Chapter 16: Scene 1
The deep cold held for three more days, a brittle, silent siege. The entity’s attempts became fainter, like a radio signal lost to static—a distorted sigh in the chimney, a brief, greasy shimmer in the corner of a windowpane. It was starving. They could feel its hunger thinning, becoming a vague, desperate ache in the atmosphere rather than a sharp, predatory focus.
The work was endless, brutal, and strangely peaceful. They spoke in grunts and gestures, their communication pared down to the essentials of survival. Yet, the space between them hummed. The deliberate, unfinished frustrations of the previous nights had banked a fire that now glowed steadily, a private heat they carried with them into the frozen day.
On the fourth morning, Émile stood at the kitchen window, watching the weak sun struggle over the eastern ridge. “The spring near the old bathhouse isn’t frozen,” he said, without turning. “The earth’s warm there. We smell like the barn.”
Ezra, scrubbing skillet grease from his hands, paused. The bathhouse was a relic, a low cedar-shingled building his grandfather had built over a thermal seep. They hadn’t used it since the first early autumn snows. Going there was an admission of something—a pause in the pure survival grind, a concession to the body’s need for comfort.
“Is that wise?” Ezra asked. The thought of being naked, vulnerable, in a separate building sent a primal chill through him that had nothing to do with the weather.
Émile finally looked at him. His blue eyes were clear, the wildness in them settled into a sharp, quiet certainty. “It’s pressing in close to the house again. Like a dog circling a drying food bowl. It’s weak, but it’s stubborn. We need to… reset the boundary. Mark a bigger territory. Our scent, our sweat, our heat—out there.” He gestured with his chin toward the white expanse. “We take the space back. All of it.”
They went at noon, trudging through thigh-deep snow with clean clothes and rough wool towels. The path was a tunnel they had to carve anew. The bathhouse looked like a sleeping animal, shrouded in white, only the black iron pipe of its chimney hinting at life within.
Inside, the air was thick and warm, laden with the scent of wet cedar and mineral-rich earth. Émile lit two kerosene lamps, their glow painting the rough-hewn walls in honey and shadow. In the center of the single room sat two large copper tubs, fed by a constant, trickling flow from a piped spring. Steam rose from the water’s surface, which was startlingly clear. Émile had kept the system primed, a low fire in the small iron stove ensuring the space never fully chilled.
They undressed in silence, their movements practical. The ritual of hanging denim on hooks, folding wool socks, felt heavier than usual. Naked, the differences in their bodies were stark under the lamplight—Émile all weathered bronze and corded muscle, scars mapping a lifetime of labor and violence; Ezra pale, leaner, the blue veins visible at his inner wrists, the bruises from the bedframe finally fading to yellow smudges on his hips.
Émile stepped into his tub first, the water sloshing high. A low, guttural sound of pure pleasure escaped him as he sank to his chin. “Christ. Forgote what my bones weren’t aching.”
Ezra slid into the opposing tub. The heat was instant, penetrating, unlocking tensions he’d accepted as permanent. He sighed, letting his head rest against the copper rim. For long minutes, there was only the sound of water dripping, the crackle of the stove, their slowing breaths.
“It’s quiet out here,” Ezra murmured. He meant the entity.
“It is.” Émile’s voice was a rumble from the steam. “It’s watching the house, waiting for a crack. It doesn’t like us out here. This place… it’s older. The water comes from deep. It confuses the thing.”
He shifted, the water rippling. His gaze, through the mist, was fixed on Ezra. “You did good. These past weeks.”
The praise, direct and unadorned, landed softly. “I was scared,” Ezra admitted, looking at the beams overhead.
“You were. And you stayed. That’s the only thing that matters.” Émile paused. “I need to see you.”
Ezra turned his head. “You are seeing me.”
“Not like that.” Émile’s voice dropped, taking on that rough, deliberate tone that now lived in Ezra’s bloodstream. “I need to see you want this. Want me. Without me touching you. I need to know it’s yours, not just a reaction to mine.”
Understanding dawned, warm and liquid in Ezra’s gut. This was the next step. Not a performance for a parasitic audience, but a demonstration for each other. A claiming.
“You want me to touch myself,” Ezra said, his voice barely disturbing the steam.
“Yes. Show me what you think about when you’re alone in your cot. Show me what you wanted that night in the shower when I stopped. Show me the pictures in your head.”
