Chapter 29
Elowen
“I’ll do the dishes,” I say, picking up his and my plates from the table.
“You cook for us, it’s only fair if I do the dishes and cleaning.”
He stays seated at the table, watching me.
I reach the sink and place the plates in it, along with all the utensils he used for cooking. Then I clean the island and start washing the dishes.
“Don’t watch me,” I say, after a few minutes. “You’re putting performance pressure on me. Just go and do your work.”
“Are you sure you know how to do this?” He rises from the chair.
“Of course I do. It’s not exactly rocket science, washing a few dishes. Don’t worry, I’ll do it just fine.” I keep my focus on the task.
I pause just long enough to watch him disappear into the bedroom, then keep working.
I spend the afternoon reading.
Around four in the afternoon, I get up from the bed and walk over to Hunter, stretching my back as I go.
“I’m feeling really stiff. Can you help me with a light workout?”
He looks up from his laptop screen, his expression calm. “I know a few exercises you love.”
I purse my lips. “You know that pickup line is even older than you, which makes it automatically ancient.”
He closes his laptop, sets it on the table, and leans back into the couch. “You know too well that it makes me hard when you call me old.”
It hasn’t even been two full days since I started playing nice with this man, and so far he’s run his mouth filthy at every chance he’s gotten.
I put on a fake smile. “Why don’t we go for a run?”
He rises from the couch. “It’s your least favorite one. Are you sure?”
I roll my eyes and walk to the door. He follows me to the front door, and we put on our shoes and jackets. He presses his thumb to the lock, then it scans his eyes, and the door unlocks.
He opens it for me to exit. I step out, and he closes the door behind us.
As we start walking, I stop. “Wait, I forgot water.”
We turn back toward the house. He opens the door. I walk inside, fill a bottle with water from the kitchen, and come back out.
We walk in silence for a few minutes along the forest path.
“Hunter,” I break the silence, calling his attention. “If given the choice, what animal would you like to become?”
“Why would I become an animal?” comes his answer.
“You know, a shifter.”
He looks at me in confusion.
My eyes go wide. “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of shifters.”
“I don’t.”
My feet pause for a beat, in shock. “Are you for real? Who doesn’t know about shifters? You’ve never even heard of werewolves?”
“No.”
I sigh. “Shifters are humans who can transform into different forms. They can become wolves, bears, dragons, lions, or other supernatural creatures.”
“What kind of shifter would you like to become?” he asks.
“Umm... a dragon. I love the concept of dragon shifters. They’re massive and powerful, and they can fly.”
“Then I’ll also become a dragon.”
I laugh at his answer. “If I said I’d like to become an ant, you’d want to become an ant too. That’s—”
“Yes.” He cuts me off. I stare at him with my mouth still open.
We both stop dead as he continues, looking straight into my soul.
“If you decide to become a moth, I’ll become the moth.
If you decide to become a ghost, I’ll become a ghost. I’ll become whatever you become.
I don’t have a choice in it, that’s the only way I can exist.”
I pull my eyes away from the grip of his gaze and resume walking. We both stay silent after that.
After walking a few more minutes, I start to run. He does the same, keeping at my pace.
It won’t work, I need him drained, not me. At this pace, he could go for hours without tiring, while I’ll be bone-deep exhausted.
I stop, panting.
Fuck. My stamina is worse than I thought.
I bend over, palms on my knees, catching my breath.
“I think I’m done for the day.”
“That was less than five minutes,” he points out.
I stand straight. “Which is too much for me”—especially when I need to save a large portion of my energy for what I’m planning.
“Your body is too weak,” he states, looking me over.
“It’s not like you didn’t know that before today,” I huff.
A smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth, but thankfully he says nothing. Still, I feel the betraying warmth spreading across my skin, and his eyes catch it. I know because his smirk widens.
I clear my throat. “I can’t walk anymore. Can you carry me on your back?” I look around. “I want to see deeper into the forest.” It’s not a lie, the forest is very beautiful, and I do want to see what lies in its depths. And it will serve me as well.
He steps closer and tucks the strands falling over my ear behind it, his fingers grazing the shell of it. “There are wild animals in its depths.”
“We don’t have to go that far. We can stick to the side with no wild animals.” That will let me know which side is closest to the forest’s exit.
