Lightning cracked across the tundra, rattling the tearoom’s frost-laced windowpanes. The storm outside grew increasingly violent until the landscape beyond the Obelisk vanished under its white fury.

Reyna pressed her palm against the door, testing the wood, the wind, the hinge. A simple step would take her into the corridor and away from him. But the pull in her chest, that same dangerous, irritating tug she’d felt minutes ago, held her still.

She wasn’t staying for Roth. She was staying because walking out now felt too much like surrender.

Behind her, his voice sounded again, controlled but punctuated with a new feeling. “The corridors are unsafe in storms like this. Icehelms know that better than most.”

She didn’t turn. “I’ve weathered worse.”

“Alone,” Roth said, “yes. But the Obelisk funnels winds more violently than the outer peaks. If the storm hits the second crest, you won’t be able to see an arm’s length in front of you.”

Reyna scowled at the door. Leave it to the weather to conspire with him.

She exhaled and returned to the table, lowering herself back into the chair with the stubbornness of a wolf, refusing to yield even to the gods. “Fine. I’ll wait out the second crest. But this isn’t an invitation to resume your theorizing.”

Roth sat opposite her again. “I wasn’t planning to.”

She didn’t believe him for a heartbeat.

Silence stretched for several moments, filled only by the storm’s roaring. Reyna tapped her thumb against her knee, a twitch from old training. The Feral Five always taught her to map escape routes automatically. Two exits. Three obstacles. One Alpha.

“How often do storms like this hit Greenpeak?” she asked, mostly to distract herself from the irritating force of Roth’s gaze.

“Never,” he said. “We get rain and humidity, not ice daggers flying sideways.”

“Sideways ice is tradition here,” Reyna muttered.

“You say that with pride,” Roth observed.

“It’s a matter of survival.” Reyna shot a glance at him. “Something your territory doesn’t teach enough.”

“Doesn’t need to,” Roth replied. “Suncrest teaches endurance. Greenpeak teaches adaptability.”

“And Frostcall teaches not dying,” Reyna shot back.

For a moment, he almost smiled.

“You truly are your father’s daughter,” he said.

Reyna leaned back, arms crossing. “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

“A statement.” He shifted slightly, cloak tightening around his shoulders. “Bandos endures. He doesn’t bend. You inherited that.”

Reyna fought the warmth creeping up her neck. Compliments didn’t sway her, they didn’t matter, not after a life spent being shaped into an unbreakable thing. But hearing that from the Alpha of Greenpeak was… unsettling.

“I didn’t inherit the best parts,” she murmured.

“According to whom?” Roth asked.

She didn’t answer. Her father wasn’t perfect, but he was hers. That was enough.

Another gust slammed the window. Roth flinched, pulling his cloak tighter. Reyna noticed the slight tremor in his fingers, not fear, but cold.

“A Greenpeak wolf in a Frostcall storm,” she muttered. “No surprise you’re freezing.”

“I’m well enough,” he said through a tight jaw.

“You’re shivering.”

“I am… adjusting.”

“You look like a leaf in a blizzard.”

His glare should’ve melted the frost on the glass. “If you’re trying to insult me—”

“Trying?” Reyna gestured at him. “You walked into the capital of the North dressed like you were attending a solstice banquet in Suncrest.”

Roth bristled. “My cloak is reinforced.”

“It’s woven linen, Roth.”

“It is ceremonial woven linen.”

“Ceremonial linen freezes faster.”

He huffed, which she assumed was an Alpha’s version of a sulk. She’d never admit it aloud, but the sight amused her more than it should have.

“Remove the wet layers,” she said. “You’ll warm faster.”

“I’m not removing—”

“You’ll freeze slower,” Reyna corrected very quickly. “Not everything is a negotiation.”

He hesitated. Pride warred visibly with reason. Finally, and reluctantly, he removed his outer cloak and draped it across the back of the chair. Another shiver hit him.

Reyna clicked her tongue. “You Highthaw-adjacent wolves are hopeless.”

Roth shot her a look. “I am not Highthaw-adjacent.”

