Gabriel's low, gravelly voice seeped into my skin and wrapped around my bones like icy fingers, at once both caressing and strangling me from the inside. My spine stiffened and for just a moment I considered running, though I knew he could overtake me before I made it more than two steps.

I turned to face him. Gabriel was standing several yards away, dressed like it was still fall in jeans and a thin jacket. His wild hair was tied half-up, pulled out of his face. His eyes, reflecting back the bright snow, seemed lighter than ever. Framed by branches and towering pines, he looked every bit the powerful Alpha.

"I have a name." When I strung the words together in my mind they were angry and defiant, but instead my voice came out high-pitched. My heart was now lodged in my throat, pounding there, making it difficult to speak or swallow.

"What are you doing on my property?" Gabriel took a step in my direction. His quiet footfall belied his large frame and it was a stark reminder that set off alarm bells in my head: he is a predator.

"I wasn't aware. My apologies." I glanced around, but this patch of forest looked the same as all the others. I had no idea how far I'd walked, or in what direction, or how to get back. For all I knew, I could have been either miles from town or as close as a few blocks away.

He made his way off the trail to stand in front of me and I kept my eyes down. I willed my pounding heart to slow so that he couldn't hear what his closeness did to my body.

"So?" He asked.

"So what?"

"So, what are you doing here?" I hesitated, then fished the scrap of paper from my coat pocket and held it out. Gabriel took it from me, his hand almost, almost, brushing mine. My fingertips tingled as though it had. As he examined it, a slow smirk tugged at the corners of his lips.

"Marie sent me to find more for the clinic." I explained. He passed it back.

"You'll be looking for a while then. It doesn't flower until early summer."

"Oh." I was ashamed I hadn't realized it was a trick. If I'd paid more attention, or knew more about wolf medicine, I would have known immediately that Marie was sending me out on a fool's errand. The embarrassment that washed over me did little to warm me up, but I felt it even more acutely in Gabriel's presence. Of all the people to catch me looking stupid, it had to be him.

Gabriel's eyes flickered over my shivering form and he took another small step closer; close enough that I could very nearly imagine the feeling of his body heat seeping through my clothes. "You're freezing."

"If you can just point me in the direction of town, I'll get off your property." My teeth chattered around the words and I wanted nothing more than to disappear into a snow drift.

"I'd rather not have to inform Dmitri that his human froze to death in my woods." That word again. It stung worse the second time.

"I'm sure in that case he'd consider the life-debt repaid," I snapped coolly. I finally looked up to meet his eyes, expecting fury. Instead, he was regarding me casually, one eyebrow raised.

"I'll drive you," he said finally.

"I'll walk." Accepting his offer felt like a bad idea. The thought of trekking back through the snowy forest in the growing dark was intimidating, but climbing into a car alone with Gabriel was even more so.

"I'll drive you." This time, his words came out as a growl. I dropped my eyes as fear quickly dissolved my anger. I nodded mutely, but he was already walking away from me.

Snow began falling lightly around us and I followed in Gabriel's wake. He pushed through the snow brazenly, far less graceful than his approach when he'd snuck up on me before. His legs cut me a path and I thought that maybe he was moving this way on purpose—at least so that I didn't slow him down. Every rustle in the underbrush made me jump, and I kept glancing over my shoulder, half-expecting to see shifted pack members bearing down on us.

I had wandered close to his home, after all. It was less than ten minutes before the woods spat us out into his backyard. Gabriel led me around to the neatly shoveled driveway. Though I tried not to glance up at the house, it was impossible to avoid. The architecture was beautiful: modern and classic, natural and stark. Its duality was striking.

"Let's go," Gabriel urged. He was standing beside the sedan now, passenger door open, and had caught me looking at the house.

"Was this here already? Or did you build it?" I asked. I thought I likely knew the answer, as it was clearly from a different era than most of the buildings in the settlement besides the clinic. But still, I was curious. It certainly resembled other, newer human homes I'd seen before, but I couldn't imagine that Gabriel would bring in human builders as we did on occasion to the Sawtooth Pack. He didn't answer, and instead waited with a look of obvious impatience by the open door. I tore my attention away from the building and climbed in.

