Chapter 12
Chapter
Twelve
I’m going to lose my temper if I stay in this cabin one more hour.
The walls feel like they’re closing in, the air thick with the scent of woodsmoke and confinement. I’ve been cooped up for days while my ribs healed, and now that I can move without wincing, restlessness sizzles under my skin.
Plus, I stink.
The bucket baths we’ve been managing with lukewarm water heated over the cabin’s ancient wood stove aren’t cutting it anymore. I need to feel clean for the first time since our escape.
The storm that rolled in during our mad escape lingered for a few days, turning the ground damp. The weather is another reason we’ve been able to stay here for so long, our scent washed away by the torrential rain.
But the rain is now long gone, and the longer we stay here, the greater the risk of discovery.
We’ll need to move.
I press a hand to my side, testing the wound. It’s hot and painful, stealing my breath when I move.
“Damn. Okay. Another day or two.”
I stare at the window, chewing on my bottom lip. Kier went out an hour ago to check our perimeter, so I should have privacy.
Perfect time for a real wash.
I grab the bar of soap we found in the cabin’s supplies and slip outside. The cool air hits my face, and I breathe deeply, pine and the green scent of growing things.
The stream near the cabin has swollen with the recent rainfall, running deeper and faster than before. I follow it downstream, looking for a pool deep enough to actually submerge in.
I find it around a bend—a natural basin where the water has carved out a deeper pocket, maybe chest-deep in the center. Steam rises from the surface where the warmer stream water meets the cool air.
And standing waist-deep in the middle of it, completely naked, is Kier.
I freeze behind a large pine, my breath catching. He’s fishing with his bare hands, holding almost impossibly still as he waits for the right moment to strike. His back is to me, water lapping at his hips, and I can see every line of muscle.
I should leave. Should turn around and go back to the cabin and act like I never saw this. But I can’t make myself move.
His shoulders are broad, tapering down to a lean waist. Scars map stories across the expanse of his back, some thin and silvered with age, others newer and still slightly raised.
His muscles shift and flex as he adjusts his stance, and I can see the tension coiled in him, every fiber focused on the hunt.
Water droplets cling to his skin, catching what little sunlight filters through the canopy above.
Then he moves, lightning-fast, and comes up with a writhing fish in his grip.
“Gotcha,” he murmurs, and his voice carries clearly across the water. He twists, wading toward the bank to deposit his catch, and that’s when I see… everything.
His chest is broad and defined, with a light dusting of dark hair that trails down his flat stomach in a tantalizing line. More scars mark his torso—silver burns across his ribs, what looks like claw marks over his left pectoral, a thin blade scar that runs from his collarbone toward his shoulder.
But it’s the evidence of his arousal that makes heat flood my cheeks and pool low in my belly. Despite the frigid water, he’s hard—thick and heavy and absolutely impossible to ignore. The sight sends a bolt of pure want through me so intense it nearly buckles my knees.
Heat floods my cheeks as I try to look away and fail completely. My wolf stirs beneath my skin, recognizing something in him that calls to her on a level I don’t fully understand.
Beautiful, she whispers, and I can’t argue. He is beautiful—not in a pretty way, but in the way a blade is beautiful. Dangerous and purposeful and absolutely mesmerizing.
Heat curls low in my belly, and I press my thighs together, confused by the intensity of my reaction. This is Kier. When did he become… this? When did looking at him start making my pulse race and my skin feel too tight?
Want, my she-wolf growls.
“No, we don’t,” I mutter under my breath, but my body and my wolf don’t seem to be getting the message.
Kier tosses the fish onto the bank. With knife in hand, he begins to prep his kill.
“You planning to hide behind that tree all day, or are you going to join me?”
I jump, my heart slamming into my throat. He hasn’t once glanced my way and is still standing knee-deep at the water’s edge, but somehow he knows I’m here.
“I wasn’t hiding,” I call back, stepping out from behind the pine with as much dignity as I can muster. “I was… waiting my turn.”
He turns then, completely unselfconscious about his nudity, eyebrow raised in that infuriating way of his. “Your turn for what? Voyeurism or fishing?”
“I need to wash,” I say primly, trying to keep my eyes on his face and not… other areas.
“Well, don’t let me stop you.” He wades back into deeper water, settling into his fishing stance again. “Water’s not too bad once you get used to it.”
I hesitate at the water’s edge. Getting undressed with him right there feels… significant somehow. Like crossing a line I can’t uncross.