Ezra’s heart hammered against his ribs. He felt exposed in a new way, the warm water suddenly feeling like a spotlight. He swallowed, then gave a single, slow nod.
He let his hands drift down his body under the water. He watched Émile’s eyes, those piercing blue points in the gloom, as his fingers found his own hardening length. He wrapped his hand around himself, giving a slow, tentative stroke.
Émile’s breath hitched. He made no move to touch himself. He simply watched, his expression intense, absorbing. “That’s it. Just like that. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
Ezra’s cheeks burned, but he kept his eyes locked on Émile’s. “I think… about your mouth. That first night. On me. The way you…” He stroked again, firmer, his thumb sliding over the slick head. “The way you used your tongue. Like you were… learning the shape of me.”
“Good,” Émile encouraged, his voice gravel. “What else?”
“I think about your hands. On my hips. Holding me down. The weight of you.” His rhythm became more confident, his fist moving in a smooth, pumping motion beneath the shimmering water. His breath shortened. “I think about you coming on my back. The feel of it. Hot. Claiming.”
“Fuck, Ezra,” Émile breathed. He still hadn’t moved, but his arousal was evident, breaking the surface of his own water. “You think about me taking you? For real?”
“Yes.” The word was a gasp. Ezra’s hips began to lift subtly, meeting his hand. “I think about it being slow. You making me wait for it, driving me crazy, and then… just pushing in. Stretching me. Filling me up. Making me take all of you.”
He was fully lost in it now, in the confession and the sensation. The friction, the heat of the water, the raw hunger in Émile’s gaze. His precum leaked, clouding the water near his groin.
“You’re so fucking beautiful like this,” Émile said, the words ragged with awe. “Look at you. Giving it to me. Letting me see. That’s yours, that pleasure. You own it. And you’re giving it to me.” A muscle jumped in his jaw. “Come on. Show me. Let me watch you fall apart.”
It was the permission, the worship in the command, that shattered him. A sharp cry tore from Ezra’s throat, echoing off the cedar planks. His body went rigid, back arching, as his orgasm ripped through him. His release jetted into the water in thick, pulsing waves, his hand working himself through every last tremor until he was spent, boneless, sinking back against the tub with a shuddering gasp.
He floated, hazy, coming back to the sound of water sloshing. Émile had risen from his tub. Water streamed from his body as he stepped across the narrow space between them. His cock was fully erect, a thick, demanding presence. His eyes were dark with emotion.
Without a word, he reached into Ezra’s water, his hands sliding under Ezra’s arms. He hauled him up, dripping, until Ezra was standing, trembling, in the tub. Then Émile leaned in and kissed him.
It was their first real kiss. It was not gentle. It was deep, searching, and tasted of mineral water and shared desire. Émile’s tongue swept into his mouth, claiming it with the same certainty he’d used to claim everything else. Ezra kissed back, helpless, his hands coming up to grip Émile’s slick shoulders.
Émile broke the kiss, resting his forehead against Ezra’s. His breathing was harsh. “Now,” he said.
He turned Ezra around, bending him forward over the rounded copper rim of the tub. The metal was warm against Ezra’s chest and cheek. Émile’s hand ran down the dip of his spine, over the curve of his ass. He spread him open.
Ezra felt the blunt, wet pressure of Émile’s cock against his hole. There was no preamble, no more testing. Just a slow, inexorable, breathtaking push.
“Oh, God,” Ezra choked out, his fingers scrabbling against the smooth copper.
“Yeah,” Émile groaned, sinking deeper, an endless, burning stretch. “That’s it. That’s what you wanted. Taking me. All of me.”
He was so much thicker than his fingers. The invasion was immense, overwhelming, a sweet, devastating fullness that stole the air from Ezra’s lungs. Émile bottomed out, his hips flush against Ezra’s ass, and held there, his body trembling with the effort of restraint.
“You feel that?” Émile’s voice was a wreck. “You feel how deep I am in you? That’s where I live now.”
Then he moved. He withdrew almost completely, then drove back in with a sharp, rolling thrust that made Ezra see stars. He set a punishing, perfect rhythm, each stroke grinding deep, the slap of their wet skin a lewd counterbeat in the steamy room. He wrapped one arm around Ezra’s chest, locking him in place, his other hand tangling in Ezra’s hair.
“This is us,” Émile gritted out, his thrusts becoming harder, faster. “This is the boundary. You and me. Connected. Fucked together so deep nothing can pry us apart.” He was losing control, his hips stuttering. “Come for me again. I want to feel you clamp down on my cock when you do it.”
