My hand freezes over the gun.
A violent, debilitating shudder rips entirely through my nervous system. I squeeze my eyes shut, a fresh wave of scalding tears cutting through the ash and mud on my face.
I look back at him.
Thayer is lying in the shadows, his head lolling to the side, completely vulnerable. The man who commands an army of ruthless killers. The man who snaps necks with his bare hands. He is lying in the dirt, entirely stripped of his power, his life slipping away with every shallow, rattling breath he takes.
And he is dying because he threw himself over my body when the ceiling collapsed. He is dying because he carried me through a mile of subterranean rock while his artery pumped his life onto the floor.
The cognitive dissonance completely and violently fractures my sanity.
He is a psychotic, manipulative stalker who completely destroyed my life. But he is also the only person on this miserable, bloody earth who values my existence above his own. My father sacrificed me to save himself. Thayer sacrificed his empire, his men, and his own blood to save me.
The trauma bond is an absolute, undeniable poison. It has completely infected my bloodstream, rewriting my biology until the very thought of leaving him here makes my lungs seize in pure, unadulterated panic.
I cannot leave him.
I am completely, entirely ruined.
I snatch my hand back from the gun. I scramble across the dusty, blood-stained floorboards, throwing myself onto my knees beside his massive, motionless body.
"Thayer," I whisper, my voice completely broken, frantic. I press my bloody hands flat against his uninjured right shoulder, shaking him gently. "Thayer, wake up. Please."
He doesn't respond. His skin is shockingly cold to the touch. The freezing wind howling through the cracks in the cabin walls is rapidly dropping the ambient temperature. He is in severe hypovolemic shock from the blood loss, and hypothermia is already setting in. If I don't raise his core temperature immediately, his heart will simply stop beating.
Panic, pure and blinding, completely overrides my horror.
I look around the pitch-black cabin, the beam of the dropped flashlight illuminating dancing motes of dust and rotting wood. There is a rusted iron stove in the corner, but no dry wood. Thereare no blankets. There is absolutely nothing in this abandoned tomb that can save him.
Except me.
"Okay," I breathe, the sound a frantic, jagged hiss in the silence. "Okay. I've got you. I'm not leaving."
I move to his boots. My fingers fumble with the heavy, mud-caked laces of his tactical boots. My hands are shaking so violently I can barely grip the thick nylon cords, but I force myself to focus. I rip the laces loose and yank the heavy boots off his feet, tossing them aside.
I crawl back up his massive frame. His tactical pants are completely soaked, heavy with freezing rain, mud, and his own blood.
My breath catches in my throat. The deep-seated, paralyzing fear of intimacy—the terrifying vulnerability that my father beat into my subconscious—screams at me to stop. But the sight of Thayer’s pale, graying lips silences the ghosts.
I reach for the heavy metal buckle of his tactical belt. I unfasten it with a sharpclick, unbuttoning the waistband of his pants. I grip the heavy, wet fabric and pull. It requires a massive, agonizing physical effort to lift his dead weight enough to slide the soaked material down his muscular thighs and off his legs, leaving him in nothing but his dark boxer briefs and the heavy white bandages wrapped tightly around his torn shoulder and chest.
He shivers—a violent, full-body tremor that rattles his teeth.
"I know," I whisper, tears streaming freely down my face. "I'm sorry. I have to get the wet clothes off."
I look down at my own body. I am wearing the oversized black tactical jacket he gave me, and beneath it, his dark gray cotton t-shirt and my black leggings. The jacket is completely soaked from the storm.
I don't hesitate. I reach for the heavy zipper of the jacket and pull it down, shrugging out of the freezing, wet material. I discard it onto the floorboards. I peel the wet leggings off my shivering legs. Finally, I grab the hem of his oversized t-shirt and pull it over my head.
I am left in nothing but the sheer black lace underwear I had grabbed from the penthouse.
The air in the cabin hits my bare skin like a thousand tiny blades of ice. A violent wave of goosebumps erupts across my flesh, my teeth chattering uncontrollably. The vulnerability is absolute. I am completely stripped bare, kneeling in the dirt beside the monster who orchestrated my captivity.
I crawl toward him.
I lie down on the hard, freezing floorboards, pressing my left side entirely against his uninjured right side.
The contrast is jarring. My skin is freezing from the exposure, but his skin feels like ice. I wrap my right arm entirely around his broad, muscular chest, avoiding the heavy bandages on his left shoulder. I throw my right leg over his thick thighs, pulling myself as flush against his massive frame as physically possible.
