then slowly, visibly, she sucked in a long breath. Her ears flattened. Her arms lowered.

  “I will be better,” she growled through clenched teeth.

  Emmett’s knuckles throbbed. His breath was ragged. He glared at her, eye bloodshot, daring her to take another swing. “Lost your fuckin’ nerve?”

  She didn’t answer. Just turned, tightened her snowshoe straps, and stood up again. Taller than him, shadow stretching toward the morning light.

  “We, Herr Schei?kerl, are surrounded by snow,” she said, voice low and tight, “and Russian troops. As much as I want you to be my enemy... I cannot indulge in such a luxury.”

  Emmett wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, sniffed, and spat blood into the snow. “Lucky me.”

  “I will be better,” she repeated, like it was a vow to herself. Then she turned and began walking. Away from him, away from the makeshift camp.

  He watched her go for a second, then growled, reaching down to snatch up the rest of his dropped breakfast.

  “You’re going the wrong way,” he called after her.

  She froze, shoulders stiffening. But she didn’t turn. Her tail flicking in irritation.

  Emmett finished chewing, adjusted his coat, and watched her in stony silence.

  After a long pause, she turned, her eyes narrowing as she approached. The way she looked at him... like a butcher inspecting spoiled meat.

  “I will refrain from insulting you,” she said with forced calm. “I ask you do the same.”

  Emmett snorted and walked past her in the exact same direction she’d been heading.

  Eira blinked. “I thought you said that was the wrong way.”

  “I lied,” Emmett barked over his shoulder.

  She let out a tired, exasperated sound. “I hate you so much,” she muttered under her breath.

  “Good,” he called back. “Would’ve felt dirty if you didn’t.”

  Eira let out a low groan of frustration that came out as a growl. She looked skyward for strength, then followed him with long, purposeful strides. In her mind, she was already fantasizing about choking the life out of him. Slowly.

  “Bastard,” she muttered in German under her breath.

  Emmett didn’t hear her. Or maybe he did.

  Either way, neither of them stopped walking.

  They trudged through the snow in a grim line. Emmett up front, head low, jaw clenched. Eira followed several paces behind, her gait steady, purposeful, but slowing with every hour that passed. Neither of them had spoken since sunrise. Not that there was much worth saying.

  The forest around them had quieted into a dead hush, as if even the crows couldn’t be bothered to witness this miserable march. Their breath hung in the air, twin plumes of white vanishing into the gray. Snow crunched beneath their improvised snowshoes, the only sound marking time.

  Emmett felt a cold sweat run down his back, his hands shook slightly, and his pulse hammered. He kept thinking of the ruined package of Pervitin. The lost bottle of Holloway’s pills. How they took the edge off. How they eased the ache and helped him push past his discomfort.

  His thoughts turned dark and sour.

  What the hell am I doing?

  Here he was. Knee-deep in frozen Poland, somewhere between a Russian gun barrel and a German land mine, dragging along a creature bred in a fucking tank. Something not quite human. Something that, in better lighting, would look at home on a horror movie poster. His lip curled at the thought.

  And she wanted him dead. He could feel it every time her eyes drilled into his back like she was trying to will his heart to stop. Their little “truce” if you could call it that, was a frostbitten thread barely holding the two of them together. An agreement between wolves not to bite until the end of the hunt. And she was pretty much a wolf at that.

  He had a dozen chances to end it. More than that. Could’ve slipped a knife under her ribs last night. Could’ve put a .45 between her eyes. Hell, even now she was trailing behind, probably cold, half-starved. Easy pickings.

  One squeeze of the trigger, and he could be free of her. Of this mission. He could find his own way back to the lines. Alone. Mission failed. They didn’t even have much expectations to begin with.

  But the thought hung there. Hollow.

  She’d saved his life in the river. And then, despite the fact that he had tranquilized her again. She saved him from the cold. She didn’t have to. He hadn’t forgotten that. Wouldn’t forget it, no matter how much it complicated things. And right now. By himself. Would he even have that good of a chance?

  “Emmett.”

  Her voice cut through his thoughts like a bullet.

  He stopped, breath misting from flared nostrils as he turned just enough to glance back over his shoulder. She was several paces behind, her posture still upright. But just barely. Her ears twitched, and her expression was stiff. She wasn’t begging. She wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. But her voice was dry and rough with fatigue.

  “Food,” she said. “I need something.”

  It wasn’t quite a plea. Not a demand either. Just tired.

  He stared at her for a second longer, his single eye unreadable. Then he exhaled through his nose and reached into the inside of his coat, fishing out a scrap of dried rabbit. The last of it, almost. He considered the weight of it in his hand.

  Without a word, he stepped toward her and held it out.

  “Don’t choke on it,” he muttered.

  She stared at the strip for a moment, her eyes flicking up to meet his. Her pupils were narrow. She looked like she wanted to say something. like the words were there, coiled behind her fangs, but she swallowed them down.

  “Danke,” she said quietly, taking the meat.

  Emmett grunted and turned away, already resuming his slow, trudging pace through the snow. The wind picked up, brushing ice crystals across their faces. He didn’t look back. Didn’t want to see whatever was in her eyes right then.

  She followed.

  Behind him, Eira chewed the dried meat slowly, like every bite was more painful than the last. Not from hunger, but from pride. Her ears flattened against the wind. She hated this. Hated needing him.

  But she hated dying more.