“You’re from a jungle. Same softness.”

“That is an insult to every Redfall ever born.”

“Then stop proving it.”

The corner of his mouth twitched again. “You enjoy this.”

“I enjoy factual accuracy.”

Another blast shook the window. Roth’s shoulders stiffened.

Reyna inhaled softly and rose.

He tensed. “What are you doing?”

“Calm down,” she snapped. “If I wanted to hurt you, I’d have gutted you hours ago.”

“That is not reassuring.”

“Wasn’t meant to be.”

She moved toward the shelves, retrieving a folded pelt blanket. When she neared him again, her Azure sense stirred again, a subtle pull in the air around him. She ignored it.

“Here,” she said, tossing the blanket across the table.

Roth caught it one-handed. “You’re offering me Frostcall hospitality?”

“No,” Reyna said dryly. “I’m preventing you from dying on my floor. Bandos would never let me hear the end of it.”

Roth wrapped the pelt around himself, tension gradually easing from his shoulders. “Does he know you’re this considerate?”

“No,” Reyna replied. “And you won’t tell him.”

Roth studied her silently for a beat. “You’re different when you’re not trying to bite my head off.”

Reyna snorted. “Don’t get comfortable. I bite everyone’s head off.”

“That,” he said, “I’ve noticed.”

Their eyes met across the table. There was a reluctant pull that neither of them wanted to name.

Reyna broke eye contact first.

“Don’t stare at me like that,” she muttered.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re deciphering a riddle.”

“Perhaps I am.”

“Well stop. I’m not interested in being solved.”

“I don’t intend to solve you,” Roth said softly. “I intend to understand the part that destabilizes the kingdom.”

Reyna’s pulse stuttered. “You think I’m a threat?”

“You walked into my path and the entire kingdom altered.”

She hated the way that line jarred her. She’d been trained by warriors who believed sentiment was a weakness, emotion a liability. And yet, her chest tightened.

Her Azure sense rose again, uninvited, brushing against the surface of Roth’s emotions. And what she sensed startled her.

Determination. Restraint, tightly wound. Wariness. And a speck of old guilt. But hiding behind all of it, was a pull toward her, he didn’t understand and didn’t dare name.

Reyna snapped the connection instantly, breath sharp.

Roth jolted lightly as if a nerve had been cut. His hand pressed briefly to his sternum.

“That,” he said, voice lower than before, “was you again.”

Reyna didn’t deny it. “It wasn’t intentional again.”

His eyes met hers. “I didn’t believe the stories about Lunas until tonight.”

“Well, now you’ve had your thrill,” she said. “Congratulations.”

“I am not thrilled.”

“Good.”

“But I am… attentive.”

Reyna rolled her eyes to hide the unwanted warmth creeping up her throat. “You’re impossible.”

“And you,” Roth murmured, “are something no one prepared me for.”

Another lightning crack split the sky, illuminating his face in stark white. For one heartbeat, the entire universe felt like it held its breath.

Reyna stood abruptly. “The second crest will pass soon. When it does, I’m leaving.”

Roth didn’t stop her.

“Reyna.”

She paused at the door.

He didn’t rise or move. But something in his voice changed.

“I won’t expose you,” he said. “And I won’t exploit you.” A beat. “But I will not pretend the kingdom doesn’t need you.”

Reyna looked back at him.

“It doesn’t,” she said. “It needs a Luna it can control.”

“Right, you are not controllable,” Roth replied.

Reyna’s chin lifted a fraction. “At least you’re perceptive.”

The storm rumbled a low growl through the walls. Frost crept along the window in branching patterns, answering an urge in her blood she refused to acknowledge.

“The moment the wind shifts,” she said, “I leave.”

“I know.”

“And this conversation never happened.”

Roth’s gaze narrowed. “It happened. And pretending it didn’t won’t change what’s coming.”

She hated how true that was.

Reyna opened the door. The cold kissed her skin, familiar, and freeing.

Without looking back, she stepped into the corridor.

And behind her, inside the tearoom, Roth exhaled slowly, as if grounding himself after weathering something as dangerous as the storm itself.