The command, the searing friction, the profound possession—it was too much. A second, shocking orgasm seized Ezra, dry and electric, wracking his body with violent convulsions. His channel pulsed and tightened around Émile’s invading length.
With a raw shout, Émile came. He slammed home and held, his body bowing over Ezra’s as he emptied himself in hot, relentless pulses deep inside. He shook with the force of it, his teeth set in a grimace against Ezra’s shoulder.
They collapsed together over the tub, a slick, heaving tangle, joined and spent. The only sound was their ragged breathing and the endless, gentle trickle of the spring.
A long time later, Émile softened and slipped from Ezra’s body. He turned him, gathered him close
A long time later, Émile softened and slipped from Ezra’s body. He turned him, gathered him close, and simply held him there, standing in the cooling water. Ezra’s face was pressed against the damp, coarse hair of Émile’s chest, listening to the frantic hammer of his heart gradually slow. The silence was a living thing, dense and shared.
“Didn’t hurt you?” Émile’s voice was rough, his lips moving against Ezra’s temple.
“No.” Ezra’s own voice was shredded. “It was… a lot. But no.” He felt stretched, used, profoundly anchored. “You were right. It feels like a boundary.”
Émile made a sound of agreement deep in his throat, his hands smoothing over the wet skin of Ezra’s back as if memorizing the terrain. They stood until the water lost its heat and their skin puckered with gooseflesh. Washing was a quiet, mutual task, hands passing soap over limbs, Émile carefully cleaning the spend from between Ezra’s thighs. It was a tenderness that felt more vulnerable than the sex.
Dressed in clean clothes, their hair damp, they stepped back into the blinding white of afternoon. The world was achingly silent, the only sound the crunch of their boots in the snow. The path back to the house felt shorter. The house itself, a dark shape against the hills, looked different. Less like a target, more like a place that belonged to them.
They were halfway across the yard when the feeling struck. It was a sudden, vacuum-like drop in pressure that made Ezra’s ears pop.
Émile stopped dead, his head snapping toward the northern tree line. His body went taut, the relaxed man from the bathhouse vanishing. “It’s here.”
The words were barely out when the cold hit. It wasn’t the dry cold of Montana winter. This was a wet, penetrating chill that seeped through wool and denim, that coiled around bones. The light didn’t dim so much as it dulled, the sun bleaching to a feeble grey coin behind high cloud.
A sound followed—a low, subcutaneous humming that seemed to come from the ground itself. It vibrated up through the soles of their boots. From the tree line, a shadow detached itself. It had no true shape. It was a distortion, a smear of deeper grey against the snow, like a heat haze in reverse. It moved with a liquid, sickening glide, sliding over the snow without touching it.
It was focused on the bathhouse.
“It’s going for the scent,” Émile hissed, his hand closing around Ezra’s forearm. “Where we left it. Where we were… joined.”
The thing flowed toward the small building. As it passed the woodpile, the neatly stacked cords of pine erupted. Not with force, but with a rapid, cancerous rot. The wood blackened, crumbled into sludge, and sank into the snow in the space of a single breath.
Ezra’s mouth went dry. “Émile.”
“It’s furious. Weak, but furious. That’s dangerous.” Émile’s mind was racing, his eyes tracking the entity’s path. “It can’t have the scent. It can’t feed on the echo.”
He lunged into motion, pulling Ezra toward the house. “The kerosene. The lamp fuel.”
They barreled through the kitchen door. Émile went straight for the utility closet, grabbing two large metal cans of fuel. He tossed one to Ezra, who caught it, the slosh of liquid inside ominously heavy.
“We’re burning it?” Ezra asked, his heart jackhammering.
“We’re cleansing it.” Émile’s face was a mask of grim purpose. “It wants what we left there? We turn it to ash. Starve it of even the memory.”
They ran back outside. The entity was at the bathhouse wall. Where it pressed its non-form, the cedar shingles darkened and splintered, as if aged decades in seconds. A low, hungry moan permeated the air, setting their teeth on edge.
Émile didn’t hesitate. He sprinted forward, unscrewing the cap of his can as he ran. He didn’t throw it. He got within twenty feet, and with a brutal heave, he hurled a great, arcing stream of clear kerosene directly at the structure’s base.
The liquid splashed against wood and snow. “Now, Ezra!”
