Except he was hard against me in the dark, and his voice was rough when he said“Don’t,”and I can’t stop replaying the way his hand wrapped around my wrist.
The vest shifts as he moves, and I tear my gaze away from his impossibly broad shoulders with something close to desperation.
Think about something else. Anything else.
But there’s nothing else. Just the darkness and the cold and the awareness that won’t fade, no matter how hard I try to ignore it.
Maybe it’s the stress. The circumstances. Fear and adrenaline and proximity creating false intimacy where none exists.
That has to be it.
Because the alternative—that this is real, that I actually want him despite all the reasons I shouldn’t—is too much to handle right now.
Luke glances back. “Keep up.”
Not “Are you okay?”or “How are you holding up?”Just a command wrapped in concern he won’t voice.
“I’m right behind you,” I say.
His eyes narrow slightly. Reading something in my expression that I don’t want him to see. Then he turns away again without comment.
We keep walking.
The tunnel widens briefly before splitting into two passages. Luke stops at the junction, sweeping his torch across both options. The left passage continues downward at a steep angle, walls close enough to touch on both sides. The right curves away into darkness, broader but with an uneven floor that looks treacherous.
He stands there for a long moment. Calculating. Weighing variables I can’t see.
“What is it?” I ask.
“The map showed one passage here. Not two.”
Ice slides down my spine. “Meaning?”
“Meaning either the map is outdated, or we’re not where I think we are.” He moves to the left passage, running his hand along the wall. His fingers come away damp. “This route goes deeper. Toward the old excavation sites.”
“And the other one?”
“No idea.” He turns to study the right passage. “Could loop back to the main system. Could dead-end in a collapse.”
There’s silence. Different from before; this one pragmatic rather than loaded with unspoken things.
“Your call,” I say finally.
He looks at me then. Really looks. Like he’s weighing more than just navigation.
“What does your gut say?”
The question surprises me. “My gut?”
“You’ve had dreams about these caves. Ancestral memory or whatever it is.” His voice is neutral, but there’s something underneath. Trust, maybe. Would he trust me? “So what does it tell you?”
I close my eyes. Try to reach for fragments of the dream that brought us here. Fire and stone and—
There.
A flash of memory that isn’t mine. Torchlight on wet walls. The smell of earth and old magic. A sense ofdownrather thanacross.
“Left,” I say, opening my eyes. “We need to go left.”
