He Saved Me in the Storm, Now I'm Carrying His Forbidden Heirs

The moss sample crumbled between my fingers as I knelt beside the fallen cedar, disappointment pricking sharp. Three days searching for the rumored phosphorescent variety and all I'd found was common sphagnum, thick and ordinary beneath my latex gloves.

The wind shifted without warning. Not gradually—one moment stillness, the next a wall of wet cold slammed into my back. The temperature dropped ten degrees in a heartbeat. My breath crystallized in front of my face as I scrambled to my feet, shoving the useless sample into my pack.

The forest went wrong around me. Pines that had stood solid moments before now swayed like drunk dancers, their tops disappearing into sudden black clouds that boiled overhead. Rain started—not drops, but sheets. It hit the exposed skin of my neck like needles.

I ran. My boots slipped on the sudden carpet of wet needles, each step sending up splashes of frigid water. The path I'd followed for hours vanished. Everything looked the same—green, gray, endless. The compass on my wrist spun uselessly.

The ground betrayed me. One moment solid earth, the next my foot found nothing. I pitched sideways, ankle rolling hard as I crashed into a tangle of devil's club. The pain hit white-hot, shooting up my leg like lightning. I bit back a scream that came out as a sob.

My ankle had already swollen, boot cutting into puffy flesh. When I tried to stand, the joint buckled. I went down hard on hands and knees, rain plastering my hair to my face, mud streaking my palms.

Darkness fell completely now—not gradual twilight but someone had thrown a switch. The storm intensified. Wind howled through the treetops, sending branches whipping past my head. I dragged myself toward what looked like a hollow beneath a massive spruce, every movement sending fire through my ankle.

My phone showed no signal. Battery at twelve percent. I huddled against the tree trunk, shaking violently, watching my breath fog in the beam of my headlamp. The temperature kept dropping. My research jacket, designed for cool days, was soaked through.

Somewhere in the blackness, something moved. Not wind—too deliberate. The sound of footsteps that made no sound on the wet ground. I pressed deeper into the hollow, heart hammering against my ribs, as a shadow detached itself from between the trees.

The shadow solidified into a man—no, something else. Too still, too perfect. Rain didn't touch him; it seemed to bend around his body like he existed in a different atmosphere. My headlamp caught the glint of bronze hair plastered to his forehead, though no water actually clung to him.

His eyes were wrong. Gold, like melted topaz, glowing with their own inner light. They fixed on my ankle first, then tracked up my body with predatory precision. When they reached my face, I felt stripped bare—not just of my wet clothes, but of every defense I'd ever built.

"You're hurt." His voice was velvet and winter, somehow cutting through the storm's roar without raising. He moved forward and the space between us collapsed. One moment he stood ten feet away, the next he crouched beside me, his knees not quite touching the muddy ground.

I flinched back, but there was nowhere to go. His face was inhumanly beautiful—too sharp, too symmetrical. My heart hammered so hard I wondered if he could hear it over the rain.

"Don't—" My protest died as he reached for me. His hands were ice, literal ice, shocking against my rain-numbed skin as they circled my waist. The temperature difference made me gasp.

"I won't hurt you." The words sounded torn from him, like the promise physically pained him. Then I was airborne, cradled against a chest that felt like carved marble beneath his wet shirt. No human could lift another adult this effortlessly, as if I weighed nothing.

His arms were steel bands around my back and knees. My injured ankle throbbed against the cradle of his forearm, but the cold of his skin was already numbing the pain. The storm still raged, but none of it touched me now—he moved through the downpour untouched, carrying me like I was precious glass.

"Where—" My voice cracked. I could feel the definition of muscle beneath my fingers where I'd instinctively grabbed his shoulders. Hard. Impossible. "Where are you taking me?"

"Somewhere safe." His breath stirred my wet hair, sending shivers down my neck that had nothing to do with cold. "You're bleeding."

I hadn't realized. A thin line of crimson ran from where devil's club had torn my forearm, mixing with rain. His gold eyes tracked the movement with disturbing intensity, nostrils flaring slightly.

He adjusted his grip, pulling me tighter against his chest. The motion pressed my breasts against the cold plane of his torso, and even through layers of wet fabric, the contact sent electricity through my exhausted body. His jaw clenched—I watched the muscle jump beneath pale skin.

The forest blurred around us as he moved with inhuman speed, carrying me deeper into the darkness.

The cabin appeared like a mirage—glass and cedar rising from the forest floor, all sharp angles and warm light spilling through floor-to-ceiling windows. He carried me up three steps without jarring my ankle once, shouldering through a door that opened before we reached it.

Inside smelled of pine and something darker, masculine. The living room stretched before us—sleek leather furniture, a fire already crackling though no one had passed us. He set me on the kitchen island, hands lingering at my waist longer than necessary.

"Take off your boot." His voice had dropped, rougher now. When I fumbled with frozen fingers, he knelt and worked the laces himself. His cold fingertips brushed my bare calf as he eased the leather down, sending sparks through my chilled skin. The swelling had turned my ankle purple, grotesque against his pale hands.

"Bathroom's through there." He nodded toward a hallway, but didn't move away. Instead, he filled a bowl with warm water, steam rising between us. "This will hurt."

The washcloth was soft against the scrapes on my forearm, but his touch was what made me suck in air. He cleaned the blood with methodical precision, eyes never leaving the wound. When the cloth came away red, his pupils dilated until only a thin ring of gold remained.

"You shouldn't have been out there." His thumb traced the inside of my wrist where my pulse hammered. "The storm came for you."

"That's insane." But my voice shook. He'd moved closer, close enough that his breath stirred the damp hair at my temple. My nipples had hardened beneath my wet shirt—whether from cold or something else, I couldn't tell.

He wrapped my ankle with practiced efficiency, his fingers skating over the arch of my foot, the sensitive skin behind my knee. Each touch was clinical, yet my body responded like he'd stroked between my legs.

"You're shivering." He stood abruptly, pulling off his own shirt. The fabric was dry somehow, despite the storm. "Take these. I'll find you something warm."

I peeled off my soaked layers while he searched drawers, hyperaware of his back turned to me. My sports bra and underwear clung transparently. When he turned back with sweatpants and a flannel shirt, his gaze snagged on my hardened nipples visible through wet cotton.

The air between us crackled. He held out the clothes without stepping closer, but his hand trembled slightly—just enough for me to notice.