But it was compulsory. He glanced back before he could stop himself and there he saw her leaving the cabin with no coat on.
"Zarek!" She stumbled in the snow and fell.
Leave her. She should have stayed inside where she was safe.
He couldn't.
She was helpless alone and he wouldn't leave her outside to die.
Mumbling a fetid curse that would have made a sailor cringe, he went to her side. He picked her up roughly and pushed her toward her house. "Get inside before you freeze to death."
"What about you?"
"What about me?"
"You can't stay out here, either."
"Believe me, princess, I've slept in worse conditions than this."
"You'll die out here."
"I don't care."
"Well, I do."
Zarek would have been far less stunned had she slapped him. At least that he would have expected.
For a full minute he couldn't move as those words rang in his ears. The idea that anyone cared whether or not he lived or died was so alien to him that he wasn't even sure how to respond.
"Get inside," he snarled, shoving her gently back through her door.
The wolf growled at him.
"Shut up, Sasha," she snapped before he had a chance to. "One more sound out of you and I'll make you go outside."
The wolf sniffed the air indignantly as if it understood her, then darted to the back of the house.
Zarek shut the door while Astrid trembled from the cold. The falling snow melted, making her instantly wet. He was wet too, not that he cared. He was used to physical discomfort.
She wasn't.
"What were you thinking?" he yelled at her, sitting her down on the couch.
"Don't you dare take that tone of voice with me."
So he growled at her instead and stalked to the bathroom where he could grab a towel from the rack. Then he headed to her bedroom and grabbed a blanket.
He returned to her. "You're soaked."
"I noticed."
Astrid was surprised by the sudden, unexpected warmth of a blanket covering her, especially given his angry, gravelly words that had all but called her an idiot for going after him.
Zarek wrapped her up tightly, then knelt before her. He pulled her fur-lined slippers from her feet and rubbed her frozen toes until she could again feel something other than the painful burn of cold.
She'd never experienced cold like this before and she wondered how many times Zarek must have suffered from it with no one there to warm him.
"That was a stupid thing for you to do," he said harshly.