I see her flinch, her head whipping around. For a moment, her frantic energy redoubles. She pushes herself harder, her movements becoming more reckless. She is driven by a terror I can taste on the air. A terror of me. And while it satisfies the predator, it infuriates the man. I don't just want her body; I wanther submission. I want her to look at me with the fire I saw in her eyes earlier, not this desperate panic.
The forest grows thicker here, the canopy of the ancient conifers blocking out the moonlight. I lose sight of her. For a moment, the world is just black trees and the sound of my own harsh breathing. Panic, cold and sharp, lances through me. It’s an unfamiliar, unwelcome sensation. I am a man who is never out of control, yet this girl has thrown my entire world off its axis in a matter of hours.
I stop, my head cocked, listening. I filter out the sigh of the wind, the creak of a snow-laden branch. And I hear it. The frantic, uneven gasps of someone trying to stifle their sobs. She’s close. Hiding.
I move toward the sound, my steps now utterly silent. I am a wraith in the darkness. I see a large cluster of ferns, their fronds heavy with snow. A sliver of yellow peeks out from behind them. She thinks she’s hidden. The naivety is almost endearing.
I could take her now. Grab her, end this game. But I want her to run again. I want to break her hope completely. I deliberately snap a large twig under my boot.
The gasp from behind the ferns is sharp. A moment later, she bursts from her hiding spot, running with the last of her reserves. I let her go, giving her a ten-second head start, the predator toying with its prey.
Then I follow.
This time, there is no finesse. I crash through the undergrowth, my powerful strides closing the distance with brutal efficiency. She glances back, her eyes wide with renewed terror as she sees how close I am.
Her flight path is becoming erratic, leading her toward the clearing I know is ahead. Toward the frozen lake. A new, sharper anxiety cuts through my possessive haze. The ice there is unstable, especially in the center.
"Stop, Wynter!" I command, my voice harsher than I intend.
She either doesn't hear or doesn't care. She breaks through the tree line and doesn't hesitate, her momentum carrying her straight onto the vast, silver expanse of the lake.
My heart seizes. The ice groans under her weight, a low, guttural sound of protest. I see a spiderweb of cracks form around her feet.
"No," I breathe, the word stolen by the wind. She is a fragile doll dancing on a plate of glass, and the entire world holds its breath as it prepares to shatter.
Three
Kaden
Theworldnarrowstothe fragile figure in the center of the frozen lake. My heart, a muscle I long thought numb, seizes in my chest. The sound of the ice cracking is a physicalblow, a sharp, sickening report that echoes the splintering of my own composure.
"No," the word is a raw whisper, stolen by the wind.
She is a doll made of glass, and she is dancing on a floor that is about to give way. Every instinct screams at me to run to her, to snatch her from the danger, but I am frozen on the shore, rendered powerless for the first time in a decade. If I step out there, my weight will guarantee the ice collapses, taking us both down into the black, suffocating water.
For a torturous second, she is paralyzed, a doe caught in the headlights of her own impending doom. Then, adrenaline kicks in. Her graceful glide shatters into a desperate, frantic scramble. She leaps from one shifting plate of ice to another, her ridiculously bright gown a beacon of her struggle. The ice groans and heaves around her, the dark water licking at the edges of the cracks, hungry.
My fists are clenched so tight my knuckles are white, my nails digging into my palms. A guttural roar of pure frustration builds in my chest. Rage at her for her foolishness. Rage at myself for letting the chase go on this long. Rage at the universe for daring to threaten what I have just decided is mine.
With a final, desperate leap that seems to defy gravity, she clears the last stretch of fractured ice and collapses onto the snowy bank of the far shore. She lands in a heap of snow and yellow tulle, a broken marionette whose strings have been cut.
The relief that floods me is so potent it makes my knees feel weak. It’s a disgusting, foreign sensation, and I hate it. It is immediately consumed by a fresh wave of fury. I can’t follow her across the treacherous ice. I’m forced to turn and sprint along the edge of the lake, my expensive dress shoes slipping on the frozen ground, the sound of my own harsh breathing a testament to my lost control.
The trees on her side of the lake have swallowed her whole. The flash of yellow is gone. But she left a trail. I push myself harder, my lungs burning, my mind a maelstrom of violent intentions. When I get my hands on her, she will learn the price of making me feel this way. She will learn the price of fear.
I finally find a place where the shoreline narrows, a game trail leading across a sturdy, frozen creek that feeds the lake. I cross it in three long strides and pick up her tracks again on the other side. They are no longer the frantic prints of a desperate flight. They are stumbling, uneven, the steps of someone running on the last dregs of their energy.
She is fading. Good.
Ahead, through the dense web of branches, a faint light flickers. A single, welcoming pinprick in the oppressive darkness. I know that light. I know that cabin. It belongs to Craigston, one of my men. A solid, dependable soldier who guards this quadrant of my territory.
A dark, humorless chuckle escapes my lips. The irony is exquisite. She is running from the monster, straight into his den. Her desperate bid for sanctuary will only deliver her more surely into my hands.
I slow my pace now, the urgency of the chase replaced by the grim satisfaction of its inevitable conclusion. I let the distance grow, melting back into the shadows. Let her have her moment of false hope. Let her knock on that door believing a kind, benevolent stranger will save her. The disillusionment will be so much sweeter.
I circle around, approaching the cabin from the side, my steps utterly silent in the deep snow. The curtains are drawn, but a gap allows me a perfect view of the main room. Craigston is by the fire, a book in his lap. He is a large, bearded man, the very picture of a mountain recluse.
The cabin door bursts open, and Wynter stumbles inside. She slams it shut behind her, leaning against it, her chest heaving. The sheer, primal relief on her face is a beautiful thing to behold.