“Oh, and Lithia?” he calls without looking at me, voice infuriatingly casual. “I’d ask if you brought me a pole, but, well…” He gestures vaguely downward, a smirk curling his lips. “We can both see you did.”
My brain stutters. My face flames.
He chuckles, the sound deeply wicked. “Ignore it. I’m just glad to see you up and about.”
I let out an incredulous laugh, torn between shoving his head under the water and holding him there until the bubbles stop, or pretending this whole conversation never happened.
“You’re terrible,” I huff, trying for dignity as I unbutton my shirt.
“So you keep telling me.” He chuckles, turning back to the water.
I strip efficiently, trying not to think about the fact that he could turn around at any moment. When I step into the water, it’s shockingly cold, making me gasp.
“Liar,” I accuse through chattering teeth. “This is freezing.”
“You’ll adjust.”
I wade deeper, soap in hand, keeping my eyes firmly on the rippling surface. “Easy for you to say. You’re obviously part polar bear or something.”
A soft snort. “I’ll take the compliment.”
The water laps around my waist, sending a shiver through me. “I’m regretting this. I’m not built to handle hypothermia just to get clean.”
“Consider it character building.”
I glance over my shoulder and catch him watching me out of the corner of his eye, just briefly—a flicker, gone before I can call him on it. My stomach does a stupid, traitorous little flip.
“Eyes forward, Kier,” I say, but there’s no bite to my words.
He laughs, low and rough. “Oh, I’m being a gentleman. You’re the one making it difficult.”
I roll my eyes, sinking down to wet my hair. As I rise, my foot slips on the slick rock below.
I let out a startled yelp, arms flailing, and suddenly he’s there, catching me with a splash and a grunt. His hands are firm on my waist, holding me steady, and for one breathless second, our bodies are too close, the chill of the water forgotten entirely.
I suck in a sharp breath, bracing for the moment his gaze drops—but it never does. His eyes stay locked on mine, intense, steady.
My heart thunders against my ribs, heat blooming low in my belly. Gods, why does he have to be like this?
He lets out a quiet breath, something almost like a laugh, and then gently—carefully—sets me back on my feet.
“There,” he murmurs, brushing a wet lock of hair from my face. “All good.”
I swallow. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.” But his eyes are dark, intense in a way that makes my pulse skip. “I… you’re beautiful, Lithia.”
The simple honesty in his voice steals my breath. No one’s ever called me beautiful—not like that, like it’s just a fact he can’t help but state.
“Kier…” I don’t know what I’m going to say, but he’s already let me go and is turning away, giving me privacy I didn’t ask for.
My skin prickles with a thousand confused feelings as I touch the place where his hand held me.
“Sorry,” he mutters. “Didn’t mean to make this weird.”
But it is weird. And charged. And absolutely nothing like the practical, survival-focused dynamic we’ve maintained in the cabin.
“You didn’t make anything weird,” I find myself saying. “You made things… interesting.”
He glances back over his shoulder, a slow smile spreading across his face. “Interesting good, or interesting bad?”
“Jury’s still out.”
He laughs, the sound rich and warm in the cool air. “Fair enough.”
We fall into companionable silence—him fishing, me scrubbing days of grime from my skin. But I’m hyperaware of every movement he makes, every flex of muscle as he moves through the water.
And he’s aware of me too. I can feel it in the way the air between us crackles with tension, in the way his breathing has gone just slightly uneven.
This is dangerous territory. I know it, he knows it, but neither of us seems inclined to retreat to safer ground.
When I finally climb out of the water, clean and shivering, he keeps his back turned until I’m dressed.
“Better?” he asks, finally facing me again.
“Much.” And it’s true—I feel renewed. “Thanks.”
“Thank you for the distraction from the mind-numbing boredom of fish stalking.”
We collect his catch, five fish in all, and head back to the cabin together. As we walk, I find myself glancing over at him, letting my eyes linger longer than they should.
Kier is… attractive. More than attractive. The realization hits me like a physical blow—I’m attracted to this man. Not just grateful, not just trauma-bonded, but genuinely, viscerally attracted.
Something tightens low in my belly, heat pooling once more.
I want him.
I nearly stumble.
Well, shit.
Back at the cabin, Kier sets about preparing the fish with practiced efficiency. I watch his hands work, steady, sure, competent, and try to ignore the way my pulse quickens every time he glances my way.
“You’re staring,” he observes without looking up from filleting.