CHAPTER FOUR
Kol
IWOULD’VE GIVEN ANYTHING IN THAT MOMENT TO GIVE nOVA back her breath. To give her air. To breathe for her.
“Come with me.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. It was a mistake. I knew it, but I didn’t care.
I’d been careful not to be alone with Nova.
Ever. I might’ve edged close to the rule line, but this took us into serious bending territory.
You didn’t establish a personal relationship with a victim.
Especially when you were still working the case they were involved in.
Travis Moore might be dead, but we were still untangling his web and making sure we identified all his victims.
But Nova’s pain was too much for me to bear, and I’d do anything to ease it.
Her gray eyes flared in surprise at my soft command. A hint of silver flickered in their depths—the kind that promised that life and fight were still sparking there. And God, it was a beautiful thing to see.
She followed me down the hallway, sticking to my side. But I didn’t touch her. I made sure there were at least six inches between us at all times.
I kept that space for more reasons than just keeping myself within the lines of rules and regulations. I’d seen what had happened at the hospital. I’d been just outside her room when Nova started to scream—the kind that sounded like she was dying.
I’d rushed into the room to see tears streaking down Brae’s face as Dex pulled her away. But Nova hadn’t stopped screaming—not until a nurse came running and slid something into Nova’s IV that pulled her under.
“I just … I hugged her.”
Brae’s pained words had stuck with me. They’d stuck with us all. Now, we were careful around Nova. Careful not to cross any invisible boundary.
But the Archer brothers knew how to toe those lines. That’s what happened when you had a brother who processed trauma by retreating, by not speaking and refusing any forms of touch. We found ways to meet Orion where he was. And we’d do the same for Nova.
I pushed open the back door that led to the small parking lot behind the Boot. Sucking in air, I relished the feeling of being outside again. I always felt more at home when not fenced in by four walls.
Holding the door for Nova, I waited. She stepped outside, instantly tipping her head back as if searching for the sun. The rays hit the apples of her cheeks and glinted off the nearly black strands of her hair she had pulled back in a braid.
I forced my gaze away from her and all that beauty and focused on the forest beyond the parking lot.
It wasn’t the kind of wilderness I typically lost myself in.
When I needed wild, I went deep into the mountains.
That was the kind of wilderness where you could go without encountering another soul for days.
Where the silence was deafening, yet the one place I could finally hear my voice.
But I didn’t have wild like that at my fingertips. I’d have to settle for this instead.
I strode across the parking lot, trusting that Nova would follow. And she did. I could make out her lighter, sneaker-clad footsteps in between my heavier work-boot-clad ones.
The moment my boots hit the dirt, something in me relaxed. Just a fraction. But it was enough.
I took a handful of steps farther into the trees, stopping between an aspen and a spruce. I turned to take Nova in. Her face was a little pale, and her hands trembled at her sides. That shaking pissed me the hell off. The last thing she deserved was to be scared.
“Take your shoes off.” A little of that pissed off slipped into my tone, even though I didn’t mean for it to.
Nova arched a brow. “You know, you have a real bossy, grouchy thing going on right now. Come with me. Take your shoes off. Have you ever heard of the word please?”
My lips wanted to twitch. Hell, it was a relief to see that fire. To be so close to it. I could feel it licking at my skin. “Take off your shoes, please.”
Nova crossed her arms. “Why?”
I sighed and bent over, unlacing one boot and then the other.
I could feel Nova’s eyes on me, watching every single movement.
Even though we were in sight of the back door to the Boot and within shouting distance of main street, I knew that her being here with me, alone, meant trust. And I didn’t take that for granted.
My fingers slipped into one sock, and I pulled it free before moving to the other. My feet pressed against the pine-needle-covered dirt, and I felt freer. I crossed to the aspen tree and placed my palm against the trunk.
If my brothers saw me doing this, I’d never hear the end of it. They’d call it woo-woo bullshit, but I knew the truth: Nature healed. It was more powerful than any other tool we had at our disposal if we just listened.
I locked eyes with Nova and held the stare for one, two beats, and then closed mine. I pressed my feet harder to the earth as I flexed my fingers against the tree bark. And then I breathed.
In and out. Over and over. I let the sound of the wind guide me, calm me.
And then I opened my eyes again.