He hums but doesn’t move away or remove his hand from the back of my head. Instead, he threads his fingers deeper into my hair, tilting my head back.
“What are you hiding, baby?” he coaxes, the tenderness in his voice almost stopping my heart.
“Nothing.” I sound confident. I hope I look confident too.
“Your eyes are too big and too innocent to hide your intentions. Now, be a good girl and tell me what you’re up to.”
“I’m really not up to anything.”
He releases me. I almost sigh in relief. He turns and crouches down. I stay frozen, lost in my thoughts, I almost forget I asked him to carry me. He turns his head back toward me. I snap out of my thoughts and climb onto his back.
He grabs my thighs to keep me from falling and stands up.
I lock my arms around his neck, my water bottle dangling against his chest, my cheek pressed to his jaw.
His woodsy aftershave makes my nose tingle.
I fight the subconscious urge to breathe him in, to rub the tip of my nose against his jaw and cheek, something I used to do often back in Naples.
“You know my father hated Salvario because he kidnapped me. And now that you’ve done the same thing, he’ll hate you too.” I start a random conversation, mainly to keep myself distracted from his body.
“I don’t care,” he mutters, turning his head just enough to meet my eyes. “I don’t care if the whole world hates me. The only person who matters to me is with me.”
“You’re holding that person captive.”
He stares into my eyes for a beat, unnerving me with the unspoken words and the shattered pieces of his soul I can see through the gray curtains.
Then, without a single word, he averts his gaze.
I have the sinking sense I’m close to breaking this man completely, and this knowledge is like a noose of thorns around my windpipe.
We stay silent for half an hour, if not more. After making sure he’s a little tired, I ask him to put me down.
I open the cap of my bottle, pretend to take a sip of water, then pass him the bottle. He takes a few gulps and returns it to me. My fingers tremble slightly as I close the cap again.
I compose myself and look around. It’s already evening. If my calculations are right, I have one hour before the sun sets. I let my eyes settle on Hunter, who is already watching me. My heart thumps wildly in my chest as I hold his assertive gaze, a countdown ticking inside my head.
He shakes his head with a faint chuckle that holds no trace of laughter. “You drugged me,” he mutters, a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth, forced into place while devastation settles into his bones.
The gray in his eyes has finally turned to ash. Nothing moves there anymore.
He looks exactly as he did that night, and it’s having the same effect on me it had then. I want to hug him and cry in his arms, telling him it’s impossible between us. At the same time, I want to run far, far away from him, forcing myself to forget that a man named Hunter Blackwood ever existed.
“You left me no choice.” I force the words out, looking away from him.
I put a high dose of sedatives from the first-aid kit into the bottle while I was doing the dishes after lunch. Slowly, he’ll lose control of his body, and within a few minutes, he’ll lose consciousness.
He advances. I retreat.
“I’m sorry, Hunter,” I whisper, then break into a run.
He follows, even though the drug has slowed him, he’s still fast enough to catch me.
I pour every last shred of stamina into it and run as fast as I can. Soon enough, I leave him behind and reach the forest path. Now I just have to follow this path, and eventually I’ll reach the edge of the forest.
I keep running along the path until I see a truck coming toward me.
“Shit,” I mutter, veering off the path and into the forest.
Whose truck is that? Obviously Hunter called his men to intercept me. Fuck, why didn’t I think he could have men stationed around this place? Footsteps rush through the forest behind me, accompanied by shouts of “Catch her!”
I can outrun a drugged Hunter, but I can’t outrun these men. And soon enough, they surround me, all five of them.
At this point, my lungs are clawing for the air I’m gasping for, my heart pounding so loudly I can feel every pulse, as if I could reach into my chest and touch it.
My legs tremble beneath me, cold sweat snaking down my back.
Through my swimming vision, I watch my plan to run away crumble and fall at my feet.
“We won’t hurt you if you come willingly,” one of the men says.
“I’m not going back, even if you kill me,” I say between sharp, ragged gasps.
We don’t get further, a gunshot cracks through the air, dropping two of the five men. The remaining three and I stand frozen in shock. I recover faster than the men and break into a run. The three of them follow me.
“Stop, or we’ll shoot!” one of the men behind me shouts, but I don’t stop, because I know Hunter would never let his men harm me.