Ezra’s can was heavier than he expected. He mimicked the motion, the fuel spilling from the spout, dousing the side wall. The sharp, chemical smell cut through the strange, ozone-like stench of the entity.
The thing recoiled from the fuel, its form shimmering with what looked like revulsion. It slid back several yards, coalescing into a tighter, darker knot of shadow. The humming pitched higher, becoming a screech of pure frustration that scraped against the mind.
Émile pulled a matchbook from his pocket. He struck one, the tiny flare absurdly bright in the gloom. He looked at Ezra, his blue eyes fierce. “This is the territory.”
He threw the match.
The fuel ignited with a soft whump that bloomed into a roaring, hungry wall of heat and light. Flames, orange and furious, clawed up the sides of the bathhouse, consuming the ancient cedar, swallowing the copper tubs where they had, moments before, been joined.
The entity shrieked. It was a sound without a source, a vibration of rage that made the snow shudder. It lashed out. Not at them, but at the ground between them. The earth bulged, then split—a black, grinning crack in the snow that raced toward Ezra’s feet.
Émile was faster. He yanked Ezra back by his coat collar just as the ground where he’d stood collapsed inward, revealing not soil, but a void of absolute blackness that smelled of damp stone and rotten meat. The crack snapped shut a second later, leaving only a scar of disturbed snow.
The thing’s energy was spent. The shadow bled into the general grey of the afternoon, the terrible pressure lifting. The fire raged on, consuming the evidence of their intimacy, creating a new, violent beacon in the gathering twilight.
They stood, panting, watching it burn. The heat was immense, pushing back the unnatural cold.
“It tried to take the ground from under you,” Émile said, his voice flat. He still had a fistful of Ezra’s coat. “A final little fuck you.”
Ezra leaned into him, the solid reality of his body the only stable point in a reeling world. “It didn’t get it.”
“No.” Émile released the coat, his arm instead sliding around Ezra’s shoulders, pulling him tight against his side. They watched the structure fail, the roof timbers collapsing inward in a shower of sparks. “It got ashes. It got nothing.”
The fire burned into the dusk. They didn’t go inside until the last flame guttered out, leaving a smoking, blackened scar on the pure white land. A boundary, marked in cinder and defiance.
Inside the kitchen, with the door bolted against the early dark, the silence returned. It was their silence now, earned. Ezra moved to the stove to start coffee, his body aching in new and familiar ways. He felt Émile’s gaze on him, a physical weight.
When he turned, Émile was just there. He cupped Ezra’s face, his thumbs rough on his cheekbones. He didn’t speak for a long moment, just searched his eyes. “You’re staying,” he finally said. It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah,” Ezra whispered. “I’m staying.”
The kiss was softer this time. A seal. A promise made in a kitchen that smelled of smoke and kerosene, with the ghost of a burned sanctuary still warm outside the window.
Later, in the deep dark of their bedroom, they lay together under the heavy quilts. The house creaked in the wind, ordinary sounds returning. Émile was on his back, one arm behind his head. Ezra lay curled against his side, his head on Émile’s shoulder, his hand splayed over the steady beat of his heart.
“It’s not over,” Ezra murmured into the dark.
“No.” Émile’s fingers traced idle patterns on Ezra’s bare shoulder. “It’s pissed. And starving. That makes it reckless. We’ll have to be ready.”
“I am ready.” Ezra meant it. The fear was still there, a cold kernel in his gut, but it was outweighed now by something fiercer.
Émile turned his head, his lips brushing Ezra’s forehead. “I know.”
Outside, in the perfect, starless black, from the direction of the burned bathhouse, a single, guttural note vibrated through the frozen earth. It was not a moan of hunger, but a sound of bleak, infinite hatred.
THE ENTITY WATCHES.
The silence that followed the entity’s signal was worse than the sound itself. It was a held breath over sixty acres. Inside, under the quilts, Émile’s tracing fingers stilled on Ezra’s shoulder. He listened with his whole body, the way he listened for a calving cow in distress or the first crack of river ice in spring. Ezra felt the shift, the hardening of the muscle beneath his cheek.
“You hear that?” Ezra whispered.
“Felt it,” Émile corrected, his voice low. “In the ground.”
They lay there, suspended. The ordinary night sounds—the sigh of wind through a loose shingle, the groan of a timber cooling—did not return. The house felt like a object submerged in oil, every sound thickened and slow. Ezra’s own heartbeat was a frantic drum against his ribs, out of sync with the steady, sluggish thud of Émile’s.
