Chapter Two
Rafe
The tracks curve north, cutting through a patch of turned soil where the bear dragged its weight to scratch against a cedar trunk.
Bark shreds litter the ground. I crouch and run my thumb along the groove left by its claws.
Fresh. Hours old. Big male, too close to where the women forage this time of year. I’ll push him back toward the ridge.
The forest crackles with tension today. I rise and follow the trail. The bear favored its left side, so it’s nursing an injury. Makes it unpredictable. Most animals fall into patterns if you track them long enough. The injured ones don’t.
Mama Rue said the mountain gives you signs if you bother to listen. I used to think she meant weather and game. Turns out she meant people too.
A light shift in the air makes me pause. A sound drifts through the trees, faint enough that I’d miss it if I were anyone else. Not an animal. Not the bear. Not even a word. Something caught in a human throat, strained and thin, full of fear.
I turn slowly, letting my senses settle in the new direction. The bear can wait. Whatever made that sound can’t.
I move through the brush with careful steps, quiet enough not to spook whatever’s ahead. Branches sway overhead, restless in the breeze. My breath stays even as the forest tells me where to put my feet.
A new print catches my eye where the slope begins to drop, the toes dug into the soil like whoever left it was scrambling for balance. A second print lands crooked. Running. Hurt. Desperate.
My stomach tightens in a way I don’t let it do often. Someone’s out here who shouldn’t be. Someone who didn’t grow up knowing these trees.
I kneel beside the footprint and brush away the loose dirt. The size tells me it’s a woman. The depth tells me she’s weak or scared. The direction tells me she’s moving without aim, trying to stay ahead of whatever haunts her.
The stories Daryl’s clan spreads about us reach farther than I’d like. Every woman I’ve seen escape him runs—more afraid of the possibility of help than the certainty of harm. He poisons them long before he loses them.
I rise and step through the brush, my hands open, my pace steady. I’m not here to trap her. The mountain pulled me her way same as it always does when someone’s close to breaking.
Whoever she is, she’s not out here by choice.
I find her crouched in the ravine, pressed so hard into the earth she almost disappears.
For a moment I think she’s part of the shadow itself—mud-streaked skin, tangled hair, limbs pulled tight and shaking.
Then her head snaps up, and two wild, terrified eyes lock onto me.
It hits me low and sharp—something protective, something territorial—and I shut it down just as fast.
She makes a noise low in her throat, sharp and vibrating, the kind a person makes when they’re too scared to breathe. Not an animal sound. Not madness. Older than both. A warning she had to learn the hard way.
She bares her teeth at me, clutching a long shard of bone in her hand, honed into a knife by someone with nothing left to work with but desperation.
She’s covered in scratches, scrapes, bruises painted in fresh and fading tones.
Her bare feet are torn open along the soles.
Her ribs show through her shirt with every jagged inhale.
She spits toward me, quick and deliberate.
I hold still. No sudden movements. Everything in her body screams that she expects pain next, the way some creatures flinch before a blow even lands. Her eyes flick over my hands, over my shoulders, over the woods behind me, frantic and assessing.
I lower myself a little, angling my body so she can see my hands are empty. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
She snarls—a raw, guttural sound that shakes with exhaustion more than threat. She doesn’t speak words. And I wonder if her voice isn’t the only thing that’s been stolen from her.
Up close, I can see the truth in her posture: she’s waiting for the worst. It’s all she knows.
She glances at my head, and something strange happens. She tilts hers in the same small angle I make. Unthinking. Instinctive. A tiny, mirrored motion that slips through her fear before she can stop it.
That softens something in me I didn’t realize could soften anymore.
Her chest stutters with a trembling breath, and another sound rises from her throat—thin, struggling, not language but meaning. I feel it more than I hear it.
She tenses again when I take one slow step closer. Her grip tightens around the bone blade. Her whole body draws inward, ready to spring or collapse, she hasn’t decided which.
She spits again, hitting the ground right at my boot.
“Easy,” I murmur. “I’m not who you think I am.”
Her inhales turn shallow and fast. Panic. Another step. Another warning sound from her throat. This terrorized woman watches me with the ferocity of someone who survived long after she shouldn’t have.
I take in her trembling, her hollowed cheeks, the blood dried under her nails, the tremor in her fingers, and I know—there’s no leaving her here.
One more step forward, slow and measured, is all it takes for her to explode out of the crouch she’s been holding.
She launches herself sideways, trying to bolt up the ravine, but her ankle gives out beneath her weight.
She hits the ground hard, palms scraping against rock, breath ripping out of her in a sharp, broken sound.
She still tries to run.
That’s what undoes me.
She’s so far past exhaustion her body barely follows orders, yet she keeps fighting it. Fighting me. Fighting anything that gets too close. Running isn’t a choice for her. It’s the only thing she remembers that ever worked.
