I nod. But her tone holds some strange note. Like she’s not just checking if I’m alone. But like she has reason to believe that I can’t possibly be. Her eyes return from scanning the trees around us to me. She squints, clearly weighing whether she believes me.
I suddenly realize my pulse is jumping. Skittering. Racing.
Which it can’t be.
What the hell?
I've stared down the barrel of weapons that could have turned me into mist. I've faced trained killers in pitch-black rooms. I've had knives pressed against my throat hard enough to draw blood. My heart rate never changes.
But now it's hammering against my ribs like it's trying to break free.
She’s no calmer than I. Her ample chest is heaving. But even through the rain and the dark, my life threatened, it’s alluring. It’s not the threat that’s making my heart hammer.
It’s her.
She’s more than beautiful. She looks like a goddess. Not the clean, round-edged fairy tale version. No, the dark, messy, ancient kind. The girl who dances around the moon, and you can’t tell if her hands are soaked with blood or wine. She is a desperate force of nature. And it doesn’t quicken my pulse because I fear it.
Just the opposite.
I’m drawn to it.
Drawn to her.
"I need supplies.” Her voice is hard. Firm. "Food. Water. First-aid kit if you have it."
"My camp is about a half mile back that way." I point a thumb over my shoulder, my eyes not leaving hers.
"Lead the way."
My heart won't settle down. It's been quiet for so long that this sudden awakening feels like a betrayal. I don't do this. I don't react to people. But the ember of something inside me that I thought went cold years ago flares.
I raise my hands higher, using my quickened heart and breath to play the part of the terrified hunter caught off guard. "This way."
It's a good thing I'm in front of her. Because I can't help the rueful smile. A nice, pretty girl at a general store wasn’t enough to attract me. I guess it had to be a beautiful woman threatening to kill me.
Three
Ilead her through the dense undergrowth, hands raised high enough to show compliance but low enough that I can still navigate the uneven forest floor. The storm is now in full force, beating us down with rain and battering us with wind.
"Watch your step here," I mutter, nodding toward a fallen log. "Camp's just beyond that ridge."
"Eyes forward," she snaps, but I catch the slight tremor in her voice.
I return my mind to cataloging tactical details. If only to take my mind off my traitorous heart. Her movements are telling. She’s trained but not field hardened. My rifle keeps sliding off her shoulder, forcing her to readjust every few steps. The weight's throwing her balance, making her footfalls heavier on her right side. She's compensating, but barely.
The Glock, though,thatshe handles with practiced familiarity. Her grip is textbook perfect, with her finger resting alongside the frame rather than on the trigger. Someone taught her proper trigger discipline. Law enforcement oragency training, not military. Nobody who's humped a rifle through hostile territory for months on end.
If I'm within arm’s reach, I can take her down.
The thought materializes automatically, my brain mapping the distance between us, calculating the milliseconds it would take to pivot and disarm her before that finger could slide to the trigger.
But I don't. Something keeps me walking forward, hands raised, playing the frightened civilian.
"How much farther?" she asks, voice low but urgent.
"Just over that rise," I answer, keeping my tone even. "About two hundred yards."
A branch snaps somewhere to our right, and she flinches—a full-body jerk that nearly sends my rifle sliding off her shoulder. Her eyes dart toward the sound, then back to me, then to our surroundings. Her breathing quickens. She's jumpy, running on fear and adrenaline.
