The days that followed blurred together, but Ronan noticed every shift in Mia. She hadn’t said anything about the wolf, hadn’t looked at him with fear or demanded answers the way he feared she would. But something had changed.


    He could feel her watching him when she thought he wasn’t looking—at the kitchen table, by the fire, when he stood outside on the porch pretending to admire the horizon. Her eyes lingered longer than usual. Her questions came slower, more deliberate, as if she was searching for something.


    "Do you have siblings?" she asked one morning, stirring oatmeal at the stove.


    "No," he said, watching her over the rim of his coffee mug.


    She nodded, thoughtful. "Parents?"


    He hesitated. "Not really."


    "Not really?" she echoed, glancing back at him.


    He offered a small shrug. "I was raised by someone else."


    She didn’t press, but her brows furrowed, her mouth pulling into a slight frown. Her curiosity wasn’t aggressive. It was careful.


    She probed him for answers gently, never pushing when he was enigmatic, and accepted whatever he told her. The most miraculous part of it was that she kept coming back for more as if she didn’t tire of it. It made his chest clench every time she settled beside him, another round of twenty questions at the ready.


    By the third evening, the clouds had broken, letting in a weak stretch of golden light. The snow hadn’t melted, but it glittered now under the open sky, reflecting hints of orange and pink as the sun began its slow descent.


    Ronan was stacking kindling by the porch when Mia stepped outside, arms folded over her coat.


    "Want company?" she asked.


    He turned, blinking, surprised to see her outside the front door with the sun so low. "For?"


    "Your walk. You’ve been going out every evening. I know it’s kind of your ritual, but I’d like to see it here at night. And with you, I don’t think I’d be so scared."


    He hesitated. The walks were for scouting, for listening, for sensing what the wind carried. But he hadn’t gone far the past two days, just close enough to feel the forest.


    He studied her for a moment. Her cheeks were pink from the cold, her eyes bright despite the shadows under them. He could hear her heartbeat, steady and brave.


    He nodded. "Alright. Just a short one."


    They walked in silence at first, boots crunching over snow. The sky overhead was melting into deeper colors, a stretch of lavender and dusky rose. The trees glowed faintly with reflected light, their branches etched in frost.


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    Mia kicked at a drift of snow. "This place is quiet. I don’t mind it, but sometimes it feels like the whole world is holding its breath."


    Ronan smiled faintly. "Maybe it is."


    They followed the curve of the trail near the ridge, past the cluster of evergreens where he liked to sit and think. The trees whispered as they passed, branches brushing together in a language only the forest knew.


    "You don’t talk much about yourself," Mia said after a while, voice low.


    He glanced at her. "There’s not much to say."


    "I don’t believe that."


    He arched a brow. "No?"


    "No," she said, meeting his gaze. "I think there’s more to you than you''re letting on. I think you’ve seen more than most people ever will."


    There it was again. Not accusation. Not fear. Just knowing.


    He stopped near a bend in the path, where the snow had settled thick and untouched. The sun was nearly gone now, just a sliver of molten orange peeking through the trees. It lit her face in gold.


    "Why do you really come out here at night?" she asked, stepping closer. "What do you do when you’re out here for hours?"


    Ronan exhaled slowly, breath curling in the cold. "I walk, sometimes run.” He breathed in and out, “I listen to the forest and I make sure there’s nothing out there that could hurt you.”


    Her lips parted, but she didn’t speak. She just looked at him, the same way she had that morning when she found the prints in the snow—like she was seeing something both unknown and familiar in his face.


    As they began moving again, they came to a slope along the trail where the ground dipped and iced over. Mia took a step, and her foot slipped out from beneath her.


    Ronan moved before thinking, catching her around the waist just in time. Her hands gripped his coat for balance, her breath caught in her throat.


    They didn’t move.


    She looked up at him, still pressed close, his arms still holding her steady. Her heartbeat thudded against his chest. The closeness and the contact of her warm breath against his chin rooted him to the spot.


    "Thanks," she said softly, voice almost lost in the rustle of the trees.


    He nodded, reluctant to let go. "You alright?"


    She nodded slowly. "Yeah. Just clumsy."


    Ronan’s fingers loosened but didn’t fall away entirely. He helped her upright, but neither of them stepped back immediately. The air between them buzzed with something unspoken.


    She glanced down, smiling faintly. "You keep catching me."


    "Not gonna stop," he said.


    She met his gaze again, something softer behind her eyes. And for a long moment, they stood like that, the forest glowing orange around them, the snow catching light like scattered fire.


    Eventually, they turned and began walking again, slower this time.


    "You ask a lot of questions lately," he said after a stretch of silence.


    She gave a small smile. "You don’t answer most of them."


    "Still feels like an interrogation."


    "A gentle one," she said. "If you really didn’t want me around or asking questions, I think you would’ve pushed me away by now."


    He didn’t answer right away. He didn’t know how.


    Because she was right.


    She kept finding more reasons to be around him, more excuses to linger. And it made him nervous—because what if she knew more than she let on? But it also made him happy in a way he couldn’t admit aloud.


    He liked her near. He liked her questions. He liked the way she looked at him like she was searching for the truth and didn’t hate what she found.


    When they got back to the cabin, the light had faded completely. He held the door open for her, watching the way she stepped inside, glancing over her shoulder like she wasn’t ready to let the evening end.


    He wasn’t either, but he kept it to himself, following her into the kitchen.