“Easy.” I step into her path before she can scramble away. “You’re hurt.”
She whips around and slashes at me with the bone knife. The blade catches the light at a clean angle—someone taught her where to strike, or she learned the hard way what violence buys her. The swing shakes from weakness, but the intent is sharp.
I catch her wrist firmly enough to redirect the blade before she cuts herself. She lets out a guttural, panicked cry, twisting her whole body to yank free. Her skin is cold under my hand, trembling with strain.
“I’m not here to take you back,” I tell her quietly. “I’m not one of them.”
She snaps her teeth at me—fast—biting down on the side of my hand because I didn’t move away quickly enough. Her jaw clamps hard. Pain stings deep, waking every instinct I have, but I hold steady, not pulling back. If I try to wrench away, she’ll think I’m retaliating.
Her gaze flips up to mine, waiting for the hit she’s certain is coming.
“Sweet girl,” I say, steady and warm, “if biting helps, bite.”
Her jaw loosens fractionally. Confusion pushes through the panic in her expression. She doesn’t understand gentleness. She doesn’t believe in it.
I ease the bone knife from her fingers and toss it behind me. She tries to grab for it, but her movements are sluggish, unfocused. She’s days past her limit. Her limbs tremble from dehydration and hunger. She shakes so hard it vibrates in the air between us.
“I’m taking you somewhere warm,” I tell her.
She spits in my face.
It lands against my cheek, and her expression shifts—waiting, bracing, shoulders curling to protect her head. Like she expects a fist, a boot, a punishment she already knows how to absorb.
I wipe my face with the back of my sleeve. “Okay,” I say softly. “You get to do that too.”
She freezes. Everything inside her stills at once—the rage, the fear, the instinct to run.
She pants hard, staring at me. Not giving her time to fall into collapse, I slip my arms under her, lifting her into my chest. She thrashes weakly at first, fists landing without force, legs kicking until they give out completely.
“Easy now.” I hold her tight enough to keep her safe but loose enough she doesn’t feel trapped. “I’ve got you. No one’s going to hurt you again.”
She whines—a trembling, broken sound she tries to swallow back—but her head finally drops against my shoulder.
Her weight settles unevenly in my arms as I start toward home, light in all the wrong ways.
She’s too easy to hold—and my body notices in a way I don’t like.
Too tense to rest, too weak to fight. Every few steps, she jerks against me, testing whether I’ll drop her or restrain her or punish her for daring to resist.
I don’t do any of those things.
I adjust my hold instead, giving her room, letting her feel the solid press of my chest. Her fingers twist into the fabric of my shirt then release it just as fast.
Branches break softly under my boots, the only sound besides her ragged breaths. Her hair brushes against my throat, tangled and cold. She shivers with every shift of air. I tighten my arm around her waist to share my warmth.
“You’re safe,” I soothe. “I’ll say it until you believe me.”
The words mean nothing to her yet. I can feel that in the way her body stays rigid, ready to spring. She makes a thin keening sound into my collarbone before clamping her teeth shut, as though noise itself might betray her. The fear in it digs under my skin.
Someone taught her to fear her own voice.
When a branch snaps somewhere off to our right, she tenses so hard her nails dig into my shoulder. I shift my stance, putting myself between her and the sound out of instinct more than thought. The woods calm again a moment later. She doesn’t.
“It’s just the mountain,” I say quietly. “She won’t hurt you.”
My tone makes her blink up at me. Her eyes browse my face. My jaw. My hands. The angle of my shoulders. Every point where a man can inflict harm.
I let her look.
I want her to understand I am not what she ran from.
Her throat vibrates with a tiny sound—questioning, confused. It’s the first noise she’s made that isn’t pure fear or warning. She doesn’t know what to do with it. Neither do I, not yet. But it settles somewhere deep inside me all the same.
I shift her higher in my arms when her legs start to slip. She doesn’t fight this time. Exhaustion wins out, dropping her head against my shoulder. Her breath warms my neck. She trembles through every inhale.
“Almost home,” I tell her.
Home for me. Something she’s probably never known.
When the trees thin and the cabin comes into view, an ache spreads through my chest. I didn’t realize how lonely that doorway looked until I imagined her crossing it. Not as a captive. As someone the mountain handed to me for a reason I can feel in my bones.
She stirs, eyes fluttering open long enough to see the cabin. A terrified sound scrapes out of her throat. She thinks I’m delivering her somewhere terrible. Somewhere like where she escaped from.
“No.” I lower my head until my cheek rests against her hair. “Not that. Not ever again.”
A single tear lands on my collar.
I hold her tighter, just for a moment. “I’ve got you,” I say, quiet enough that the trees take the words from me. “You’re safe now, sweet girl.”
Something settles in my chest—heavy, certain.
Whether she believes it or not, I carry her inside.