I pushed the thought aside and trudged up the hardened terrain. Wolf trotted, head lowered, beside me.
As the cold intensified, my body began to tremble uncontrollably. My lips quivered. I tucked my head toward the ground. Fruitlessly, I blew against my hands trying to warm them. My breath misted from my mouth like spectres in the gloaming and vanished.
Darkness seemed to arise faster than ordinary, crawling through the trees, cloaking everything in murky darkness like a hungry mouth.
I squinted through the mottled forest. Ahead, through the sheeted glaze, I made out a small ledge sticking out from the hardened cliff face. It wasn’t ideal, I wouldn’t be fully sheltered, but it would provide reprieve from the wind at least. It would have to do.
I clamored up the rock face, slippery from the streaming rain, clawing at it with my fingertips, trying to get a grip. I slipped,skinning my finger tips. Numbed with cold I barely felt it. I tapped along the rock trying to find an indent to grip onto. The rain lashed against my face. The wind howled through the trees. I shivered all over.
Finally, my fingers sunk into a hollow. My feet clawed against the rock face, my arms shaking from strain and cold, I gritted my teeth and heaved myself up, thanking Ethan mentally for his training. Without the strength I had now, I’d have never made it. Puffing, I got up and walked forward slowly, squeezing my eyes against the pounding rain until I reached the rock face. I eased my back as far as I could into the indent and curled into a ball, protecting my core. With trembling hands, I knuckled the rain out of my eyes and pulled my phone out. It stared back blankly, the bars were non-existent. I tucked it back behind me to keep it out of the weather. Wolf leapt up and laid down a few feet away. My teeth clattered, my clothes were soaking wet, and my body shook uncontrollably.
The night fell as swift as the blade of a Viking’s axe. The world around me was a cavity of darkness and streaking rain, the blackness seemingly an empty void. I’d never felt so alone, and yet the shrieking wind made me feel like I was anything but alone, and it was terrifying. I told myself to remain calm, that nothing that could harm me would be out tonight, in this weather, in the middle of the mountains. Only a fool would be out tonight. I was that fucking fool. The ground was hard and cold. Rocks jutted into my body. I shuffled around trying to find a comfortable position. Each time I moved the roll of the ground dug into another place. In the end I gave up moving and put up with the rock face pressing into my thigh, hip and ribs.
The rain ran down the strands of hair stuck to the side of my face like streams. With a trembling hand I tucked them behind my ears. My teeth clattered like jackhammers. The cold seemed to sink into the marrow of my bones. I was so cold it was painful.I pulled my knees in as tight as I could to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. How long could I survive like this? Five hours, eight hours, it would be at least ten hours before light hit. Even if Ethan came home and discovered me missing now, vampires, like dogs, couldn’t track scents in the rain. They wouldn’t find me until morning. Morning would be too late.
I closed my eyes and thought of Karson. His face flashed before me in all his forms. Tender, gentle, serene, angry, indifferent. My love for him was deep and profound. I loved him, brutality and all, for to love him was to love all parts of him. It seemed insanely cruel that a love so deep was not returned. The tears didn’t come. Perhaps it was the brutal cold which kept them at bay. Perhaps I was too damn tired, too damn sick of crying.
He'd told me that once vampire’s bond it was exceptionally hard to break. He cared, I was certain of that.
He cared. But not enough to stay.
I thought about my life up to that point. All those years dragged from one terrible home to another. Always feeling so alone, empty and unworthy of love. Then finally when my parents took me in, I found the missing pieces—love, safety, security. Then, my mother died. My father kicked me out. Tom cheated. Kelly betrayed me. Karson left me.
I was a witch, I had a purpose at least. I should have found some comfort in that.
I was broken. Cold. And as alone as I’d ever been.
And I might die up here that way.
I closed my eyes to shut out the pain. Mercifully, I drifted in and out of sleep.
A jet’s roar thrust me from sleep. I woke bone cold, disorientated and confused for a moment before reality set in. It was not a jet, but the wind screaming. The rain pounded on the hard forest floor like a marching army of relentless feet. I wasn’tsure how long I’d lain there for, I stopped looking at my watch after it hit midnight. Each minute, ravaged by the agony of the brutal cold, felt like an hour. Wolf got up and moved closer, as if he sensed I needed his warmth, I tucked into his back, but his fur was sodden and it did little to warm me.
Sometimes I thought I heard a voice calling out, my heart would lift in hope, but each time it turned out to be the tormented cries of the storm. A shudder rocked my whole body relentlessly, so hard my bones felt like they were snapping. The pain was almost unbearable. I felt like I needed to urinate but I didn’t know if I could get to my feet. I’d read somewhere that brutal cold would make you feel like that, right before your body shut down, and I wondered how much more I could take before that happened.
I closed my eyes. Then I heard it. A deep growl. My eyes tore open.
Wolf growled so deep it rattled my bones. His head rose. He stood. To my dismay he jumped up and then disappeared into the night. I tried to sit. Everything ached and was so numb, I only managed a few shaking inches and I dropped back down. I thought I heard a faint cry but when I turned to listen the only sound was the whining air pitted against the forest pines. I tried to call out, but my throat was seized by cold and what little sound did come out the wind tore from my lips.
Frustrated and encased in misery, I cried. Tears sailed down my cheeks, the heat burned over the cold. I couldn’t stop them, I didn’t have the energy to stop them.
“Amelia,” Karson’s voice arose from the wind. I lifted my head, opened my mouth to call out but all that came out was a whisper of wordless air. I listened. The wailing wind seemed to get louder and louder, like sirens nearing. No voice. No Karson. Of course he wouldn’t come looking for me, he stared throughmy pain like I ment nothing to him at all. I dropped my head back down and cried harder.
“Amelia.” This time the voice was stronger. I blinked into the rain, a black void glared back. He wasn’t there. I squeezed my eyes shut. I was having some kind of hallucination. Maybe I was losing my mind.
Then from out of the tombstone black a panicked voice said, “Oh sweetheart. You’re freezing.”
“Karson.” My voice was whisper thin and seemed to burn up my throat.
He lifted me up into a seated position and pulled at my wet clothes, ripping them from my skin. My eyes rolled back in my head. “No,” I whispered. Desperately hugging my arms into my body. “Please . . . cold. It hurts.”
“We have to get your wet clothes off to get you warm.”
He yanked my clothes off, pulled my naked back against his bare chest, wrapped his jacket around my stomach, turning his own back to the weather, he cradled my back into his warm chest.
“Ethan!” he roared over his shoulder into the dark.
“No, Karson, it’s too c-c-cold, you will get cold. P-please, I just want to go home,” I stuttered.
