Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
HANNAH
Drew stands beside me as we approach the table of colleagues. Everyone rises when I get closer, even though they didn’t for the couple who sat down moments before. I’m using my walker, and I can already feel their stares.
“Don’t. Get up. I’m fine,” I say, my characteristically careful speech pattern even more pronounced when I’m nervous, which only makes things worse.
Drew holds my arm as we reach the table, rushing ahead to pull out my chair. Everyone realizes too late that they haven’t left accessible space, so they hurriedly rearrange themselves around the large corner table.
Their gazes dart between Drew—always so perfectly handsome—and me, that unspoken question hanging in the air: what is he doing with her?
Drew steadies my waist as I transfer from walker to chair, and I grip the table to ensure I don’t fall during the awkward weight shift on my unsteady legs.
He kisses my temple once I’m safely seated, and I swear the associates’ wives practically swoon at how sweet he’s being.
They’re right. I really do have the most wonderful boyfriend. I feel ashamed for ever questioning that. I’m ungrateful for what I have, and someday I’ll regret not appreciating him more.
Suddenly, I shiver.
Cold.
I’m so incredibly cold.
Drew tugs my arm for attention.
“What?” I try to ask, but my mouth won’t cooperate. Then I’m blinking awake as the restaurant dissolves into a dream.
Instead, I’m surrounded by endless white.
“Devochka!”
I blink against the blinding brightness, struggling to remember where I am. “What’s happening?” Is this what hypothermia hallucinations feel like?
The voice comes again. “Devochka!” Followed by a stream of unfamiliar words. I force my eyes to open despite being so frozen I can barely comprehend what’s occurring.
Then I see boots.
Large boots crusted with snow.
Where am I? I’m so exhausted. Did I actually fall asleep in arctic conditions? How am I still alive?
A face appears above me. Not Beast’s leonine features or another terrifying creature.
Just a man—an elderly man with a beard encrusted in ice and snow. His eyes widen as he looks down at me, releasing another stream of words I can’t understand except for something that sounds like “angel.”
Which makes me laugh weakly.
The sound hurts. My entire chest aches.
The man lifts me in his arms. I must be quite small to him. Maybe he’s not as ancient as I first thought—it’s just that his beard reaches halfway down his chest and has gone completely white.
I giggle again, delirious. Have I found Santa? Am I at the North Pole?
I scan the sky, searching for Beast. It would be just my luck if he swooped down now, killed my rescuer, and dragged me back anyway.
But the sky remains clear.
When I focus on the ground ahead, my heart leaps. There, partially buried in ice and snow, is an actual house!
Fresh tears come, though I didn’t think I had any moisture left.
I didn’t imagine it. I really did see something.
This light in the darkness. My salvation.
The man kicks open his door and heads straight for a roaring fire. I nearly weep at the sight. The air is already so much warmer here.
He carries me to the fire and places me on a couch-like futon, then pushes it closer to the flames, all the while muttering in his language.
Immediately, he grabs several blankets from a pile beside the hearth—clearly warming there for his return—and covers me with layer after layer, concealing my nakedness while providing desperately needed warmth.
I blink as ice on my lashes melts and turns liquid, along with the frozen tears on my face. Finally, real tears slide down my cheeks again.
He continues piling blankets until their weight presses down on me completely. They smell musty and comforting, like my grandmother’s attic.
Only then does he begin removing his own snow gear.
He’s elderly but not as ancient as I initially thought. Maybe sixties? Thin as a rail, though. If this is Santa, he needs to work on that jolly belly.
God, I feel completely delirious.
And desperately tired.
My eyes start closing, but he snaps gnarled fingers in front of my face. “Nyet, doch’. Nyet.”
I feel numb everywhere, and with the warm weight of blankets and the fire...
He holds up a warning finger. I blink, struggling to stay conscious.
Somewhere in my mind swims the knowledge that sleeping during hypothermia is dangerous, and I’ve fought too hard to get this far.
So I force my eyes to remain open.
The old man disappears, and I hear pots clanging, then a kettle whistling.
Minutes later, he returns. I’ve managed to stay awake, but barely.
He says something repeatedly that sounds like “chocolate coffee” while holding out a steaming mug. Maybe I’m interpreting from the aroma—it certainly looks like hot cocoa but smells of coffee too.
He sets the mug on a rough wooden table scattered with paperback books and grabs dusty pillows from the couch.
Gently, he helps me lean against one arm of the couch, positioning pillows behind my head. Without uncovering my arms from the blankets, he lifts the heavy mug to my lips. I open my mouth wearily.
As soon as the warm—but not scalding—chocolate touches my tongue, I blink with renewed energy. These are my first calories in hours, and the heated liquid is welcome as it slides down my throat.
My body is so cold I can actually feel the path the hot drink takes to my stomach. It’s unsettling but wonderful.
Like liquid strength.
I extract my arms from beneath the blankets, carefully keeping my chest covered, and take the mug from him. The chocolate is bitter, dark, barely sweet—especially combined with coffee. But I don’t care. It’s life itself.
I drink more, and vitality seeps back into me. My chest warms further.
I cry as, for the first time in an hour, I think I might actually survive this.
The old man smiles at me.
Then he begins chattering again in his language. Now that my head is clearer, I try to parse what I’m hearing.
I listen while finishing the entire cup. Whether it’s the heat in my belly, the sustenance, or the caffeine, I feel exponentially better than when I was dragged in here.
I think he’s speaking a Slavic language, which makes sense given all the snow.
I’d hoped I was still in North America, but that seems increasingly unlikely.
“Where am I?” I attempt.
He looks at me blankly.
I gesture weakly around us. “Where?”
He chatters at me again.
I sigh and look back at the blazing fire, then wince because my eyes still hurt from snow glare.
To my shock, he disappears briefly and returns with a satellite phone.
This place looks like little more than a fortified cabin in the wilderness, yet he has a satellite phone?
“Politsiya?” he asks, ready to dial.
My mouth drops open. Do I want him calling the police? In some random Slavic country? What if I’m in Russia? We’re practically in another Cold War with them.
But if he has satellite capability, I can call anywhere in the world.
I reach for it, and he hands it over without hesitation.
My hands shake as I hold it. Who do I call? What do I even say?
Hi, I was kidnapped by a monster who turned out to have other monsters chained in his dungeon, so I fled naked across a frozen wasteland and nearly died. Can someone please help me get home?
Yeah, that’ll go over well.
But as I stare at the phone, another thought creeps in. Do I even want to go back?
Back to what? My mother’s house of cats? Drew’s careful management of my limitations? A job answering Post-It emergency calls?
I was dying before Beast healed me. Slowly, but dying nonetheless.
Now I have a strong, capable body. I can run. I can feel pleasure I never knew existed. I’ve experienced things I never dreamed possible.
But he lied to you. He’s keeping creatures chained in a dungeon.
The thought makes me shudder.
Or... did he?
What if there’s more to the story? What if those creatures are dangerous for reasons I don’t understand? What if he’s protecting people from them rather than torturing them?
The handsome one tried to warn you to run. That doesn’t sound like someone being tortured.
My head spins with confusion and exhaustion and the emotional whiplash of the last few hours.
I look at the phone in my hands. My ticket back to my old life.
Or… I could make a different choice entirely.