“It’s different now,” Émile said. He shifted, sitting up slowly, the blanket pooling at his waist. The moonlight through the window cut across the planes of his chest, making him look carved from something ancient and unforgiving. “It’s not just hungry. It’s hateful. That’s a different kind of animal.”
Ezra pushed himself up on one elbow. The fear was back, a slick and chilly presence in his gut. “What do we do?”
Émile looked down at him. In the monochrome light, his eyes were nearly black. “We don’t let it in here.” He swung his legs out of bed. “We check every lock. Every window. Then we wait for dawn. It’s strongest in the dark.”
The ritual was methodical, a patrol. They moved from room to room in their union suits, Émile testing each window latch, Ezra following with a lit kerosene lamp that threw their gigantic, wavering shadows against the log walls. The kitchen door, scarred from years of use, got a fresh wooden brace jammed beneath the handle. The house became a fortress again, but it felt smaller, the walls closer.
Back in the bedroom, the cold was seeping in. Émile fed split logs into the iron stove until it glowed cherry red. The new heat was aggressive, pushing back the damp chill. He stood before it, watching the flames consume the wood, his profile stark.
Ezra watched him from the bed. The vulnerability he’d seen in the bathhouse, the tenderness, was buried again under layers of vigilant granite. He understood it was necessary, a survival reflex, but a loneliness hollowed him out. They had just burned a building to the ground together. He needed the connection reaffirmed, not locked away behind duty.
“Émile.”
He turned.
“Come back to bed.” Ezra’s voice was quiet, but it didn’t waver. “The doors are braced. The windows are locked. It can’t get in. But I’m in here. With you.”
For a long moment, Émile didn’t move. The firelight danced over his clenched jaw, the tense cords of his neck. Then something released. A slow exhale clouded the air between them. He walked to the bed, not with the predator’s grace he’d possessed earlier, but with a heavy, human fatigue.
He didn’t lie down. He stood beside the bed, looking down at Ezra. “It wants you,” he said, the words raw. “It tried to swallow the ground under your feet. It’s fixated. What we did in the bathhouse… it made you a beacon.”
“Then make me yours again,” Ezra said. He reached out, his fingers curling around Émile’s wrist. The skin was fever-warm from the stove. “Right here. In our bed. Not for a boundary. For me. Because I need to feel you, and not that fucking thing out there.”
A rough sound escaped Émile’s throat. He let himself be pulled down. He kneeled on the mattress, caging Ezra beneath him, his hands planting on either side of Ezra’s head. “You know what you’re asking for? Now? With that… shit scraping at the walls?”
“Yes.”
“It won’t be gentle.”
“I don’t want gentle.”
Émile kissed him. It was all teeth and desperation, a clash of lips and tongue that was more battle than affection. Ezra kissed back just as fiercely, his hands coming up to grip Émile’s hair, pulling him closer, swallowing his groans. The taste was of coffee and fear and that ever-present hint of woodsmoke.
Émile broke the kiss, breathing hard. He yanked at the buttons of Ezra’s union suit, tearing them open with a pop of thread. He shoved the fabric down Ezra’s shoulders, pinning his arms to his sides for a moment before pulling it completely free. The cold air hit Ezra’s skin, raising goosebumps, which were immediately followed by the scorching heat of Émile’s palms roaming his chest, his stomach.
“Turn over,” Émile growled.
Ezra obeyed, rolling onto his stomach. He heard the rasp of Émile’s own suit being shed, the heavy thud of it hitting the floorboards. Then Émile’s weight came down on him, not carefully, but completely, pressing him deep into the feather mattress. The solid, hot length of Émile’s cock wedged against the cleft of his ass.
Émile’s mouth was at his ear, his breath hot and ragged. “You remember what you told me? In the tub? About wanting it slow?”
Ezra nodded, his face pressed into the pillow.
“Forget it.” Émile’s hand groped over the edge of the bed, finding the small tin of salve they’d used before. The click of the lid was obscenely loud. “It sees weakness. It feeds on hesitation. So I’m going to fuck you like I own every part of you, because I do, and I need that thing outside to know it.”
Ezra shuddered, a thrill of raw anticipation spiking through him. He spread his legs. “Do it.”
The first slick press of Émile’s fingers was perfunctory, a rushed, burning stretch. One, then two, twisting and scissoring, preparing him with a brutal efficiency that bordered on pain. Ezra clenched his teeth, a muffled sound escaping into the pillow. It was too dry, too fast.
