She tilted her face up, and I saw the worry there, not just about the tent, but about everything. The weight she'd been carrying, the fear she tried so hard to hide, the exhaustion of running and not knowing when and if it would end.
"I will take care of you," I said, the words a vow, something sacred. "No matter what happens, I will keep you safe."
Her eyes searched mine, and whatever she saw there must have satisfied her because she finally relaxed, melting against my chest, the tension draining from her body.
"Okay," she breathed. "Okay."
"Rest now." I wrapped my wings more securely around her, creating a barrier between her and the howling wind. "I'll watch over you."
She nodded against my chest, her fingers curling over my shoulders, holding on like I was the only solid thing in a shifting world. Within minutes, her breathing deepened and evened out, her body going heavy with sleep, trusting and warm in my arms.
I held her through the storm, listening to the wind rage outside while she slept safe and warm in my embrace, and tried not to think about how holding her felt more like home than anything had in years.
Chapter 11
Ellie
The wind screamed past us, a relentless howl that seemed determined to rip us from the sky. I pressed myself tighter against Rickon's chest, grateful for the solid warmth of him even as the cold bit through every layer I wore.Bass Pro Shop'sfinest cold-weather gear—the kind that promised survival in Arctic conditions—felt like cheesecloth against the wind.
I'd never been so cold in my life.
Below us, even in the darkness, I could make out the landscape. Endless white punctuated by the dark silhouettes of trees bent nearly horizontal by the gale. We had to be close to Minnesota now, maybe already over the border. Everything looked the same: snow-covered, hostile, unforgiving.
Rickon's wings beat steadily, cutting through the storm like it was nothing more than a mild breeze. He flew like he'd been born to it which, I supposed, he had. The wind that threatened to freeze me solid didn't seem to hinder him at all. If anything, he seemed more alive here, more in his element.
I glanced up at his profile, stoic and strong against the night sky, my gaze falling to his lips without conscious thought.
God, that kiss. It was fabulous. The best kiss I could remember in... I couldn't even remember when. The heat of it, the intensity, the way he'd held me like I was something preciousand dangerous all at once. My lips still tingled with the memory of it, even through the numbness creeping across my face.
But he'd been all business since then. Professional. Distant, even. Like it had never happened.
I wanted to kiss him again. I wanted to do more than kiss if I was being honest with myself. The thought sent a flush of heat through me that had nothing to do with the cold weather gear. But things felt awkward and complicated. I was the President of the United States, and he was well, technically, he was more or less one of my Secret Service agents. Even if he was an alien warrior. I'd spent my entire career being careful about things like this, being above reproach.
But I hadn't been this attracted to anyone in a very long time. Maybe ever. I'd loved Dalton with all my heart, and our sex life was more than wonderful, but Rickon gave me a flutter deep in my belly that I didn't remember having with anyone else.
The wind picked up even more, catching the duffle bag hanging from the rope at his waist and slinging it about like a deranged pendulum. Rickon's flight pattern shifted, his wings adjusting their angle. He was descending.
"We need to land," he said, his voice somehow cutting through the wind. "The wind is too rough. It's not safe to continue."
I wanted to argue that we needed to keep moving, that the longer Declan pretended to be me, the worse it could be for the country. Plus, it was still dark. We had hours before dawn. But I could barely feel my face anymore, and my fingers had gone from pins and needles to terrifyingly numb beneath my gloves.
"Okay," I managed through stiff lips.
He found a small clearing amid a stand of pines, the trees forming a natural windbreak that cut the worst of the screaming gusts. My feet touched solid ground for the first time in what felt like hours, and my legs nearly buckled. Rickon steadied me withone hand, the other already working to undo the harness and untie the duffel bag from his waist.
"Stay close to the trees," he said. "I'll set up the tent."
I wanted to help, but my fingers were too numb and clumsy. Instead, I watched as he worked, driving stakes into the frozen ground with his bare hands like it was made of butter instead of permafrost. The tent went up in minutes, the fabric snapping and popping in the wind.
"I'll get firewood," he said, already moving toward the tree line.
"The axe is in the bottom of the...."
The crack of splintering wood cut me off. I turned to see Rickon gripping a pine tree—easily a dozen inches in diameter—in both hands. His muscles flexed, and the tree snapped like a twig. He broke it again. And again. Each crack echoed through the trees, sharp and decisive.
I should have gotten used to it by now. But watching him reduce trees to firewood with nothing but his bare hands sent a different kind of heat through me.
It was arousing. God help me, it was incredibly arousing.
