Screaming meant giving away his location.
The cold seeped into his core. He tried to push himself up, but his arms trembled under the weight of exhaustion. The riverhad to be close—so close he could almost feel the icy spray. But was it real? Or just a cruel trick his mind played as his body shut down?
Finally, he forced himself to his feet and broke into a run, adrenaline fueling his strength.
The snap of another branch shattered the air behind him, louder this time. Closer this time.
Then a crash sounded behind him, loud and deliberate, something massive plowing through the forest. His tears spilled over, scalding the fresh cuts on his face. The bastard behind him wasn’t just hunting—it wanted him to know death was coming.
He pushed harder, faster, willing his limbs to obey. But his legs were leaden now, each step slower than the last. His breath hitched with panic. The storm raged around him, beating at his body, battering him down—but the storm wasn’t the worst thing out here. Not even close.
Through the wind’s howl, he heard it—a new sound, low but steady: the click and gurgle of water against rocks. The river. Relief surged through him, stronger than the cold, stronger than the pain. If he could reach it, maybe, somehow, he could cross it. Maybe the current would sweep him away before his pursuer reached him.
He didn’t have a plan beyond survival. He wanted to live.
Memories swamped him. His first crush in high school. His wedding day. The first day he’d learned how to ride a snowmobile. All of the special moments that came in between that he didn’t spend enough time enjoying.
The sound of rushing water grew louder, just ahead through the trees. He could almost see the faint shimmer of the river through the dark. He sprinted toward it, arms pumping, lungs straining?—
The blow hit him from behind like a pissed off linebacker.
He flew forward, airborne for a breathless second before he crashed face-first into the icy ground. The impact snapped his head back, his nose breaking with a sickening crunch. Pain exploded across his face, hot and sharp.
He slid forward, limbs splayed, body scraping against the frozen ground. Blood gushed from his nose, warm against the cold, spreading in a dark stain beneath his face.
His arm flailed out, desperate to reach the river. His fingertips skimmed the snow-covered ground, grasping, digging.
He didn’t make it.
A crushing weight pinned him down. His ribs groaned under the pressure, barely able to expand as he sucked in short, ragged breaths. He tried to kick, to twist free, but his legs wouldn’t move. The cold and pain had drained the last of his strength.
Above him, the storm screamed, but the world around him felt eerily still. His heart pounded, thudding slower now, fear curdling into something else—resignation.
No.
He wasn’t ready. He hadn’t come all this way just to die here, alone in the dark, with no one to even know how he’d fought.
The weight on his back shifted, and he felt hot breath against his neck. He clenched his fists, snow slipping between his fingers. The river was right there—so close it may as well have been miles away.
Please.
He didn’t even know what he was pleading for anymore.
The last thing he heard wasn’t the storm or the river. It was the low, guttural sound of something victorious. Something fucking evil.
And then there was nothing.
CHAPTER TEN
Ophelia’s first time in a snowplow felt a little anticlimactic. Flossy sat between her and David Laurence, a handsome man who had to be in his late twenties with sparkling brown eyes and hair who whistled a soft tune as he shoved snow to the side of the road on the way to the bar. The headlights caught the snow still cascading down, and even though Flossy had assured Ophelia it was dawn, the outside remained pitch-dark.
David pulled over at the end of Main Street, next to a large wooden tavern with a sign in the window that readSam’s Tavern. Another road crossed Main Street and looked like it followed a wide river in each direction. “I’ll leave you at Sam’s and plow the river road as far as I can. Flossy, please tell Monica that I’ll be back in about half an hour. Also, nice to meet you, Ophelia.”
Ophelia opened her door, helping the elderly woman out. “Thanks, David.” She assisted Flossy across a freshly shoveled walk, then through a round, wooden door into instant heat. Many people, all wearing snow gear, milled around drinking from thick mugs. A Christmas tree decorated in blue andgold took up an entire corner with paper-made decorations all around the bar, but raw tension spiraled through the place.
Flossy nodded grimly at a group of white-haired ladies setting out food on a pool table covered with wooden planks.
Ophelia looked around the tavern. A wooden hand-crafted bar ran along the north wall with bottles of alcohol behind it on a shelf, two pool tables took up space to the far right, and tables dotted everywhere else. A roaring fire burned in an actual brick fireplace in the center, viewable from both sides. Behind the bar, a slender woman with long black hair and deep black eyes bustled around, filling the mugs and offering what appeared to be a comforting pat or hug once in a while. She had pale skin and lovely native features. She had to be in her mid-twenties and stood several inches shorter than Ophelia’s five-ten.
