Chapter 2 #2
“Nah, sweet thing. You’re better off having some fun with one of the other guys.” I untangle her arms from around me and step back. Storm sees, and he helps direct the girl’s attention to one of the patches’ friends who is visiting.
I throw my chin up in gratitude, and I know my brother understands.
Reaper takes notice of all the movement and I can see in his expression that he wants to know where I’m at mentally. He knows this time of year digs into my soul and leaves me raw.
I throw up a casual salute and offer a nod. I flash a grin at Arabelle who is still arguing with Reaper about Christmas trees.
Cipher, our club hacker and all things tech catches my eye, his arm slung around a girl, happy and a little dazed by it. Good for him. I haven’t seen him relax since we started working to take down the Vultures.
I yank on my heavy jacket, grab a set of keys to anything with four-wheel drive, and head for the door before another set of arms or tits tries to glue itself to my chest.
No thanks. Not my scene. Not anymore. Not since the night the woman I loved died in a storm just like this one. Some men crave noise to drown out regret. I need silence.
The kitchen’s behind me, a litter of empty bottles and the scent of roasting meat and sweet bourbon rolling through the warm air. It smells inviting, but I keep my boots moving. I thud across the hardwood, and my shadow stretches long past the flickering lights strung along the entry.
I slip through the back mudroom. The back door swings shut behind me, muffling the party’s chaos in one clean slam.
Silence. I step out the last door and into a world gone white and wild.
I draw in a deep breath and hold the ice in my lungs for several seconds, letting the pain ground me.
The cold punches me in the face and bites through my thermal like a challenge.
Good. I want to feel something besides irritation.
I want the sting to drive out the noise of the party, the half-dressed women, and the memories gnawing at my insides.
The cold is sharp and knifes through the dark, but I welcome the stinging pain. My breath fogs in the air. The compound’s perimeter lights paint the world in amber and shadow. I cross to my four-wheel drive, boots crunching over snow that’s already burying everything in sight.
Cabin. Silence. Fire. And the luxury of not being needed by anyone. That’s the evening plan.
I crank the truck and let the engine growl to life, its heat a promise.
As I pull out, the headlights sweep over the main house, the old oaks standing guard like silent sentinels.
I flick the defroster on high, scraping the glass clear as I roll down the long drive.
The blizzard’s a wall of white, hiding the edges of the world, and the further I get from the house, the more the party’s laughter fades into memory.
Should’ve fixed that back road. Would’ve been a good summer project for the prospects.
Something to teach them how to work the new machinery, smooth out the path to my cabin in the process and I wouldn’t have to take the long way around.
Maybe next year. If the Vultures don’t burn the place down before then.
I’m just turning off the main lane toward the parish road when a flicker of red catches my eye. I lean forward and squint into the darkness. Taillights, but not on any Savage vehicle. I would know. Everyone is accounted for back at the main house.
I turn the heater up and urge the defroster to work faster. Shit I can’t tell for sure, but the angle of the lights is all wrong, off the shoulder, half-buried under a snowdrift?
Frustration sends a shot of heat through me. “What the fuck is goin’ on here?”
My voice is a growl in the cab, adrenaline spiking as I yank the wheel to the side and throw the truck in park. I grab the flashlight from the glove box, check for my sidearm, and head out into the teeth of the wind.
As I approach, I can see there’s been an accident. A Jeep is flipped. Shit. The wheels are in the air, glass is shattered and the hood is crushed. And I can tell that in just a glance. I kneel and shine my light inside. There’s no sign of anyone.
I shine the beam around. There's blood on the glass scattered in the snow. And I can see a mess of footprints in the snow. They are faint and half-covered, but there. Someone crawled out, or was dragged.
Shit.
I follow the prints, heart hammering as I move around a bent cypress and spot a shape huddled against the trunk. Small. Barely breathing. Pajama pants and slippers, hair tangled and stuck to a face streaked with blood.
My pulse stutters. I drop to my knees beside the unmoving form.
I don’t waste precious time being too gentle.
This cold is killer and this small form barely has any clothes on.
I brush hair from her cheek, and out of the way to find a pulse but the second frozen lashes flutter open to flash me emerald eyes, my heart stops.
“Willow?” My voice is rough with disbelief. “What the hell are you doing here, baby?”
She doesn’t answer, not really. Just a low groan, a shudder running through her frame. Her skin is ice-cold, lips tinged blue, shivering so hard her teeth rattle.
“Jesus Christ.” I fumble for her pulse, relief punching through when I find it, weak but steady. She’s freezing. Of course she is. The damn woman is dressed like she thought she was headed to a goddamn slumber party, not into a Louisiana blizzard.
“Don’t you have any damn sense?” I mutter, not unkind, tucking my coat around her. “Out here in a storm, in flamingo pajamas and slippers. Only you would have enough arrogance and balls, Willow.”
She moans again, eyelids fluttering. I shake my head, swearing under my breath as I slide my arms under her—one behind her back, one under her knees. She’s light as a feather, but she clings to life like a pitbull. That stubborn streak’s the only reason she’s still breathing.
I see her at Arabelle’s bookstore every month, always hiding in those oversized hoodies like anyone would mistake a Caine girl for a local. She thinks nobody notices, but I do. I always do.
She comes in every second week of the month like clockwork and I make damn sure I’m there to witness the beautiful Vulture princess defy her father, the Savages and every other unspoken rule that should keep her far away from our parish, just so she can buy her romance books.
