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“Okay, no.” I hold up a hand I can barely feel for the cold-laden numbness. “What are you?”

“At my core, I’m just a man trying to do what’s right by saving a damsel in distress and figuring out how she got on Jeremy’s radar.”

“That’s…complicated,” I say, barely getting the words out for the chatter of my teeth. “It’s…cold.”

“Don’t be stubborn. Take the jacket off before you get hypothermia.”

I don’t push back this time. I shrug out of the heavy weight of it, and only then do I remember that my shirt is torn and my bra is all that covers a portion of my body. I hug myself, flashing back to Ryker on top of me, pawing at me, a spawn of Jeremy, a demon and a sexual predator. My lips tremble, the sound of movement jerking my attention to Micah, who’s approaching me with a blanket in his hand.

Still rattled by the Ryker memories, I step backward, distancing myself from him. With a clench of his jaw, Micah halts in response. “All right, then,” he says, “have it your way.” He tosses the blanket at me, but I miss it.

“I can’t feel my hands,” I whisper, and when I squat down to grab the blanket, just like in front of the coffee shop, he’s there with me.

He snatches up the blanket, and I sway, losing my balance. I tilt forward, catching myself on his knees. The awkward intimacy I’ve created is dashed by me smacking my forehead into his. “Ouch. Sorry.”

But when I would tug my hands from his knees, he covers them with his, the headbutt obviously not what is on his mind. “I’m not one of them.”

His hands on my hands could feel like a trap. Instead, they’re warm, and his touch radiates through me in a familiar way that I cannot explain. He’s not a demon. He’s not a man. He’s a Seer, I remind myself. Whatever that is. “What is he?”

“You already know that answer.” His long fingers splay on my upper arms, and he stands, taking me with him. I’m instantly, intensely aware of my nearly naked breasts between us, though, to his credit, he’s a perfect gentleman. He simply wraps the blanket around me, holding the ends together. And for a moment, he just stares down at me, his blue eyes—so like my own—mesmerizing, and I feel that familiar feeling swell between us again. Almost Deja vu. As if he too feels it, he abruptly captures my hands and places them on the blanket fold. Once I’ve wrapped my fingers around the cloth, he steps back, placing space between us, but the truck jolts, and he grabs me again.

“You okay?” he asks, steadying us both, and his voice is somehow sharp and gentle at the same time.

“Yes,” I say, and at least in the moment, with him holding onto me, it’s true, but it won’t last, nor do I pretend the man I barely know is my salvation. Only I can be my salvation, and knowledge is power. And right now, I understand absolutely nothing.

“There’s a strap on the wall near the floor,” he says, “a safety measure in case the truck makes sudden movements.”

“For when the demons chase you?”

“Like I said, you do know what he is.”

“Demon,” I breathe out.

“Yes.”

“And you are what?”

“For simplicity’s sake, at least for the moment, call me a demon hunter.”

“He called you ‘Seer.’”

“Another name. Same me.” The truck jumps again, and he holds me steady and then motions to the wall. “It’s safer by the strap.”

Considering I desperately crave something to hold on to that feels real, something I can control, I happily head that direction, sink into a corner, and test the strap above me.

Micah shrugs out of his jacket and tosses it on the snowmobile, his wet shirt clinging to the hard lines of his obviously well-trained body, which, as a woman, I appreciate. As a woman who is on the run, I value his conditioning as pure survival and decide it’s time I learn to protect myself and protect myself well. Until I make that happen, and I will, this man has become my sanctuary. If a Seer is even a man. I don’t know what he is. I don’t know what I am. That’s the terrifying part of this equation.

Micah crosses to join me again and crouches next to me, turning on a small portable heater and pointing it at my feet. Once it’s cranked, he returns to the cabinet, where he grabs a small drawstring bag. I almost expect him to distance himself, to leave me in this desolate corner with no answers and no companionship, a stark contrast to Ryker throwing himself on top of me. I squeeze my eyes shut against the memory, and when they open, Micah is squatting in front of me again.

“You need to know that when I first found out you were in the company of Jeremy, I marked you for death.” My heart leaps, and when I would dart away from him, all he does is hold up a finger that somehow stills me. “There’s more. If you want to hear it,” he adds.

“If you planned to kill me,” I say, “why didn’t you?”

“I put myself in your path at the coffee shop, and I sensed no evil in you despite the evil I’d found all around you.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“We both have questions, but I’m going to need my answers first. Do you know what you are?”