Page 17

Warm. That's the first thing I know. I'm warm straight through, the kind of warm I'd forgotten existed. My toes. My fingers. Even the tip of my nose.

A fire crackles somewhere nearby. The air smells like woodsmoke and pine and something rich and savory that makes my stomach growl. I'm buried under a mountain of blankets so soft and heavy that I could stay here for a week.

Lovely, I think. What a lovely dream.

I stretch and snuggle deeper. The mattress beneath me is enormous. I spread my arms out and still can't find the edges. Did I fall asleep at the inn? Did my friend finally get a proper bed?

Then it all comes back at once.

The pass. The storm. The wolves.

Teeth snapping at my face. Three huge shapes tearing out of the snow, growling like beasts. Glowing eyes.

My eyes fly open, and I bolt upright.

I'm in a cabin. A big one, with high wooden beams overhead and a stone fireplace roaring along one wall. I'm in the middle of the biggest bed I've ever seen in my life.

And three men are watching me.

One is sitting in a chair right beside the bed. One is standing by the fire. One is in the kitchen with a ladle in his hand.

All three of them are enormous.

Instinct takes over before sense can get a word in. I kick off the blankets, scramble to my feet in the middle of the mattress, and put up my fists.

"Who are you?" I demand. "What have you done to me?"

The mattress is very soft. I wobble. I keep my fists up anyway.

Nobody answers right away.

The redhead with the ladle presses his lips together hard. His shoulders start to shake. The huge one by the fire, the one with the scar, slowly raises one eyebrow. And the one with black hair in the chair just looks at me, his gray eyes going from my face to my fists and back again. He looks somewhere between worried and like he can't quite believe what he's seeing.

"I mean it," I say. "Start talking."

I'm in my chemise. Just my chemise and a blanket wrapped around me. My cloak is gone, and my dress, and my boots, and I'm standing on a stranger's bed in front of three strange men and my bare toes sinking into the mattress.

This isn't my most intimidating look.

I refuse to let it matter.

The one with black hair rises from his chair. Gods, he just keeps rising. He's even bigger standing up.

"You need to sit down," he says, in a calm, reasonable voice I instantly distrust. "You're going to hurt yourself."

He reaches for my arm.

I don't think. I just kick.

My foot catches him right in the face.

His head snaps back. He makes a sound that's half grunt and half disbelief and bends forward, one hand going to his nose.

And there's his back. Broad and right there and wide open.

My aunt taught me exactly one fighting move in my whole life. She said a woman alone needed at least one, and that it didn't matter how big a man was if you got him on his belly with his arm behind him.

So I jump.