Nova’s silver gaze was rapt. Not focusing on my feet, hands, or even my face but on my chest. She was watching me breathe.
“Try it.” My voice was softer now. Gentle. Coaxing.
Nova took two steps forward. She toed off one sneaker and then the other. Her socks were purple with pink polka dots. Happy socks. But when she pulled one off, I caught a flash of the scars in various stages of healing: from red and raised to silvery and slick.
That rage was back, the reminder that she’d been fucking chained to a wall for over a year before being chained to that tree for nearly a week with no food or water. I’d seen the cell. The makeshift bathroom with its shower and toilet. The stained mattress on the floor. The chains.
I shoved all the fury down. Because this wasn’t about me. It was about Nova.
Her gaze flicked up to my face, humor lighting her eyes as she pulled off her second sock. “Do you have some kind of foot fetish I should know about?”
I shook my head. “Nova.”
She dropped the sock to the dirt. “What now, Boss?”
I took a breath and met her gaze. “Palm on the tree.”
“Bossy.” But Nova still did as I asked and rested her hand just below mine with only about an inch separating our fingers.
Hers were so much smaller than mine—delicate and slender.
Mine curled around nearly half the trunk with gnarled knuckles that mirrored the knots in the bark.
But we both had scars. Mine from countless construction projects and time spent outdoors.
And hers? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
“Close your eyes,” I whispered.
A hint of panic lit those silver eyes, and the urge to touch her, to give some sort of comfort, was almost overpowering. But I didn’t.
“Keep them open. It’s okay. I just want you to feel—the earth beneath your feet. The energy there. Your palm against the tree, the life bleeding into you. And breathe. Let all that life force guide you.”
Nova’s fingers flexed around the tree trunk, pressing in. Her toes, painted a sunshine yellow, dug into the pine needles beneath her feet. I heard her inhale—sharp at first and then easier, in and out, her chest rising and falling. Everything started to even out. Steady. Deep.
“I’m breathing,” she whispered.
“You’re breathing.”
Her eyes found mine. “Why does that help?”
I shrugged, my hand falling away from the tree, almost grazing hers, but not. “Makes you focus on things other than whatever’s taking over your mind. It would be better if we were in an actual forest instead of at the edge of town.”
A smile tugged at Nova’s lips. Not one of the fake ones she wore so often but a real one. “I’m picturing you going all yogi out in the middle of the wilderness, Kol.”
Fuck.
Her saying my name did something to me—something I did not need to acknowledge in any way, shape, or form.
“I don’t bend that way, Phoenix.”
Her eyes sparked at the nickname—one I’d never uttered aloud before.
But a phoenix was exactly what I’d started to think of Nova as.
She’d risen from the ashes, and she was more powerful than ever.
People might not think of her that way. They might see her as damaged or broken. But I knew the truth.
She was a survivor. She’d crawled back from death itself. And she was still here.
“We all start somewhere,” she said with a grin. “I could teach you a few pretzel twists.”
Movement caught my attention—the Boot’s back door opening, just beyond the trees. Wylder and Brae stepped out, searching.
Wylder’s gaze found us first, instantly assessing in that way he always did. He said his years of working in a bar had given him insight into people. But I thought my eldest brother had some innate gift that allowed him to see more than the rest of the world.
Nova turned and followed my gaze. “I’d better get back to work before I get fired on my first day.”
Some part of me wanted to tell her not to go. And what the hell was that instinct?
“Wylder won’t fire you,” I muttered.
Nova’s lips pursed as if she didn’t like that, which made no sense. But instead of arguing with me, she donned her socks and shoes and started walking.
I hurried to follow her, not bothering to tie the laces on my boots.
Worry lines furrowed Brae’s brow as we approached. “Are you okay? Did something happen?”
“I’m fine. Why?” Nova replied, easy-breezy, as if her panic attack had never happened.
Brae frowned. “You were barefoot in the woods, looking all intense.”
Nova tucked a strand of hair that had fallen out of her braid behind her ear. “I was trying to help Kol. He has a foot fungus. I heard pine needles help cure it.”
My jaw went slack as I gaped at her.
Nova simply winked at me. “See you around, Boss.”
Wylder let out a half laugh, half cough as he slapped me on the shoulder. “Good luck with that, buddy.”