A bullet whips past me at the same moment the right thought clicks into place.
These aren’t Hunter’s men. Because if they were, who shot the other two? I hear two more gunshots, but this time the bullets don’t come near me.
Everything happens before my mind can catch up.
When the chaos finally settles, I realize I’m on the ground with a huge body covering half of mine.
His upper half isn’t touching me, and then, all at once, his weight disappears.
Hunter collapses beside me. I look back and find the three men lying dead.
My head whips toward Hunter at the sound of his groan. My hands move on their own, turning him toward me. His brown jacket is soaked in blood.
He’s been shot.
He’s been shot because of me.
Whoever these men were, they were here for me. They shot at me, and Hunter took the bullets.
Panic, guilt, anger, fear—every emotion locks inside my chest, squeezing so hard I grow dizzy.
He forces himself up and looks at me, his eyes unfocused, glassy with pain. I don’t know how much of it is from the bullets and how much is from the betrayal I dealt him.
I help him to his feet. Thankfully, he doesn’t push me away, he lets me help him. On shaking legs, I force us toward the cabin as fast as I can.
“How much time do you have before you lose consciousness?”
“Don’t you know?” he murmurs.
The guilt festers in my belly, curdling into nausea I can taste.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, moving faster. He isn’t putting his full weight on me, it’s more like he’s holding me close so I don’t run. In this moment, when his life is in danger, how can keeping me from running away still be his priority?
By the time we reach the cabin, Hunter’s weight has grown heavy against me.
“What’s the code?”
“The day I saw you for the first time. Eleven twenty-seven,” he answers weakly.
I punch in the code. The scanner reads Hunter’s barely open eyes, and the door unlocks. I guide him inside; the door seals behind us on its own.
I take him straight to the living room and ease him down onto the carpet, supporting his weight even as it strains every muscle in my body.
He groans, collapsing onto his side. I kneel behind him to inspect the wound. The ivory carpet begins drinking in his blood. Because of the dark color of his jacket, it wasn’t clearly visible how deep his wound is, but now, with the speed the carpet is soaking it up, it looks really bad.
My head spins. I shake it, trying to force the dizziness away, but it doesn’t help. My limbs tremble, tears streaking down my cheeks. I wipe them away harshly and peel off his jacket. I can’t panic right now. If I do, he’ll die. The thought sends another wave of tremors through me.
“Try to keep your eyes open, okay?” I manage, my voice thick with tears. I can’t see his face from this angle.
He turns onto his back.
“Don’t—” I protest, but he doesn’t listen.
His bloodshot eyes stare up at my face. All the color has drained from his skin, leaving it cold and waxen. The way his jaw clenches is enough to tell me how much pain he’s enduring.
“Why are you crying?” His voice comes out low and hoarse.
“Why are you asking such a stupid question? A man is dying in front of me, what do you expect me to do?” I half cry, half yell at him.
His eyes fall shut, but he forces them open. A ghost of a smile touches the corner of his lips.
“You would have cried the same for any other man,” he murmurs, more to himself than to me.
“Don’t talk nonsense, Hunter.” I cup his face. “Now is not the time. Your life is in danger.”
He stares at my face like he’s committing me to memory, then whispers, “Leave me.”
“What are you saying?” My voice scrapes out raw.
I know he’s giving up on me and on life. I can see it in his eyes, the same look I’ve seen in my own countless times. Now I understand what it must have been like for my family to see me this way.
The helplessness of watching someone you care for want to die is a poison that won’t kill you, but will eat you alive from the inside. I feel the rotting void it leaves behind as he stares into my eyes with his dead ones.
“I’ve loved you since long before I ever met you, and I’ll keep loving you until life leaves me. So let me die.” He closes his eyes, his words growing fainter and more labored. “Because if I live, I won’t let you go back to him.”
I keep staring at his barely moving lips, his lifeless face. No words come out of my mouth, only tears keep falling, one stream after another.
He forces his eyes open one last time, looking at me the way he’s always looked at me, like I’m his whole world.
“Leave me, baby. Go to the man you love.”
My chin trembles with the effort of holding back my sobs. Why is my heart splintering inside my chest, causing an ache so unbearable I want to rip it out?
“What’s the password of your phone?”
“Eleven... twenty-seven,” he whispers, and his eyes fall shut.