“We have to move.” Emma’s voice cut through the howl of wind screaming through the mouth of the cave. Her heart hammered in her chest as she assessed Zach’s condition. His skin held a concerning pallor beneath the tan, and his breathing came shallow and uneven.
His eyes opened to slits, the gray-blue depths clouded with pain and something else—the fog of whatever was shutting down his body. “Emma…”
“I know.” She shifted her weight, bracing herself. “Can you stand?”
He tried. God, he tried. Zach was the most controlled person she’d ever met, a man who treated his body like a weapon, honing it to perfection. But his muscles betrayed him; his legs buckled before he got his weight beneath him.
Emma caught him, jamming her shoulder into his ribs as she wrapped her arm around his waist. All six foot four, two hundred twenty-five pounds, of him tilted against her like a falling tree.
This isn’t going to work.
The thought crashed through her mind with crystalline clarity. She was strong—yoga and Zumba and running had given her an athletic build she was proud of—but in no universe was she strong enough to drag his dead weight through rising water, over slick stone, and up a steep cliff path. In a hurricane.
The Windstone vibrated against her hip, warm through the soaked fabric of her pocket, as if it wanted her attention.
Emma’s breath caught. The stone has responded to her before—to danger, to intention, to her desperate need for help in the suffocating dark. Now it thrummed with an energy she could almost taste, electric and ancient andalive.
She didn’t understand it. Didn’t have time to understand it. But when she shifted her stance and pulled Zach’s arm more securely over her shoulders, the weight that should crush her felt… manageable. He was still heavy, but invisible hands helped share the burden.
“Come on.” Her voice steadied, drawing on whatever reserves she had. “Left foot. That’s it.”
They moved together in a grotesque parody of a three-legged race, Emma taking small, calculated steps while Zach struggledto coordinate his legs. Water splashed around their calves. The wind found every crack and crevice in the cave now, shrieking through gaps in the rock like something alive and furious.
Another shower of rocks rained down behind them.
Emma’s pulse spiked, but she kept moving. One step. Another. The cave mouth loomed ahead, a gray rectangle of stormwracked sky that promised freedom and fresh danger in equal measure.
Zach’s head dropped against her shoulder. His breath ghosted warm across her collarbone, unsteady and too fast. The scent of him cut through the salt and stone—mahogany and teakwood with that strange thread of lavender.
“Almost there,” she muttered, not sure who she was trying to convince. “Just a little further.”
His weight shifted, and for a horrible moment she thought he passed out, but then his hand tightened on her shoulder—weak, trembling, butthere. Fight still burned in him, even half-conscious.
I can’t lose him.
The thought struck with the force of a physical blow, stealing the breath from her lungs more effectively than the wind battering against them. When had this happened? When had Zach Steele—stoic, controlled, impossible Zach who viewed the world through the lens of threat assessments and tactical advantages—become someone she couldn’t live without?
She knew the answer. Had known it for a while but had been too practical, too focused on the job, too aware of the impossibility of it all to acknowledge the truth.
Now was not the time. Not like this.
They stumbled out of the cave into the fury of the storm.
The rain didn’t fall so much as attack, driven horizontal by wind that tried to tear Emma off her feet. She gasped, squinting against the assault, her free hand coming up to shield her face.The ocean roared somewhere below, invisible behind sheets of rain but present in the way the ground trembled beneath her.
“There.” She spotted a cluster of rocks twenty feet away—not quite shelter, but better than nothing. The pile formed a rough alcove that would help block the worst of the wind.
Hauling Zach to the rocks took everything she had. The Windstone pulsed rhythmically, its warmth bleeding through her wet clothes, and she sent a silent prayer of gratitude for whatever magic or technology or pure impossibility kept her upright. Her legs burned. Her shoulders screamed. She kept moving until they reached the rocks, until she lowered him down with his back against stone. She collapsed beside him.
His eyes were closed now.
“Zach.” Emma’s hands found his face, cupping his jaw. Rain sluiced over them both, but beneath the water his skin felt wrong—too warm in some places, too cold in others. “Zach, look at me.”
His lashes flickered. Those gray-blue eyes appeared, unfocused but aware. “Emma…”
“Shh. Just rest now. We’re safe for the moment.” Emma lied through her teeth. They weren’t safe. They were outside in a category four hurricane. But he was barely conscious, unable to do anything. He was dying in her arms, and there was nothing she could do.
A sob escaped her control. Somewhere along the line, she’d fallen in love with him. When had that happened?
