Total pages in book: 32
Estimated words: 33333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 167(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 167(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
He nods once. “Holidays were her thing. Halloween especially. She’d make us carve pumpkins with kitchen knives and awful stencils. Glue googly eyes on pinecones. She made me dress up.”
I laugh softly. “No.”
He reaches into a wood box on the side table, pulls out a worn Polaroid, and flicks it toward me. I catch it.
Teenage Thorne—longer hair, younger eyes—standing next to a girl with a massive smile… and he’s wearing devil horns.
“Oh my God,” I gasp. “You were adorable.”
“Don’t.”
“Like, painfully adorable. This is a crime.”
“Nobody knows about that picture.”
“I love it.”
He doesn’t smile. But his shoulders shift like some weight loosened.
I hand it back gently. “Thank you… for telling me.”
“I didn’t,” he says gruffly. “You stole it out of me.”
“Yeah,” I say softly. “But you let me.”
Silence. Something heavy moves between us, but not the bad kind. The honest kind. The terrifying kind.
“So now you don’t do holidays,” I say.
“No holidays. No family. No bullshit.”
“Sounds… lonely,” I say before I can stop myself.
He stares at the fire. “Got used to it.”
“You don’t have to be used to it.”
He glances at me. “Life isn’t a movie, Aspen.”
“I know,” I say softly. “But it doesn’t have to be a prison either.”
His eyes hold mine. Long. Unblinking.
“What am I supposed to do?” he asks quietly. “Just… rewrite everything after thirty-five years?”
“Maybe not rewrite it,” I say. “Just… make a new chapter.”
He watches me like I’m saying something dangerous. Something he almost believes.
“And what—” his voice drops, “—exactly do you think I fill that chapter with?”
I exhale. “Joy.”
He huffs. “I don’t do joy.”
“You don’t have to.” I reach and place one candle between us. “You just… let a little in.”
He stares at the candle. Then at me.
And then, in a voice that almost isn’t there, he says:
“You’re joy, witch.”
My heart caves. Just—gone. Flattened. Heat rises behind my eyes. Damn him. I look away fast.
“Careful, Mountain Man,” I murmur, throat tight. “Almost sounded like a compliment.”
He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to.
I feel him watching me again. And not in the way that says he’s trying to figure me out. In the way that says he already has—and it’s wrecking him.
The fireplace pops. The wind screams. The candles flicker.
My eyes feel heavy, and I don’t know if it’s grief or comfort or something new entirely, but I curl deeper into the blanket.
Without a word, he shifts closer. Not touching. Just… there. Heavy warmth beside me.
He doesn’t say lie down.
He doesn’t suggest sleep.
He just rests his hand palm-up on the floor between us. A silent offering.
I stare at it for a long moment. Then I slide my fingers into his, lacing them slow.
His hand closes around mine. Strong. Protective. Possessive in a quiet way.
We don’t talk.
We don’t move.
We just stay.
And for the first time in a long, long time—I don’t feel alone.
Not in this storm.
Not in this lodge.
Not in this world.
With him.
Chapter 10
Thorne
They say a man knows the second something stops being casual—and starts being his.
I knew the exact second it happened to me.
The night she fell asleep in my arms, breathing into my chest like she belonged there. Like I was a place she could rest instead of a storm she should run from.
Now—a few nights later—she thinks she can laugh with someone else like that moment meant nothing.
The Devil’s Brew is louder than it should be for a Tuesday night—Zane’s idea of “low-key” is apparently a live DJ and three fog machines. The storm stopped dropping snow a few hours ago and now all of Devil’s Peak is covered in a cold blanket of white but that doesn’t stop the locals from throwing a party. When I push through the Brew’s doors, heat hits me first. The place is dressed up—cobwebs in the rafters, pumpkins gagging at the bar, string lights tangled like a constellation. People scatter when I walk through, not out of respect so much as recognition. I’m a thing they know—predictable as a storm.
And there she is.
She’s a contradiction made flesh: a sweet little witch, half fairy tale half fierce. The skirt of her dress flares around her hips, and every inch of her is deliberate. Black leather corset cinched against the pale sweetness of the dress. Lace kisses her collarbone; a wreath of tiny dried flowers and twine sits in her hair. Someone should have called the authorities. She looks like every dangerous myth I ever wanted to believe in.
My chest tightens. It’s a physical thing, sharp and ugly, and the sound in the room dulls around it.
Some guy with a costume badge—city boy, hair slicked like he thinks sweat is an accessory—leans into her with the easy, practiced charm of someone used to getting his way. He grins at Aspen like he’s selling her something. She laughs, a bright sound that lands somewhere in my ribs, and he presses closer. His hand flicks toward her arm.