Flight 9W-237 lies shattered across a Himalayan ridge. It didn't crash. It was hunted out of the sky. Smoke, snow, and silence. Only two heartbeats still echo in the wreckage. Major Ahaan "Falcon" Singh, Para SF, moves through the Himalayan cold like death itself. Bleeding shoulder, storm-grey eyes colder than the mountain, and a grip that could snap bone. He's the kind of man whose classified files are sealed for a reason—the kind who's killed more men than he's saved. His has eyes that have seen death and hunting it. I was just another passenger flying home when terrorists turned the plane journey into a nightmare. We have survived. Because he wrapped his body around mine when the plane kissed the mountain. When we finally stopped rolling through the snow, I was alive. He was bleeding from a dozen places Now we're stranded on snowy mountains in cave. He positioned himself between me and the cave entrance, a human barrier against the cold and the darkness. One thin blanket. Outside: -15°C and falling. Inside: something far more dangerous rising. "You're shivering," he says, voice low, rough from smoke and command. I nod, unable to speak. It's not the cold making my breath catch. He shrugs off his jacket and drapes it over my shoulders. The warmth still carries his scent: metal, pine, and raw man. Then he steps closer. Too close. His calloused fingers brush a strand of hair from my face, lingering longer than necessary. "I've got you," he murmurs against my ear. "No one's touching you again. Not while I'm breathing." My heart slams against my ribs. I should be terrified. I've just survived a hijacking, a crash, a bloodbath. But when his hand slides down to mine and pulls me gently toward himself, fear isn't what floods my veins. Rescue is forty-eight hours away. Forty-eight hours of snowstorms, in a cave, and a man who saved my life. When he looks at me, it's with the kind of focus he probably reserves for military objectives. Except it's softer. Deeper. Like I'm the mission that matters. The hunters circle. The snow falls. And I realize—The most dangerous man on this terrain isn't the terrorists outside. It's the one holding me like he'll never let go, even as he pretends I mean nothing at all.