I hold her close, wrapping my coat tight, and hustle back to the truck, all the while cursing her name, her father’s name, the whole Vulture crew, and whatever dumbass fate decided to put her in my path tonight.
She half-wakes, mumbling about her phone.
“You don’t need your phone. You need some common sense. Fuck social media if that is what you’re thinking. You don’t need to do some fucking status update.”
“Phone,” she urges again.
“Shh,” I say, not unkind, but sharp. “You can worry about your damn phone when you’re not half-dead.”
I slide her onto my lap, crank the heat, and punch it toward the cabin.
The drive is slow, careful since the roads are slick, and the world’s gone dangerous.
She shivers, tucked under my chin, the scent of her shampoo—warm vanilla, cinnamon and something else that makes me think of cozy times—clings to her damp hair.
“You’re gonna be okay, baby,” I mutter, more to myself than her. “Just hang on.”
She shifts her face upward and I swear the smile i see slips across her quivering lips breaks my fucking heart in two.
Right this very second I make a silent promise to do everything in my power to make sure she gets to smile again.
I swing into the back road, tires crunching over the frozen ruts. The black gate looms up, heavy with snow. I park, set her gently in the passenger seat, and run to open it, hands going numb as I work the latch. By the time I’m back, she’s curled into the seat, eyes half-open.
“You’re lucky I came by, sunshine,” I say, half-grumbling, half-prayer. “If it’d been anyone else, you’d be an icicle by now.” I pull her back into my lap and she comes willingly, putting as much of her body against mine as possible.
The cabin’s just up ahead, its outline barely visible through the storm. I park close, scoop her up again, and carry her inside, boots leaving a wet trail on the floor.
The fire’s down to embers by now and nothing but a dull orange glow in the hearth. I lay her on the old leather couch and kneel beside her. She’s babbling again, weak and unfocused. “Phone…I need it…stop him…”
I brush her hair back, thumb gentle against her jaw. “You can tell me everything later, sunshine. Right now, you gotta survive.”
I stoke the fire, piling on wood until flames leap and crackle. Heat finally starts chasing the chill from the room and I strip out of my snow-soaked clothes, shucking boots, jeans, shirt…everything
My skin prickles with cold, but I move fast.
Then I turn back to her. Her lips are still blue, her hands trembling.
I work quickly, careful to not cause her any more pain as I undo the drawstring on her pajama pants, sliding them down her legs.
I peel off her flimsy long-sleeved top. I try not to stare, but I can’t help the way my eyes linger on the curve of her waist, the soft roundness of her breasts, the half-moon birthmark above her left one.
I make a note to ask her about it later, when she’s warm and alive and able to give me hell for looking.
She’s fragile, but not weak. There’s steel under all that softness.
My princess owns a fighter’s will. I drape blankets on the floor to create a makeshift bed in front of the fire.
I lift her, tucking her against my body and sharing my heat as I wrap us both in the layers of warmth.
The only thing between her and the grave is me ducking out of that damn party.
Whoever made this girl run into the night will pay for their crime.
Willow sighs, nestling closer, and I pull another blanket over us both, holding her tight. Her hair smells heavenly, and her body, even frozen, fits perfectly against mine. I rub her arms, her legs, anywhere I can reach, desperate to get blood flowing.
“Stay with me, Willow,” I murmur, my lips brushing her temple. “You’re not dying on me, not tonight.”
The wind howls outside, snow rattling the windowpanes. The fire snaps and pops, its light flickering across the cabin walls. Inside, it’s just us—my body wrapped around hers, my heart thundering against her back.
I shouldn’t feel this. Not for her. Not for the enemy’s daughter, the sunshine girl who smiles even when her world’s ending. But I do. God help me, I do.
She stirs, whispering my name like a prayer. Her fingers curl into my chest, searching for reassurance.
“Am i dead? I must be.”
Her words barely brush over the sound of the fire, but I hear them.
She smiles again and my frozen heart melts. “Why?”
“Because I’m in your arms.”
Her words strike me across the chest and leave my emotions wide open for all the possibilities her words mean. I don’t want to read into them. She could be hallucinating. I mean fuck, she was half dead ten minutes ago.
I open my mouth to ask what she means, but her eyes drift close.
I tuck away my question for later and press a kiss to the top of her head.
“Shh,” I urge and tuck her closer. I hold her tighter, jaw clenched against the urge to do something reckless.
Loving a woman means risking her. I learned that the hard way.
But looking at Willow now, shivering but alive in my arms, I know one thing with bone-deep certainty.
If she lives through the night, she’s mine.
Touching her will start a war Reaper’s been breaking his back to prevent. Her father will want blood. The Vultures will want revenge. I’ll give them both if it means keeping her.
And when I get my hands on her old man, I’m gonna end him for making his own daughter feel so unsafe she’d rather brave a goddamn blizzard than stay under his roof. That kind of monster doesn’t deserve the title of father.
She sighs again, her body slowly warming, her heartbeat steadying against the palm of my hand. I close my eyes, breathing her in, feeling a dangerous, obsessive need to keep her this close forever settle in my gut.
I want to keep her forever. No, not want—need. She’s mine.
Let the Vultures come for her. Let her father rage. She’s mine. She always has been, I was just a fool too damn frozen with pain to make a move. And now that I finally have her in my arms, I’ll burn the whole goddamn world to keep her.
No matter what hell comes for us, no matter what lines I have to cross, Willow Caine is mine now. And I’m never letting her go.