Gabriel circled around the front of the car and folded himself awkwardly into the driver's seat. He shoved the seat nearly as far back as it would go, but still looked uncomfortable. As though he could read my mind, he grunted: "It's Ephraim's."

"You can drive it?" He shot me a dark look and turned the key in the ignition. When the engine roared to life, I reached forward to turn the heat up. The air that spilled out was cold, but even that felt warm on my frozen skin. I held my hands against the vents.

This was as close as we'd been since he came into the clinic over a year ago, and the first time I'd been alone with him since then as well. His form so close in this small, enclosed space was intimidating and each time he made a subtle movement, the flex of his muscles felt like a threat. I tried to keep my eyes averted and focused on the twisting road. The atmosphere in the car crackled with electric, unspoken energy and something in my brain compelled me to fill the deafening silence.

"I'm sorry Dmitri sent me to pay the life-debt. I know given the choice you'd have taken literally anyone else." The apology had been on my mind since I'd arrived, when I'd pulled up his drive and saw him balk as I got out of the car with Jack.

I chewed on the inside of my cheek nervously while I waited for his response, but he didn't give one. His jaw tightened, but his expression remained stony and unreadable. With his eyes focused straight ahead it was impossible tell whether they were still pale blue, or if they had darkened in deference to the wolf that was growling inside his chest. My pulse quickened when I heard it, and I shrank back against the door. That sound, deep and slow and rumbling, was as clear a response as any.

Gabriel drove the car slowly and cautiously. The snow was coming down harder now and he kept both hands on the steering wheel, gripping it tightly at ten and two. If I had been able to feel my feet, I'd have offered to drive instead.

When he pulled up outside of my building, I once again felt the hot flush of embarrassment creep into my cheeks, as though I'd been the one to let it decline into its current state. Gabriel turned his gaze to me as he shifted into park. As intense as ever, it felt like he could see right through me.

"You know," he said, "you shouldn't be out here alone. It's not safe."

Though he hadn't meant it as a threat, his words sent a chill up the back of my neck that prickled across my scalp. My brain reminded me once more: he is a predator.

"I don't seem to have much of a choice," I replied. "I have to live here, too."

The car door clicked as he unlocked it from his side and I tried to get out calmly, though all I wanted to do was race inside and lock my door tight. When Gabriel got out, too, I looked back alarmed.

"Ephraim will pick the car up later." If he planned to run back, that meant he planned to shift. I didn't want to be nearby when it happened; his human form was frightening enough as it was. I choked out a strangled thanks and scarcely managed to breathe until I was back inside my apartment.

I sat in the kitchen with the lights out for a half hour, until I was sure he would have run off. Though he probably knew which unit I was in, the small possibility that he didn't kept me from wanting to draw attention to it by lighting it up.

It took me at least that long to thaw, and when I finally stood, I was stiff and sore from shivering all afternoon. Before I got into a hot shower, though, there was something I needed to do.

I pulled open the kitchen drawer where I had stashed my phone and turned it on. The immediate flood of messages that came through once it found a signal brought tears to my eyes. The screen swam in front of me as I unlocked it. I didn't read any of the new texts, nor could I bring myself to listen to the voicemails, but instead sent a simple reply to Jack: I'm okay. I love you. Talk soon.

Once I saw it marked delivered, I turned the phone back off before he could respond. I longed for a glass of wine and a hot bath to soothe my aches and slow my racing thoughts, but they didn't sell alcohol here and all I had was a dingy shower. The adrenaline that still lingered from my time in the car with Gabriel played around the edges of my nerves.

I never had much of an intuition. Over the years, I'd honed it as well as I could. I could usually tell when someone was lying to me, but only if I knew them well. I could sometimes sense danger, but only if I wasn't already afraid. It was similar to my ability to tap into the pack link: it was there, and I could feel it distantly, but only rarely could I interpret what it meant.

Tonight, I wished again that I had mastered it. I felt the same way as I had the day that Gabriel walked into the Sawtooth clinic, when I'd sat in a waiting room chair trying to sort through the tangled, twisting knot in my stomach. I had come up empty then, just as I did now.

He set something off inside of me. Something equally good and bad, both terrifying and enthralling. I longed to understand it, but for tonight, as I settled onto the futon, it would remain out of my grasp.