“I’ll stay,” I say simply, joining her on the narrow bed. This time, I allow our shoulders to touch. The contact is innocent, practical—shared warmth on a cold night—but it feels significant nonetheless.
“Kier?” she says after a moment, her voice soft in the darkness.
“Hmm?”
“I’m glad it was you. In the cell next to mine.”
“Yeah, me too.”
Chapter
Twelve
I’m going to lose my temper if I stay in this cabin one more hour.
The walls feel like they’re closing in, the air thick with the scent of woodsmoke and confinement. I’ve been cooped up for days while my ribs healed, and now that I can move without wincing, restlessness sizzles under my skin.
Plus, I stink.
The bucket baths we’ve been managing with lukewarm water heated over the cabin’s ancient wood stove aren’t cutting it anymore. I need to feel clean for the first time since our escape.
The storm that rolled in during our mad escape lingered for a few days, turning the ground damp. The weather is another reason we’ve been able to stay here for so long, our scent washed away by the torrential rain.
But the rain is now long gone, and the longer we stay here, the greater the risk of discovery.
We’ll need to move.
I press a hand to my side, testing the wound. It’s hot and painful, stealing my breath when I move.
“Damn. Okay. Another day or two.”
I stare at the window, chewing on my bottom lip. Kier went out an hour ago to check our perimeter, so I should have privacy.
Perfect time for a real wash.
I grab the bar of soap we found in the cabin’s supplies and slip outside. The cool air hits my face, and I breathe deeply, pine and the green scent of growing things.
The stream near the cabin has swollen with the recent rainfall, running deeper and faster than before. I follow it downstream, looking for a pool deep enough to actually submerge in.
I find it around a bend—a natural basin where the water has carved out a deeper pocket, maybe chest-deep in the center. Steam rises from the surface where the warmer stream water meets the cool air.
And standing waist-deep in the middle of it, completely naked, is Kier.
I freeze behind a large pine, my breath catching. He’s fishing with his bare hands, holding almost impossibly still as he waits for the right moment to strike. His back is to me, water lapping at his hips, and I can see every line of muscle.
I should leave. Should turn around and go back to the cabin and act like I never saw this. But I can’t make myself move.
His shoulders are broad, tapering down to a lean waist. Scars map stories across the expanse of his back, some thin and silvered with age, others newer and still slightly raised. His muscles shift and flex as he adjusts his stance, and I can see the tension coiled in him, every fiber focused on the hunt. Water droplets cling to his skin, catching what little sunlight filters through the canopy above.
Then he moves, lightning-fast, and comes up with a writhing fish in his grip.
“Gotcha,” he murmurs, and his voice carries clearly acrossthe water. He twists, wading toward the bank to deposit his catch, and that’s when I see… everything.
His chest is broad and defined, with a light dusting of dark hair that trails down his flat stomach in a tantalizing line. More scars mark his torso—silver burns across his ribs, what looks like claw marks over his left pectoral, a thin blade scar that runs from his collarbone toward his shoulder.
But it’s the evidence of his arousal that makes heat flood my cheeks and pool low in my belly. Despite the frigid water, he’s hard—thick and heavy and absolutely impossible to ignore. The sight sends a bolt of pure want through me so intense it nearly buckles my knees.
Heat floods my cheeks as I try to look away and fail completely. My wolf stirs beneath my skin, recognizing something in him that calls to her on a level I don’t fully understand.