“Relax for me, chéri,” Émile muttered, but his voice was strained, his own control fraying. He added more salve, the coolness a shock, and pushed his fingers in deeper, crooking them. Ezra cried out as the pad of Émile’s finger grazed that devastating spot inside him, a lightning bolt of pure sensation.
“There,” Émile hissed, rubbing it again, insistently. “That’s yours. You hold onto that feeling.”
He withdrew his fingers. Ezra felt the blunt, enormous head of Émile’s cock nudge against him, slick with salve and his own leaking pre-come. Émile’s body blanketed him, one hand fisting in the hair at the nape of his neck, not pulling, just holding.
“This is it,” Émile breathed, and he pushed.
The burn was catastrophic. A white-hot tear of sensation that forced a ragged scream from Ezra’s throat. Émile didn’t stop. He kept pushing, a relentless, inward invasion, stuffing Ezra impossibly full, stretching him to a breaking point. He bottomed out, his hips flush against Ezra’s ass, his own body trembling violently.
“Fuck,” Émile choked out. “Fuck, you’re tight. Even like this.”
He gave Ezra no time to adjust. He pulled back until just the tip remained, and slammed home again. The cry that ripped from Ezra was equal parts agony and ecstasy. Émile set a brutal, driving pace, each powerful thrust jolting Ezra forward on the mattress. The bedframe slammed against the log wall with a steady, punishing rhythm. Thud. Thud. Thud.
“You take it,” Émile grunted, his voice raw with effort. “You take all of it. My cock. My land. This fight. You take it.”
Ezra couldn’t speak. Pleasure was a coil winding tighter and tighter in his gut, fed by the searing friction, the profound depth of each stroke, the raw ownership in Émile’s words. He was being unmade, rebuilt as something that belonged entirely to the man pounding into him. He met each thrust with a push back, his own hips seeking more, harder, deeper.
Émile changed the angle, lifting Ezra’s hips higher. The next thrust hit his prostate dead-on. Ezra saw white, his vision splintering. A broken, continuous moan poured out of him. “Yes—right there—please—”
“That’s it,” Émile snarled, hammering that spot with unerring accuracy. “Come on. Come on my cock. Let me feel you lose it.”
The coil snapped. Ezra’s orgasm erupted without a single touch to his own cock. It tore through him, violent and mindless, his channel clamping down in fierce, rhythmic spasms around the hardness fucking into him. His release splattered against the sheet beneath him in hot stripes, his body convulsing.
The intense, milking pressure was too much for Émile. With a guttural roar that was almost a sob, he buried himself to the hilt and came. Ezra felt the hot, liquid pulse deep inside him, a flood of possession that seemed to go on and on, filling him up. Émile collapsed on top of him, his weight a welcome anchor, both of them slick with sweat and spent.
For minutes, there was only the sound of their heaving breaths and the pop of the stove. The world, the entity, the cold—all of it had shrunk to this square of sweat-drenched mattress. Émile softened and slipped out, rolling to the side but keeping an arm thrown heavily across Ezra’s back.
Ezra felt boneless, wrecked, perfect. The pain was already softening into a deep, satisfying ache. He turned his head, his lips finding the salt-damp skin of Émile’s bicep.
A deep, contented sigh was forming in his chest when a new sensation crept in.
It started at the base of his spine. A cold trickle, like melting ice traced down a vertebra. He twitched.
“You okay?” Émile mumbled, his voice thick with near-sleep.
“Yeah. Just a chill.”
But it wasn’t a chill. It was a presence. It oozed up his spine, a sluggish, invasive oil, seeping into the spaces between his joints, the marrow of his bones left porous and vulnerable by exhaustion and overwhelming sensation. It didn’t hurt. It felt… familiar. A dull echo of the fullness he’d just felt, but empty, and cold, and hungry.
His fingertips tingled. The afterglow evaporated, replaced by a hollow detachment. He stared at the log wall, but his vision seemed to double, superimposing a pattern of shadow on the grain that writhed like worms.
“Émile?” His voice sounded far away.
“Mm?”
The cold reached his skull. It was inside now, pouring into the grooves of his brain. The memories of the evening—the fire, the fear, the searing pleasure—were smothered under a layer of static. He saw them, but felt nothing. He looked at Émile’s arm across his back and felt no warmth, no comfort. Only a calculating observation.
“Nothing,” Ezra heard himself say. His own